Field trip to "LA CASA GELATO"

 After a long walk and two bus rides, we arrived at our destination! 

Molly talked about the importance of having an ice cream store in a community and this idea led us into visiting an ice cream shop. 

Molly "Ice cream is so good on hot, sunny days!" 

Prior to our field trip, the children each made an ice cream hat and an ice cream cone with some of their favourite ice cream flavours. Each child had to think of a responsibility that an ice cream maker has as well as some questions they might want to ask. 

Most children thought that the ice cream maker makes the ice cream and sells it to people, but yesterday, we found out that there are specific jobs at an ice cream store. There is the ice cream maker that uses machines to make ice cream in the back of the store and servers that serve the customers. Some of the servers' responsibilities are to make sure that the customers are happy, to offer samples, to serve and to collect money. 

One of the servers was very kind and gave each child a baby cone with one flavour of ice cream. 

Roy "Oh my, this is very hard to choose." 

Alfie "I would like a mint chocolate chip ice cream please." 

Molly "Blue cotton candy. Yummmmy" 

All the other children chose either chocolate or vanilla ice cream. 

Some of the flavours were ones we had never heard of before like: garlic ice cream, wasabi ice cream etc. The children tried to guess the flavour according to the colour, but thankfully, the server helped us learn about the new and different flavours.

We enjoyed the wonderful, sunny weather and had lunch at a playground close to the ice cream store. 

The bus ride home rocked some children to sleep, while others shared their experience with other people on the bus. 

We all thanked the bus driver for taking us to the ice cream store and back to school. 

Trystan "So good that there are buses to take us places. It would have been very far to walk to."

We definitely recommend a delicious ice cream on a sunny day!

Wind group and Water group.

There's a connection between people and jobs in our community!

This week's discussion was about the importance of jobs and people in our community. The children know that whenever there's an emergency, the police, firefighters and doctors work together to help the people, buildings and/or animals in the community! 

Trystan "The police and the firefighter's come if there is a car accident. If people are hurt, an ambulance will come too." 

Bela "Firefighters put fire out. Police will be there to help if there's trouble." 

The children initiated a pretend play game, where they wore police hats or firefighter hats to perform some of their responsibilities. They were all very engaged in their game and there was a lot of ongoing communication.

Alexis "Everyone wants to help when there's an emergency." 

Bela "This building is on fire, I need more firefighters to come help me."

Trystan "Here comes a police officer." 

Alexis "The house is on fire. There's a lot of children and animals inside. We need help!!" 

Maddi "The firefighter will help! The people will be very happy at the end"

A police officer will come to Creative Minds to talk about his responsibilities in the community. 

The children began brainstorming  some questions to ask the police officer.

Jobs in our community

For the remaining weeks of inquiry, the wind group will be focusing on different jobs in detail. 

We will be looking at jobs that are done in our community and how they make a difference. 

The children showed an interest and appreciation towards the care and help that police officers provide in our community. We will be organizing a field trip to a police station and/or inviting a police officer over to our school to find out more things about their job and responsibilities. 

Here is what the children think that police officers do and questions that they want to ask: 

Building a strong community together!

The miniature community is ready for everyone to view. 

In connection to our project, we discussed the different jobs and responsibilities that people in the community have. The children found a connection between tasks they do at home and at school, as well as some tasks that people perform at their jobs.

Each role we play and task we perform helps us build a strong community and keeps our environment safe and sound.

The Wind group's community 

The forest 

The safe drivers

The friendly neighbours - Sofia and Alexis playing together

Bela getting a haircut at the Barbershop

Anamaria buying some cookies from the Bakery

Responsibilities in our community!

Every community needs a little bit of colour! 

We read "The Curious Garden", a book by Peter Brown. Our focus was on community-related tasks. The children noticed the difference between a "quiet" city, where everyone spent their time indoors or at work, compared to the one at the end of the story, where all the people in the neighbourhood got together and built a beautiful, and colourful community full of plants. This idea connects to one of our key concepts: Responsibility. We all take on roles in our community and this helps us build a strong community/preschool. 

We all decided that our miniature community needed a little bit of colour. We decided to add to it with touches of paint. While we waited for the paint to dry, we enjoyed the beautiful sunny day by taking a walk around our neighbourhood. Our goal was to spot community helpers and to point out their responsibilities. Mary brought her dog along and we took him to the grooming shop. Mary's responsibility was to care for her dog and for the environment. She was ready to pick up after her dog when needed. (Please see Mary’s blog for more information - http://mary-creativemindsevents.blogspot.ca/2014/03/building-together-2-trip-to-pets.html)

Other people were: 

Trystan "Cleaning their front yards" 

Alexis "Mowing the lawn" 

The people at the grooming shop were kind enough to show us their responsibilities within their work place. 

It takes time and patience to build a strong, trusting community, where people enjoy helping each other and working together towards the same goal. 

The Wind Group’s miniature community will reflect our inquiries and learning throughout the unit.

Formative week - How we organize ourselves - Building together

Formative assessment is embedded in the teaching and learning process and therefore occurs at the beginning of each new unit. It aims to support children in expressing their knowledge about Community and helps teachers plan the next stage of learning.

For our next week, we will be building a miniature "wind group community" that will include all the amenities the wind group decides are needed in a community. This experience will help the children recognize the importance of knowing the immediate needs of every person and the reasons why some stores/buildings/services are needed in a community.

The model will be displayed in the main room and the children will be encouraged to add more things to it as we deepen our learning during the remaining 7 weeks.

The walk we took on Thursday in our community gave the children an idea of different jobs/roles people have in our community and opened a discussion about how we all contribute in a different way. 

Trystan "A gas station is important in a community. Cars need gas in order to function."

Jason "A construction site. A digger helps dig a hole"

Sofia "A coffee shop. Yummy cookies" 

We even went inside a barber shop to take pictures with the barber and to thank him for his service to our community. Aren't we lucky to have all these wonderful places in our neighbourhood?

Summative activity - Wind group's invention

 A super duper machine

Cleaning in the olden days was always done by hand (beat dust out of carpets outside, mop the floor by hand, etc). The difference today is that there are many inventions that make performing these tasks easier such as a vacuum cleaner, steam mop and so on.

The children's task was to develop an innovation that will help them perform a job in an easier and faster manner. The work that the children in the wind group find themselves doing the most is organizing and tidying up toys.

"An organizer" Trystan said. "A machine that will tidy toys up", Sofia added, "and that vacuums at the same time", Maddi suggested.

We started this project by sketching a prototype of what the machine might look like. Every child added an element to it.

In the end, we presented the machine to the other children. The super duper machine is displayed on the shelf, by the science materials. 

Enjoy, 

Anamaria