Room 3 - You & Me!


Barbier / Hwang - JK/SK

"Good work has a snowball effect, it keeps leading to more good work."
- Richa Chadha

Learning Moment Found
It is pretty exciting that there is still some remaining snow, so off to the Learning Garden we go! We had a side learning opportunity present itself ... a dead mouse! What do you think happened? What do you think it means? What should be done with it? What more can we learn from this? So many questions and thoughts and sharing and learning happening...🐭

Taking Aim and Taking Turns
The snow is sticky! The snow is sticky! What can we do to play with this is a fun and exciting way, without anyone's body being in the way? We broke into small groups and accepted a challenge: collect some sticky snow in a crate to bring to the (melted) kindergarten yard together! So, we did, then we worked with our team to make snowballs and a throwing line with our target being the wooden fence. We all had.a.blast! Snow safety and fun can happen in Outdoor Ed! 

"Maple Syrup: a delicious reminder of the beauty and richness of nature."
- unknown

Marvels of the Maple
This year at Wilkinson, we decided to celebrate this special time of year (sometimes referred to as the Maple Moon or Sugar Moon) by tapping two maples! What better way to learn about this amazing natural occurrence then to participate ourselves right here at school?!

It's Maple Syrup Time (Dance Edition) 🎶
This class spent two weeks connecting with our maples! We enjoyed an Indigenous legend about why maple trees have sap instead of syrup; learned how the sap is only at this time of year and acts as food for the buds in the late winter; how it is a 40:1 ratio for sap:syrup; and how boiling away water is the way to make syrup out of sap - you don't add anything! We got to check out what sap looked and tasted like compared to syrup too! We also danced to some music (Move It Move It) to flow like the sap that was movin' it through the maples and then danced our joy out around the Learning Garden and around the maple trees where the taps were to a great song called "It's Maple Syrup Time" that you can listen to here.  I tweeted about our maple syrup learning here and here too. It really is such a special time that provides a great learning opportunity!🍁 

"It's not what we do for children, but what they are taught they can do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings."
- Ann Landers

Independent Play and Taking Care of our Space
We went to the Learning Garden with some garbage picker sticks to try out for anyone who was interested, then went to a whole new space to explore together - the balance beams! Everything they did was independent. No helping them up, or down - no pressure to do anything. The pride and sense of accomplishment was amazing. This is the goal, independence, choosing your own challenge, and supporting one another. It was fun and full of growth. Plus, space that we play in was tidied up and taken care of. ❤️

"Creativity is the art of creating nothing into a joyful something!"
- Vince Gowmon

Imagination and Innovation for the Win!
Witnessing the growth and development of creativity and collaboration with these Kinder Superstars is inspiring. When we head to the OPAL yard, these kiddos get to making something out of what starts out as nothing. They build together, they play together, the put everything away together and the best part is that there are some very helpful souls in this class supporting each other while they do it! Sometimes they play as a big group, sometimes they naturally gravitate into smaller groups based on their interests that day. By truly allowing them the space to move and innovate, their imaginations take over and what they create is fun!

"A creative mess is better than idle tidiness."
- Michael J. Fox

Wet ...but also wonderful!
It started off innocently. It was too muddy in the OPAL yard and at the balance beams, so I took them to the Kindie yard for some Outdoor Education time. Admittedly, there was a puddle. A giant, but shallow, puddle. I thought nothing of it, but a crew of kiddos wondered about a lot as they walked through it...(I promise, throwing things in and splashing others was not encouraged). It was asked - could this big puddle be two puddles? The rest just happened. These kiddos worked together with a join mission and created a bridge. Many kids engaged, all kids welcomed. It was amazing. They weren't too wet either, I swear. After I left, the play continued and I hear it was, um, extra splashy! Sorry for the mess, but the growth and development was worth it. Check out this tweet here if you are able - it includes a time lapse of what they did and captures their innovation better than the photos can!

Let your heart emerge, as all the wild things do, with the return of the light... HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE! 

Winter: A Solstice Story
This story is a sweet celebration of the the Winter Solstice. A group of animal friends gather in a quiet forest to celebrate the longest night of the year, each bringing something to share in decorating a beautiful tree and sharing the light of the season. 

Wilkinson's Winter Solstice Tree
After learning about what solstice is and how we were heading into the day with the longest amount of darkness,we even took a moment to check out our SUPER tall shadows! Then, we took inspiration from the Kelsey E. Gross book we read and decided to honour and acknowledge this amazing pattern of nature by creating gifts of hope for a mulberry tree in the Learning Garden that we dubbed "The Solistice Tree". Using only natural objects found in the Learning Garden and without causing any harm to the plants, students got creative! A number of classes contributed and if you happened past the Learning Garden on the Solstice, you would have been treated to flickering tea lights and nature decorations. You can see my tweet about it here

"The greatest invention in the world is the mind of a child."
- Thomas Edison

OPAL & S.I.F
The space at the front of the school yard is referred to as "The OPAL yard".
OPAL = Outdoor Play And Learning. 

It's a great space offering open, free, loose parts for students to take charge of following their interests and learning. Kids can be active in this  environment that supports creative expression and provides endless opportunity to create and challenge themselves. Play is the way to learn all of the things they need to know that aren't taught like  cooperation, imagination, initiative, collaboration, resilience, and risk-taking. 

The only rule is to be SIF
Safe with our words, hands, land.
Inclusive of others.
Fun - lots of it!

We used our bodies to spell OPAL! ☝🏽☝🏻☝🏿

Free Play and Lots of Learning Outside!
This class is growing and learning in a play-based social context. They innovate, create, collaborate, and are working to be flexible in their thinking while they do it. They are given the space and freedom to follow their interests and wonderings which results in new ideas, insightful thought sharing, and jovial problem solving. I do tweet about time in the OPAL yard, feel free to check it out  here

"I found I could say things with colours and shapes that I couldn't say any other way."
- Georgia O'Keefe

Story: The OK Book is a clever book with a fun play on words as "OK" is turned on its side, upside down, and right side up to show that being OK can actually be really great! Don't know what OK will be when they grow up, maybe they'll be really excellent at something some day, but OK sure is having fun figuring it out!

Colourful Scarf Play that Really Was OK!
We really LOVE the story Ms. Kathleen read - the pictures are super fun. We even acted some of them out and joined in the song Ms. Kathleen made up too! Ask your child to sing (with the actions): I'm OK! You're OK! We're all O-K!

Then we took our OK skills to the field with our colourful scarves. We were OK pancake flippers, catchers, kite flyers, and all sorts of hilarious things! 

"How can anyone play outside with all this rain?!"
- Piggie in "Are You Ready to Play Outside?" by Mo Willems

Story: Are You Ready to Play Outside? is a great story starring Gerald (elephant) and Piggie. They are excited to play outside (run, skip, jump) then it starts to rain. Piggie is not happy. Gerald offers shelter with his ear until they notice that worms make the most of the rain and get an idea to make the most of the rain too! When it stops raining, and disappoitment surfaces again - Gerald has a plan. Elephants do make the best friends... 

Rainy Play
We braved the elements - who can shy away from play with a little bit of rain? There was music and dancing .... then a lot of rain. Like, a lot - a lot. So, we headed inside, shook ourselves off the best we could (even tried to do it dog style from our feet to our legs to our backs then our heads - ha!), got into partners and decided who would act out Piggie and who would be Gerald. We put on a great show while Ms. Kathleen read this fun story. The best part had to be when it started raining in the book and they all paused and giggles started. There's SO MUCH FUN to be had outside, rain or shine - but there are times, the rainy fun happens inside!

"Tell me a fact and I'll learn. Tell me the truth and I'll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever."
- North American Indigenous Proverb

The Year the Roses Died
This story is from a book about Anishinaabe Botanical Teachings called  "Plants have so Much to Give Us, All We have to do is Ask" by Mary Siisip Geniusz. We even heard Anishinaabemowin words for different animals including:
- waawaashkeshiwag (deer), bineshiinyag (little birds),  aamoog (bees),  memengwaag (butterflies), waabooz (rabbit), makwa (black bear) and more...
This story shares the Anishinaabe explanation for why roses have thorns (and why rabbits look the way they do)! 

Learning, Moving, Listening, Creating
The story is worth retelling, ask you child what they remember! Plus, the lessons in the story are many: a caution against blame, only take what you need, be gentle with your hands, remember to keep things in balance, and many more. 

We read this story twice! After the first time, Ms. Kathleen sent us in search of the wild roses growing in the Learning Garden and without flowers, we had to search for the thorns! We also found rose hips and learned all about this wild rose plant growing here! Then went in search of other nature findings.

The second time, we used our bodies to add to the story because this story has no pictures! We also played a game where we moved around the Learning Garden with our bodies like the different animals we met in the story.

"Don't worry, tree. I've got your leaf. I'll fix you."
- Fletcher from "Fox and the Falling Leaves" by Julia Rawlinson

Story: Fox and the Falling Leaves is a great story about Fletcher the Fox and his worries about the leaves falling from his favourite tree. He is concerned about nature and about his tree during the changing of the seasons. He tries to catch the leaves that the wind blows off, stop animals from taking the fallen leaves, tries to put the leaves back, but ends up learning  that the tree is okay! It encompasses empathy, wonder, and joy.

Leaf Play
We played and played and played with leaves, just like Fletcher the Fox - even on Halloween! We enjoyed Fletcher learning that 'autumn' isn't an illness! We know the trees that loose their leaves are doing good things for the soil and for animals! We crinkled leaves, we tossed and caught leaves, we made 'leaf kebabs', and we tried to put leaves back on trees knowing they wouldn't stay on! Then, we got to play our favourite game again where Ms. Kathleen, er ...um, I mean "Ms. Fox" wants to eat the class, er... um, I mean "the squirrels"! The best way to stay safe is to stay behind and FREEZE when she turns around! We went in search of the homes ('drey') that squirrels make with leaves and found some! We also noticed a bird nest ! So much more to see when the leaves aren't all on the trees...

"To leave the world better than you found it, sometimes you have to clean up other people's trash." - Bill Nye

Litter Pickers
We had some free play time in the kindie yard and Ms. Kathleen brought out these neat gadgets that she let us use! They were super helpful for working on our eye-hand coordination, spotting litter, moving our bodies safely, and making our hands super strong all while making our kindie space cleaner! We didn't have to do it, but we sure enjoyed it. Ms. Kathleen needs more of them since there were so many helpers! 🍁

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers" - L.M Montgomery

Story: Full of Fall explores the changes trees undergo during the fall. We see amazing photos as the leaves begin to change from greed to red, yellow, orange, and a mixture of all the colours, to the shedding of the leaves as winter approaches. 

Fabulous Fall
We just love all of the beautiful colours! We ran all around the field in search of the most beautiful leaves! We even made our very own 'leaf rainbow'! Another day, we gathered up leaves and used chalk to make fall chalk art to liven up the pavement between our classroom and the kindie yard! 🍁

"In some Native languages, the term for plants translates to 'those who take care of us'." - Robin Wall Kimmerer

Story: The First Blade of Sweetgrass is an 'Own Voice' Indigenous picture book story about Musquon who learns to distinguish sweetgrass from other grasses when going with her Grandmother for the first time to harvest sweetgrass for basket making. She learns that her ancestors have done this for centuries and she's careful to leave the first blade she sees for future generations.

Breathing it all in
We all listened to the stories, moved our bodies like sweetgrass dancing in the breeze that 'let go' with just a light pull when it was harvest time. We learned to be careful to leave the first blade of sweetgrass. We smelled braided sweetgrass from the Learning Garden because this is such a sweet grass! We are learning so many new things! We even found the new cranberry bushes that were recently planted - we are going to watch them grow at Wilkinson as we grow up over the years here too!

"Art takes nature as its model." - Aristotle

Sunchoke
Looking around the Learning Garden we noticed that the flowers in the photo had changed - in their place what looked like dead plants! To our surprise, we were able to harvest it's tuber! It was pretty exciting...
Link here for some more info:
link

Artistic Knowledge and Natural Beauty!
Since we have become better acquainted with the Learning Garden plants, we decided we wanted a creative way to show what we know through some nature art we made! We made use of the beautiful colours in the Learning Garden to be creative. Some made art with the colours from the plants we've met; some made a representation of the plants to teach with; others did a blend of both or something entirely of their own creation! What they all had in common is how lovely they are! I tweeted about it this Learning Garden creativity on "X" here

"Nature is not just a place to visit. It is home." - Gary Snyder

Story: Shi-shi-etko is a story about a young girl who leaves for residential school in 4 days and takes us on her journey as she counts the days down. Shi-shi-etko means she loves to play in the water .In the story, we see how she connects with her family who share valuable teachings with her and how she treasures the beauty of her world which she gathers bits of to remember while she is gone away. The illustrations let us know that it is the fall and we relate to the beauty around her while we look around our own school yard. I tweeted about it on "X" here

Learning Garden Plants
We were inspired by how Shi-shi-etko wanted to know the plants that were in her familiar space. Some visits we found colours that match our clothes and Ms. Kathleen gave out boards with a photo on it and we set out to find them in Wilkinson's Learning Garden! Like Shi-shi-etko, we also wanted to know: are these plants used for medicine? Can they be food? We also learned some interesting facts about the plants here in the Learning Garden. Over a few visits, we did all sorts of things including making a reference card of some of the plants we know for our classroom! Ms. Barbier and Ms. Hwang added it to the classroom science centre for continued observations even! Ask your child, they just might impress you with their plant knowledge!

"It is in the still silence of nature where one will find true bliss." - unknown

Story
A little shrew had wonderful news - he wanted to tell the whole world, but it was too noisy! No one could hear him because they were busy making noise! This story is a beautiful plea for peace in a way that reminds us that we can make a difference by being present. Maybe, just maybe, if everyone, for just a moment, counted to three and listened, we would hear him share how to have peace on earth. Shhhh!

Creating Our Peace in the Learning Garden
This book is perfect for us budding nature lovers! We took some time to really look at the Learning Garden. Being the great guests that we are, we said thank you for visiting this place and were sure to treat it well: leave nothing behind, take nothing with us, be gentle, and curious! Along the way we sniffed flowers, found a cicada, and lounged beneath the leafy canopy!