Summative Assessment - Friendship is an important part of healthy communities

 

 

       The children collected rocks from the forest and when we came in, all four groups gathered together and listened to the story "Everybody needs a rock" by Byrd Baylor.   

They all paid attention to the ten rules that were mentioned in the story for selecting a rock and then each child picked one that looked special to them from our pile, washed it, painted it and added features to it. After exploring the different qualities found in a friend, the giving and receiving, and the expectations of friendship, the children were asked the following questions:  

* Tell me about friendship in your life 

* Who are your friends and why? 

* Tell me a time when you gave friendship? (What did you do for a friend?)

* When did you receive friendship? (What did a friend do for you?) 

 

 

The children can take their pet rock home as soon as they are done with their card and picture.

Enjoy, 

Anamaria

Thank you cards for our friends

The Water group invited everyone at Creative Minds to join in their celebration. They made dolls and hats for all the children and prepared some food, tea and cake to share with everyone. 

The Wind group children discussed the importance of showing appreciation to people around us. We were all very happy and very excited to be part of the Water group's tea party. 

In order to thank the Water group children for their hard work, we made thank you cards that show our appreciation. 

Thank you Water group for organizing such a big celebration, with delicious food and colourful decorations!

Thank you WATER group! 

Art on Fridays - Giving Thanks

To celebrate Thanksgiving with everyone at Creative Minds, the children each shared something that they are thankful for. 

Grace "I am thankful to my friend Maya for inviting me over to her house." 

Andrea "I am thankful to Mary for helping me when I miss my mama." 

Billy "I am thankful to Carlie for playing with me." 

Angela "I am thankful to my mom for giving me chocolate." 

Luca "I am thankful to my mom for helping me bake a Birthday cake to share with everyone." 
Kesler "I am thankful to my sister Adyson for playing with me." 
Janet "I am thankful to Chloe." 

We used hand and foot prints to decorate a Thanksgiving card for our loved ones.

Benefits of working together

For group time this week, we focused our attention on recording and discussing the benefits of working together. 

We read a couple of versions of the story "The Stone Soup", and some children noticed that most of the people in the story didn't know about sharing with others. Through different situations, people were tricked into sharing their vegetables when some characters introduced the "Stone soup" idea. No one else had heard of such a thing as a soup made out of stone, so their curiosity brought them together. One by one, they were all intrigued into tasting the soup made out of stone, without realizing that the delicious taste actually came from the vegetables they all brought to share and add to the stone soup. 

Esme "I think that they all found out how good it feels to share." 

Kesler and Angela "Let's make our own stone soup and share it with everyone." 

The children brought vegetables to school and we all worked together to wash, peel and cut them all. The smell was very inviting and everyone was very thankful that the Wind group chose to be generous and share the soup. 

Esme "Mom and dad never heard of stone soup. They don't think that it will taste yummy." 

Grace "The vegetables and some friendship ingredients like love will make our soup taste delicious." 

Friendship ingredients were also added to the soup: one spoon of sharing; one cup of love; one cup of laughter and one cup of caring. These were only some of the qualities that the children articulated. 

Our next tasks are to capture pictures of examples where friends work together throughout the day and to show an understanding of the different ways friendship is shown by describing what is happening in the photos.

Art on Fridays - Mud work

Inspired by our unit on Friendship, there are a lot of happy, generous feelings in the Wind group. The children enjoy giving and receiving material objects such as drawings, hand-made bracelets, baked goods, etc. as well as showing kindness and the willingness to share in the workload and happiness. 

After reading the story "The Birthday Box" by Leslie Patricelli, we brainstormed some ideas of an object that the children might want to put in a box and give to a friend. It was quite difficult to think of just one thing, so instead of choosing a certain object, we used an art technique called modelling to create something unique. 

Working with clay is always fun and relaxing. The children kneaded the clay until it softened and felt easier to work with. 

One task that they were given was to think of the friend that they would like to share their mud work with and to try to model something that expresses/describe their friendship.

The process of working with clay is simple yet very messy. The children used their own imagination to model and create something unique that represents something to them or their friends.

After the work was finished, there was a waiting process to let it dry followed by the choice of leaving it as it is or adding some colour to it by using acrylic paint. 

The Rainbow Fish - The giving and receiving of friendship

After watching the puppet show "The Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Pfister, conversations about friendship arose. The children noticed that, at the beginning, the rainbow fish didn't want to share, but, after a while, he tried sharing and he found that it made him happy. Not only were his friends now happy, but their happiness also made the rainbow fish happy.

We ended group time by making our own fish out of small pieces of ripped paper and by sharing our knowledge and understanding of what sharing with others feels like.