What is a decoration to each of us - Assessment

The children in the Wind group enjoyed working together with the Water group this week! 
They partnered up to create wonderful decorations that will help them tell a story and connect with one another. 

As an assessment, today, we gathered all together once more to share the similarities and differences in ideas about what a decoration is. The Wind group and Water group had a lot of things in common, and with the Holidays just around the corner, the conversations went

on and on. After recoding all the knowledge and discussing wonderful stories about the two celebrations that happen in December, Hanukkah and Christmas, we all decided to make hanging decorations. 
 One big connection was to find out that everyone has at least one hanging decoration at home, for example: Bells, Bows, Stars, Candy canes, Balls, Pictures, etc. 

The children made their own hanging decorations, small people made out of pine cones (pine cones remind some children of Winter time). They chose to add beads to their hanging wire, sparkles on their pine cones, details to their decorations (like scarfs, hair, googly eyes) and then they decided to hang them around the room to decorate the centre.

 Happy Holidays everyone! Let the decorations bring joy and stories into our lives! 

 Wind group and Water group.

Wind group and Water group - Coast Salish Masks

*** Please visit Mary's blog to read more about our explorations: Decorations are all around us and help communities connect with each other.


http://mary-creativemindsevents.blogspot.ca/2013/12/we-decorate-our-world-8-coast-salish.html

 Water Group and Wind Group partnered together to learn about a Coast Salish community that lives near us: the Musqueam. 

Exploring a variety of decorations.

The children celebrated with joy, adding the last decorations to their bedrooms. It was a long process that required patience and creativity. 

Sofia took a step back every time she added a new decoration to her bedroom. This way, she was able to look at it from a different perspective and reflect on it. It took her a couple of tries to find the perfect spot for her bed and her baby's crib in her room. "Baby's crib should go on the carpet. That way, the baby is not going to be cold."
 "We both need pillows to snuggle." 

Alexis thoughtfully chose her furniture to be white. "I like white furniture. It goes nice with my pink decorations." 
"A pillow for me and one for mommy when she reads stories." After finishing her bedroom, Alexis decided to make a change. Her pillows were pink like her bed and she realized that they camouflage. Alexis chose to make them white (to match the furniture). 

Bela chose a bunk bed. He added a railing to his bed at the top. Louise will have a blue blanket. When choosing the blankets, Bela tried a colourful blanket, but that made the bed unattractive. "It has too many decorations on it, a blue blanket looks better" 

Janet carefully placed her bed by the window. "My bed is at the window at home and I like it." 

 Maddi wanted a bunk bed in her bedroom. The top part for her and the bottom one for Max. She also added some detailed decorations to the walls. "Stickers make me smile and make the wall look more colourful"

Trystan wanted a lot of furniture in his room. "A bunk bed for me and my friends when they sleep over and lots of shelves for all my toys". 

Roy's red walls express happiness and warmth. Roy likes a cozy room full of decorations. "The sheep on the carpet are nice" 

Jason chose golden walls for his bedroom. "My bunk bed looks perfect in the middle of the room. Like that, I can have a lot of space to play around it." 

 Keira is still working on her decorations! 

 This project gave the children a chance to reflect when choosing a decoration, to analyze the results, to respect and appreciate each others' decisions and to connect to their friends. A lot of bedrooms had similarities that brought up wonderful discussions. The children are very happy with their results and look forward to displaying their projects in their bedroom. 
 "Another decoration to add to our bedroom" said Sofia. 

 *** the bedrooms will be displayed in the cubbies for a few days.

Redecorating requires time and patience!

In the next few days, we will add colour, furniture and other decorations to our bedrooms. 

Maddi "My walls will be pink. It will brighten my room and make me feel happy."

Bela "My walls will be yellow. I like yellow. It reminds me of a nice sunny day."

Sofia "I want my room to have two windows."

Janet "Pink walls please." 

Trystan "Green carpet and a car carpet to play on." 

Jason "A bunk bed will be fun." 

Roy "Red walls and blue carpet will make my room look nice."

Alexis "I would like two pink pillows. One for me, one for mommy."

Keira "White makes the room look empty. I want to add pink and colourful furniture."

This project will give the children a chance to reflect on their choices, to express their likes and interests through decorations and to appreciate each others' culture and personal stories. They will be open to the perspectives, values and traditions of other individuals. 

Different PERSPECTIVES lead to different findings!

From the children's interest in decorating the drama area in order to express their likes and interests, the children showed an interest in sharing pictures of how they decorated their own bedrooms. 

Sofia "My wall is decorated with some sheep. That decorations tells a story and I do like sheep on my wall. It makes me happy. It makes me smile when I look at it"

Alexis "My polka-dotted bed sheets decorate my bed and it makes me like sleeping in my bed"

Parents connected to this inquiry and sent pictures of their child's bedroom. 

We looked at the pictures, listed all the decorations found in their rooms and recorded their observations. The children felt a connection to each other when they found similarities in decorations found in each others' rooms. 

Bela's bunk bed made some children wish for one. This wish opened a new discussion. "What would it be like to re-decorate your bedroom?" Full of excitement, the children started thinking about this provocation and analyzing it from different perspectives. 

Before we started, Trystan reminded everyone that a decoration tells a story, so they all need to be careful when deciding what to decorate their room with. 

We decorate our Environment

Today (Thursday, Nov. 14th) we celebrated our decorations. "It makes the room look more colourful", Sofia said. 

The Wind group shared their decorations with the other groups and invited everyone to participate in adding more decorations to the Drama area. Through other children bringing different ideas, we connected to each other and found out more about who we are. 

Maddi and Sofia arranged the flowers and decorated the table with them.

Roy chose some rainbow fabric for the chairs, while Trystan pulled out some costumes for other children to decorate their bodies with. 

Janet and Bela added more flowers to the room. 

At the end, we all decorated our faces or bodies while listening to music and admiring the decorations. 

What is a decoration to each of us?

Line of Inquiry and Key concept: Similarities and differences in ideas about what a decoration is and seeing it from different PERSPECTIVES. 

Sofia thinks that a "chair" is a decoration. 

The question that followed Sofia's statement was, "What does a chair decorate?"

This inquiry led the children into a deep and exciting conversation. 

Sofia "The chair decorates the table" 

Trystan "The table is by the wall, so it decorates the wall" 

Alexis "The furniture decorates the room" 

Jason "Well, it's good there's furniture around. If not, this room would be empty" 

Today we decided that the furniture needs some decorating. 

Trystan "It makes the room look more beautiful and colourful" 

Keira "I love flowers. Let's add some flowers" 

Debbie heard about our projects, so she shared a decoration that the First Nation people use to decorate their clothes at weddings or funerals. 

The flower is handmade, out of Cedar tree bark. The children understood that for the First Nation people, this flower tells a story and helps other people identify the ones that are wearing it. This helped us connect to a different culture and instilled curiosity to find out more about First Nation decorating. 

We all handmade flowers to decorate the drama area. 

Decorating the Drama Area

The drama area "transformation" began with tidying up and wiping everything. The children were very determined and they all cooperated to get wonderful results. 

After wiping all the toys, the furniture and the floor, they all stated that cleaning "makes us very tired". 

The first decoration is up! The children painted and glued pink and purple paper onto the wall.

Sofia "The drama area looks happier with pink and purple on the wall." 

Trystan "I can't wait to add some green to the walls."

Maddi "We will be able to wear costumes and decorate our bodies very soon."

Jason "Cleaning was hard, but it looks really nice now." 

The children celebrated the great results and while Mila was walking by the drama area she mentioned that "Oh, it is different in there."

Our plan is to help the other groups connect to our interests, to learn more about our own and to have fun!

WHO WE ARE - We decorate our World - Decorations tell human stories and help us know one another

 Central idea: People use decorations and this helps us learn about each other. 

The children shared a diverse variety of prior knowledge when they were asked to share what decoration is for them. 

 

Sofia - flowers 

Alexis - necklaces and bracelets 

Bela - bird necklace 

Roy - clocks 

Jason - costumes 

Trystan - lights (e.g Halloween and Christmas lights) 

The line of inquiry that we will be focusing on for a few days is:

Decorations tell human stories and help us know one another. 

We will look into how decorations help us connect with one another and how stories can be associated with the decorations. 

After watching a slideshow with different pictures, the children identified some things that they consider decorations. This activity led us to discussing our bodies and our homes. Some children use objects or paint to decorate their bodies while others have lots of decorations at home. 

Most children have pictures decorating their walls. Sofia has some sheep, while Roy and Jason have family pictures on their walls. 

Our next project is designing and decorating the drama area to turn it into a ballroom. The children initiated this activity in connection to their interests. Costumes, body paint, music and pictures will be our main focus. 

Laughter and beautiful singing voices while painting!

Music can cause different feelings and emotions to arise!

The children in the Wind group are being very thoughtful when it comes to creating their own music. They are all being Thinkers, and very carefully selecting the instruments and the message behind their music. 

Alexis, Sofia, Roy, and Trystan are very interested in drawing. Today we took some time to draw a picture that will connect to each others' musical compositions. The children drew the pictures in pencil first, followed by beautiful strokes of paint. 

We painted, listened to music and sang along! This definitely proves that Music can cause certain feelings to arise. Today we were all happy, cheerful and playful. 

Enjoy!

Using Garage Band to create our own piece of music!

The process towards creating their own music sequences that describe a thought or a feeling has begun! 

The children's facial expressions say it all! Garage Band is a fun program to work with. It requires lots of knowledge and patience, but it also provides an easy and fun way to create our own music. 

Today we just pressed buttons, listened to different instruments, and chose different feelings and stories that we might like to express to the listeners. 

More fun trials to follow in the next few days! Next week, we will be presenting everyone's final product.

Summative assessment

After weeks of exploring and inquiring, the children gathered all the information necessary in order to form their own piece of music. 

Throughout the unit, we have been working on three different concepts: Perspective, Form and Causation. 

The folk songs we have studied inspired the children to easily choose a form for their song (based on it's phrase measurement, beat and rhythm). 

Each individual person perceives the sounds in our environment differently. The children each chose a sound that connects to their being and their interest. They will orally interpret the chosen sound and express it through their piece of music. 

Sounds can cause certain feelings to arise, so next week we will be exploring different effects that sounds can have on our feelings and everyone will decide what emotion they would like to transmit to the listeners of their

interpretation.