Growing seeds

Growing seeds

The idea for this activity sprouted from Saige’s inquiry one day.

She ate an apple and showed the children that the apple seeds were brown.

Will the apple seeds grow into an apple tree?

I showed the children a picture of a small seed planted in the ground.

What plant will this seed become?

Saige: “It would be a daisy flower.”

Dorothy: “It would become strawberries.”

Jayce: “It will be an apple tree.”

Lina: “Dandelion!”

Adrienne: “It would be flowers.”

Quintus: “It would grow to be an apple tree.”

We looked through the pictures of the life cycle of a fruit tree. We discussed what color and what size the seeds are. Lina replied that they are black seeds.

I prepared green beans and asked the children what the seeds need to grow. Adrienne replied that it needed water, and Saige said, the sun. We put the seed on a wet paper towel and into a zipper bag. Lina said she should keep the zipper bag open and Adrienne added that the green beans need air to breathe. So we left the zipper bags open. Then we decided to tape the zipper bags on the wall next to the window where the beans could get sunlight. The children will be watching it everyday to see when it will sprout.

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Saige ate an apple inside her lunch box and found the apple seed and

showed it to the children that the apple seed was brown.

Children want to know about many things around us, and when

we get to know new knowledge about it, we find that many questions arise.

I want to send encouragement about their imagination and the process of getting to know them.

How do telephones in the past and now differ?

How do telephones in the past and now differ?

Children are always curious and wanting to learn new things.
The Maple group children wanted to know how adults use cell phones and how they work.
Many questions were raised before our exploration. How do telephones now differ from the past?
Do they look the same? Are there cell phones in the past?

We looked at the rotary phone we have at Creative Minds.
I explained to the children that before push button phones were invented people used rotary dial phones.

The children compared the rotary dial phone with the different cell phones we have.

Aegon said: “It's too heavy.”

Ellen said: “This is bigger than that cell phone.”

 

They noticed many differences and came to the conclusion that we no longer
use the rotary phones because push button phones are lighter and easier to carry around.

Winter decoration

During our snowy week, the children prepared hats, gloves, winter jackets, and other winter gears to go to the playground everyday. Our winter gears come in different shapes and colors.

Aegon: When I wear a hat, the snow does not get onto my head and my skin does not peel off. (He was trying to explain not have a sunburn.)
Elly read a story( A three hat day) about a man wearing three hats. There are many kinds of hats in the story.

Ellen liked a striped hat in purple and a hat with a green feather in the story. Lina liked a hat with another kind of feather.
The children looked at pictures of other colorful hats and pointed to their favorite hats and said, "I like this. I want to have it.
Mikayla said, “I'm going to go to the ice cream store, wearing a hat with a house shape.”
Next, we made our own hats with various materials.

When it continued to snow the next day, Mikayla noticed that the trees will be cold but the leaves are still green. The children decided to decorate our hats with nature.
Gwen: Wow, I'll decorate with tree leaves.
We collected leaves and branches from the forest.

The children wore their hats immediately when they finished making them.
Ellen: I'm a princess in the forest.

It was lovely to see how the children connect to our forest and reflected it through the activities for group times. They were able to create their own forest version of the hat story we read.

More delicious and happier (Feb 6th)

More delicious and happier :)

Everyone tries to eat healthy every day. Maple group talked about how our appetite and emotions can be affected by the appearance of our food.

I showed the children plain cookies and they did not think it was very appetizing. They all preferred cookies with decorations.

Next, the children made their own pretend food with playdough and put various decorations on it.

On the second and third day, the Maple group baked cookies and decorated them! Each of them chose the shapes they liked and decorated the cookies with icing and sprinkles.

Ellen said she wanted to share the cookies with her mom and daddy.

Gwen said she felt happy and fun, and wanted to share with her mom.

Lina said she’s happy and wanted to share with her mom and brother.

Mikayla said when she decorated the cookies she was happy.

Emma said she made a duck shaped cookie because she really likes ducks.

The children had fun learning about different colours, shapes and design. And they were super proud of what they came up with.

How children want to decorate their space.

Where do we spend a long time during the day?

We thought the first place we wanted to decorate in the house

or our bedroom.

Each person talked about how they would like to decorate and

what they would decorate.

Elly: If you decorate your room, what color will you choose?

Will you have wallpaper? What shapes would it have?

With the exception of 2 children, most of Maple group wanted

to paint their wallpaper purple. And then they stamped wallpaper patterns

on wallpaper.

I supported the children to tell stories about their lives outside of Creative Minds.

I encouraged them to talk to our group about how they’ve decorated

their own room at home. I prepared small boxes for decorating houses and rooms,

and paper for wallpaper. We stamped and painted in various ways.

 When they finished, I asked them to show us their work.

Angelina wanted to decorate her house with photos, Ellen said

her’s needed a rainbow and a spider web, Gwen said a dress and a rainbow,

Emma said a flat slide, Kaitlyn said pink and a rainbow, Jayce said

a water picture, Lina said 4 slimes, Mikayla said some pictures and houses.

The children noticed how they decorated their own craft space and

thought they would like to put in their real home.

This activity helped them connect with one another, tell a story and

create their own wallpaper for decorating. It was nice to see

them make choices for their personal spaces and take care in making

the space enjoyable to be in.

decoration around us/ Jan 09,2019

Decoration around us  

There are many different decorations around us. I asked the children
 what they think decoration is and why they think so.

Elly: (pointing to)what is the decoration?

Gwen: That's a decoration. It's beautiful.

Angelina: That’s not a decoration. It's not like that.

To help the children understand that we have different perspectives,
I prepared pieces of tissue paper in different colors. I asked the children to pick a color and glue the colored pieces onto a circle drawn on a piece of white paper. When they finished,
I ask them to describe a feeling from the colors they chose.

Emma felt brown is tired. Gwen said purple feels sad but Ellen disagreed and said purple is happy.
For Kaitlyn, pink makes her happy and for Aegon, Mikayla, and Angelina it is the color blue.

The children noticed how they feel about a color might differ from someone else.
This activity has helped them learn a little more about each other and
the different/similar perspectives they have with colors.

Expressing Emotions with Sounds

Expressing Emotions with Sounds

The Cedar group have noticed that the sounds we hear around us can be soft or loud.
When the sounds were too loud, the children blocked their ears
with their hand and showed discontent on their face. They did not enjoy
the loud noise and it made them feel upset.

To see how we can express ourselves through sounds, the children experimented
with how drum beats make them feel. Sophia felt that a slow beating of a drum made
her feel sad but for Kaitlyn, it sounded angry. To record our findings,
the children each chose a happy, angry, or sad expression to stick on their chart each time
I played the drum. It was interesting as we looked back at the expressions they chose.
Aston posted only sad expressions on his chart and Dorothy posted only angry expressions.

The children loved the way the drum sounded that they all wanted to make
their own drums for next time!