New Unit Formative Week: a walk in the community

How We Organize Ourselves

Central Idea: The work people perform helps build community

This week the teachers are gathering what the children know about the central idea. The children come with an understanding that there are jobs in the community such as, construction workers, gardeners, winemakers, and dishwashers. They know there is work done within the daycare community such as, sweeping, washing tables, cleaning up toys and organizing books.

Yesterday the children went for a walk to 41st and Dunbar St. and walked along Dunbar to 39th Ave and noted all the business and jobs they saw. They even got to visit Olivia's dads work, he's a vet.

Today we started a map of the community focusing on the four corners of 41st and Dunbar. The children knew a lot about the Shell gas station; its an important feature of our community because "our cars need gas and without gas we'd have to walk" said Chloe. "Or take the bus" offered Rocco. The bus transfer station is right across the street. A new and used book store is on another corner. Julia thought this store might be important to some people but not to others. Kai said "If you like to read, you need a book store." The Scotia Bank is on the other corner. Many of the children have been to the bank but have no idea what the bank is for. This is an area we will explore further.

The children added pictures to the map and Adyson added a feature she knows: traffic lights and stop signs. Someone has the job of putting up traffic signs, we'll explore why this is an important job and what might happen if this job wasn't done.

Summative Week: creating an Invention

Summative week is an opportunity for the children to take all that they know and have learned about the central idea and present it in a project. The central idea is "There are similarities and differences between the way people lived long ago and the way people live today."

Over the past 6 weeks the children have explored the way things were done long ago (food preservation for winter) and how it's done today. They learned that many families still preserve food for winter, such as making jam or freezing blueberries. They learned that this practise isn't always necessary now because of the an innovation: green houses, which can provide us with fresh food in winter.

For summative week the children reflected on a problem that the teachers have noticed - at times people don't like to clean up. The children set to work developing an innovation that will do the work. Every child added an idea to be included in the machine. While building they were asked to reflect on these ideas: when should we use the cleaning machine? Will we become lazy if machines always do the work? Will the machine create more time for us to play? Does it feel good to do a good job in cleaning? What would happen to this feeling if the machine does the work for us?

Adyson's idea is to make the machine red

Attaching the arms for the grabbers

It needs 'on' and 'off' buttons!

Add caption

We called it "The Super Duper Machine"

Comparing tools from yesterday and today

Teacher Question: How have ideas and processes changed out lives?

Some innovations have been developed to meet a need, usually to take away the work from us and giving us more time to play. Today the children looked closely at some of these innovations in the daycare; the job they do, how they work, why we use them, and why we might chose not to use them and continue doing the work the way we've always done it.

The children shared stories of how they sometimes wash dishes by hand even though they own a dishwasher or how their parents still hang their clothes out to dry even though they have a dryer.

The children had hands on experience using various tools to mix flour and water together and discussed the time line of these innovations; a wooden spoon, a hand beater and an electric mixer was tried by all.

Trying a hand mixer

How does an electric mixer work?

trying the tools in the water table

Do plants grow in winter?

Child's Question: Do plants grow in the winter?

The children checked the seed packets that they had prepared in the previous week and discovered that the ones that were inside where it was warm sprouted and the ones that were kept outside in the cold didn't.

To experience this concept again the children planted the pea seeds in the planter outside and were asked if they thought they would grow. We used an upside down aquarium for a greenhouse and planted some of the seeds in the greenhouse and some outside of the greenhouse and we'll wait and see what happens. The children will observe how the invention of greenhouses impacts our ability to grow food in the winter.

The children completed an assessment to show their understanding so far of their question "Do plants grow in the winter?" based on the past weeks experiences and experiments.

A visit to Southland's Nursery

Community Connection: a field trip to the local greenhouses as Southland's Nursery

It was a wet and rainy day but the children were eager to take a trip on the bus and visit a local greenhouse. After researching images of greenhouses the children discovered that the houses are not green but the plants inside of them are!

The people at Southland's Nursery were very welcoming and the children were free to look around the buildings and see the many beautiful flowers and plants growing. As a gift we were given a small seedling starter kit with packages of seeds for tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and flowers! The children graciously said thank you and look forward to growing our own food "just like they did in the old days"

A display gave the children an opportunity to see many things that were used in people's houses long ago!

Do plants grow in winter? greenhouses

Teacher Question: How have ideas and inventions changed our lives?

The child's question "Was there winter in the olden days?" and the children's interest in food preservation has led an inquiry into why food was preserved for winter in the old days. While making strawberry jam the children expressed knowledge that strawberries grow in the summer, so then, how did we get these strawberries for our jam? Some of the children thought that maybe strawberries can grow in the winter.

This questions "Can plants grow in the winter?" is the basis of today's experiment.

The children have soaked some pea seeds and placed them in baggies - one for outside and one for inside - and have predicted whether they think they will grow or not. It was very interesting to hear the children's thinking as they made their predictions:

• Plants grow outside so the outside seeds will grow, not the inside seeds
• Plants won't grow in the cold so the inside seeds will grow, not the outside ones

We will check the seeds next week and see what's happened!

examining the seeds

Making our predictions

Checking the temperature outside

Making food like they did long ago

Teacher Question: How have inventions changed our lives?

Anticipation built this past week as the children patiently waited for the apple slices to dry! Recalling the process helped the children remember the work involved and everyone was eager to try. Chloe had an opportunity to think about being open minded as she didn't want to try any. I think watching the positive responses from the others as they ate their dried apple slice helped her to re-think her decision and she tried one and liked it! Later, Adyson, Chloe, and Julia practised speaking in front of a group when they explained the process before offering everyone a try.

To conclude our study of how food was preserved for winter in the old days we made strawberry jam. We reviewed the seasons and the children knowledgable in that they knew strawberry's grew in the summer and that if we kept a strawberry for a long time it rots. How did I get strawberry's in the winter then? A video of a greenhouse helped illustrate how we can recreate growing conditions. Some of the children were sceptical and thought we could grow strawberry's in the winter. This will lend itself to growing experiments next week and an opportunity to be inquirers! The children rolled up their sleeves with an understanding that to make strawberry jam would require a lot of work! What they lacked this week tho was patience! The afternoon seemed so far off before they could taste the jam!