Earth Day - April 22nd. 2016

Happy EARTH Day! 

In connection to our new unit on Plants, we focused today on celebrating Earth Day. 

The children's knowledge on plants is very broad and today it was delightful to listen to what they know about the importance of taking care of our surroundings, as well as appreciating and protecting the Earth. 

"Take a step into the surrounding forest at Creative Minds, close your eyes and take a deep breath. Let the breeze tickle your face and the sun warm your existence. Be thankful for all that our Earth is offering us. Be Kind. Be Gentle..." 

We discussed reusing, recycling and reducing materials that we use daily. The importance of saving energy, planting and conserving plant life. 

These hands can help take care of the Earth

"Earth" word search. 

The flower queen 

Thank you for supporting our bake sale

Dear Families, 

Thank you for all your support with our bake sale today. 

We raised almost $100 in one day! 

The children showed love and empathy by choosing to donate the money they raised towards a cause in our community. 

We shared stories about different places and they each got a chance to choose one.

Since you helped us by making donations, please feel free to add your name and your preference to our chart (on the door in the cubbies). 

On Monday, we will count the votes and proceed with our generous act. 

This shows our connection to each other!! We live and work together to build a strong, healthy and loving community. 

Baking the goodies one day before the bake sale 

Our first customer 

Waiting patiently for more to come... 

Sharing stories about the different places in our community 

- THANK You - 

The jobs people do in our community support its development

The children at Creative Minds show an understanding of responsibility, commitment and community through their daily actions. They help each other when needed, read books to one another, sign up on our service learning chart to clean and to keep the school tidy. All these actions show their devotion to our community. 

To expand their thinking, we discussed and visited different people and places in our community. The children leaned towards wanting to learn more about doctors, construction workers and farmers.

From Sasha's inquiry "How do farmers milk cows?" we embarked on a Farm exploration. For more than a week we sang songs, such as "The farmer in the dell" and "Oats and Beans and Barley grow", read books and researched more on Farmers and their responsibilities. 

In order to build a connection, we gathered what we have learned about food that comes from a farm and we will use that to raise money. The children will plant seeds and bake goodies. These goodies will be sold to the families at Creative Minds. 

Next week, we will gather as a big group and brainstorm some causes in our community that we could help with the money we raise.

This exercise will teach the children how we all work together to build a stronger community and help one another. 

Spontaneous moments bring delight in our day

Gabriel started reading a story to a group of children and as he transitioned away, Kamy continued reading the story to them.

With delight I watched and listened to their conversations.

Eric "The wolf will blow the house down" 

Kamy "Yes, he huffed and he puffed..."  

The children were so engaged in her storytelling that, soon, other children came over to see what was happening.

She gently invited the children around her to come sit down and listen to the story. 

A moment of joy and friendship! 

Living in the present; experiencing the past...

This unit plays a very important role in our lives. It gives us a chance to use our thinking and acquisition skills. Using hands-on activities we will acquire knowledge of how certain activities happened a long time ago. The children's task is to take the time to experience on their own how duties were done in “olden days”. 

These are some of the things that the children experienced in the last few days: 

* They cleaned the room without using any power tools

They used a broom to sweep the floor, a stick to beat the carpets, old rags to wipe the furniture, their hands to wash and a line to dry clothes on. 

 * They were given the opportunity to experience eating, reading and playing by candlelight. 

Light is a very important factor in our life, allowing our eyes to see colour and detail. Not having light made it harder to see the pictures in the book and the writing as well as everything else in our environment.

For a couple of days, the children were given some old household materials to make their own toys. This allowed the children to design and build their own replica of a toy. 

As an assessment, we created a graph where we compared the effort each task would have taken in the “olden days” versus the effort it requires today with modern conveniences. 

Cooperation and coordination with every step

For the remainder of the unit, we will be playing games that people play nowadays, forgotten ones and even some from different countries/cultures. 

Baking an apple pie from scratch

The children were offered the chance to compare the quality of home baked food compared to the store bought ones. 

A common denominator that we all agreed on was that buying a pie from the store is more convenient when you take time and effort into consideration, but the home made pie allowed the children to practice social skills as well as gave them the chance to create their own pie by adding more or less of some of the ingredients. 

It was delightful to watch the children smell the ingredients and enjoy this whole process. They mixed ingredients, modelled the dough into pie trays and added the apples to it. 

It was delicious indeed!! 

washing the apples

cutting the apples into small pieces 

rolling the dough 

It smells delicious!! 

The different ways of preserving apples

Title: Then and Now 

The key concepts we are focusing on as we embark on this new unit are: Perspective and Causation. Our conversations are focused on similarities and differences between the past and present and the ways that inventions impact the things we do.  

After watching two short videos containing some examples of what children used to do in the olden days, the children in the wind group brainstormed some of their knowledge about the "olden days." 

This week, we talked about different methods of preserving food and reflected on the convenience versus the quality of foods made from scratch compared to those that are store bought. 

The children showed understanding of the comfort of buying food directly from the store, but they definitely enjoyed experiencing the process of making their own apple chips.

A very long time ago, people used to hang the sliced apples on a string and air dry them. Today, we are fortunate to be able to use the oven. 

fresh apples

dried apples 

The apple chips filled the air with a sweet smell and the apples tasted fresh and delicious. The children shared their home made snack with everyone and it was a total enjoyment!! 

The hung apples will definitely take longer until ready for us to eat. 

Next week, we will be using apples to make an apple pie from scratch!

Decorations tell human stories and help us know one another

For Art on Fridays, we made paper-mache to create hanging decorations. Each child took their time to carefully choose the colours they wanted to use.

The children showed an understanding that decorations can tell a human story or be the introductions to it.

Each hanging decoration is unique and tells a story.

Theo's hanging decoration is silver because it makes it look shiny. "It will brighten our Christmas tree", Theo added

Anila "The red spots are me and my parents"

Louis "The sun is peeking through"

  Zoe "I added sparkles to my ornament. It glows."

Keira "There is a red heart, showing my love for my mommy"

When you look at the ornaments, it might remind you of a different story. This is how we share our lives with each other.

What is a decoration to each of us?

The picture attached above shows the children's ideas of what decorations are. Each day, the children are encouraged to add more ideas to our chart. The new ideas will be added in different colours, allowing us to see the growth in our learning. 

I noticed a common theme in the children's answers - hanging decorations. All the children in the wind group celebrate Christmas and this is a conversation that arises each day. The children share their ideas on what decorations to use during these Holidays, their different shapes and sizes, etc. 

To broaden their imagination, I read the book "Night Tree" by Eve Bunting. This story is about a family decorating a tree outdoors with food and nuts for the animals. Eagerly, the children asked for us to do the same. They all showed commitment and determination while working on their decorations.  

Apples, cheese, popcorn and flowers 

The children were given a chance to connect to the animals and their need for food during winter time.

As an assessment on what they thought that the animals might like to eat, they drew pictures of what the tree looked like after they decorated it and we recorded our predictions on what will happen to the decorations on a chart.

The tree is decorated! The children are enjoying a bowl of popcorn while reading the story right next to the tree. 

We were all very surprised!! This is the only decoration that was left on the tree.  

Enjoy,

Anamaria

We Decorate Our World

Decorations are seen differently by each individual and expressed in different ways and forms. During the first week of our new unit, the children got a chance to express what they know about decorations. Most of them think that colour is decoration, as well as objects around the room. 

This exploration will continue for eight weeks, allowing the children ample time to inquire, explore and share their learning with others.  

The line of inquiry that we discussed first was: "Decorations tell human stories and help us know one another." 

This directed our discussion towards Remembrance Day. The children are aware of this Holiday and it is a great connection to our unit on decorations and who we are. The tradition of having a poppy pinned close to our hearts, is a form of decoration, remembering the brave ones as well as sending peace, love and kindness around the world. 

Sound Travels - Summative week

With Halloween just days away from our summative project*, the children decided to write a story about the characters they will embrace during this spooky fall celebration.  In connection to our unit, the children used their knowledge on Sound and used objects or musical instruments to accompany their story. 

The children showed interest in this project and were very confident that some of the stories will be scary ones while others will be great bedtime stories. 
After I jotted down their ideas, all the children used art as a visual tool to reflect the characters in their stories.  

The instruments or sounds written in the brackets show the connection between the stories and the sound unit.  

1. A Brave Knight - by Theo 

One night, there was a knight close to a swamp. An alligator came out.(Alligator sound) The knight attacked the alligator. The alligator died. (Trumpet) Safely, the knight walked out of the forest. 

2. Falling Snow by Serena 

During the day, in a castle lived an ice queen named Elsa. (Piano) She used her powers and froze the castle. Now there was an ice castle.(Piano)

3. Louis the Kangaroo - by Louis 

In a story there was a kangaroo. He jumped out of the book and went to my house. He jumped and I became a Kangaroo. 

4. A Giraffe - by Anila 

When I was at Palm Desert I saw a giraffe. The giraffe laid down for a nap and the baby giraffe went and joined his mommy. 

5. Zoe for Halloween - By Zoe 

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Zoe. She liked to walk around her castle, but suddenly, she got hungry so she sat down and had something to eat. 

She drank some water and after she was done, she put it in the sink.

6. Keira the Brown Bear - by Keira 

One day, Keira the bear was walking in the woods.(Accordion) Keira found her big stuffed teddy there. They met other bears in the forest and became friends. (Accordion)

*summative (project) assessment  - allows the children and the teacher to reflect on their learning in the last seven weeks of inquiry. This eighth week gives the children the opportunity to express the knowledge they accumulated along the way.

Music sparks Imagination

We used the book "Once Upon an Ordinary School Day" by Colin McNaughton to support our learning. 

The story opened a path to thinking about imagination and creativity. The following phrases from the story inspired the children: "I want you to listen to some music and I want you to let the music make pictures in your heads" and "It was as if a dam had burst in his head and words just came flooding out..." 

As we are approaching our summative activity where the children will be sharing their knowledge on sound, we listened to classical music and each of them took a turn to share an idea of what the music/sound made them think about or feel. In the end, the children latched on and expanded on each others' ideas and composed a story inspired by Vivaldi's "Four Seasons (Spring)". 

Story: 

Zoe: "One morning, I was eating breakfast. I was enjoying my oatmeal." 

Keira: "After I finished my breakfast, I walked towards my playroom. While I was playing, a blue flower that bloomed outside my window caught my attention. Shortly after, I noticed a purple flower too." 

Theo: "I was looking at the blue flower and the petals and suddenly, I couldn't believe my eyes, but right there, next to my window, there was a deer." 

Louis: " The wind started blowing and it blew the blue flower away." 

Serena: "The blue flower flew up in the air and it landed on the wood chips at the playground." 

Theo: "People were playing and didn't notice the flower. They were stepping on it." 

Keira: "A little boy noticed the squished flower. He picked it up and found a spot to plant it in the dirt." 

Serena: "A new flower bloomed." 

Zoe: "It was growing taller and taller and more beautiful." 

Theo: "It grew so beautiful, but the petals started falling off. The flower died." 

And that was the end of our story. The children carefully listened to the music and I observed that when the tempo increased, the characters became more elaborate and the ordinary scenes became more intense. For example, it occurred when the children wrote the scenes with the people stepping over the flower, and the deer appearing in the image.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is a holiday when everyone gets to spend time with their loved ones and share things that they are thankful for. 

Instruments make sounds that captivate us.

While listening for sounds in our immediate environment, Theo identified the sound of a tambourine echoing from the cubbies. It was the Water group, making their own instruments and exploring sounds with them. 

Anila "I want to make an instrument." 

Triggered by the children's interest, we looked at pictures of different instruments from all over the world and played a game where the children had to listen to the instruments and identify them.

In the pictures attached, you can see the instruments we worked on. 

Next week, we will be finishing decorating and we will gather together to try them out. 

Listen...can you hear that sound?

Our walk in the forest triggered the children's interest in squirrels and the sounds they make when eating and climbing trees. 

The folk song "Hop old squirrel" guided our learning. The song is about a squirrel hopping and listening. We discussed the features of squirrels and also the different things squirrels could listen for. 

The children noticed that sometimes when they see squirrels outdoors, they see them stop in their tracks and look around. 

Theo "Maybe that's when they listen. They stop to hear better." 

The children drew pictures of squirrels and made a squirrel out of foam shapes to share their knowledge and the song with the others. This will allow them to continue exploring and to connect their learning with their peers and their families. 

Next week we will be talking about instruments and we will be making our own to create different sounds.