Thursday 13 December 2012

Lovely Latkes

We made latkes to celebrate Hanukkah today! Thanks to Lindsay for her help.







Look at it bubble! It's getting golden brown.

Soak up the grease. Careful it's hot!


I tried it and like it!


Wednesday 12 December 2012

Bey blades are beautiful

Our math centre continues to be the hub of "bey blade" action it was weeks ago. We are amazed at the sustained interest in building and testing these spinning toys.

Last week, I visited the centre with the camera and snapped an action shot:

 The boys were fascinated at how different the t-shaped toy looked in motion. Suddenly it transformed shape into a circle, and the colours became blended.

I handed the camera over the the boys to snap their own shots.



They were especially intrigued how the square "bey blades" were also transformed into a circle.



Three of the boys wanted to document their observations by painting their spinning bey blades, using the photos as a guide.

We continue to search for ways of deepening the learning happening at this centre, through oral discussions, artwork, and scientific experiments.

Friday 7 December 2012

Beautiful Stuff

With the help of our generous families, we've begun a new inquiry: Beautiful Stuff.

The inquiry process is the basis of all science, and also plays a large role in the arts. We have been teaching the children about this process, to help them move through the cycle.

wonder => explore => plan => observe => share ideas => wonder....

For our Beautiful Stuff inquiry, we wondered what sort of objects children find interesting and attractive. We wonder what can be learned using everyday objects.

Then we started to explore.

 Here are some quotes from the children:

"Daddy gardens with this (shows seeds). Lookit! Here's some shells!" -Payton

"I put them in all by myself because they are beautiful. We can all share the stickers." -Gavin

"A necklace my mom doesn't use much anymore." - Aidan G

"I went to Daddy's workshop. He has stuff everywhere all over the basement." -Caitlyn



"Ethan! Look I found money!" -Kaden

"I'll use this to find treasure!" - Ethan


"These are goggles I think. You need this circle here." - Owen


Already, Katy and I have made some observations. The children are highly engaged in the objects, and at first they were quite possessive over them. There were a few instances where kids found an object that particularly attracted them, and they tried to take it home. (A natural extention of their magpie tendencies that inspired the project!) But since we have combined the items in a large container, they are starting to share and let go of their possesive feelings.

Now we are in the planning and observing stages, with lots of wondering and exploring still going on. We made a plan to sort the items and in the process, we're discovering new little treasures.

This will be a long-term and ongoing inquiry, so watch for more posts over the next month or two.

Friday 30 November 2012

Spirit Days

Our "Celebrate You" day was a success. Here are a few outfits from Thursday:

I like dancing, and my skirt.

I like to dance a lot. -Payton
I like pink and I like dancing. -Faith

Because my favourite is Hello Kitty.
Black is my favourite colour because
I like my friends and I like black.

I love polka dots!

Cause I play soccer. -Aidan
I like my hockey jersey cause I play hockey at my house. It's my favourite. -Owen
Cause I like it cause I like hockey cause that's it. - Cameron Hu.
Cause I like Batman cause he saves the day! -Kaden

Friday was both PJ day and mustache day. We just had to celebrate with a pyjama popcorn dance party!







Sometimes we just have to celebrate!

Tuesday 27 November 2012

Firehouse Fun

Thanks to all the families who donated costumes and props to our dramatic play centre.
The fire station is a big hit.
It's lovely to see the children sharing the costumes so well, sometimes singing Eenie Meenie Miney Moe or playing Rock-Paper-Scissors to help sort out who goes first.

Some of our artists participated by making a sign for the station.

Here are some scenes from the fire house.



Thanks to the room 132 kids for keeping us safe rom fires!

Wednesday 21 November 2012

Fire Station 132

The children have decided to turn our dramatic centre into a fire station! We made a list of the items we need to make our fire station complete!


Pretending the light from the projector is fire.

Tech Kids

Every week or so, we make a trip to our school's computer lab. It's always a highlight of the week!



While our focus in the Early Learning Program is on co-operative play and hands-on inquiry, it's also important for the new generation of students to be computer literate.

This year, we noticed an interesting trend....lots of kids who obviously were familiar with computers, but had no idea how to use a mouse! The trend towards touch screens is becoming obvious. Soon computer mice will be gone the way of cassette tapes and VHS players!


Here at school, we LOVE the website www.starfall.com. It is a free, non-commercial website that covers literacy, from letter recognition all the way to fluent reading.

Here are a few other sites and apps we recommend:

tvokids.com
sesamestreet.org
helpkidzlearn.com  (try for free, then a $16 subscription)


As for apps, Starfall has a series of paid apps available (or you can get the same content online for free). Helpkidzlearn also has some paid apps.

Letterland, our beloved phonics program, has some online options.

ABC Book (hardback)
The storybooks are available on the iTunes iBook store for about $7. Judging by the popularity of our Letterland storybook in our class, we think any of our students would LOVE having Letterland at home!

If you have any more apps or websites you use at home, please leave a comment below.