Pre-Kindergarten 2021/22/23: Pre-KG 2023 / 24 Blog 34 Brown Bear and the charming paintings of Mr. Nizo Yamamoto

Pre-KG 2023 / 24 Blog 34

Brown Bear and the charming paintings of Mr. Nizo Yamamoto

The beloved book „Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see ?“ by Eric Carle shows in the title the verb „see“ which relates to the last of the five senses which we were talking about in Pre–Kindergarten: the sense of „sight“.

For many people a world without sight is hard to imagine as we love to see the smiles of our loved ones, the colours of the rainbow, the red of strawberries and the green of nature.

Not to forget looking at pictures, reading a good book, or these days, besides watching TV looking at an IPhone, a tablet or a computer.

The Pre–Kindergarten children enjoy seeing their friends at school every day, playing with a variety of colorful objects or using their favorite colours to create art.

Many Early Childhood books teach children about colours and „Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see“ is one of them.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See ?

And while it features animals with colours that can be found in nature, this book also plays on the imagination by showing a blue horse and a purple cat. At the end of the book everyone is looking at the teacher and the children in class. The Pre–Kindergarten children love the book, often finding themselves in the class group picture at the end.

So besides reading the book, we watched it rhythmically rendered and matched felt pieces and magnets to the book.

On another day during P.E. the children had the chance to choose a colourful bench where they could sit on with their friend and have good laughs with each other or try for high jumps.

Art is a wonderful way to encourage children to express themselves, it develops fine motor skills, patience, self esteem, collaboration and last, not least, communication skills.

Children love to create, but they are also curious and keen to talk about what they see. That is one of the reasons I love to take them to the fabulous Kobe Fashion Museum.

To make the Pre–Kindergarten children understand and see what can be created from a blank canvas, I showed them a white paper and slowly coloured it with water colors.

The children then eagerly created their own pieces, using bold strokes, fine lines, lots of water, little water, vibrant colors, subdued shades…..each to their likening and with a big „aha“ in the end.

Building on this creative experience we went on a little excursion to the Fashion Museum to marvel at the charming and skillful paintings of Mr. Nizo Yamamoto who hand–painted many of the films by Ghibli which transfer us into an enchanted world.

The children all took away their individual impressions and looked spellbound during a little movie which showed Mr. Yamamoto transforming a white paper into beautiful clouds.

What a fascinating sight and a successful visit !

On Friday we looked at different „I spy“ books, which require keen sight in order to spot all the items hidden in the pictures.

The children did a great job finding every item and as they had so much fun, some wanted to borrow one book of the series to take home. Please enjoy the book together!

We finished a creative and insightful week with exciting games like blowing colourful bubbles or balloons and watching them float into the sky.