Grouptime events

This activity was all about encouraging independence and confidence. One thing the children can do on their own is prepare a simple breakfast. In this grouptime children made 2 breakfast meals: cereal and Jack`s Pancakes.  They were asked to compare which one was easiest and more fun to make and they realized that even though making pancakes took a lot longer, they felt preparing it was much more exciting than pouring cereal out of the box. The children showed a lot of care and independence as they gathered the glass bowls and spoons, scooped the cereal and poured the milk all on their own.   During the pancake making, the children practiced cooperation and their thinking skills to follow the recipe and take turns with the ingredients. Francine pouring the flour Connor cooking the pancake Mixing the pancake dough Matthew carefully cracking the egg children helping Paxton pour the milk Kesler pouring cereal 

Mila: Pointing proudly to the service learning she accomplished. As part of my assessment I asked the children to tell me how they felt about helping and why. I wrote their responses on their ``I am a helper`` badge which they wore the whole day. Francine and Paxton proudly presented their badges to the rest of the children during story time and explained the importance of helping others. The intent is to encourage other children feel confident about helping and show creative ways of making the centre a beautiful, safe space to be in. Paxton: It makes me happy to help others because they help me, too ( sorry, no photo) I feel happy when I help because I can do it all by myself!

Children played an important role in the domestic tasks in the olden days. They are expected to carry out big responsibilities like tending the animals, gathering firewood, cooking, and store food for wintertime. In grouptime we watched a short video  showing how families worked together in the past. As we watched the children were amazed to see what children from long ago were "allowed" to do and how much they helped at home.  We talked about why it's important to help and we made a list of helpful things they do at home and at Creative Minds. Francine: I help set the table Matthew: I clean up my toys. Paxton: I make my own breakfast. I know how to make a croissant sandwich. Mila: I think I need to help more. Kathryn: Mila, why do you feel you need to help more. Mila: I think it will make my mom happy. Kathryn: Why do you think we should help here at Creative Minds? Mila: So no one will trip over and get hurt. Francine: It's nice to help. From this exch...

Connor working on the chart: how did you get to school? Francine chose to write her name all by herself In this grouptime we began exploring how it might be like living in the olden days. I told the children a story about my mom's childhood in the early 50s where there weren't much cars and electricity in her town. Through a simple drawing I showed the children how my mom had to walk up and down the hill for about an hour (about the same time as music and grouptime combined) to get to school. Connor was in disbelief and was very concerned about safety. He said: " It's not safe to walk because a car can hit you".  I think we shall revisit this comment and talk about road/pedestrian safety and how people especially in the olden days when roads weren't paved, no crosswalk etc. had to be extra careful have be very aware of their surroundings. We then made a chart to show how we all got to school and learned that we all drove to school and none of us wa...

Earth group with Kathryn on MWF Connor quietly swayed along Sweet Damon carefully rocked the baby Matthew gently swaying as Kessler happily looks on Book  we read to support our conversation Francine chose to sway the baby gently In our first grouptime I asked the children to think about how they were like when they were babies.  My purpose was to see how well the children understand the idea of CHANGE, which is one of the Key concepts of our unit. They demonstrated how babies cry, crawl, need hugs and only drink milk. We then made a list of what they can do as 3/4 year old child: run, go on very long walks, draw pictures. Matthew said: I used to have my green pillow when I was little but I grew. Francine: I still drink milk but I'm not a baby. I eat food. During our conversation the children realized that like babies, they still cry for their moms and need hugs only they are bigger, independent and more capable. To further ...

Tint is adding white to colours to make it lighter Shade is adding black to make colours darker "The yellow disappears! It's lighter" "Hey I made beige! mixing colours is fun "This looks like the forest" Earlier on in the unit the children suggested that colours can be light or dark but they don't know how that happens.  In these activities the children explored Tint and Shade by mixing colours.  Tint is done by adding some white to the colour making it appear lighter where as shade is when we add black to the colour making it appear darker. As we experimented with our colours the children discovered other colours they knew about like Beige, Navy Blue, Sky Blue, Pink,a and Gray.  They also were interested in naming their own colour or asked me to give them the "proper" name for it like Maroon, Olive green and Tan. We are going to apply what we learned about Tint and Shade to our summative assessment project which ...

Preparing for plant dying experiment Jeffrey's carrot juice spit. investigating the veggies/fruits Dying yarn with natural food dye  Extracted vegetable dye The children wondered about how the colours get into our clothes.  Orin said we buy clothes at the store and they colour it there. I shared my experience with plant dye when I went on a hiking trip in Peru.  There I saw and experienced how the locals would use natural plants and even dried insects to dye fabric.  I showed them pictures of my trip and they were amazed by the colourful fabric and most of all the llamas and alpacas where they get they get their wool.  We also watched a video from National Geographic to show how this process of dying is done in that region. It would have been fun to gather wild plants from our forest like Oregon grapes and but I was told we are not actually allowed to do that.  So I went to the store and got a few vegetables and fruits to...