Italy - Leaning tower of...Pisa?

 

 

It's more like a wedding cake formation (!) but our Leaning Tower of Pisa soon changed to the Leaning Tower of PASTA!!

MeXICo~! Piñatas!

 I started out with an awesome plan - mini piñatas all round, plus a class piñata PLUS some for our school picnic at the end of the month.

Sadly, it was all a bit much.
These were the designs for the mini piñatas, taken from a cookie cutter shape originally and enlarged. (If you have heaps of time, there are some AWESOME and yummy rainbow cake piñata recipes out there....!)

In the end, this burros design became a hanging decoration!

And with the help of these cheap downloads, all those mini burros were still put to good use!
https://happythought.co.uk/product/cinco-de-mayo-digital-scrapbooking

We continued on with these - aiming for a star shape, but unable to find party cone hats!!

There were a few questionable moments with breakages and the like, but we kept on trucking!





In total, we have made about 6 pinatas - way too many, but worth it. The class did more than their fair share of work too!

Next - the healthy snack filling¬¬!! 

It worked a treat - at our Cinco de Mayo party and at the school picnic...almost too well! Tip - Don't make the pinatas toooooo strong!!!

INDiA ~ Ganesh!

Inspired by this great book....http://www.penguin.com/book/the-little-book-of-hindu-deities-by-sanjay-patel/9780452287754

The class were able to take a step towards Indian mythology without really having to learn too much at once.

Some of the short movies on youtube scared them as they are still a little young but the pictures in this book they simply couldn't get enough of!

Ganesh is easily a character for young children to relate to - he's an elephant after all! Why he is so, my class don't really care, but they like that he has lots of arms!

So, the task? Let's make a elephant head and see if we can dress up for an awesome finale at the end of the month wearing Indian Saris too!

 The final product!
It was so much fun and we even decoratedna framed print out of the main picture for a momento!

Shake, Shake!

Maracas in the making!

It's as if I cannot get enough of papier mache!

 

We made some oversized giant maracas too (kitchen towel and super large balloons!) to keep in class! 

Inside? Well, the kids wanted beads and sand...more cost effect and sound effective were dried beans!

Castle!

One of the first challenges I faced at the new job, was when my boss suggested building a castle!! My vision had been plain and more 2D....I should have realised that the bigger the better and I have set a precedent for future projects now too...(Looking forward to them..!)

We decided to build a castle for the England theme, although now we have overlapped into the next theme of Spain...not a problem!

We have five towers, add some small domes and it becomes MontJuic in Barcelona! Phew.. I have even made some tickets, to remind them and to use wisely!

One of the concepts of the Reggio approach is getting the students to work together on big projects. It creates an instant sense of teamwork, involvement and any ideas contributed get put into the final concept.

From this...

For example, I am hedging my bets on this not being a regular brown or even grey castle...we have had requests for rainbow towers and the like...! And, why not! After all, this is their work, not mine...I am just making sure there is paint in the pots for them to use!

To this.....

...with lots of this......

...and many times this!!

tickets!

Finishing up!

 And there is the rainbow...!

Proving that the Reggio concept is colourful, rewarding and FUN!!!