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!

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.   

Sorry it has taken so long for this post!  I hope you enjoy these photos and videos.  A big thank you to Jasper's dad, Marc, for taking such beautiful photos and emailing them to me so I could put them on this site.

The day after the snowflake festival we asked the children to reflect back on the experience and share with us their favourite part of the day.  Here is what they had to say:

The cookies ~ Amelie 
The candy canes ~ Augustus
The candy canes ~ Finn
Candy canes, hot chocolate, and cookies ~ Jasper
The hot chocolate ~ Justin
When the fox ate the gingerbread cookie ~ Luka (referring to the gingerbread story we read that day)
Hot chocolate ~ Megan
Eating the cookies ~ Rayyan
Cookies, chocolate, and candy canes ~ Tobias 

Performing The Mitten

Performing Snow Songs

Dear Families,

I have no photos of the afternoon class performance.  If you were taking photos, please consider emailing some to me so that I may post them on here.  I have emailed you a link to the video Kiwook (Aroh's dad) made, as it is much better than our recording.  

The day after the performance, we asked the children to share their favourite part of the Snowflake Festival during our community circle sharing time.  Here are their responses:

It was music ~ Aroh
Doing The Mitten ~ Avery
The doodle bug part with Miss Diane ~ Cooper
Singing music ~ Dorine 
Playing The Mitten ~ Elisha
Playing The Mitten ~ Finn 
Playing the drums ~ Kinan
I loved all of it ~ Lowyn
My favourite was playing bells ~ Seth
Singing and The Mitten ~ Talha
I liked singing ~ Tommy

This past week the children completed their self-portraits for the month of December.  I am really impressed with the growth I am already able to see in their drawings!  You can see for yourself next time you visit the classroom as your child's current self-portrait is clipped to their previous drawings on our Community of Learners wall.  

Chopsticks have been introduced at the snack table!  The children are free to use them, if they wish.  Almost all of the kids have tried them over the past couple of weeks.  We have one set that is connected at the top 

After reading a variety of books about winter and snow the children created a list of their favourite things to do in the snow.  We then voted on our personal favourite by placing a penguin beside the activity.

This graphing lesson was followed up by counting how many votes each activity received.  We then discussed which activities had the most and least votes. 

Here are the children's self-portraits for the month of November.

Before Halloween madness took over our classroom, we brainstormed a list of things we wanted to learn about this year.  On Monday we revisited this list to decided which topics would become our projects this year.  

Each child was given two red dots to stick under the topics they were most enthusiastic about.  Once we had all placed our votes (and then tallied these votes), we realized that we needed to eliminate some of the topics that had zero, one, or two votes.

So, the children were then given two blue dots and voted for the topics that had stars beside them: Pirates, Dinosaurs, Sports, Fairies, and Princesses.  The children then counted the blue-dot votes: Pirates (3), Dinosaurs (9), Sports (3), Fairies (7), and Princesses (3). 

We decided to start with dinosaurs as this topic got the highest number of votes.  Over the past week we have been reading dinosaur stories and discussing what we know about dinosaurs.  

We will soon begin talking about what we want to find out about dinosaurs and plan our project around the students' wonders.  Stay tuned for updates on our project! 

Unlike the morning class, no re-vote was needed here.  The children cast their two votes for the topics they wanted to learn about and Camping (7), Pirates (4), and Sharks (3) received the large majority of the votes.  

Although Camping got the highest number of votes, we know that people go camping in the spring and summer, not the winter, so we decided to save this project until a later date.  We thought we could combine Sharks and Pirates and focus on this topic for our first project.  

This week we have been reading pirate books and talking about what we know about pirates.  These discussions led to the decision that we should have a day where we come to school dressed up as pirates!  We will do this in January, as December always feels so busy and hectic.  

The children have begun thinking about what they would like to learn about pirates over the upcoming months. 

Today is Universal Children's Day.  We read the stories "For Every Child" and "We are all Born Free", which talk about the universal rights of the child.  Each page is done by a different illustrator, making the books very visually appealing.  These books are on display in our classroom, so please feel free to read them with your child at drop-off time.

For our community circle, we asked the children "What do you like about begin a kid?"

• "Playing with my friends" - Amelie
• "Pretending to be animals" - Augustus
• "Running" - Daniel
• "Painting because you get to get messy" - Gabriella
• "Playing all the angry birds" - Jasper
• "Eating well and sleeping well" - Justin
• "Playing trucks and running over creatures" - Kobe
• "I like running a lot" - Leia
• "Star Wars Angry Birds" - Luka
• "Playing zombis versus plants and playing cars" - Nathan
• "Playing Star Wars on Mommy's iPad" - Rayyan

•  "It's all fun and I never get bored because I'm a smart kid" - Aroh
• "Playing with Mom and Dad" - Avery
• "Going swimming" - Cooper
• "Playing with my brother" - Dorine
• "I get to go outside" - Elisha
• "Drawing" - Finn
• "I like to go trick-or-treating" - Kaliko
• 'Going swimming" - Lowyn
• "I like to go to the park, playing in the sand, and going camping" - Seth
• "Playing" - Talha
• "Going swimming" - Tommy