How Can Be Generous?

 After reviewing ways we can be generous the two that made the biggest impression 

on the children was sharing our talents and recycling 

as a way to be generous to people in the future by taking care of our earth now. 

What are your talents?

Alfie thought his talent was making crowns but after getting started he realized that he's good at decorating crowns and not making them. Simone said her talent was making paper houses and she shared her talent with us by giving us detailed how-to instructions. Sofia wanted make a paper house so she followed Simone's instructions!

Thanks for sharing your talent!

Generosity Journals: the children recorded their acts of generosity

Simone recorded her act of generosity of sharing her talent. 

Sofia decided she would recycle her containers at lunch this week.

Alfie wanted to show generosity by sharing his sea weed at lunch today

Sharing sea weed at lunch

Simone asked me "What's your talent Wendy?" and I have to be honest I was stumped and it made me wonder if we take time to recognize what we're good at. I decided that one of my talents is making cookies and I will share this talent with the kids tomorrow at group time!

New Unit: We Are Generous Beings

Central Idea:

Being generous can help us connect with one another

Generous, it's not a word the children hear often yet it's such a big part 

of how we all interact with each other. 

A pre-assessment reveals some of the children's prior knowledge:

What is generosity?

"Being friendly" - Esme

"Helping people" - Alfie

"Feeding a cat is generous" - Sofia

An Australian 8 year old girl named Penny has made several blogs on her understanding of the world, we watched her blog on generosity. Penny's ideas of what generosity is . . .

• sharing
• giving to other people
• sharing talents and time
• thinking about what others need
• praising people
• recycling is being generous to people in the future

The children discussed these ideas and we'll explore them in upcoming group times. I presented them each with a Generosity Journal which will become a regular part of group time. It will be an opportunity to tell the others of a time they were generous and to draw a picture of it.

In the beginning as they develop their awareness of their generous acts I will take pictures throughout the day  when I see someone doing something generous. You can help generate ideas too if your see you child showing generosity at home - just send me a quick description by email. 

Wearing Colour

Lines of Inquiry:

People use colour to decorate themselves

Colours are sometimes associated with feelings

Do we use colour to decorate our faces? The children's response was yes we do, with face paint and lipstick. I put together a PowerPoint presentation featuring how people from other cultures use colour on their faces for celebrations and ceremonies. The children were intrigued.

On Monday, the children wanted to wear colour on their faces and decided on which colour and where it was to go. They practised their recording skills by filling out a form recording what colours they chose, and reflected on why they chose those colours and how it feels to wear these colours.

thinking about our choices

colours we wear!

On Tuesday, we reflected on the colours we wear. The children took turns practising speaking in front of others and listening to others as we shared our thoughts on the colours we were wearing today and why.

"I wanted a long sleeve shirt and I chose pink because I like pink."

Next, the children's bodies were traced on paper and they painted the clothes choosing the colours they wanted. Bela wasn't interested in making a body tracing of his own but he was happy to help Alfie work on his!

"I want striped tights!"

helping a friend

carefully filling in space

Using Colour

Line of Inquiry: People use colour to decorate their homes

While on a search for how colour is used in our school the children noticed that the walls were all different colours. Why do you think someone chose to do this?

"Lots of colours are nice!"

"It makes it happier"

What colour are the walls in your room? 

The colour of your blanket? Blinds? Curtains? 

Who chose those colours? 

What colours would you use if you could decorate your bedroom any way you wanted?
Everyone chose the colour they wanted for their walls; most chose all one colour, Simone chose to make each wall a different colour, and Rocco started out wanting pink walls but decided to add different colours and mixed his own unique shade.

Next, the children added a window to their room and drew what they'd see in their view and chose fabric for their curtains. Bela decided his window would have no curtains.

While choosing the curtain fabric and the blanket for their bed the children were asked to think about the colours of their walls - what colours look good together? Which colours feel good together?

The results . . . . beautiful!!! I would love to spend time in these rooms!

Sofia's room

Rocco's room

Bela's room

Esme's room

Simone's room

Julia's room

"There is colour everywhere!"

Line of Inquiry:

People use colour to decorate themselves and their homes

How have people used colour to decorate our school? The children looked around and noticed the coloured walls and excitedly shared what colour their walls were at home. Where else can we find colour? I wrote the children's ideas on stickie notes as they searched around the room for colour. We will repeat this tomorrow and then organize these ideas into categories.

After some time Simone concluded "There is colour everywhere!"Everyone took a vote; do you agree or disagree with Simone's statement? Everyone agreed.

Can you imagine a world with no colour? "Aaah that would be sad!" "Everything would be just white!" The children watched this video "A Life Without Colour"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA70Zu6E_QI&feature=related

Everyone agreed they are happy they live in a colourful world. They expressed this by taking a colourless paper hat and making it colourful.

Primary Colours

"What are primary colours?" 

This question was asked at the beginning of group time and then again after several activities. The children reflected on any changes in their understanding of primary colours.

Beginning responses:                                         After responses:
"I don't know"                                                   "yellow, blue, red"
"They're dark colours"                                      "blue, red, yellow"
"Green"                                                             "green and purple"
"Caring and sharing"                                         "blue, red, yellow"
"Red, blue, yellow"                                           "My answer's the same"

The children sorted blocks into primary colours and "not" primary colours.

They used primary colour markers to draw pictures.

Before the story "Little Blue and Little Yellow" by Leo Leonni the children played with blue and yellow light rods and discovered how to make green. "Green's not a primary colour" said Julia

After the story the children covered mactac with primary colour cellophane. They noticed that colours changed when the cellophane overlapped. Come have a look, their art looks beautiful in the window!

Colour My World: New Unit!

            Central Idea : Colour is all around us and make a difference in our lives

During Summative Week we will gather the children's prior knowledge of the lines of inquiry:

Change: Colour mixing

Function: Colour is used to a) communicate and b) decorate

Perspective: Colour means different things to different people

 

I led a discussion with the children asking what are the ways people use colour. 

"Rainbows have colours" .....

"To make pictures." .... "We have colours because we like them" were some ideas and then a lengthy conversations on mixing colours took place telling me that the children are coming with some prior knowledge that when colours are mixed they create new colours.

I asked the children to notice the colours they were wearing and noted that Simone was all in pink and when I asked why she said "Because I'm a girl" 

Which posed the question "Is pink a colour that's only for girls?"

"Yes!" - Simone

 

"Boys can alway wear pink!" - Rocco

"Nooooooo" - Simone

 

"Sometimes boys can wear pink" - Julia

"Why?" Simone

 

"Boys can wear pink on Valentine's Day." - Julia

 

"You can always wear pink on Halloween" - Rocco

 

Gender and colour associations is something we'll explore further

 

mixing paint colours

observations

drawing symbols