Is there a place for toys?

I don’t have a kindergarten classroom of my own. Next year while I will be working with kindergarten students and teachers I still won’t have my own room.  One of the things about not having your own space means you are a guest in the classroom spaces of others.  It is a delicate dance being in the space of another teacher and their students.

I was lucky recently to spend the morning observing two groups of students who share one classroom.  It was a busy day, like every day, there were places to go and things to do, library program, trip forms to be distributed, a newly arrived students (just his first week of school) to be reminded he was safe and so on and so forth. In the time I was there the students played outside in the sand; they built with blocks, the moved materials from one centre to another and decided when to have snack, and everything in between and all in the name of learning.

I noticed that the classroom did not have much in the way of toys, it had materials. I did not ask the teachers about this but it did come up organically as we talked about full day kindergarten and all the great advantages we think it will have for the students (and perhaps some concerns too).  What was clear is that in this classroom the students are not missing toys, thinking of toys or wishing they had them.  The materials available are open ended and they provide such a wealth of learning opportunities, opportunity without limit.

It is such a privilege to observe students on their learning journey as the discover things about the world using open ended materials.

I have included a link to an article that I think speaks to the richness of life with fewer commercial toys called "The Boy With No Toys" by Laura Grace Weldon.

What are your thoughts?

 

 

So Many Trees!

During the month of September, we went for a nature walk exploring the environment around the school.  The students were given a few baskets to carry with them in case they saw interesting things that they wanted to bring back to class for further discussion.  The group ended up collecting a variety of natural artifacts such as sticks, pebbles, pine cones and a variety of leaves. 

 

 

Once back in the classroom, the group was eager to rummage through and analyze their different findings.  The students seemed to be very intrigued by the leaves, and started sorting them by a variety of attributes such as colour, shape, size and type.  This lead to further discussions and wonderings that generated many thought provoking questions and ponderings. 

 

”My leaf is pointy and red with orange, it’s a Maple Leaf!  Yours is not so pointy and it’s all yellow”.  Julia

“Why are leaves different colours?  Some are the same but so many are different?  Crystal

In reading a variety of books about leaves, we became pretty good at identifying the various leaves we had.  But there were still some that we didn’t know.  Once again, we had a group discussion about why leaves are so different? 

“Maybe because they come from different trees?” Kai

Once the topic of trees came up in the discussion, we decided to share our knowledge about what we knew about trees and what we still wondered about.

“Trees give us air” Shiya

“We get apples and food from trees” Anthia

“They have colourful leaves that fall” Crystal

“What holds the tree up?” Carys

“Why are the leaves falling?” Justin

With so many trees in the school yard, we decided to take a closer look at them by using our five senses and drawing things we thought were interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The students were so fascinated with the trees that they decided to adopt two of them to observe throughout the year.  One was a Linden tree they named “Nicole” and the other was a Pine tree they named “Zayn”. 

 

“No leaves on the Linden tree because it’s cold”  Zoe

“There’s no leaves because the Linden tree is sleeping”  Julia

“The Linden tree leaves fall because winter is coming”  Justin

 

 

“When the pine tree has no smell, it’s sleeping”  Kai

“The Pine tree looks the same as the last time”  Eliad

 

 

“The pine needles on the ground were yellow because they’re old.”  Anjali

 

 

“The Pine tree had green on the bark because it changed colour”  Samuel

“The Linden tree has grass on the bark.”  Crystal

“I saw roots all around the Linden tree.  Some roots were moving in the night.”  Shiya

 

 

 “It took three people to hug all around the Linden tree and the Pine tree trunk”  Anthia

 

The students’ interest in trees continued to foster discussions about changes that they observed happening as the weather and seasons changed and how it affected each tree differently.  Through their own investigations and inquiry, they were able to hypothesize about various things, such as, why leaves change colour and fall while pine tree needles did not, and what happens to trees during the winter?

“The trees went through a pattern!” Julia

“What do you mean by that Julia?” Ms. Huffman

“The seasons are a pattern!  They keep repeating and coming over again!  Julia

Changing Education Paradigms: TED Talk

Here is an interesting TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson called, Changing Education Paradigms. Some of you may have seen it already. It was a great discussion point in my Kindergarten Part I course.

 

Experimenting with Inquiry in the ISP Setting: Exploring Soil

While this is not from a Kindergarten classroom, I wanted to offer a different perspective to the inquiry discussion and provide voice to students with multiple exceptionalities and their ability to wonder and ask questions.     

Currently, I teach in a grade 6-8 Intensive Support Program (multiple exceptionalities). I have found that many of my students have a hard time with open-ended thinking and questioning the world around them. While I don’t think their exceptionalities necessarily limit them from this, I have found that much scaffolding is necessary to engage in inquiry.

 We began by going outside into the woodlot behind the school, and each student had a clear plastic jar with a trowel. They all collected samples of soil from various areas in the yard. Students examined their soil samples with a magnifying glass and tweezers, recording their observations. As a class we created a graffiti poster with their initial ideas and observations.

Bringing the soil into the classroom allowed student with
limited mobility to observe it close up.

M.S. found a grub in the sample he chose! 

Student-created poster of their collective observations.
Some are scribed comments from students
using Speech-Generating Devices.

After observing things in the soil, and consulting some
authoritative sources, we sorted out living and non-living things we has seen or knew
existed in soil. 

After separating the soil sample with water, this student
used his Speech-Generating Device to ask about
what rose to the top.

Observations from a student with writing abilities.
Other students had their Observations scribed. 

After noticing that there were a lot of living things found IN soil, my students began to wonder if soil was a living thing itself. In a Knowledge Building Circle they created theories about this and most thought that it was a living thing.

As a group we discussed what they knew about living and non-living things.

Based on these characteristics, I asked for their ideas about how we could test their theory that soil was a living thing. Internally, I debated going right to an authoritative source, but wanted them to go through the process of figuring out how to find an answer through their own investigation.

Since living things need food, the students decided that we would feed a sample of soil see if the soil would eat it.

 We observed the lettuce for a few weeks, while consulting some authoritative sources in the meantime (books, online).

In the end we discovered that although the kale was ‘disappearing,’ it was actually being broken down by the millions of bacteria that live in the soil. We noticed that the kale on the soil broke down much faster than the kale on the rocks. Students came to the conclusion that the soil must have more bacteria in it.

We then went on to observe a few different types of soil and compare them through a number of experiments. In the end they added their new learning to the ‘soil graffiti’ poster they had created after their initial observations. 

Rock sample after a few weeks

Soil sample after a few weeks

  I would love your feedback on this! I am still figuring out how to implement inquiry-based learning in this setting so please let me know what you think!

 

MAKING TREE BODY SHAPES IN DANCE

MAKING TREE BODY SHAPES IN MUSIC, DANCE, AND DRAMA -
THORNCLIFFE PARK ES

 

"What shall we dance today?" When I asked some of our kindergarten students, I wasn't surprised when some of them suggested that they liked to dance like  trees.  It seemed that students had some ideas of trees in their minds that probably had occurred from our teacher-directed dance called "A Tree in the Wind".

EXPLORING TREES: ESTABLISHING CONNECTION WITH TREES IN NATURE
How can we shape our bodies like trees?  What do trees look like? I felt that students needed to have the direct experience and connection with trees and nature before we stepped into creative dance.  We were ready to start our tree exploration!

 
Children observed that trees have various shapes, sizes, and colours. They were eager to touch, smell, and feel the trees. Some children suggested that the moss grown on this tree's bark looked like from the "dinosaur's time".

JK/SK'S KNOWLEDGE BUIDLING CIRCLE
In our next Music, Dance, and Drama class, we recalled and reviewed the photographs from this outdoor experience.  Our discussion on trees started with exploring different questions that emerged from students and myself such as
"What food do trees need to grow?"
"How old is a tree?"
"Where are the roots and how do they look like?"
"Why do leaves change colour?"
"What are the parts of a tree?"

Children expressed their theories about the above questions"
"Trees need soil, sunshine, and water to live."
"The leaves change colour because the sun changed them."
"The trees look big, medium and small."
"Tree roots grow in the soil."
This was an opportunity to build the knowledge and vocabulary for our upcoming dance experience.

MAKING TREE BODY SHAPES - OUR FIRST STEP TO CREATIVE DANCE
After this knowledge-building discussion, students were ready to start making tree body shapes that were the beginning of our dance adventure.


     "I am a tall tree."

 

 

"I am a short tree with a pointy crown."

 

 

Student: "I am a tree with lots of leaves."

                                             Teacher: "I like the big crown of your tree."


Student: "I am the roots."
Teacher: "I can see that they are spread out like a spider web."

                                               Show me what a tree-trunk looks like.

 

 Student: "Look at my tree shape!"

                                                       Teacher: "It seems that the branches are heavy with lots of fruit."


                                                  
                                                  The roots of the tree are in the ground.
                                                  Teacher: "Is your shape at a low level or high level?"
                                                  Student: "Low level."

                                     Student" These are the branches."
                     Teacher: "I am proud of you of the way you are reaching your arms out into space."

Students have come to realize that they can make so many shapes to represent a tree.  Kindergartners love to express what they see, think, and feel.  Their knowledge and vocabulary about trees has grown; their physical abilities and spatial awareness has considerably improved.  Making body shapes has helped them to experiment and learn not only about the topic of exploration, but also about themselves as growing, changing beings.
                          

Focus on Math

Thorncliffe Public Lesson

Blantyre Public Lesson

NOT A BOX

At the Construction centre we decided to replace the traditional building blocks with boxes of all various shapes, and sizes to see how the children would engage with these materials.  The children and the teachers brought in boxes of all shapes, and sizes to add to our centre.

 

FIRST

The students explored with the boxes by dumping them on the ground

and then finding the "right" type of boxes for their creations.

The students then started to see what they could build with these boxes:

They started stacking...

 

 

 

 

but this structure fell down

They kept changing the size of the boxes they used...

 

 

and built a ROCKETSHIP!

 

 

 

THEN

We read a story to the class to provoke their thinking...

Using this book and others available to them, students began delving deeper into their design process.

 

 

NEXT

Here the students are building the tall building featured in the above book.

 

FINALLY

We are still exploring...