We Decorate: Finding The Perfect Tree

Using the story "Night Tree" we created a checklist of things we wanted 

to do that are the same in the story. "Don't forget the hot chocolate!" 

After gathering the popcorn strings, birdseed pinecones, and apples 

and bread crumbs the children got ready for outside. 

Rielle put our actions to song "Hi Ho the derry oh we'll find the perfect tree!" 

The children hung the decorations with care

and then we laid out the blanket and drank hot chocolate.

Just like in the story the children chose songs to sing as we admired the tree.

ABC's and Old MacDonald were their choices.

Decorating the tree

There were lots of speculation as to when the animals would come and 

we agreed to come back on Tuesday and Wednesday to see if any had been eaten.

Just as we were leaving our tree the children noticed a two squirrels way up in the canopy

travelling along the branches towards our tree!

"Good bye squirrels, enjoy our decorations!"

Pinecone decoration

Drinking hot chocolate

We Decorate: Decorations That Help Continued

 

 

"A Night Tree" by Eve Bunting continues to inspire the children 

to make edible decorations for the animals in the forest. 

They pressed suet and seeds into pine cones that will hang from the tree.

On Monday we will go into the forest and find "our special tree" 

and hang the decorations they made. 

Just like the family in the book we will bring hot chocolate and a blanket and admire our tree.

The children made a paper version of a scene in the story by decorating their own tree

We Decorate: Decorations That Help

"Night Tree" by Eve Bunting launched today's activities. 

The children understand that decorations are used to make things beautiful, but can they be helpful? 

In the story the Night Tree a family goes to the forest every year and decorates a tree with edible decorations for the animals to eat.

The children discussed the animals that live in our forest. I let them know that it can be difficult for animals to find food in the winter because things aren't growing. Alan commented on how there are no more blackberries and we have to wait until next year. I asked the children if they'd like to make edible decorations for the animals in our forest and I received a resounding "YES!" 

Waiting for the kernels to pop!
Hot air popcorn makers are such a thrill! 

The children carefully made popcorn strings and nibbled while they worked.
We will continue this project tomorrow.

Working on hand-eye coordination

Such concentration!

We Decorate: Decorations Tell Stories

 Decorations Tell Stories

The story "Selina and the Bear Claw Quilt"by Barbara Smucker is a story a little girl who delights in watching her grandmother sew pieces of fabric together to make quilts. One day her family must move far away, grandmother feels she's too old to travel and stays behind but first sews Selina a quilt to take with her. Before she leaves, curled up on her grandmothers knee, Selina hears the story behind where each piece of fabric came from. 

Many years ago some children from Creative Minds helped to sew a quilt, gosh, it must have been about 16 years ago as my son, who's now almost 20, was one of the sewers! 

The children were intrigued and eager to take turns finding similar patterns 

in fabric and identifying the shapes of fabric used.

Using tangrams everyone had an opportunity to use problem solving skills to cover a puzzle. This is similar to a quilter have to problem solve as he/she thinks of how the pieces of fabric will fit together to create the design 

they want.

We Decorate: Are Decorations Important?

The children know that decorations can be found on people and things.

"Are decorations important?"

We took a poll and discovered that everyone in the Fire Group thinks decorations are important. Rielle prompted the next question when she added "It makes stuff beautiful!" 

I asked everyone to explain their thinking "Why are decorations important?"

"My mom wants to see my pictures" Sophie

"My mom wants to see decorations" Jayla

"My mom likes my pictures." Tyreese

Byron and Rylan didn't know why they think decorations are important.

"What would the world be like if there were no decorations?" 

Rielle offered "It won't be beautiful. People would look and say let's decorate it 

but there would be no decorations!"

The story "The Big Orange Splot" by Daniel Pinkwater illustrates what life would be like with no decorations. When a seagull accidentally drops a blotch of orange paint on his house it prompts him to decorate his house to reflect his dreams. The children created their own "Street of Dreams" using watercolour to decorate their house.

We Decorate: Can we use decorations?

Today we continued with the children's learning map and explored the idea of decorations we use.

We made Keeping Boxes . . . "What's a keeping box?" 

A keeping box is a place you can use to keep things that are special to you.

The children gave their ideas of possible special things to keep inside:

toys, animals, special toys, candy, leaves, rocks, Lightning McQueen

The children painted and decorated with enthusiasm as 

they discussed where they would keep this special decoration.

"Beside my bed" Esme and Sophie

"On the shelf" Oliver

"Under my bed" Rylan

"In my treehouse in my room" Rielle

"In my closet" Tyreese

We Decorate: Just to Look At!

Child's Question: Can we touch decorations?

Today I mapped the children's learning:

During our exploration of birthday decorations the children noticed that some 

decorations are just to look at (balloons) and others were decorated items that we use (goody bags).

Today we explored this further . . . 

We read "Room of Wonders" by Jayme Stone, a lovely story of a rat who collects things he finds on his walks and displays them on floor to ceiling shelves in his home.

The children know that there are some decorations we just look at, we don't touch, 

and they named a few such decorations at at their homes: 

"The scarecrow and pumpkin from Halloween, don't touch it!" Alan

"My glass picture." Jayla

"The picture of a flower on the wall"Sophie

"The teacups, can't touch them." Byron

The children were given the task of creating special table centre pieces
that will be used to decorate two lunch tables.

We researched examples and the children noticed things like candles, flowers, water in vases, and branches were used. I gave them an assortment of items and everyone took a turn to create a centre piece. Then the children worked in two groups to cooperatively create two beautiful centre pieces to be displayed at the lunch table.

An announcement was made to the other children
explaining that these decoration are only for looking at!

We Decorate: Mouse's Birthday!

The children have made connections between decorations and celebrations. 

Today we explored a celebration they know very well - birthdays!

I webbed the children knowledge:

"What do you know about birthdays?"

We went over their ideas and I asked "Is this a decoration?" 

I drew a box around the decorations. The children determined that some things were decorations (balloons and flowers) and some things were decorated (cake, goody bags).

I introduced "my friend" Mouse, it's his birthday and he'd like to celebrate.

The children quickly set to work decorating the drama room with things they determined were decorations: balloons, fabric and flowers.

They decorated a cake with coloured icing and sprinkles.

The candles were lit and everyone sang Happy Birthday for Mouse!

Happy Birthday Mouse!

We Decorate: Decorations and Celebrations

Lines of Inquiry:

Exploring a variety of decorations from various cultures (form)

Building on the children's prior knowledge prior knowledge:

Decorations can be used to decorate out home on holidays

Sharing pictures of decorations used in various celebrations led to discussion about what items were used for decoration and stories of decorations used at home for celebrations. 

I reminded the children that last week they noticed that Button Blankets used in FIrst Nations celebrations had specific colours. As they looked at the pictures today I asked them if they noticed any specific colours in these celebrations.

The two pictures that prompted the most discussion was Halloween and Hanukkah. 

They noticed lots of orange and black for Halloween and blue and white for Hanukkah.

"What is Hanukkah" asked Rielle

Luckily Sophie, who celebrates Hanukkah, brought in a book that described the celebration and the decorations used. 

The children explored orange and black paint - colours used in Halloween decorations.

We Decorate: What is a Decoration?

Can a button be a decoration?

Lines of Inquiry:

Exploring a variety of decorations from various cultures (form)

Similarities and differences in ideas about what a decoration is (perspective)

A child asked this question and led us into today's investigation. 

First we looked at some fasteners we have on our clothes; zippers, snaps, and buttons. The children practiced the mechanics of these on special frames. 

Some West Coast First Nation communities use buttons to decorate special button blankets worn during ceremonies.  We researched this together through image searches, a video and a story and the children worked on a paper version of a crest that might be used in the centre of a button blanket.

Choosing a button

Commitment!

We emptied a bag of buttons and marveled at the many colours, shapes and sizes. Sorting through my grandma's button collection was a favourite pastime when I was a child. A button blanket might use as many as 300 buttons, today the children had to chose just one for their crest - a challenging task!
The children were committed to covering the white space in red crayon. "Why are we using only red?" wondered Esme. We referred to the images we searched and noticed that only the colours red, black, and white were used. "That's just how they're made!" concluded Rielle. In the beginning Alan thought it would be too difficult to cover all the white space but he stuck with it and felt very pleased by his commitment. 

Responsibility

There was a whole bag of buttons to clean up. Esme, Sophie and Oliver showed responsibility in offering to clean them up!

New Unit: We Decorate Our World!

Who We Are

Central Idea: People use decoration and this helps us learn about each other

Lines of Inquiry:

Exploring a variety of decorations from various cultures (form)

Decorations tell human stories and help us know one another (connection)

Similarities and differences in ideas about what a decoration is (perspective)

Gathering children's prior knowledge helps teachers plan future lessons.

With Halloween just gone by the children had lots to say about decorations 

they had at their homes and in their yard.

Prior knowledge:

Decorations can be used to decorate out home on holidays.

I asked the children if they had decorations on their clothes, 

there was some discussion about what was a decoration and what wasn't and 

so I turned this into a question:

Are buttons and zippers decorations?

Eric Carle's Hermit the Crab is a story that led the children to think about comparing things that are plain and things that are decorated. Then they decorated their own Hermit the crab shell.

Sound Travels: Music Webs

The children have some definite ideas about the music they'll compose!

What feelings and ideas do you want to express?

What instruments and sounds will you use?

Tyreese:
Sad music: The babies are crying because the fire engine put them in jail. The babies are in big trouble because they banged all the trumpets down!
Cello, guitar, crying, sirens

Oliver:
Happy music: I'm ice skating with all my friends. I keep trying to skate backwards but I keep falling down. It's a little tricky for me.
Bass drum, tuba

Rielle:
Sad music: A giant came and stomped on the bumblebees. Giants love stomping on bumblebees. Stomp! Stomp! The bumblebees were hurt but they got up.
Trumpet, saxophone, stomping sounds

Alan:
Loud music: There's trouble! Trouble with bad guys, they push everything down and we have to go to China
Cymbals, guitar

Sophie:
Mad music: The mermaids are swimming to the city. They swam so far away and it made the dolphin mad!
Bongo drums, harps

Rylan:
Brave music: Drivers are in cars driving to Africa to play. But there's soldiers there, bad soldiers. The drivers get out and the soldiers fight them. Then "poof" they were gone!
Oboe, xylophone, fighting sounds, poof sound

Esme:
Happy song: There's flowers growing in my garden. I pick some flowers for my grandma and give them to her to keep. Grandma's happy!
Harp, glockenspiel

Sound Travels: Feel the Beat!

In preparation for the summative activity at the end of this unit 

the children have been working on several concepts: 

music has a form, music can express and evoke feelings, music has a beat

 Many of the children have already decided what feeling they want to express in their music.
"But how will we do it?" asked Esme
I introduced the children to Garage Band and we listened to a few instruments.
We will use this program to compose their music.

Today's activities provided an opportunity to understand that music has a beat. 

Next week I will connect this to what they've learned by exploring 

that beat tempo can also express feelings and ideas. 

There's a beat in our body . . . can you guess? Our hearts! 

We listened to a sound clip of a hear beat and 
notice how the tempo stays the same.

We explored this further using a drum. 

One at a time the children took turns trying to match my beat as I varied the tempo. 

I observed that the children tended to bang the drum harder as they increased their tempo which could end up with a damaged drum! They practiced a fast tempo with softer taps on the drum.

Sound Travels: Sounds and Feelings

Certain sounds in our environment evoke feelings within us. 

Identifying facial expressions

To help the children become more aware of this they first identified feelings from facial expressions.

I introduced the idea that some sounds can cause us to feel certain feelings and we listened 

to different sounds and talked about our reactions. The children were accepting of the fact 

that they had different perspectives and it was okay to feel differently. 

Reflecting on how we feel

We listened to an ambulance siren, an dog barking, a witches laugh, howling wind.

Music can have the same effect!

We listened to Bach's Organ Toccata and it didn't take long for most of the 

children to express the music made them feel scared. 

It's not surprising that this piece of music is often in music scores for horror movies!

This music makes me feel:

Roy - happy          Bela - scared

Esme - happy          Jason - scared

Oliver - happy        Trystan - mad

Rylan - mad          Tyreese - scared

Rielle - sad        Alexis - happy

Sophie - happy