When I Grow Up, I Want To Be A...

To be fair, I wanted to be a Fire Truck from ages 3-6. Happy Tuesday.

The Adults Have To Model

I have had these shapes on our shelf since September. They are rarely used. Why? 

a) Are they boring? 

b) Do the kids not know the endless possibilities available to them? 

I reckon B. So I began playing, then one came over. "Can I build with you?". Then another child came...and another...

Sometimes the students just need to see what is possible. 

We Are NOT Running A Counterfeit Scheme

Just exploring over here. 

Whoops, Wrong City Councillor

The local city Councillor is:

​Cllr. Iafrate Phone: 905-832-2281 ext. 8344

Email: marilyn.iafrate@vaughan.ca

Everything Is Something...

...and this is most certainly a flower. (Children lying out of picture as stem and leaves).  

Organizing As One Voice

"Slides are fun. This is sad."

Summer is approaching and the Sliders want to slide. Please feel free to contact your city councillor (with your child) to ask when the slide at the park will be fixed. Strength in numbers. 

Regional Councillor Gino Rosati

gino.rosati@vaughan.ca

905-832-2281 ext. 8441

With The Sharks

A few weeks ago, we went on an underwater expedition using Google Expedition and some Virtual Reality goggles. We went underwater. 

"Why are people walking with the sharks?". 

There are books for that. It may have been 3 weeks later, but that boy's question needs to be honored. So we began reading about the sport that is Scuba Diving. 

"How does oxygen go into there?"

 I'm sure there's a book for that too...

"Can I take this home?" "Nope, we need to see what we can use it for first, then you can take it home."

This is how a student finds her voice. By allowing her ideas to be accepted and built on. Let's see where this "working art" goes today. 

Drowning Soil Update

"The seeds are floating."

"The seeds moved around."

"They are bigger!"

"Ewwwww!"

As we continue to get rain this week, and our friends east of us in Quebec deal with flooding, the impact of "drowning the soil" begins to have real life implications. 

 

Drowning Lima Beans...and planting a Mango tree.

"The seeds moved when we drowned them!"

"They disappear."

"eww."

As for the mangos, the kids enjoy them and so we will learn why they can't grow in our school. 

MMMmmmm Mangos

Today, I had trouble accepting that my expectations were high. I mean to ask students to weigh Taste, Smell, Sight, and Feel and rank 5 different mangos when I think about it, makes me laugh. I thought I would be able to sit back with a clipboard and write down students' quotes but quickly realized that some needed assistance moving around the round table, accessing the slippery fruit in a healthy way, and managing turn taking. Some threw their voting chips into a bucket without trying all of the mangos, so the vote could very well be inaccurate. But since this is Kindergarten, we used the opportunity to graph our vote and am happy to announce that the Haden mango (from Florida) was declared best mango (first photo). My recommendation is to try an unripened Haden. Tart and less of a mess.

But here's the thing with today that I (we) could stand to remember. We need to manage our expectations. Things rarely go the way we had it planned and it's the ability to deal with or recover from these moments that builds resiliency. At 37, your children are helping me practice this daily. Today, after we graphed the mangos, students began to conduct surveys throughout the class. That was their self-directed follow up activity that I could have NEVER planned for. It came out of what appeared to be nowhere, but if we believe that everything is something, then we can trust that our kids are going to access our developmental curriculum naturally, sometimes randomly, and when they are ready. All we have to do is provide the mangos. :)

Mangos

A few days ago, the students were asking about a fruit I had, later I'd find out it's an "Amm" in Urdu. They wanted to try it, and they did. Majority agreed, they were delicious so I went and bought 5 types from various places in the world. Today we created a criteria of what made a good mango:

• smell
• texture/feel (in hands and mouth)
• coloring
• taste

Tomorrow, we rate these areas from 1-5 and determine which is the CHAMPION MANGO. 

Soil vs. Dirt vs. Mud

"Add water" to make mud. 

So we did.

"Ewwww, it's so gross."

"It feels cold."

"Mud makes you dirty."

"We drowned the soil." *

*As the adult, this one stands out as a quote we can use to explore natural/built environments and our impact on it. 

Soil Has Air?

Yup.

Wanted: Empty Paper Towel Rolls

Hi all,
please send in your empty paper towel rolls for the next few weeks. No toilet paper rolls please. :)

I Need To Teach These Kids To Bake...and make espressos.

I am pretty excited at how the cafe naturally grw out of the car wash, while the physical space has stayed the same. I'm very excited at how the students are re-purposing LOTS of different materials in their play. I'm especially excited that this Spark is student generated and that this natural opportunity to use drama and role play to foster empathy (meeting curriculum goals) WILL happen AND often cannot be planned for.

Build It To Break It

I'd like to highlight this photo because I feel it screams "well being" for our students. To spend the time carefully setting up dominoes for the joy of knocking them over. A healthy activity that promotes a healthy mindset, one that recognizes things aren't permanent, aren't precious, and that there is pleasure in the process and not just the end product. 

March 10th from 9:15-9:20am

Everywhere I turn, students are engaged in learning. Its up to us to recognize it, put a name it it, and use that instance as an opportunity to teach more. 

How Do You See 10?

We all see 10 in different ways at different times. I'm especially interested in those pizza looking slices. Seriously though, not only are the students constructing and deconstructing the number 10, they are experiencing me that we can get to the same place different ways. With their thinking, there is not a "right" or "wrong". There are multiple views and each has their merits. 

Using Familiar Resources

This student is playing letter/sound bingo on the computer and using an ABC book to help find that lower case g. 

"g...g...gate....G!"

Flipping Lids

What do you do to calm down when you flip your lid?

• bath
• sleep
• eat
• roll on the ground
• play

These kids know what they like. As adults, let's use that information to guide them from co-regulation to self-regulation.