The afternoon children have taken an interest in drawing treasure maps.  We wanted to create an example to demonstrate how pirates have to draw landmarks on their maps so they know where to walk.  We drew a map and then hid treasure, leading the children around the room to follow the map.  Jenn was our captain, so after she spoke we had to say, "Aye, aye captain!"  Here is a video of the children finding the hidden treasure.

This activity lead to the children creating even more maps during free play time on Wednesday.  During our group time on Thursday the map creator described their map to us (videos below).  Drawing maps is a numeracy activity as it helps the children develop their sense of spatial awareness. 

Here is our work on T-Rex

Our work on Yangchuanosaurus:

Our work on Stegosaurus.  The first picture documents what we have learned about this dinosaur.  The second picture is Leia's colouring of a stegosaurus for our floor measurements. 

Here is our work on pirate flags.  The children traced the skull and crossbones / skull and swords and then decided if they wanted their flags to be red or black at the paint centre. 

Sorry it has taken me so long to get this post up!  Here is a look at how our pirate project began.  

We started with brainstorming what we already know about pirates.  We then spent a couple of weeks reading pirate stories, drawing pictures, playing with play dough, and pretending to be pirates.  This lead to thinking about what kinds of questions we have about pirates.  We created our "What do we want to know?" board, and have since spent our project time researching these questions.  

We began our Community Circle by reading Action Jackson, by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan.  This story provided us with more information about Jackson Pollock - the artist who creating the paint throwing technique. 

We then asked the children to think about our field visit yesterday:
- How did paint throwing make you feel?
- What did you like about it?
- What didn't you like about it?


Amelie - I didn't like when somebody's balloon popped in my face.
Augustus - I liked all of it except when I got paint on me.
Finn - The balloons was the best part.
Gabriella - I felt happy and I liked when we threw the balloons.
Jasper - I liked how I made the explosion on my picture.
Justin - I feeled happy when we threw the paint.
Kobe - I liked popping the balloons.
Leia - My favourite part was when I was throwing the paint.
Luka - I didn't like when the paint got on me.
Megan - My favourite part was popping balloons and shaking my hands.
Rayyan - I liked when I put the orange paint on my pants.

Avery - I didn't like the pain in my eye, but I really know that I love throwing the paint.  It was really fun and it looked like I had rainbow hands.
Cooper - I didn't like the popping the balloon bit.
Dorine - I didn't like throwing the paint, it was too messy.
Elisha - My favourite part was the balloons and squirting paint from the syringe.
Kaliko - I liked throwing my balloon and popping it because I saw the colours on my hands.
Kinan - I liked popping the balloons.
Lowyn - I didn't like popping the balloon becasue it was too loud.
Seth - I didn't know how to pop the balloons, but then I popped it!

Paint throwing on our individual canvases.  The children each selected four colours to use for their canvas.

The children each chose four paint colours to use on their individual canvases.  Once we had our "party hats" on, we headed to the paint throwing room for some fun! 

We are well into our dinosaur project and I thought I had made a post over the winter break but I now see that I didn't.  So, here is an update on our inquiry into world of dinosaurs:

In November we began by brainstorming what we already know about dinosaurs.  We then read different dinosaur stories and began exploring the world of dinosaurs through play at our learning centres. During our group times we discussed what questions we had about dinosaurs and how we could find the answers to our questions.