Tuesday 26 March 2013

We learned about senses.

~Today's documentation about our visit from "Let's Talk Science!" was written by 
Owen, Patrick, Keegan, Liam, Ayden and Payton.~


We touched stuff, and smelled stuff, and we feeled stuff, we looked at things.

First we tried to guess what was in the bag. We used our senses.



It was a dog bone!

At the feeling centre, we touched stuff in a bag and tried to guess what was in the bag. 

"I felt the four feet....and the round ears!"

There was a worm, a frog, and a fish in the bags. It was easy to guess what was in the bag because the worm was squishy.

"It didnt't feel like that, or that or this!" (pointing at choices)

"It's not a frog because it didn't feel flat."

At the sound table, we heard the pencil hitting the table. We put wood against our ears and listened. And we put dirt and water against our ears. 
"I can't hear you through the soil."



"Blocks are easier to hear through."

We heard best through the wood and the worst through the dirt. We could hear through water too.


At the looking centre,we looked through bug eyes.

"You look like a flower!"

And we looked though eagle binoculars.
"I can see more with the eagle eyes."


We tried to look for frogs in the picture.



At the smelling centre, we smelled bottle with smells in them. Like lemon, candy, vanilla ice cream, candy canes, flowers, and vinegar chips. The vinegar didn't smell good.

"Ahhh it smells like perfume."
We learned that scientists use all their senses to observe. We also learned that animals like dogs use their senses to help find food.

~Special thanks to the hard working teacher candidates who 
volunteered their time to deliver this great program!~


Wednesday 20 March 2013

Aloha!

Our tropical day was lots of fun! 

The children explored the fruits and made predictions about what was inside. 

Dragonfruit:        "It smells like an onion! It's a dragon's egg." (Faith)
                          "It's for dragons to eat." (Keegan)
                          "It comes from a dragon's belly." (Patrick)
                          "It's from a cave where a dragon lives." (Ryan)
                          "A dragon laid it. Or there's an egg inside." (Ayden)


Mango (two kinds):     "This one is sour, that one's sweeter. I like the sour on my fingers." (Ayden)
                                   "The mangos are different colours. There's a bone inside!" (Emma)

 
Papaya:      "There's an elephant inside I think." (Mitchell)
                  "I think there's a bone in there." (Patrick)
                  "Maybe it has a big nut in there." (Aidan)

The pineapple is prickly. - Faith
Later in the afternoon, we had our ice cream party as a reward for being the kindergarten winners of the Literacy Race. Thank you to the parent council for providing and serving this awesome treat!








Hope you all had a great March Break!

Sunday 3 March 2013

The Sharing Song

All set for the show:


Click here for the video. This link should would just fine now!


Thanks to Sarika for her help figuring out Blogger's idiosyncrasies!

Saturday 2 March 2013

Wire in the Art Studio

Wire is an interesting artistic medium. It is flexible yet holds it's shape, comes in a variety of colours and gauges, and takes a certain amount of dexterity to manipulate. 

Using the copper wire harvested from the old blender (see our blender deconstruction here), and some steel wire the teachers provided, the children started exploring wire as an artistic medium.

"It's a bracelet." - Reid
 The children were intrigued when they learned that wire comes from the earth, and is indeed a piece of the earth. They learned the words to describe the brown and silver wire (copper and steel).

It takes a bit of practice for little hands to get the feel for wire. Owen persevered with his exploration for nearly 40 minutes.

Keegan made a necklace for his cat, modeled here by Riley the Bear.

Things got more interesting once the children learned ways to combine wire and attach pieces together. Can you tell in these pictures how it was done?

The children were introduced to various tools to help shape the wire. Wire is stubborn, and it needs a firm hand to tell it what to do.
 After a few days of explorations, the children were encouraged to make 3-D sculptures using beads and other found materials. To support our learning goal of sharing ideas, they drew pictures of their sculptures so the originals could be brought home.
 The children were guided to trace the lines of their creations and to carefully add details like the beads, buttons, and pop tabs. Some children added words to help communicate their thinking. We used only black markers in order to focus on the line, shape, and texture of the art.

"helicopter"


"sculpture"



"necklace (for Faith's mom)"

"necklace"


Note for teachers: We highly recommend "Language of Art: Inquiry-Based Studio Practices in Early Childhood Settings" by Ann Pelo. Available on Amazon.