Grouptime events

We have now started a new unit on Decorations. "This decoration makes the school beautiful" - Billy When asked what they think is a decoration the children talked about things which are beautiful, colorful,  has pretty shapes and are used for special occasions.  They noticed the pumpkins carved into Jack-o-lanterns, Christmas lights people put out on their windows, the Christmas trees, and also the colourful street signs.    Billy: People clean their houses and put nice decorations so when their neighbors come it looks beautiful Michael: decorations are anything that is colourful.  Olivia: flowers are decorations Patrick: pictures on the wall are beautiful. 

Everyday we are surrounded with music, voices and sounds.  In this grouptime the children learned about recognizing the pitch (high/low), loudness and quality of sound by listening to various instruments and excerpts of classical music.  At first we played the high and low game where children called out things that are high up in the sky and things that are low down to to ground. We used hand gestures(pointed up for high and down for low) to show high and low.  Then we played each instrument and sorted them to what feels like a high or low pitch.  The children commented about how low pitch instruments sounded "scary" and made them want to stomp their feet and bang the table. On the other hand, they said high pitched instruments make them want to wiggle and shake their arms. We dramatized the story of Goldilocks and the 3 bears using instruments to show represent each characters in the story.  The children chose the drums for the Big bear voice, the Jingle Bel...

Twirling leaves, waving arms Kicking, balancing from log to log Reaching, grabbing branches high and low Swooping down to see what's below Pushing and dragging with such determination While gently touching worms, bugs, flowers and all sorts of creation Explore, discover, create Investigate how things deteriorate Oh how great it is to be free with this magical forest tree.  

In the beginning of the unit the children discovered that we can use our body parts like instruments.  Billy noticed that by tapping or slapping certain body parts we can make sounds.  We can make clicking and drumming sounds with our mouth and tongue. "Our hands look like cymbals" We played the song game "Sing, Oh sing" to include variety of ways we can make music with our body parts. "Sing, oh sing altogether Sing, oh sing altogether Sing, oh sing altogether Won't you be my darling." We replaced "sing" with sound action words: snap, stomp. pop, clap, slap. We also worked in partners to try creative ways of making sounds with our bodies. As we played together the children compared our actions to certain instruments they've tried before. Winston thought of our clapping hands like cymbals. Billy was slapping his tummy like the drums and our clicking tongues sounded like castanets.

dancing with scarves Dancing to Wagner's Longhegrin Artists are not only inspired visually by their surroundings.  One artist in particular was inspired by the sound/music he hears.  Wassily Kandinsky, was an artist known for his abstract pictures and colourful shapes.  He also was inspired by music like the operas, compositions of Wagner such as the Longhegrin and other classical pieces. For him music can inspire ones thoughts and evokes images in the listener's minds and emotions.  Certain sounds can also trigger different memories, ones which we associate these sounds to. His paintings show the unison of various colors, shapes and lines which may not go together.  He explained that the bold colors and sharp lines create a certain unity which may only be interpreted by the person observing his painting. Kandinsky's "Composition" piece the first abstract picrure ever painted We used Kandinsky's "Compositions" pieces to look at li...

Welcome to the Fire group! Our gathering chant is: Fire, fire burning bright.                                              Fire fire give us light! During the Formative week the children went for a listening walk and talked about the sounds they hear in their environment.  The children noticed that the sounds they heard in the streets is so much different from the sounds they heard in the forest trail.  The children tried to guess which animal was making sounds in the forest and some got interested in finding out what other animals might be in our forest and how they might sound like. Fire group We explored different instruments like the First Nations hand drum, triangle, rhythm sticks, tone bells, bongos and the toning box.  They enjoyed this so much and even moved along to the beat as they played.  The children observed the different sounds ea...

Central Idea: We express ourselves in many ways and this helps us connect with one another. Inquiry into: 1. How language, music, and visual arts help us connect and build connections with one another. 2. Sharing ideas and being good listeners help understanding 3. taking time to reflect helps us practice slowing down that we make connections with what we hear and see. Guide Questions: 1. What ways do we express our ideas? 2. What is it to be a good listener? 3. What practices can we put in place to slow down and think about our learning? We began exploring this unit by first finding out how much we understand the word "express". What does it mean to "Express ourselves"? We looked at various photos of people dancing, singing and performing. The children first thought that expressing means just doing these actions. After further conversation, they realized that it means to show or convert messages which will help us understand and connect with o...

Add caption Spray painting to get various shades of blue water In this group time the children learned about the different forms of water. We played a guessing game of which water features they hear from the sound machine.  We looked at pictures and talked about the different features between oceans, islands, waterfalls, rivers, and lakes. After listening to the different water sounds the children danced along the music using scarves. They moved their bodies like calm water and ocean waves. The children noticed that each body of water has a different shade of blue and some have other colours like murky brown of a pond.  Some children played with blue spray paint to get the ocean blue water and some mixed dirt with water to get the muddy river colour. Allye's pond and Nico's waterfall

papier mache globe The world is mostly made up of water The children wondered about where all the water is in the world and the differences between oceans and streams.   First we looked at maps and globes to check out how much water we have in our world. The children were surprised to see so much water and asked where all this water comes from.  The oceans hold about 96.5% of the world. Using measuring cups and buckets we demonstrated what this might look like and the children were amazed by how much water there is on our oceans and seas. 

Fieldtrip!! Hey, where did the water go? Why is there a big pipe with no water? How far will my rock go out in the sea? Water is everywhere and we can't get enough of it so we trekked our forest to see part of Musqueam creek and checked out water in the plants, puddles and even inside the pipes. We were surprised to see big, open pipes with no water inside. This triggered more questions wondering where the water went. There were some theories of water going back to the ocean, or perhaps the water has dried up and left the pipes all empty. We also went to Kitsilano beach to explore the vast sea. The sunny, windy day gave a different feeling of the ocean as big waves rolled by. This pond is so muddy! Relaxing on with the sea breeze

We are now working on the water unit and the children are full of ideas, comments and questions that it is best to have it laid out in a chart so we can easily keep track of our discussions.  Allye is very interested in finding out how people use water. Matthew would like to know more about the differences between different types of water. Nico want s to learn more about how gets into our tap Eva and Zoe seem to know a lot about the rain and water cycle.   What we know What we want to know What we think about How does sea water help sea animals? (Matthew) People like to play in the water (Allye) The rain comes from the sky then goes to the sea, oceans and the pool (Allye) Rain comes down then it goes on the mountains and the rivers and the sea (Zoe) Where is the all the water in the world? (Eva) Is the ocean and sea water the same? Where does tap water come from (Nico) I’m curious where sea water c...

Allye and Matthew noticed how friends are especially generous to one another. I thought what a great way to connect this idea to the friendship unit.  We read a book called Camille and the Sunflowers a story of friendship and generosity between Vincent Van Goh and a little boy named Camille. As we read the story, the children noticed Camille's kindness towards Van Goh especially when he was being teased at by other children.  We talked about how teasing might offend our feelings and how that sadness can impact our relationship with our friends.   For our Art activity the children made cards with flower prints to give to people friends have been generous and caring to them. Most of them thought about their family and the generosity they've experienced like giving hugs, sharing food and time with one another. 

In these grouptime activities the children explored the role of EMPATHY in our journey to generosity.  As we read the story, Smartest Giant in Town by J. Donaldson, we realized that being generous involves understanding what others might think and how feel.  We are more likely to be generous to people we know but this story shows that we can also be generous to anyone who may need our help or kindness.  When we empathy helps us understand and value the needs of others.  We also talked about showing appreciation to those who are generous to us like saying " Thank You" or giving hugs and smiles.  The children made thank you card and crown to  someone who shown them generosity. On the crown they wrote what they understand about generosity and who they are thankful for. 

assessment: how does generosity make us feel? When asked what they know about generosity the children talked about kindness, helping others and being nice. What does it mean to be nice and how can we be kind and helpful to others?  We read the story 3 Kind Mice by: V. Schre as our feature story for the word "kindness".  The children thought it would be a lot of fun to have a party just like in the story so together we made invitations and planned for cake and treats for our Generosity party.   The story behind the Generosity party They were so excited about inviting the other children to a party they planned themselves.  We made a yummy chocolate cake to share and goody bags to give the children at the end of the day.  The children in the Earth group noticed the gleaming faces of the children as we ate and laughed together.  Allye is mixing the batter Damon is mixing the butter and the sugar Matthew: We are having a generosity par...

A line is anything in an artwork in the distance between 2 points What is a line?  For the next 3 Friday Art days the children will be exploring LINES as an art element.  We will be using different tools, play games to create and explore different kinds of lines.   In this particular grouptime the children learned about lines which show direction: vertical, horizontal, diagonal, zigzag and curvy.  First, we looked around the room to find these lines and we discovered that they are everywhere; there are even lines on our bodies! We practiced writing/drawing these lines in the air and on paper using markers.  We even drew lines with our heads, our tongues and our bottoms.  How does it feel like to move through these lines? We played a song game called "We are going walking" where children walked on either a zig-zag or straight line and at the end they were to stop and do a yoga pose. They enjoyed this game so much and invited the chi...