In the Classroom: The Peanuts
Music and movement
As winter melts away, the Peanuts are raring to get outside as much as we can. Once outside preschoolers really move and express themselves freely. The Peanut focus of study naturally turned to movement.
We began documenting how the Peanuts liked to move on the playground, and from there how the Peanuts send different objects and materials into motion while playing.
We next looked at how music makes us move. Luckily we have a very talented musician on our teaching team in Kia Knight who has been organizing small group concerts around PIC classrooms since our study of community wrapped up. The Peanuts are well versed in songs and dance.
Looking for a fun activity to help Peanuts look deeper into how movement and music intersect, we heard from our good friends the Leapfrogs about a trip they took to the nearby Institute of Contemporary Art, where they have an exhibit all about jazz. So, we took a walk on a lovely spring-like day, and spoke with museum employees and the director who is a former PIC parent. We arranged to return for an indepth tour with a docent.
Peanuts were mesmerized and excited to get out walking and trolley riding to meet our parent chaperones for the exhibit and lunch - and even more so when they were watching jazz musicians on a giant two-sided screen and discussing wavy oil paint portraits and interactive, noise-making sculptures. We saw how movement was represented in different multimodal ways. The Peanuts came away thinking about movement and expression in new ways.
Getting out and adventuring is not only fun for Peanuts, it’s an important learning experience. Come check out where our movement study is headed on our bulletin boards any time!
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