Art - Leaves Print

Transdisciplinary Theme: How we share the planet

Central Idea : Plants play a unique role in our lives and the lives of animals

lines of inquiry:

• The features of plants in our local area
• How animals/people use plants
• The needs of plants in our local area

"What do you know about leaves?" the children were asked.
Mila - "they need water."
Matthew - "leaves grow."
Brendan - "Leaves are in trees."
Lucas - "You can use leaves as fertilizer"
It was always amazing to hear how much our little ones already know!

We read the book "Leaves" by Vijaya Khisty Bodach to learn more about leaves.

Each child chose the leaves they like to touch and feel the veins on the leaves. The children all want to show me their veins on their arms! What a great connection our children made!

Carefully, the children painted the leaves and print the leaves pattern on the paper.

Leaves use water, air and sunlight to make food for the plant; at the same time they give off oxygen, which all people and animals need.

Art - Dandelion

Transdisciplinary Theme: How we share the planet

Central Idea : Plants play a unique role in our lives and the lives of animals

lines of inquiry:

• The features of plants in our local area
• How animals/people use plants
• The needs of plants in our local area

This Friday, a big bunch of sunny yellow flowers was brought into Creative Minds classroom. Many children delightfully called out "dandelions!" The children shared what they knew about dandelions:
Cameron - "They are weeds. Dandelion can be medicine, too!"
Alfie - "You need to dig them out from a garden!"
Roy - "You can blow the white things."

To learn more about dandelion, the book, we read the book "Dandelion Adventures" by L. Patricia Kite. Then, the children were amazed by the beautiful time lapse video of dandelion flower turn into seeds.

Dipping dandelion flowers into yellow and orange paint, the children printed dandelion pattern on the paper and drew leaves and stalks with green crayons! 

It was lovely to hear children talking about dandelion flowers and seeds after the art activity.

Cameron asked "do dandelions grow all around the world at any place?"

Jayla asked "why some dandelions at our playground are closed?"

Art - Spring Flowers

This Friday, we all enjoy a long forest and neighbourhood walk with the sunny weather!
The children were told to find some spring flowers on their walk. Some children found wild flowers in the forest; others were amazed by the beautiful flowers our neighbours have planted in their garden.

During our neighbourhood walk, Cameron and Bela also saw some constructors building house. The boys immediately connected to our community unit and said "I see some community helpers!" How lovely to see our children recall their learning experience. 

After the long walk, the children had a rest on the grass and listened to the story, "The Imaginary Garden" by Andrew Larsen. In the story, the little girl creates beautiful garden full of beautiful plants on a great big canvas with her grandfather. Through the story, the children explored how to use paint brushes to draw certain flowers, like tulips, scilla and daffodils. 

We tried the brush techniques in the book. Using dots and strokes, the children created their own spring garden with water colour. 

It was such a nice painting experience when everyone was actually surrounded by the beautiful spring flowers! 

Art - Night Shift

"How We Organize Ourselves" 
Central Idea: The work people perform helps build community
Lines of Inquiry:

• The jobs people do in our community support its development (function)
• We take on roles each day and this helps us build a strong community (responsibility)

"When do people work?" the children were asked at the beginning of the art activity today.
"Morning time! and afternoon!" the children answered.
"Do you know there are people who work during night time?" I asked the children.
"Policemen," Bela said.
"Firefighters and bus drivers, " Cameron answered.
"Construction workers, " Brendan said.
Here, we introduced more community helpers through the book "Night Shift" by Jessie Hartland.
The children learned that there are street sweepers, security guards, newspaper printer and road workers on night shifts. 
Here were some questions the children asked along the stories:
"Why do they have to work at night?"
"What do these community helpers do in the morning?"

"Policemen work at night to protect people all day and all night!"

We decided to created a poster about community helpers on night shift.
On a paper doll, the children drew the special uniform or hats that night shift community helpers have.



Inspired by The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh, we introduced "Pointillism" skill to the children. To create a night city scene, the children used sponge dabbers to make little dots on the poster.

"There are stars and street lights!"

  








Through the children book illustration, the children had a chance to explore people who do their job in night time. In order to build a strong community, people take different shift, even in night time!

Art - Community Garden

"How We Organize Ourselves" 
Central Idea: The work people perform helps build community
Lines of Inquiry:

• We take on roles each day and this helps us build a strong community (responsibility)

"The Curious Garden" by Peter Brown was read to the children to start our collaborative art project this Friday! While out exploring one day, a little boy named Liam discovers a struggling garden and decides to take care of it. Slowly, the garden spreads out and turns the dark, gray city into a lively, green community! At the end of the story, everyone joins Liam to make the city more beautiful and greener.

Instead of individual artwork, we decided to create a big garden poster to keep in our classroom. The children were excited to do a multimedia collage, using flowers, leaves, straw and seeds. As well, there were sponge painting with spring colour! 

"I will do the stems and you will paint the flowers!"

"We would like to add pink and purple flowers."

Here is our wonderful co-creation ! 

Art - Whose Gloves Are These ?

"How We Organize Ourselves" 
Central Idea: The work people perform helps build community
Lines of Inquiry:

• The jobs people do in our community support its development (function)
• We take on roles each day and this helps us build a strong community (responsibility)

This Friday morning, we had a wonderful walk in our neighbourhood to look for community helpers. The children saw some construction workers building a house, a dog walker and a mail box where mail carriers collect letter.

As an inspiration for art activity today, we read the book "Whose Gloves Are These?" by Laura Salas. The children learned how some community helpers need special gloves to work. In the discussion during story time, the children shared their thoughts about what would happen without a certain community helper's service. 
Trystan - "we would have no animal to see in a zoo if there were no zookeepers."
Matthew - "Hotel rooms would be so messy if there were no housekeepers."
As well, we found that some of our duties at home are similar to the community helpers'. 
Brendan - "I help picking up dog poo."
Francine - "I set up the table at home."
Cameron - "I clean up my toys."
We are all responsible community helpers at home!

After the story and discussion, the children had a hand-on art activity to express their own ideas. 

Trace our hands!

Colour or glue tissue paper to decorate the gloves.

Here are our community helpers' gloves!

Art - Shapes in a Fire Truck

"How We Organize Ourselves" 
Central Idea: The work people perform helps build community
Having started with the book, "Clothesline Clues to Jobs People Do" by Kathryn Heling, the children had a guessing game about what jobs people do through observing people's uniforms and tools. It was amazing to hear our children have such rich language about occupation.

Cameron - People who fix cars are called mechanics.
Trystan - Painters are like artists.
Bela, Francine and Max - Milkman is one kind of farmer. (We learned the word, dairy farmer!)

As the children are expressing a strong interest in firefighters. We decided to follow the children's interests and needs to explore more upon the topic.

Before we used different shapes to make a firetruck collage, the children played a shape I spy game as a review of their shapes. With a picture of a fire truck, the children named out the shapes they would need for their fire trucks. Gluing and placing each part of a fire truck into the right position, the children were capable of forming the structure of a fire truck. Moreover, many children had discussions about how firefighters put out fires and save people in a community.

"The ladder needs some steps! "

"Look, these are the wheels on my fire truck. Can you see a hose?"

It was very nice and rewarding to watching the children fully engaged and participated the art activity. Their bright eyes were telling us how much they enjoyed this activity. There will be more extended activities for the children to explore what does a fire fighter do and what other community helpers we have.