How we express ourselves when we feel HAPPY

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Trystan expresses happiness by skipping. 

Sofia smiles and giggles when happy.

Simon and Emilie express happiness through dancing and singing. Emilie loves to dance all over the room when she feels happy.

Sarah says, “It feels good to be happy and it makes the people around us smile too”. She loves to sing songs, especially because people tend to sing along.

Howard said that "He smiles and feels happy when he sings and dances".

How we express ourselves when we feel ANGRY

When angry, Sofia tends to grab things. She is definitely willing to work on expressing herself through words. “Grabbing makes my friends unhappy”.

Trystan said, “I just go on my bed to be by myself”.

Emilie tends to stomp her feet and want to be by herself.

Sarah and Simon are both sad and sometimes they even cry when angry.

Byron said, "When I am in a bad mood, I just want to play by myself"

How I Express Myself when I feel...

The children will be presenting different ways of expressing themselves through different areas, which will show the impact on other people (building connections) and the unique way of giving a message. 

How we EXPRESS OURSELVES...

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Below are some different ways of expressing ourselves that the children were able to think of:

• Art, drawing pictures.
• Music, singing songs.
• Drama, dressing up, a puppet show.
• Movement, playing outside, anything that involves body movement.
• Writing and speaking.

The children will be given the opportunity to reflect on their knowledge and the different forms of expression by recording their thoughts and experiences in a journal. Taking time to reflect helps us practice slowing down so that we can make connections with what we hear and see.

The children are showing a good understanding of the importance of being good listeners and how it can help build understanding of someone’s needs and wants. People express themselves in different ways and sometimes that can influence who we are and what we do.

The children started adding pages to their journal. They thought of different ways that they express themselves, or ways that their family and friends express themselves. Simon mentioned that he would like to be able to express himself through writing, so today we took the time to practice writing our names and some key words that the children chose.

Feelings and different ways of expressing ourselves.

During the formative week, we talked about ourselves, the things we like and different ways of performing some tasks. (Please visit Wendy’s blog to read more about the formative week http://wendy-creativemindsevents.blogspot.ca/2013/04/new-unit-express-yourself.html
 From that discussion, we started looking into feelings and ways of expressing them through our faces, bodies and voices. We played a bingo game where the children had to match the description that was written on their cards to a picture. This gave the children a chance to connect some descriptive words with the corresponding facial expressions and feelings.

“We are all different and we all express ourselves in our own way”, Simon added.

Water wonders - Summative assessment

Transdisciplinary Theme: How we Share the Planet

Title: Water wonders

Central Idea:

The decisions people make about water affects everybody.

Summative Assessment Task:

For the Water Unit Summative, the children gathered all their knowledge on Water and presented it through a 3D Mural. The children created a landscape around a river waterway that has been created for them by the teacher as a starting point. The four groups (Water, Wind, Fire and Earth) worked together to plan and then build a community around that waterway. They each shared their contribution to fishing, housing, drinkable water, ponds, animal life, plants, transportation, ways to cross the water.

Criteria to include in the mural was:

* Water cycle

* Conservation of water

* Discussion about impact of humans on the river

* Show how Aboriginal Peoples are connected to the water.

The Water Cycle

"Where does water go?" Simon asked. "Up in the sky" said Trystan. "But how?" Sarah inquired.

 From the children's knowledge and guesses, we started exploring different ideas that would help answer all the questions. 

We used water to paint outside on the asphalt. The children noticed how on the sunny side, the water disappeared quickly compared to the shady side. From that experiment, the children noticed that the sun heats up the water and the water "goes up in the sky", as Trystan said. I told the children that the process is called - EVAPORATION- 

A quiet thinker, after a few seconds, Simon said, "So, the sun heats up the water and it evaporates" - "RIGHT" added the other children. 

From this discovery, the children wanted to learn more about the process. To help gain more knowledge, we watched the movie "All Wet" by The Magic School Bus. 

After the movie, the children showed a greater understanding of the water cycle and the importance of keeping the water clean. Trystan said, "So water evaporates and travels all over the place". Simon added that, "The fish might get the water that evaporated from a puddle here at school". 

At the end, to show our knowledge, we gathered all the necessary materials and we dramatized the water cycle. This was a way of assessing our knowledge and getting a better understanding.  

* Trystan was the ocean.

* Sofia the mountain with snow.

* Emilie the waterfall.

* Simon the clouds.

* Sarah the sun. 

When Sarah came out from between the clouds, Trystan felt the warmth and started evaporating. The water turned into water vapours and went up to the sky. As you get higher, it becomes colder, so the water vapour starts condensing. All the water droplets gather together to form clouds. And so the process begins again -> Water Cycle.