Making Funny Faces

It never occurred to me how difficult the human face could be to arrange, until I gave my preschool class the assignment of building a face. Our theme for the week had been facial body parts, and I thought a fun activity would be for them to color, cut, and arrange their own faces on a piece of construction paper.

We spent the week primarily focusing on the vocabulary words eyes, ears, nose and mouth, because in the future we will move into the theme of the five senses, and we wanted to give them the vocabulary to use before we explain the function of each facial body part. Our daily exercise on working with facial body parts was having the children touch the part of their body which was called our by either myself or Miss. Y. For example, one of us would say, "if you can hear me, touch your eyes," and the children would all have to point to their eyes. This style of teaching encourages the children to recognize the English vocabulary as well as associate it with their own bodies.

Although the faces didn't turn out as I had imagined, the kids of Aurora each produced their very own unique picture. Miss. Y and I were laughing the whole time at the silly creations the kids were coming up with. It really surprised me that although they look at human faces all day long, when it came down to assembling one before them, they really struggled with where the pieces went.

My favorite part of the activity was the hair. For the hair I chopped up different lengths of yarn that they could glue to the top of the face's head. I wanted them to be able to work with materials other than paper, and they seemed to enjoy playing with the yarn, and giving their characters hair cuts.

The finished products were hilarious, and hung them all over the classroom so the children could share with one another their creations. Even though many of them turned out missing an eye, a mouth where an ear should be, or the nose on the chin, the main objective of the project was to review the vocabulary eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, as well as, teeth, lips, and eye brows. It was also to work on developing their motor-skills, by requiring them to work with colored pencils, scissors, and glue.

Park Adventures

Last week our class took a field trip to a local park that was on top a mountain that overlooked Matsumoto. It was the first time I had seen the city from a viewpoint, and I was amazed at how far the rooftops stretched for, in the valley below. The park itself was incredible, and reminded me of Santa Cruz, California, where I attended college. The trees towered above me, and the forest was a patchwork of all shades of green.

(It also provided us with a good opportunity to practice walking in an organized line when we are out in public, something that we are struggling with, but is to be expected with children who are only three years old.)

The children slid down slides that wrapped around trees and were built right into the woods. There was a very organic feeling about the man made play structures, because they incorporated their surroundings, rather than imposed on them. The kids looked like they were having so much fun, as they raced one another to the top of the hill, where they could slide down again, side by side with their friends. I couldn't resist going down once or twice myself.

We ate a picnic lunch on the patio and everyone was well behaved and very respectful of the public space we were visiting. I was impressed by their behavior and had a wonderful day with the Aurora class.

On the way home, more than half of the children fell asleep on the bus ride home, and a few had to be carried in for nap time, because they were so exhausted. I look forward to more adventures this year with my class.