Weekly Activities

Giving Tree art What is generosity? We read "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein to gain further understanding of what generosity is.  A small boy develops a friendship with a tree.  The Giving Tree tells the story of this relationship as the boy grows into a man. After reading the story, the children made a web as to indicate the ways tree was generous to the boy. How was the tree generous?  Esme : The tree let the boy play with her leaves. Sofia : The tree gave her branches to the boy to build a house.  I would be generous to the tree, I would hug the tree. Alfie :  The tree gave the boy apples. Simone : The tree let the boy swing on her branches.  He didn't say thank you.  I would. Bela : The tree let the boy sit down on it. Julia: The tree let the boy climb her trunk. Simone asked if the children could write his/her own Giving Tree book.  All of the children thought it was a great idea and they began the books t...

 We continued with discovering our talents and sharing them.   Each child chose what they wanted to share with others and we made them into generosity coupons. Sofia proudly stated that she is really good at making telescopes and wanted to help someone else learn how.  Her coupon offers one lesson in telescope making. Teaching Alfie on the art of telescope making. Alfie showed us his incredible tower building skills.  He is offering one lesson in tower building. Esme demonstrated her dancing abilities to us. She is very good at twirling and would like to offer one dance lesson. Bela feels he is good at cleaning.  He is offering his cleaning skills. I noticed he did a wonderful job organizing the magnet tiles. Julia wants to offer an art lesson. She feels very confident in her use of a paintbrush.  I have requested no Jackson Pollack lessons! Simone has chosen to offer a chair cleaning ...

  Pink for sad Brown for excited Line of Inquiry: Colours are sometimes associated with feelings. Black for bad (not happy) Orange for sad We began by talking about how we were feeling today.  The emotions ranged from excited all the way to sad.  We discussed different ways we can express ourselves using words and actions. I asked if the children could use a colour to represent how they were feeling.  Before the children chose a colour, we read Dr. Seuss' "My Many Coloured Days."  To help the children connect with the colours and emotions from the book, the children acted out the story.  I then placed the different colours described in the book for the children to choose from.  As each child chose a colour, I asked why the colour represented his/her feeling.  The children were not able to express further why the colour was chosen. I want to explore this further to help the children make connections as to how colours ...

The children made a request to mix the primary colours into homemade play dough. Some of the children found it frustrating as it was difficult to knead the dough to thoroughly mix the the colours. Rocco noted that when the red was added to the dough it looked pink. Alfie asked "how do you make pink?" Rocco replied "mix white and red together." Simone responded "No, white and blue make pink." The group decided that they should find out which statement was true. The group discovered mixing white and red makes pink. This discovery prompted the children to see if they could make any other colours. Julia was delighted when she was able to light yellow and share her discovery with the group. How do you make pink? I made light yellow! Experimenting with primary colours and white The results

Clay Project This Friday, the children carried on creating animals or things they like with clay. With a short review with Mary, the children could choose to use their planning pictures from last time or to make something new. Some children followed their previous planning pictures. They carefully chose the shapes they would need for the animals. Having practiced the skills of using and manipulating clay, the children enjoyed creating animals or objects with clay. Putting shapes together. I added some shrimp on my pizza! Carefully matching the shapes. Francine was rolling a long clay piece for the dragonfly's body. I used the wet towel when my clay was too dry.

Making orange Making green Mixing primary colours This week we continued building our knowledge of primary colours.  We sorted items into two groups: primary colours and non-primary colours. Rocco stated that "yellow and red make orange."  We tested Rocco's statement by mixing the two colours  and concluded he was correct.  This led us to mix the other primary colours. The children predicted what would happen to the colours prior to mixing. The children are quite knowledgeable as they predicted correctly each time.   Here is the link to a Sesame Street video we watched (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu44JRTIxSQ) and another to an online colour game we played.  http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/preschool/colors/colorgame.htm Mixing primary colours Coffee filter art Sorting items by colour Mixing using coloured water and coffee filters.

On Friday, the children started planning what animals or things they want to make for the clay project next week. Let's draw the animals we want to make. focusing on drawing. In small groups, the children brainstormed what shapes were needed to create animals. With the teachers' and peers' help, children picked the wooden shapes  needed and placed them on a piece of paper to form the picture. Children were thinking carefully when they decided on where to place and to glue the shapes. Step by step, children formed the blueprints for their clay project next week. From knowing the shapes to combining shapes into pictures, children will use the clay to create a three-dimension project next week.