Those Moments.....

When I was a little girl I was overjoyed when my Grandad showed me how you could write the word 'boy' on a paper and turn it into a picture of a boy. I remember I drew that all over my notebooks for school. I was pretty excited when I taught myself how to do the same with the word 'girl'. 

I'm sure there is an official term for this type of art. Whatever it is, as a preteen, I thought it was pretty 'awesome'.

Now when a four year old has drawn a number '2' you get pretty stoked and share in his accomplishment with joy and excitement. 

So when the said four year old tells you he drew a sailboat, it took a second look to see that the sailboat started out as the number '2', and morphed into a sailboat!!! 

Can you see the number '2'?

How about now?

How cool is that?

Love me Tender

After a child showed off her Peanut butter and banana sandwich one day, the children were curious, and started sharing how much they like this combination- whether they had had it or not.

It was during this discussion that I remembered a famous person that liked fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. I shared this funny fact with the children, and in turn introduced a little Rock and Roll to our music repertoire. And just like that these children have developed a minor obsession with Elvis Presley. So if you walk into our classroom and we're swiveling our hips while listening to Don't be Cruel, you'll understand.

It's funny what triggers an interest. Who knew peanut butter sandwiches would lead us to twisting our hips to Elvis Presley. What's next? A white sequined suit?

Theories of light

This week we have been exploring more with light and we brought a dinosaur out of 'extinction'. We've been creating some fantastic designs on the wall through the magic of and overheard projector.

It's been funny hearing each parent walk in the room and state, "Wow, I haven't seen one of those in years!" To the children it's new and exciting and worthy of a little bit of curiosity.

In addition to making some fantastic pictures on the wall.....

 

 

..... the children have been coming up with theories. For example: One child noticed the light went up onto the ceiling. Thus initiating him to hypothesize that it must be because there is lots of things on the projector. Part of his hypothesis was that if he added more, then it would light up the whole ceiling.

To test out his hypothesis he and his friends started loading up the projector with more and more. 

This lead to a new hypothesis, that the more they loaded on the projector the less light there was. So squeals of delight ensued when the children worked hard to cover EVERY inch of light.

Compassion

A number of weeks ago the children were chatting with one another, and the topic of people with no houses came up. Over the summer, the children have traveled to a number of holiday spots, and a few of them saw some people that were sleeping outside a store. This is not the first time this has been talked about amongst the children, but it is the first time, it seemed that all the children had a fairly good understanding of what being homeless meant, at least to three and four year olds.

So i'm going to assume this means that the children have talked about this with their families.

This was the first time as well that some of the children expressed some emotion in regards to their situation. 

There were no tears, but there was definitely a emotion of empathy, it was heartwarming.

So I attempted to approach the situation delicately. After a discussion of how it made us feel, I asked the children if there was something we could do to help. It's never to early to encourage a philanthropic attitude.

The instant I asked the question, I realized that I would need to pull back the reigns on some of their ideas. I mean, I don't think that our mommies and daddies would be very happy to be having a stranger living in their spare bedroom, i'll leave that to the families!

In the end, we came up with a baby step. We will be making a donation to the local food bank through our fund raiser with Mabel's Labels. If you would like to help us out, our donation website is : http://www.perfectharmony.mabelslabels.com/

We will also be hosting a blanket drive until late November. So if you are close by and have some blankets to donate, we'd appreciate your donation.

And a Dash of Humour...

Lately the children have taken to telling jokes. It's been pretty hilarious! 

As soon as one child tells a joke the rest get right in there with a little 'I've got a good one.'

The jokes are pretty clever. They mostly go something like this, 

"Why did the tree cross the road?"

"To get a banana."

The children then in turn lay down on the ground and wave their legs in the air and laugh hysterically.

Humour is a lovely corner stone for a healthy childhood. 

Even though the jokes don't make sense to an adult, hearing hysterical laughter is so satisfying, and on the other side the 'ROFL' is just so worthwhile. It's only when we grow older that we understand that humour has rules (kinda takes the fun out of it all). When a child tells me one of these nonsensical jokes I immediately get the urge to google jokes to share my own, because i'm an adult and those rules are like a infection that take the fun out of humour. 

Oh to be a child and not feel the need to tell jokes that require thought.

 Because a tree crossing the road to get a banana is pretty funny. 

A Word from Afar....

.... well maybe not that far, but the children have taken to writing letters to one another. It's really sweet.

Perhaps these are what initiated the activity:

Or maybe it's these fun little gift boxes that the children have been placing momentos in and 'gifting' to their friends.

Or maybe it's a combination of both:

All we can say is that our writing centre is a hubbub of activity these days. 

Repurposing Days

We're starting a new tradition! It's part of an intention to encourage the children to look at the value of 'things'. It's called 'Repurposing Days'.
It is our hope that this day increases the children's abilities to look 'outside the box' and recognize that 'things' can be just as much fun as the commercial products.
So starting September 4th instead of a traditional show and tell day, the children are encouraged to look around them to find an object such as a spatula, pinecone, or a rock, and bring it to share. It is during our morning meeting we will take a look at the item and brainstorm ways to include this item in our play.
We'll keep you up to date on the success of our Repurposing Days.

Now for a little visual insight into our daily goings on:

These buildings are popping up everywhere!

Oil Pastels are even more exciting when they come outside. 

Carbon Paper! Who knew how cool it is?

A small portion of our music fence

A tower worthy of the step stool

Our writing centre seems to be the hubub of activity these days.

Getting a little haircut

Measuring Worms