Art on Fridays - Finger painting

Individually, the children added their ideas of what a tree can be to the mural. In the end, we gathered and described what each of them had painted. The children were surprised to see what fun it can be to add more to a picture. They each looked at what the other children painted before they added their own ideas. A beautiful story was created.

The story: 

On a beautiful sunny morning, a little girl decided to take a nap under a tree. She ate a freshly picked apple first and listened to the birds while falling asleep. After she wakes up, she will invite her friends to play together in the tree house. Going up the wiggly ladder was always scary, but also exciting. 

Trees can be a beautiful place to spend your time."

 (by Grace, Luca, Andrea, Kesler and Janet) 

Grace "A tree can be a place to rest in the shade. Can you spot the girl sleeping under a tree?" 

Being generous can help us connect with one another

This week we brainstormed ideas based on the past six weeks of inquiry, discussions and books we've read. 

* What is generous and what is not generous? 

The children drew a picture that represented generous things that are important to them and one picture of something that is not generous. 

We will have a potlatch tomorrow, where there will be speeches on what generosity is and the importance of it, dancing, food and presents. (Def. "Potlatch" = is a gift - giving feast practiced by indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast and the United States)

Thoughtfully, the wind group children made presents for the children in the water group. They all thought of the colours that each child in the water group likes and from there, they came up with the present that they made.

Here is the list of presents:

For Sophie - beads (Kesler "Sophie likes a lot of colours")

       Theo - craft supplies(Grace "because he always likes to draw”)

       Olympia - butterfly 

       Sasha - a lemon and a yellow butterfly

                               (Kesler "Sasha's favourite colours is yellow")

        Charlie - lady bug (Esme "Charlie's favourite colour is red")

        Jayla - blue chest (box) (Grace "I play with Jayla all the time and I know that she would like a blue chest to put all her things in")

         Lucas  - marble (Alexia "Lucas likes to play with the marbles")

Apple cookies will be served at the potlatch. The children spread the peanut butter and sprinkled mini chocolate chips and granola to help prepare them. 

Esme "Yummy. They look so delicious."

Art on Fridays "A Tree Can Be..."

Inspired from the story "A Tree Can Be..." by Judy Nayer, we created a mural of trees.

The story sparked conversations about nature and the importance of it. Appreciating the wonderful things it does to people and animals as well as to the environment. From this conversation, the children described many different uses of a tree. Their ideas will be added to our mural next week.

Some ideas the children had:

Luca "A place to sit."
Grace "A place to climb."
Andrea "A place for a bird."
Janet "A place for a nest." 

Ribbon Rescue by Robert Munsch

After reading the story and discussing the rewarding feeling of generosity, we reenacted the story by sharing ribbons with others and using them to decorate our bodies. 

For Art, we used ribbons to paint! The children dipped the ribbons in paint and drew long fluid strokes with them.

Wind Group's Celebration

Sparked by the children's interest and the other groups' generous parties, we spent a couple of days preparing for a big party of our own. The Earth group and the Fire group each invited the Wind group to a party, so the children chose to be thankful to the other groups by hosting a party of their own and inviting the other groups.

The planning was simple since the children already knew what they wanted to do: 

* Cake and pancakes 

* Decorations

* Poster and invitations 

* Games

* Fruits, vegetables and other snacks 

* Goody bags with a thank-you note inside.

The children showed enthusiasm and dedication during the preparation. They painted little cards, decorated the poster, thought of messages that they wanted to share with the others, went shopping, tidied the centre and much more. 

Their sweet little minds made sure that everyone received something and that the party was fun and enjoyable. 

The children were very friendly and included everyone in their celebration. Kind, polite words and cheerful conversations took place.

"The Big Block of Chocolate" by Janet Slater Redhead

While reading "The Big Block of Chocolate", we recorded the ways that the animals reacted when they found the block of chocolate. The animals, although in different situations, all planned to eat it by themselves, secretly. In the end, after the chocolate was found and hidden numerous times, it started to melt. An ant happened to pass by it, and without hesitation, the ant invited all the other ants to come over and share the chocolate. 

In the end, the children noticed that the animals who wanted to eat the chocolate secretly, ended up with no chocolate at all. The generous ant was the one who enjoyed the chocolate along with the other ants. 

At the end of the story, after our long and thoughtful discussions, the children in the wind group shared a block of chocolate. There were enough pieces for the children in the wind group, but not enough to share with all the other groups. 

Grace tried in many different ways to find a good solution:

"let's break our piece in half." (still not enough for everyone)

"let's take a bite each" (not possible, because of the no sharing something that you put in your mouth rule)

"let's just not eat chocolate at all" (is that really fair?) 

"buy an extra chocolate and share after" (the store is pretty far and we don't have a car to drive there)

and then the idea came!! 

"LET'S SHARE OTHER THINGS FROM OUR LUNCH KITS"  

Angela "I have no snacks. Actually, I have some apples. I'll share five pieces." 

Kesler "I'll share my rice cracker" 

Grace "I'll share my cheese crackers"

Alexia "I'll share my chocolate crackers"

Janet "I don't want to eat anything, so I will think some more if I want to share something from my lunch kit." 

The children all initiated this sharing idea and they all tried to be fair to all the children at school. Caring and being principled are the traits that came to mind right away. There is definitely give and take in generosity and people can work together to come up with solutions that are advantageous for everyone.

Esme wasn't here on Thursday and she would love to share snacks with everyone at school. Her idea was to all get together and plan a big generosity celebration. 

The children all happily agreed!! 

Art on Fridays - "The traveling adventure of a marble"

"...he finally came out with a single marble. But the boy who received it smiled so brightly in return, the king went back for more things." An excerpt from the story "The Quiltmaker's gift" by Jeff Brumbeau

That single marble was the beginning of experiencing the marvellous feeling of giving and sharing happiness with another. 

The children brainstormed ideas of what one could do with a marble and the list went on and on.

Grace "Share it with others." 

Kesler "Give it away to someone that likes marbles."

Angela "My brother would love to play with it." 

Grace "We could build a marble game." 

Kesler "Matthew and I like to play with the marble game."

One way of using marbles that the children didn't think of is for painting. The pictures demonstrate their enthusiasm when it came to experiencing this new technique.