Umbrellas

Tip it over and it rains leaves

A child pointed at the leaves on the ground.

“The green leaf is going red.”

“That one's red — red is the one I like.”

They walked over to where the leaves had piled up, stood on them, threw them about. Shopping baskets came out and they filled them with leaves and sticks.

Then an adult put a load of leaves into an umbrella and turned it upside down over their heads.

They put their hands out for what came down. Some just stood still underneath it.

Then a child started laying leaves along the top of an open one.

“Look — if you do this it's an autumn umbrella!”

After that the others were doing it too.

Leaves falling on a see-through one

The umbrella was clear, so you could see through the top of it.

An adult scattered leaves over it from above.

“It's raining leaves.”

They looked up at it the way you look at the sky, and reached for the ones sliding down. The leaves rustled on the way.

Then the leaves started going onto the umbrella instead, glued down one at a time. The glue was sticky enough to be interesting on its own.

Planted in the sand, it is a café

“Is today the day we decorate umbrellas?”

They compared the ones they had — the shapes, the colors — and then went at the clear ones with stickers and markers.

“Mine's a rainbow umbrella.”

“I'm drawing raindrops as well.”

“That's pretty.”

“I'm putting flowers on mine too.”

Outside they carried them around.

“I'm going to walk like a model.”

“Let's pretend it's raining.”

And one child pushed theirs down into the sandpit and left it standing there, open.

“This is a café.”

Building the runway

They had each decorated an umbrella, and wanted somewhere to show them off. So they built one.

Blocks went down for the runway. Tables became the stage. Chairs went out in rows for the audience.

Then they invited the rest of the room in.

On the roof, in the rain

They took the umbrellas up to the roof, opened them, and watched the rain land on top.

When it eased off they spun them.

Then cones went down and they walked between them without knocking any over — slowly, carefully. Where two of them met, one lifted their umbrella up high to clear the other.

Getting under one together

They were tearing tissue paper into rain.

“I'm doing red.”

“Mine's yellow rain.”

An adult opened a real umbrella. “What do you use when it rains?”

“An umbrella!”

“I want one too.”

Small ones came out, and two of them took hold of one together.

“Let's share.”

“Get out of the rain.”

Later there were umbrella-shaped blocks. Those went onto heads first, and then upside down, with other blocks balanced in the hollow.

Colored rain on a paper umbrella

They had folded umbrellas out of paper, and now the rain had to go on.

The rain came in little squeeze bottles, colored. An adult tilted the paper so it would run.

They pressed the bottles and watched the color come out and travel down the page, and went through the colors one at a time.

Exercises with an umbrella

A child was interested in the umbrella itself, so it became the thing to exercise with — held out, lifted, swung, with the furniture pushed back to make room.

They did it again. And again.

Afterwards there was a drawing of an umbrella, and they talked about the last time it rained, and put the rain on it.

Walking into the rain on purpose

The rain was forecast, so it was arranged the day before: boots on, umbrellas up, and out to the woods.

“It's going tok tok.”

“I can hear it on the umbrella.”