ISB’s curious Prekindergarten students spend their days exploring the world around them with their five senses, whether or not they realize it. In their unit on the senses, children examine the different ways they experience the world – through sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. As part of this investigation, PreK teachers Nathalie Trovato and Alexa Gambal had a great idea for a project: to engage students’ senses by walking them through the process of making paper from recycled materials. As Nathalie put it, “Paper making came naturally to us, as we LOVE using paper in our classroom for all sorts of activities!”

Once they had decided on this project, Nathalie and Alexa introduced it to the class by talking to their students about recycling the many ways they could recycle paper. Once they had collected enough paper, they shredded it and put it in a large tank. Children were invited to feel the paper scraps and refine their sense of touch.

 On the following day, Nathalie added water to the tank, and the paper mixture was allowed to soak for a few hours. Again, children were invited to play with it, to feel the paste and the new texture of the paper mush. Describing the rest of the process, Nathalie said, “We put the mish-mash in a blender in order to obtain a pulp, to which we added some food coloring. We then poured it on a screen in order to remove the water. We added pieces of leaves, petals, and threads and let it dry. Once our paper had dried and hardened, we added some lavender extract to stimulate our sense of smell. Finally, we cut the freshly made paper into pieces.” Students were able to personalize the paper they made by stamping pieces with the first initials of their names. These sheets are now hanging together on the bulletin board outside the French PreK classroom.

 Nathalie summed up the result of their hard work poetically: “Our wall just looked like personal maps, small worlds with our initials on them.”

Please take a look next time you are on the first floor!