Causation - How have ideas and inventions changed our lives?

"If people had no dryers and no electricity in the olden days, what did their homes look like?" Trystan inquired.

The houses a long time ago were mostly made out of wood, cut and carried by men or horses from the forest. In order to get a better understanding of how houses were built in the olden days, we all collected sticks from the forest to build a "House like in the olden days" miniature model. After piling the sticks and breaking them into even pieces, building a house, an outhouse and a fence, the children then had to display them on a board. We discussed the fact that the outhouse needed to be placed as far away as possible from the house. Maddi "Yes, if not, the yucky smell might go into the house."

For the next little while, we will do research on some things that people had in their houses. After, we will build a miniature model house/building from the present and look at the differences, the inventions and how these impact our lives.

So far, this is the list that we came up with of things that people used to have in their homes a long time ago:

- Candles -> Trystan: "Because there was no electricity"

- Churn -> Alexis: "Or a jar with marbles to make home-made butter."

- Bucket -> Sofia: "To wash clothes."

Please share ideas with us of things that you guys used to have in your houses, which was replaced by an invention that changed our lives.

For e.g - Anamaria: "We used to have string hung by our windows to dry our clothes. Today, we have a dryer which makes drying clothes fast. It is also more convenient to have it inside our home."

Changes in our lives.

 As we were reading, the fact that Ma was washing clothes and dishes by hand reminded me of my childhood. I shared stories with the children, like how my mom had no disposable diapers for my brother and I, and how she used cloth diapers instead. The children were wondering what the difference is, so we took our doll babies out and we put two disposable diapers on two of the babies, and two cloth diapers on the other two babies. Our babies were not real, so we had to use brown paint and yellow coloured water in order to explore this idea.  :) Yes, it was fun. We timed the process, it took less than 1 minute to walk to the garbage and throw the disposable diaper in the garbage. "Very easy" said Sofia. "I can't wait for mommy to have my baby brother so I can help change the diaper".  The way people used to change babies in the olden days was a little different than just throwing it in the garbage. Sofia and Trystan had the babies with the cloth diapers, so their job was not done. They had to scrub the cloth with soap, rinse and let it dry. (Yes, we also discussed the fact that most people in Romania have no dryers).

It took more than 5 minutes to wash the cloth and one day to let it dry. Sofia said, "This makes my hands hurt. Scrubbing is not easy". Alexis commented that it’s "good that my mommy didn't have to do all that work. She played with Avery and I all the time." Bela mentioned, “The diaper was a good invention, so much faster.”

I am sure that my life experience from Romania will bring lots of discussion and exploration ideas during this unit.  

** Please bring baby pictures of your child in. We would like to play a guessing game. We would also like to look at how fast people change and the way it can impact the future. 

Churning BUTTER at HOME.

From the story "Winter days in the Big Woods", the children noticed how Ma and Mary where churning butter at home. This led us into an exploration of this process. 

The Fire group and Wind group got together and made homemade butter. 

Please visit Wendy's blog to find more about the homemade butter process. 

http://wendy-creativemindsevents.blogspot.ca/2014/01/place-and-time-making-butter.html 

Where we are in PLACE and TIME~

Where we are in place and time is the transdisciplinary theme of our new unit. 

When the children in the wind group discussed the theme, great inquiries and stories arose.  

Trystan: "So, the new unit is about ‘us’ (we) and where we are, like ‘at school, doing group time." 

After Trystan's explanation of our new theme and more discussion of what the children think about the past and the present, I read them a story called "Winter Days in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The story led the children into looking at how a family in the late 1800s lived in the woods of the Midwest United States of America; we discussed how different those times were from todays, how they had no electricity and no stores. This story is the fundamental piece for our journey in this unit. 

We will spend the first few days looking into changes that take place in daily life. 

Central idea: There are similarities and differences between the way people lived long ago and the way people live today. 

SUMMATIVE assessment - People use decorations and this helps us learn about each other.

For the summative assessment, the children each made a clay container.

The children had to decide:

  - what colour they want their container to be.

 

- design.

- what and where they might put the piece of art.

The children had to think and discuss what "story 

about me" is this piece of pottery telling others.

Sofia and Alexis wanted their containers to match the decorations in their bedrooms. 

Trystan and Bela wanted to use their containers for lego pieces. They used their favourite colours to paint it. 

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.