This week in JK, we continued to our second element of design: form. We learned that a form is a shape, which is what you get when your line connects back to itself, and no longer has a beginning and an end. We started on Monday with a review of the basic four 2-dimensional shapes, circle, triangle, square, and rectangle, and then learned their names en Français! Cercle, triangle, carré, et rectangle. We also learned the names and features of some more complex shapes: Oval (ovale), heart (coeur), star (étoile), and diamond (diamant).

Purim is coming up, so we made silly clown door decorations by folding, cutting, and stamping. We even made our own pom-pom hat toppers!

We looked at the shapes of everyone’s mouths when they were trying to express “being silly” and discovered that each mouth has a shape. We extended our learning by exploring feelings, and noticed that the whole face can change shape with different emotions. For example, your cheeks squish to the sides when you are happy and smile, making your head wider, and when you are surprised or scared and your mouth opens, it makes your face longer because your chin goes lower. We traced different ’emotions’ stencils and looked at eyes and eyebrows, and mouths and talked about what their different shapes might mean.

We read and discussed the story “How are you Peeling? Foods with Moods” by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers, focusing on two very important things. First, the ability to look at someone’s face and decode/figure out their emotion based on the shapes of their features (eyes, eye brows, mouths…). We discovered that some emotions have similar shapes and that you can feel more than one feeling at a time, and that’s okay! Second, that the best thing to do when you are having BIG feelings (and small ones too!) is to talk about it.

We looked at photos of people in various scenarios and discussed what they might be feeling or what might be happening to them based on their facial expressions and what else is going on in the photo. It was perfect timing, as we have been having some new friendships forming, and other friends feeling left out, and we had a really good chat about that.

Another way that we explored the concept of form included a new gym warm up: yoga. We explored the forms our bodies can make (and some that we can’t!). Check out this Alef Bet yoga to practice at home.

We have also been experimenting and learning about our Innovation Day theme: Sink/Float. Can’t wait to share it all with you on Wednesday, March 20th from 9:00 am to 9:45 am!