Chinese New Year

Many of the students in room 109 will celebrate the Chinese New Year on January 31st this year.  We have started an inquiry into what this celebration means and how different parts of China celebrate this day.

To begin our inquiry we brainstormed things the children know about this day and the traditions associated with it. Many of the students talked about the special lanterns hung everywhere. We did a little research to find that these lanterns have several mythical stories behind there meaning.

Lanterns, Fans, and a Dragon.

Another popular icon of the Chinese New Year is the Dragon Dance. Upon further examining the Chinese have 2 dances - one for the dragon where several people help to make the dragon dance using poles to move the dragon to the music, and the second is the Lion Dance where 2 people are the lion (inside the head) and they create a very artistic and acrobatic dance. We decided to create our own version of the dragon and lion to put on our January tree. The students take pride in showing this to their parents and grandparents at the end of the day during pick up time.

The Lion's head is complete. Love all the textures. 

Many of the students associate the red fans with Chinese New Year. After some research the teachers realized that the fans aren't really associated with New Year's, however the children love making them so we included them as part of our decorations.

We have talked about the different kinds of foods found at the Chinese New Year table. This will surely lead to dumpling making next week.

As many celebrations vary throughout the different parts of China, over the next week we will try to find out the exact locations our students come from. Stay tuned for more discoveries.

The Gingerbread Girl

Last year many of our kiddos experienced the Gingerbread Man running away from our students after we baked him.

Again this year, we read several of the "Gingerbread" character stories and chanted the various refrain during the rereading of each book.

As we read, some of our Butterfly kiddos questioned whether this year's cookie would also run away to the library as in the past year. This sparked several stories amoung  the kiddos during playtime.

On the Wednesday before the holiday break, I brought in all the ingredients needed to make a gingerbread cookie. The kiddos were intrigued by the various ingredients and several of the measuring tools needed to create our cookie mixture.

Ingredients to make a Gingerbread Cookie.

Mixing the butter, sugar, eggs.

Molasses.

We had lots of oral talk around words like: dough, mixing, stirring, teaspoon and tablespoon, cup and 1/2 cup. Many of the kiddos were really intrigued by the molasses. (Honey from black bees????)

First we washed our hands
and talked about the ingredients.

Adding the eggs.

 Together we took turns adding ingredients, and mixing the dough. Finally it was time to shape the gingerbread cookie. After a brief conversation, it was decided that we should make a Gingerbread Girl as the Man ran away last year and maybe if we made a Girl she wouldn't run.

Mixing the flour to make dough.

Using the teaspoon to add the
baking powder.

Adding the candy decorations.

She tasted good!

In she went, and to our surprise, she too ran away. Many of the kiddos, thought to check out the library where the Man had run last year. No such luck - she wasn't there. We searched and searched the school and asked several teachers to no avail. Then upon entering the office to talk to the Principal, low and behold there she was reading the book about the Gingerbread Girl.

We took her back to our classroom and each had a piece to taste. YUM! She was delicious.

A week of shapes

For the weeks leading up to the holiday break we began to learn the names and different characteristics for some basic shapes. The kiddos had a great time working through all our Math Bins and exploring during "math tub time".

Here is a highlight of some of their learning.

Playing a shape board game.

Shapes on the light table.

Making pictures using pattern blocks.

How to build with magnetic shapes?

Shape Bingo! Our favourite.

Experimenting on the light table.

Looking Closely Watercolour Paintings

This week we saw a lot of interest in painting with watercolours. After going on our weekly walk last Friday some of our kiddos wanted to paint the trees they saw. We revisited the the story Picture A Tree by Barbara Reid to look closely at trees during the different seasons.

We set up a painting table for the kiddos to experiment. First we set up some ground rules for this centre. If the kiddos wanted to create a beautiful watercolour they needed to produce a plan or draft version of what they were going to paint. They needed to make sure they had the details and colours they thought they might use.

Work in Progress completed over several days

For the following kiddos we added a new step to begin with completing the background for their picture. This is a great exercise in patience as they needed to wait for the background to dry prior to drawing with fine markers the picture they would end up painting. For some kiddos they wanted to see the snow sparkle so we found some sparkles and added it with a white glue water mixture to make their pictures shine.

Christmas Tree, Sun, Flower. Happy.

I made a snow tree. It makes me feel happy.

As final step we asked the kiddos what they had created and how it made them feel.

Looking Closely I-Movie

This past his week while on our outdoor walk, we decided to really look closely at things we noticed. Here's our movie!

This was sparked by the previous reading of a book in the Looking Closely series.

Leading up to our walk, a few of our kiddos took the ideas from this book to look closely at a picture and draw what they saw. I love how this kiddo took her painting then redrew the picture using pencils at a table and added some words.

Here's another project of looking closely to draw a squirrel that we saw outside. A group of kiddos were practicing how to draw a squirrel then add detail.

Keep posted next week to see where this project leads us.

Pirate and Mapping inquiry

This week we enjoyed having our caterpillar parents join us for the morning to participate and observe their children at "play". Some of the activities they witnessed seeing their kiddos do involved evading, writing, and a ton of oral language.

The story we read that sparked an interest.

For the past couple of weeks our kiddos have been interested in pirates and map making. After reading the story "Pirate Pete" the excitement around the carpet grew immediately. Without hesitation we encouraged several kiddos to make their own treasure maps. 

Several kiddos making their own treasure maps.

Ms Blundell put together a treasure map of our own that would lead the kiddos around the school in search of a final tasty treasure. The children begin their search with a quick lesson on reading a map and having to decode a clue. As all the kiddos wanted to participate Ms. Blundell took them in groups of five.  

Learning to read the map.

Finding the Start!

Taking the map with us so we won't get lost.

All the places we visited along the way.

This week we saw several groups of kiddos engaged at the carpet building their own pirate ship. With pirate hats on, some groups built big ships to allow all students a chance to jump aboard, while one day even Hop joined in on the sailing trip.  On another day, we saw a group build a pirate ship with a proper captains seat and gang plank for the "bad guys" to walk down. 

Pirate Ship with Gang Plank

Just the beginning of another ship.

Even Hop jumped aboard this day!

A captain steering the ship.

While the focus has been mostly on making treasure maps, a handful of kiddos delved into other maps with me this week. We looked at some examples of maps for the Toronto Zoo and tried to compare them to our kid made tea sure maps. We quickly noticed that both have pictures, lines/roads to follow, and a legend/words. 

Making our own maps.

If you have any maps at home that you could donate to our inquiry we would be very grateful if you could send them in next week. These could be maps of places you've been such as the zoo, Casa Loma, the subway, or a city map.

Butterfly Interviews Complete

I would like to thank all the Butterfly students and parents for coming in to share in your child's learning thus far in the school year. It was so much fun for me to see the kiddos take ownership in their document binders and show their parents all the great learning we have done so far.

Learning and talking about shadows.
"Can you step on your own shadow head?"

Using the concept of student led conferences, our SKs we able to show their parents all the learning centres in the classroom and show off their own personal good work.

I'm thankful that more parents will be viewing our blog and twitter pages. It is a great place to begin conversations with your child about the things going on at school.

Please feel free to leave us comments or questions either on the blog or directly related to a twitter picture. We love reading and responding to questions and comments. This form of communication keeps our kids in the tech savvy world they live in and at the same time opens the parent-school communication lines.