Happy Halloween!

The students have been gearing up for Halloween all week! We have been talking about it a lot, so we thought we would start some planning for our pumpkins.

Students created plans for the pumpkins.

We then created tallies to find out which type of pumpkin face the students wanted to carve into the pumpkin. A face with triangle eyes and a jagged mouth won!

Most students were eager to put their hands into the pumpkin and pull out what was inside. Some were a little more hesitant, but in the end they touched the seeds!

We then carved the pumpkins.

The pumpkins turned out fabulously and we light them up using a candle.

The JK's pumpkin

The SKs pumpkin

Happy Halloween!

Building

"Play with blocks and other open-ended resources can provide an ideal context for meeting curriculum standards and promoting young children's early literacy and oral language skills, logical reasoning and creative problem solving abilities, and social/emotional competence." 

Our students love to build a variety of structures. Each day they create something new and work together to build castles, towers, motorcycles and so much more!

A hotel.
"We made roads so they can get in the parking spots for the cars."- P.D
"These are for the cars to jump" (pointing at the ramp)- A.C.

"When it’s night time the diamonds are so they know where to go, they can see right where it is" - P.D.

You'll notice 'Floppy' has made an appearance again this year! Click here to learn the story behind Floppy! 

A race track that snaked all over the classroom!

Our School

We wanted to encourage the students to build different structures so we placed 'structure cards' with famous or familiar structures in the centre to inspire them. It worked, their creations were amazing!

Cinderella's Castle

CN Tower

Eiffel Tower

Golden Gate Bridge

a ship 

Pyramids

Canada's Parliament Building

The students are learning many skills when they are playing and building in the block centre. 

Here is a graphic I found from a blog that highlights the benefits of block play.

Here is a graphic showing the benefits of block play
(Click the photo for the source)

Pumpkins

We set up a provocation for the students to encourage them to question and observe what we put out.

I.S.- me see yellow 

M.A- I see green pumpkin.

A.C- I see a light yellow pumpkin

H.W- (What colour?) orange

A.P- I see yellow, green and orange on the small pumpkin

They began to write about the pumpkins and share their wonders.

We set up the 'pumpkins' on the carpet for the students to observe closer. (The students think these are all pumpkins and that they maybe represent the various stages of the life cycle)

A.A- I wonder how pumpkins grow?

D.S- I wonder how do they turn different colours?

N.M- why is bigger and smaller? What is growing?

A.R-  why they have sticks?

B.G- I wonder why something on the pumpkins?

M.W- I wonder how this one got all its colours?

A.H- I think they all have stems

D.S- I know why the yellow one is not standing, it’s not heavy enough!

M.W- it is heavy!

D.S- it’s an oval!

M.W- it doesn't have enough round parts (referring to the yellow one)

D.S- because this is an oval, this one is a circle and it holds much stronger than an oval

R.H- I see the green, I see this pumpkin is always falling down, you need to hold the pumpkin so it not fall down

E.K- there the orange pumpkin is something inside! and on the bottom is a hole.

M.W- I wonder why some pumpkins are ovals and some are circles

D.M- I wonder why the green pumpkin has light green and dark green? 

One wonder that many students were asking was 'how do pumpkins grow'. We read a variety of books to learn about the life cycle. We found a song that helps us remember the different stages:

This song inspired many students to write about the pumpkin life cycle.

We will be cutting open these 'pumpkins' soon to find out what is inside! The students are very curious!

Observing Leaves

We have been observing leaves with all of our senses! The students have been drawing and writing about the leaves they found. We wanted to encourage them to see all the details in the leaves, so the students drew half a leaf, to create a full one.

 I wonder why leaves have veins?

I wonder why leaves fall and change colours.

I wonder why a leaf falls.

The students have been wondering about all aspects of fall: leaves, temperature and pumpkins! We will continue to inquire about fall over the next few weeks.

We have created a sensory bin to encourage more fall inquiries. Students have been sorting, counting, measuring, comparing and just having a lot of fun!