This past Friday marked the start of a new and exciting chapter in our program: "Forest Friday's!" After the incredible learning experience last Spring as part of the Ministry of Education's Pilot Project entitled "A Week in the Forest," (click here if you have yet to read that post), I couldn't help but get excited to launch this part of our program every Friday! 

Our students' love for the outdoors is contagious and we are so fortunate to have our magical forest within walking distance from our school. It truly has become a "magical" place for learning and one that our students have a genuine love and care for! 

As a teaching team, we want our "Forest Friday's" to be an opportunity that extends on the learning happening within the walls of our classroom while at the same time, help our students foster a loving connection with nature. From "Sit Spots" and experiments to exploration and more, our "Forest Friday's" continues to be a natural recipe for fun! 

Chapter Three of "We Can See" has begun!

 Our "We Can See" Project continues with this exciting new chapter of learning! 

The slant this year is to harness the outdoors and to take our learning beyond the four walls of our classrooms! We encourage classes to go outside and look closely at their natural environment and take photos of their outdoor areas since they too are a canvas for learning. 

Do you have an outdoor classroom? 

Is there a forest nearby? 

Do you walk to a local pond? 

Can you see a lake from your yard? What can you see?

We invite you to meet with your class and share the ways you use the outdoors as a learning space! The opportunities are truly endless. We have a Google Drive Folder available for sharing and we will post some of our new books on this blog.

"A Week in the Forest" ~ Inspiring Learning Outside

"It's a good thing to learn about nature in order to share this knowledge with children; it's even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it's a lot more fun." 

~ Richard Louv

This quote sums up beautifully the amazing experience and positive impact of the Ministry Pilot Project our class was fortunate enough to be a part of last week entitled "A Week in the Forest." This project was founded by Tanya Murray, an Outdoor Education Teacher and Specialist with Sibbald Point and Forest School Practitioner, with hopes that every child and educator alike could feel inspired to learn outside! Part 1 of the Pilot took place at Milliken Mills Public School in Markham and focused more on the urban school setting. Our school was Part 2 of the Pilot since our landscape was one that promoted a more rural environment and something we will now always call the "magical forest." 

Curious about Caterpillars

Here is a snapshot of some of our documentation about our most recent and exciting inquiry! This is a very exciting time because next week we will begin a Ministry Pilot Project called "A Week in the Forest" which will allow us to embrace the outdoors in our learning and we are excited to bring this inquiry into this wonderful opportunity! Stay tuned for more posts to come!

"The rainbow trees get saved"

With much excitement brewing within the walls of our classroom over the past few weeks, this post will highlight a new path of our Rainbow Inquiry whereby our students' have taken us from a scientific exploration to one that is imaginative and taps into our students' creativity through oral language, authentic writing opportunities and through visual arts! 

I would like to dedicate this post to our students who have collaboratively co-planned, co-created, and co-constructed our class' very own...

RAINBOW TREE!

Moreover, I would also like to share the following story since it was created by our students as part of an interactive writing experience. We hope you enjoy reading and witnessing our rainbow tree come to life!

"The rainbow trees get saved"

Written by the students in Room 126

Once upon a time there was a rainbow tree. This tree lived in a rainbow forest (M.P). All of the trees were rainbow trees (D.K). 

One day, there were regular trees in the forest and somebody dropped fruit by accident. The fruit went inside the dirt and it went all the way to the rainbow forest. Then, the trees became all the rainbow colours through the roots. An apple became a red tree, orange became an orange tree, lemon became a yellow tree (T.B).

 Then, one tree got magical and it grew rainbow leaves (S.R). It had special powers and any tree that was brown, that magical tree made it rainbow (D.K). And then, it started raining! 

 The sun came out again and then a rainbow came out of the leaves and it went way up into the sky so everybody could see it (J.S-SK)! 

But then, one day, a guy came and chopped down three of the rainbow trees (E.S)! The magic disappeared and there were no more rainbows up in the sky (T.D)! 

The guy took those three rainbow trees with him (E.S) because he was trying to steal the magic (T.D)! Then, a bunny came and planted a magic carrot so that the rainbow trees can grow again (P.B) but it did not work (H.R)! 

One day, a group of Kindergarten students found out that these trees were missing so ... (Ms. Schmidt) they made their own rainbow tree! They painted it white first and then rainbow colours (E.Sk).

 The next day, they went to the rainbow forest (S.R) and they dug a hole and put the rainbow tree in the hole (T.D). 

All of a sudden, more rainbow trees started to grow (Z.P) and lots of rainbows appeared back in the sky (J.S-SK)! 

THE END

Taking a Gallery Walk of Our Journey

As the school year comes to a close in the coming week, we decided to recount our favourite memories of the year together as a class! From the garbage pick-up and our Roots of Empathy baby to our field trip to McMichael Art Gallery and Pizza Pizza, the most popular memory, however, was related to our Tree Timeline! In order to make our students’ recounts authentic and purposeful, we asked them how we could best reflect on our journey! One student suggested that "We could go out and look at the pictures" and the rest of the class agreed...so we decided to bring them back to the start of the timeline and have them "walk the walls." It was a wonderful opportunity for students to discuss their memories, their learning, and their peers. Some students even came up with new "wonderings" that we later took back to our sharing circle which gave students the opportunity to answer their peers. 

Here is what they had to say:

“I see old friends that aren’t here anymore.” – I.D.

“J.S. is building a snowman and A.D. and me rolled a big snowman too.” – A.M.

“I see a bird nest which is a good home for a bird.” – A.Z.

“We were using tape measures to measure the trunk of the tree.” – A.L.

“I see all the months of the year!” – A.T.

“I see R.L. I wonder what he’s thinking? Maybe he’s looking at the tree’s shadow.” – E.C.

"Our tree is living in a cloudy day." - D.M.

"I see me making a snowman!" - V.V.

"I see the leaf buried in the ice!" - R.D

"I wonder if the snow felt cold in their hands?" - M.D.

Ms. Schmidt: “I wonder why we call these seeds helicopters?” [pointing to a picture of a branch with seeds hanging down from it]

Student Response: “I think because they have wings and helicopters have wings and both spin round and round.” – I.D.

Environmental Inquiry in Action: Our Tree Timeline

 "We need a fundamental shift in the way we think and behave, a shift made possible by a fundamentally different approach to teaching and learning: Education that nurtures children's innate curiosity about the natural world, that fosters their understanding of the interconnectedness of all living and non-living things, and instils in them an abiding sense of care and responsibility for the well-being of their communities and planet Earth."
- David Orr (Ecologist & Scholar)

Over the course of the year, my DECE and I have been intrigued by the notion of making the classroom environment a third teacher and we thought there's no better way to do that then by bringing the outdoors inside. What started as a Nature Walk at the beginning of the school year has now lead to ongoing student wonderings, explorations, and most importantly a desire to care for and respect our environment. While our students chose to focus on one particular tree in our school yard (that they could see through one of our windows), they have come to a fundamental understanding and natural curiousity at this point in the year that they can make a difference.

Our Tree Timeline documents our class' learning journey in the hallway outside of our classroom and truly tells a story from September until June. It highlights key findings, questions, observations, and student engagement in the inquiry process. To provide you with a few examples of this natural curiousity, below are some of our students' wonderings throughout the year:

"How does a tree grow?" - A.J.

"Does a tree die when it turns 100 like us?" - A.D.

"Why does a tree stand straight?" - L.D.

"Why and how do the leaves change colour?" - D.M. 

"I wonder how the colour of the tree gets brown and then how the branches get brown too?" - L.D.

"How do the rings in the tree get bigger and bigger? Do the trees then have birthdays?" - I.D.

"Why do the needles fall off?" - A.L.

To incorporate art into our inquiry, our class completed bark and leaf rubbings, leaf printing, and stem printing. The learning experiences were completed by using natural materials that students collected from outside on our many Nature Walks. The belief of using natural materials in the classroom is from the Reggio-Emilia approach towards teaching and learning and we have found a profound shift in interest, engagement, and overall learning in our students with this approach.

Take a look at our environmental inquiry in action and we hope you feel inspired!

Exploring Plasticine - Inspiration From Barbara Reid

Picture a tree - what do you see?

From bare branches tracing the sky to an explosion of colour, a place for adventure or a friend to shelter us from the sun - a tree can be so many things.

As part of celebrating each child as an artist in our classroom, we decided to combine art with our exploration of a Big Idea of changes in our local environment. Our inquiry continues as we have tracked a tree in our school yard all year long from fall, into winter and now from spring into the beginning of summer.

Our Plasticine Provocation:

After reading Barbara Reid's latest book entitled Picture a Tree, our students began asking questions related to the pictures they saw in the story. "Are they paintings?," "Are they drawings?," "How did she do it?" are only some of the questions that came from our students. With this interest, we decided to show the artists in our classrooms how Barbara Reid creates her storybook illustrations with plasticine through the "Simple Tree" short video clips found on her website. Our student artists then planned their own creative interpretations of the book. They then took their plans and created their artistic works.

A Raving Review:

After our Principal helped celebrate our students' artistic achievements by visiting our gallery and taking pictures, he decided to send Barbara Reid an email informing her of their creations! Surprisingly, we received a quick response:

Hello Mr. C,

What a beautiful start to the day! Thank you very much for sending me the link to the gorgeous artwork by your kindergarten students. I love creating books, but it is enthusiastic teachers, librarians and parents who put them into readers hands and bring the pages to life. Plasticine is an excellent medium for exploration and creativity, I’m delighted that your students had the opportunity to work with it. Please share my congratulations with the teachers and artists, their work will inspire me on my current project!

Best regards and happy reading,

Barbara

Take a look at how we made our students' learning visible through the art of plasticine!