Tigerlily Preschool

Daily Documentation from Tigerlily Preschool

March 22, 2023

Marie writes: 

Muddy, day two. The children (telepathically reading their teacher’s wishes possibly??) decide we need a place to get your shoes cleaned and use our trusty outdoor blocks to build The Shoe Cleaning Machine. 

Their machine is a platform with a raised seat on both sides for a customer to sit. Shoe cleaners sit at the bottom, working first with magic pebbles and then various brushes to clean people’s shoes to everyone’s satisfaction. 

C: There, you’re all clean! 

S: And if you like I can even clean your hat. 

Marie (admiring their work): You know… The Cleaning Machine you all built was so interesting today. If anyone wanted to draw a picture about what they made, that would be interesting to look at together and think more about what you made. 

S: Oh I could do that! 

Marie: Oh fantastic, yes if something gets drawn about that machine, please show me. I’d be so curious. (to P who is listening carefully) P, you could draw about the machine too if you want to? 

P: Well I can’t really draw about the machine because I was the customer. 

Marie: Mmm, I see. But maybe you have some helpful feedback…

S (showing his friend how he’s drawn him, surrounded by the letters that spell his name): That’s showing that that’s you. That’s blocks (the building blocks, from outside’s machine build) making the letter. And a kid making (the shape of the letter) P. 

P (echoing some talk from a few days ago, see: No one’s made a duck yet): I think you should add more details. 

P heads off to paint, but I draw him back with a followup question. 

Marie: More details? Can you say more about what you think it could show? That might be helpful to S’s work, to hear more about what you’re thinking? 

P: I’ll get my little notebook and I’ll show you what I mean. 

Ah, this is so wonderful to hear. Lulu and I each have a little notebook we keep in our pocket and use to take notes on interesting happenings during the day- resulting in the daily letters read here. Each of the children now have their own little notebook too, to make their own notes that interest them. 

P makes a drawing, and shows us. He’s thinking more about the chair, he says. 

S: Ah, the chair! 

Marie: Oh nice- so, you used your drawing to explain more about your idea to P, and then he made a drawing to show more about what he’s thinking about, too. Drawing is a way to think more about our ideas together. 

S (also referencing recent work together, see: I need to write Danger): Ah, and I could make a sign! 

Hat Cleaning, Shoe Cleaning

Note: In this version, you step on a pedal and it makes the machine clean your shoe. A wonderful illustration of the play the children are imagining happen there- rendered very carefully to show the customer is P, as detailed (details!) in his hat and trademark blue shoes. 

Some very wonderful play, work, and then thinking more together. 

After lunch and a read of When Sophie Gets Angry by Molly Bang (note- this book has been requested most every day for a while now, and one of my very favorites for the way it captures a child’s eruption of big feelings “Sophie was a volcano, waiting to explode”, takes you on her journey, and lands back where “everything is back together again” at the end. Today we page back to look more at her “angry face” and R is inspired to make one of his own.