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.

Beat and Rhythm

In order to create our own songs, we had to look into the different forms that make up a song.

Using the folk song, “Come and Follow Me”, we explored the beat and rhythm.

Using our hands to keep count of beat and then rhythm we determined that beat is steady throughout the song but that the rhythm can change. For example, in “Come and Follow Me”, there were short and long phrases for the rhythm.

“Come and follow me” – long phrase, 5 syllables

“In a line” – short phrase, 3 syllables

The rhythm changed with each line, having 5 beats for the long phrase and 3 for the short. The beat is the amount of time between each syllable and determines the tempo of the song.

Alexis mentioned that, “Keeping the rhythm is easier because you follow the syllables.”