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!

When there is a big fire!!

when there is a big fire..!!!

"Let's make a fire house!" What color is fire? Have you ever seen a fire?

We went to the fireplace and observed the fire directly. What colors can you see?

Miguel: Red

Jamison: yellow

Sophia: Orange

With cardboards, paint and tissue, the group decided to make a fire house.

Miguel: Mix red and yellow to orange.

Sophia: I think it's going to be really hot!

     

In the end, we made a house with roaring fires and had a discussion.

Elly: There’s a big fire in the house. Who is going to go put out the fire?

Nolan: Firefighters. fire trucks

I explained to the children that firefighters help the people in our community when there is a fire or an emergency.

How do fire fighters put out fire? We will find out next time.

Cedar group

Where do things come from around us?

The children from Cedar showed that they love learning from each other.
I asked the children to imagine living alone with nothing and
no one else around them. It was hard for them because we are surrounded
with neighbours, people, stores, and many other things.
This started our inquiry into who and what is in our community.

Jayce:  I came to school in my mommy’s car.

Sophia:  My grandma took me in my car.

Aston said, “I saw the green light when my mom drove
the car in the morning.”

I explained that one way for people to get around in our community
is with different transportations. We played a game, pretending to be
cars and traffic lights.

I asked the children on Monday, “How was your weekend?”
and “Did anyone do anything, go anywhere, or saw anything?”

Ryan said, “I went to the beach. I saw the sea.
My mom bought some fruits; apples, bananas, grapes.”

I asked Ryan where his mom bought the fruits and it generated our group’s conversation of how different jobs in the community are needed for us to buy fruits from a grocery store.

Ryan:  My mom bought fruits in a store.

Sophia:  We can buy fruit in grocery stores.

Elly:  Where do grocery stores get their their fruits?

Sophia:  From farms!

Elly:  Who harvest the fruits on the farms?

Jamieson:  Farmers.

Elly: And how can the farmers send their fruits to the grocery stores?

Aston: They can have a truck.

Elly: And who drives the truck?

Kaitlyn: The truck driver.

After talking about how different things end up in the grocery stores, the children
thoughtfully concluded that truck drivers are very important because almost
all the things need a truck driver to deliver to their destinations.