Weekly Activities

Our summative project is almost complete and will be sent home next week.  All of the children have finished painting their rocks and some have finished gluing on eyes.  The children have put a lot of thought into the colours used and type of eyes for their rocks. The individuality of each child is evident in the rocks making each rock special and unique. The children have answered the following questions: - Tell me about friendship in your life: - Who are your friends and why? - Tell me a time when you gave friendship? - When did you receive friendship? Their responses will be sent home in a card along with their rocks.

We have been talking about all of the wonderful qualities our friends have.  Today, we talked about situations that arise in friendships that aren't always positive.  Using puppets, I acted out different scenarios that sometimes occur amongst friends such as friends not sharing, feeling left out, and a bossy friend. I asked the children how would they solve each of these problem. They brainstormed different ways to change the situation.  Here are the ideas the children had for friends who do not share: - Michael: go play with somewhere else - William: ask may I play? - Ryleigh: how many minutes do you need with the toy? - Tyreese: go somewhere else to play - Bela: ask a teacher for help.

The children were photographers for a day. Their task was to take pictures of their friends at Creative Minds.  After everyone had a turn, we upload the photos to the computer. Looking at the pictures brought smiles and laughter but most importantly pride to the children for both their photography and being honoured as a friend. After the children, each chose a friend to write a poem about.  The pictures of the children on the blog today were captured by each other.

We completed the board game "The Fire Group Race Game". The objective of the game is to learn about friendly and non friendly gestures.  If you land on a friendly  space, you move ahead a certain number of spaces.  On a non-friendly space, you move backwards.  The children practiced turn taking, counting, waiting patiently and conversing with one another when playing the game.  They also presented the game to the rest of the children and taught some how to play.

Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni is the story of best friends, Little Blue and Little Yellow. They love to be and play together. One day, so happy to see one another, they hug and both turn green. We used this story of friendship to learn about colour mixing.

Planning the board game. The children have identified friendly and not friendly actions. Friendly: - hugging - sharing - playing Not Friendly: - pushing - hitting - budging in line. Using the children's knowledge, we are creating a "Friendship Game".  The object of the game is to practice taking turns and to generate discussion about what means to give and receive friendship.  The children have made the playing board and begun to fill the squares with friendly/non-friendly actions. We will complete the game next week. Colouring the squares.

We have been building our conversation on the role friendship plays in our lives. The children all believe having friends is important to them for the following reasons: Friends are someone to: - give hugs to (Keira) - play with (Chloe) - run and play tag with and draw (William) - hug (Ryleigh) - do silly things with (Michael) - give presents to (Sofia) - share with (Tyreese) - help (Bela) I asked the children what do they do when their friend is sad, the unanimous answer was to give them a hug.  The story, My Friend is Sad , by Mo Willems is the starting point for our discussions on the giving and receiving of friendship.  Elephant Gerald is feeling blue. Piggie is determined to cheer him up.  In the end, all Gerald really wants is to spend time with Piggie. The children did a number of different activities to connect with the story and the emotions of happy and sad. Bela Micheal   Tyreese Ryleigh William