The Special Guests

On Monday, I announced that Mrs. G, our Educational Assistant, would be bringing in some special guests the following day to visit us. The children had fun trying to guess who or what the visitors would be. Were they aliens? Robots? People? We have been working on asking questions, so we took the opportunity to write out some questions to ask the visitors once they arrived:

The next morning, the special guests arrived in a small covered container. 

Mrs. G uncovered the container to reveal ... Hermit Crabs! Five of them!

The children stared in awe and asked Mrs. G question after question. 

Fortunately for us, the crabs were able to stay with us for two entire days. The children observed and recorded what they saw, what they thought, and what they wondered.

Posting on the easel what they see, think, and wonder.

The children made the hermit crabs many little drawings and cards to entertain them in their little tank.

Later, we shared our observations, asked Mrs. G the our new questions, and got to watch the hermit crabs crawl around on the carpet. Those who wanted to, got to touch or hold the crabs with a little help from the adults. 

It was a great chance to practice observing, questioning, writing, listening, and speaking without the kids not even realizing they were working!

Thank you, Mrs. G!

Investigating Snow and Ice

This winter, our class spent quite a bit of time investigating snow and ice.

Our first heavy snowfall had everyone extremely excited. No one wanted to wait for recess, so we brought the snow inside in bins. The children touched it, felt it melt in their hands, coloured it with markers, watched it melt throughout the day into a grey puddle, and recorded what they noticed. 

We read book after book about winter, snow, and snowflakes. Here's a few that we read:

We learned that snow crystals usually have six arms or sides. After looking closely at several pictures of magnified snow crystals, and noticing their shapes and symmetry, we tried drawing our own:

Notice the symmetry of AV's heart snowflakes

KL's snow crystal shows the tiny bit of dirt, pollen, or ash that we learned the snow crystal forms around.

BW working hard

KB's winter scene

NH worked really hard on his snow crystal, intently drawing for over 30 minutes.

He was proud of the finished product.

Throughout the season, we sang snowflake songs, played the glockenspiels to make them sound like falling snow, and danced like snow blowing in the wind. 

After weeks of warm weather, one March afternoon brought a snow storm to our town. While most of the school grumbled about the return to cold, our class was excited. It meant we could finally try to catch the snowflakes and examine them closely with our magnifying glasses: something we'd read about in a book but didn't have a chance to try since the snow melted so quickly this year. We made snowflake catchers out of black construction paper and raced outside to get started. Sometimes the best lessons are completely spontaneous and child driven!

We also had the chance to examine ice.

One week, I brought in several hundred ice cubes in many different colours. I set up a table with salt, water, glitter, pouring cups and let the kids discover. They watched the ice slide and melt, noticed the colours mixing, observed what happened when they added salt, tried to build structures etc..

Here are some of the things the children noticed and wondered:

"It is colourful," LP

"Salt made them come apart," RL

"Salt made them come apart," RL

"They are melting," "How did the water get out?" AG

I wonder ... why the ice is getting small. KW

I wonder... why ice floats. KB

Another day, students arrived to find many of the small toys frozen in a tub of ice. They had to figure out how to get them out by chipping, digging, and melting.

Just one more way to learn science concepts through play!

KD's Sweet Shop

An important area of our kindergarten classroom is the sociodramatic play area, set up as a "house centre" in the beginning of the year. Why take up so much valuable classroom space with a play house, I've been asked. Kindergarten classroom spaces are getting smaller, so there's pressure to store centres off to the side. But since sociodramatic play is so integral to cognitive development and learning that is developmentally appropriate for 4, 5, and 6 year olds, I've chosen to make this area front and centre of our room. This centre allows children to role play, practice social skills, learn about the behaviour of others, develop their imaginaion and creativity, and so on. It is always a popular choice with just about every child in our room.

Here's a few snapshots of the students "playing house" in the fall: 

But as fall turned to winter, it was clear we weren't taking the best care of the house centre, with dolls, dress-up clothes, and play food more often than not ending up on the floor and behind the furniture instead of in their proper places.

So over the Christmas holiday, I cleared out most of toys in the house centre and stored them away, save for some writing materials:

The kids loved the centre anyways and used their imaginations to fill in all the blanks: making imaginary food, for example.

But we also discussed taking better care of the toys so that we could set them back up. 

I also planted the idea; instead of setting things up exactly the way they were before, what about transforming the house into something else?

Imaginations went to work as we brainstormed all the things we could transform our play area into. A pet shop, thought RL. A science lab, suggested KW. FM thought of a restaurant. Several girls wanted a castle, with KB insisting on an ice palace. Others thought a store would be nice. DD really wanted a super hero's lair. 

Over several days we discussed the ideas, argued our cases, and voted for our favourite. The restaurant won the vote. Next, we discussed what sort of restaurant would we make. 

Each child made a plan of what the restaurant should look like, what food it would sell, and what we would need to make it:

by MJ

by DD

by AV

by LP

by KB

Pizza was an early favourite, but after examining pictures of all the choices, it was desserts that won out.

Then, we brainstormed names for our restaurant and again held a vote:

KD's Sweet Shop it was!

We started the transformation.

We made a sign (KB and SA made the letters with many more helping to decorate):

We wrote menus:

DD cutting out pictures for his menu

TY shows where the menus are kept.

TY adding her menu to the stack.

We made chef hats:

And we added labels so that we would know exactly where everything goes when cleaning up:

"Cash Register"

"Menus" and "Dishes"

When everything was ready to go, we held a grand opening of "KD's Sweet Shop" restaurant. Complete with a ribbon cutting!

Ready to cut the ribbon and open the restaurant.

SA cutting the ribbon

Time to play!

Chef AG