As our Thanksgiving feast was drawing near, I decided that I would fill our classroom centers with materials that were somehow related to either our Thanksgiving feast or some of our Thanksgiving books. One item that we found in many of our Thanksgiving related books were feathers so we filled our classroom centers with different ways we could have fun exploring and working with feathers...
Many of our Thanksgiving related books included photos of turkeys with beautiful colors of browns and whites and even some feathers of a variety of colors. So in one of our centers, we set out white feathers with a variety of beautiful colored wooden beads that would fit easily over the ends of our feathers…
I drew several small pattern cards as a way to invite the children to make patterns with the beads on their feathers but I must say that the cards weren’t really ever used…
Many of my older students had their own patterns in mind and never looked at the cards and many of my younger students just preferred focusing on putting as many beads on a feather that they could…
The Styrofoam trays were simply used as a way to stand the feathers up so the beads would not fall off and so the children could display their beaded feathers as they went along…
The feathers were a perfect tool for my younger students to use. The stiffness of the feathers helped them to easily guide a feather through the hole of a bead which eliminated some of the frustration in beading that many of my threes encounter. Instead, they quickly discovered they could master the process and stayed with it for much longer than they normally would…
After a child decided he or she was finished exploring the feathers and beads, then we slid the beads back into our basket and set the feathers out for others to come and give the process a try. I stopped to take a few photos while the feathers were still all set up because I found the completed feathers all set up in their trays to be quite beautiful and artistic…
I have detailed for you this one example of how the children explored with feathers throughout the week but here is a quick look at another example…
Feathers and Beads in Playdough
At this center the children explored the feathers and beads by putting them into the playdough. Another interesting and very open ended form of fine motor play…
Although I set out googly eyes for the children to use, they were never touched. Instead, the focus was solely on exploring the beautiful brown feathers and brown tones of wooden beads. Â Interestingly, it also seemed the children either preferred to only work with the beads or only work with the feathers and very few, if any, of the children chose to mix both beads and feathers on their playdough creations…
Two simple ways (among others) that our students spent time exploring with feathers….
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