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. 

Provocations

When I set up the environment before the children arrive I try to envision where the play will go. So last week I hung a hanging weigh scale from the roof for a science activity. I left it hanging and placed a variety of items that could hang from it (with a little imagination and innovation). My adult brain couldn't quite see where the play would go, so I kept my eye on that area all day to see what the children came up with. 

For much of the day the children generally ignored the scale, to most they just pushed it out of the way as if it was more of a nuisance. I was tempted to take it down, but i'm glad I didn't. 

It started with one spiky block being hooked on the scale, so I watched to see where it went from there. 

It was tricky getting them to stick to each other while suspended from mid air, but with a little perseverance, delicate fingers and a LOT of patience something was coming together!

Do you see what it was? It was a Periscope!!!

Of course once the prototype was made, it was time to move on to perfect it. So a set of eye holes were attached. 

This was definitely a lesson in patience and to not give up on provocations and to just give it time allow the magic to happen.

Mischievous Little Fella'

I love provoking the children's minds and imaginations in new and unexpected ways!

Today was no exception: 

 We've been discussing the traditions and folk lore surrounding St. Patrick's Day for the last week and a bit, so it was all set up. The children were well aware of the trickery that Leprechauns are known to get involved in, and this is how the children found the centre when the arrived this morning.

Who made this MESS?!??!???

A Clue!

A pot of gold was left behind, perhaps the suspected leprechaun was so preoccupied with making his mess that he forgot his pot of gold.

The pot of gold then became the bait to catch the little guy (only now it had a cover on it, so he couldn't steal any gold.)

Another trap was created. The tape was put on the floor sticky side up... much like a mouse trap. Seriously, the children never cease to amaze me with their connections between home and daycare.

The children were all too eager to clean up the mess... hmmm interesting.

I love how the children get really excited when this mop comes out. 

Another trap in the making. This made eating our snacks interesting.

This trap was effective in capturing children and teachers, but not so effective in catching leprechauns.

When we returned from a trip to the local play ground we spotted a tiny bit of green poking out of the trap. What could it be?

We captured the tricky little guy!!! Yes!!! 

TEAM= Together We Achieve More!

I have been a bit slack! But this amazing thing happened last week, and I was fortunate enough to capture it all on camera. It warms my heart. 

It all started with an excited child tossing his Toque in the air. But the problem was... it LANDED ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE FENCE!!! So we were on the case to rescue the wayward hat. The first suggestion was to just go out the gate and into the neighbour's yard. But my mischievous brain got the better of me and I decided to challenge the children by encouraging them to find a solution on this side of the fence!

The Problem

 The first attempt. One of our digging shovels... but it was too short!

You might not know this, but on the other side of that fence was an 'adult' digging shovel. So I could easily reach over a grab it for them, but I encouraged them to solve the problem... a problem within a problem, one might say! So team work ensued and the children worked together to push our tinkering table closer to the fence.

 It was a bit wobbly, but teamwork AGAIN... the children held the table still while one brave child climbed on top.

 The shovel is retrieved!

Oooh, i'm really mischievous!! The children still had trouble reaching the shovel over the fence (being vertically challenged once again reared it's ugly head!), so the idea was put forward by one of the children that our ride on car tipped on it's side might make up the difference needed.

Did it work?

It's over the fence!!

Getting closer!!!

YES!!!!

Celebrations all around. Hooray for working together! I will point out that this toque was QUITE far from the fence, so it was pretty spectacular.

Art provocation for tomorrow. I wonder what the children will do with all this. My thought is weaving, but i'm interested to see what they come up with.

A close up of the ribbon laid out on the table... a perfect canvass for weaving, but we'll have to wait and see!

I'm quite excited to share this photo with the children tomorrow. This is what our backyard sky looked like after all the children had left for the day. It was beautiful!!

Old Man Winter is Just Not Ready to Leave

Over the weekend we experienced some INTENSE windstorms, and the bits and pieces in our backyard got 'involuntarily relocated'. So today we found our water-tables overturned which added to an interesting discovery. You see, with those windstorms came every sort of weather imaginable... rain, snow, hail, and even sun, and it's that rain that got trapped in the neat crevices the underside of our water-tables, that caught our attention.

Over the course of last night that rain froze and made some rather interesting patterns of ice. 

I was overly excited about this discovery of these patterns, and so were the children... in a much different sense. When we made the discovery I wondered what exciting questions the children would conjure up. My brain was reeling with visions of ice sculptures, science projects... etc, etc, etc. But our adult minds tend to over think everything. Of course the children had other things in mind.

Before I could even blink the pieces were smashed to smithereens, and the pieces were then collected into buckets and carted away. Of course, part of the thrill of discovering ice is breaking it! Once again, the children remind me that not everything is a project, but rather an opportunity for FUN!!!

A Shadow That Never Leaves

Around 3:30pm every afternoon we are blessed with the powerful sun streaming through the window. We love the sun, and love to soak it up! BUT, it's all a bit bittersweet. It likes to shine directly in all our eyes!!! Of course we are happy to see that Mr. Sun, but we can't appreciate it too much when we can't see much of anything. So a solution needed to be found!

We came across some canvass curtains on the weekend, and we gave them a go. They served their purpose, but we were excited when they turned into a bit of a game!

As soon as those curtains were up we noticed a few neat shadows. It became quite a fun game to find out what was making the interesting shadows. Who knew that hanging simple curtains laid the foundation to a fun little game!