How can I possibly sum up the last three years with my incredible, passionate, and caring partner, Heidi Theis, in just one blog post? It's next to impossible...however, I do want to share how our end of the year "Celebration of Learning" was special to our students and to us as a teaching team. 

As Heidi and I began taking down all the amazing memories and learning moments that occurred within the walls of our classroom before the end of the school year, we couldn't help but find ourselves getting very emotional. Over the past three years as a team, we have had the wonderful privilege of coming to "work" everyday and not only being partners to each other, but also partners with our students along their learning journey's. We couldn't feel more thankful to know that we got to work with these incredible, capable and creative young learners at Lorna Jackson Public School. 

As a way of celebrating this incredible feeling, Heidi and I decided to use our Rainbow Inquiry, and in particular Our Rainbow Tree of wishes, as a vehicle for creating this year's "Celebration of Learning" whereby students and their families could come together to help create special memories of their time Kindergarten in their hearts as well as in ours! 

So....we created the idea of a "Rainbow Release!" 

Each child got a balloon to signify their special place in our "class' rainbow" and together with their families, they wrote a wish! 

After tying their wishes to their balloons, we all gathered in the middle of our soccer field and, after sharing a few emotional words, let our balloons go! It was truly wonderful watching them all fly away in the sunlight! Such an incredible moment to be a part of! 

Ready...

Set...

Release...

For us as a teaching team, this "Rainbow Release" helped signify new beginnings for us as both Heidi and I as we venture off to brand new schools in September. Our time together is not over however, but rather just beginning! We look forward to all the new learning, exciting new chapters, and inspiring young learners we will meet along the way! 

A special message to our students' families:

Thank you for taking the time to come and be a part of our special celebration and for helping create magical memories with your child and with us as their teachers. Thank you for believing in us as a teaching team, entrusting us with your child, and opening up your hearts to us as we supported your child as they began their learning journey! We truly hope that the "wishes" have reached the rainbows and we couldn't be more thankful for the time we had with your children. They have helped shape the educators we are today! Wishing you all a safe and happy summer! 

Yours truly, 

Jocelyn Schmidt

"This is my Rainbow Collage!" - J.S.

Last week, we received the most lovely surprise Monday morning! One of our SK students, J.S., had eagerly pulled out of his communication folder his very own "Rainbow Collage" that he had co-created with his family over the weekend while visiting his Grandma and Grandpa!

This "Rainbow Collage" had such a unique connection to our inquiry because J.S. had planted special "rainbow chard" in his Grandpa's garden! Immediately upon presenting his creation, J.S. made reference to the read aloud story we previously read entitled, "Planting a Rainbow" by Lois Ehlert!

"Here I am carefully measuring the spaces with my hand print.
Now it's time to plant the seeds!
In about 4-5 weeks, the "rainbow" chard will be ready to harvest.
Plant stems may be yellow, gold, orange, pink, violent, or variegated
along with the standard red and white. It can be used in your salad to
add colour and tastes yummy!"

The collage depicts the steps J.S. took to plant the seeds and during his presentation, he answered many questions and shared his own predictions of what will happen next!

Thank you to J.S. and his family for sharing this lovely collage with us and for continuing to update our class with photos of the growth and changes in the special "rainbow chard!" 

Here are some updated photos as changes start to happen in Port Dover! 

Notice the different coloured stems? Exciting!

We can't wait to see what unfolds 

in the next couple weeks!

"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

Student Scientists: Can you make a rainbow?

With our Rainbow Inquiry continuing to unfold over the past month, we started noticing our Student Scientists brainstorming ways to create rainbows using a variety of materials in our classroom. From prisms held up to the window to flashlights shining through transparent coloured paddles, our students have been actively exploring their fascination and wonderings around how a rainbow is born! 

To support our students' curiousity and to help drive the momentum of our current inquiry forward, Heidi and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to introduce a simple experiment to not only help students further embrace themselves as scientists, but to help shed light on the thinking and reflection that scientists do when undergoing investigations! Keeping in mind that this learning has taken place over a series of weeks and not always with the whole group, Heidi and I have made and continue to make intentional and purposeful decisions based on our documentation of student learning.

Big Question: Can we make a rainbow?

Each group had:1 flashlight, 2 CDs, 1 prism, 1 mirror, 1 jar/tray with water, 1 piece of white paper, a Thinking Mat and markers

As a Rainbow Team, our students worked in small groups of 4-5 to see what materials would work best to make a rainbow.

Using a variety of materials, students took turns experimenting in different ways while the other members of their group looked closely for the appearance of a rainbow. 

Heidi and I circulated amongst all the groups with our iPads in hand and the camera/video ready to go to not only capture their excitement but to also record students' use of problem-solving skills, conversations, and discoveries. 

It was truly wonderful to see our student scientists work with the experiment materials in ways that we didn't anticipate and still successfully create a rainbow! I think I can speak for Heidi in saying that this elevated our excitement level ten-fold not only because of our student's "out-of-box" thinking, but also because of how well they collectively worked together by honouring each other's ideas, taking risks, and persevering when it didn't work!

To consolidate our learning, we met back on the carpet in the form of a Scientist Circle to showcase all the captured moments on our iPads. Students were so excited to see photos of their created rainbows, videos of their conversations and were eager to report on what worked and didn't work as part of their investigation in addition to what we discovered and what we still wonder about.

Moreover, after celebrating our findings that our student scientists did in fact make a rainbow, we turned to our class twitter account only to find a Kindergarten class from Thornwood Public School (@MsDuric) also experimenting and inquiring about rainbows! This took on a whole new level of excitement whereby our class was eager to ask questions and share our discoveries with them:

All in all, we were thrilled to see that our experiment brought together peer learning, science, and literacy into an authentic exploration while at the same time supporting our curriculum expectations in a meaningful 

way for our students. 

BIG IDEA: Children are curious and connect prior knowledge to new contexts in order to understand the world around them.

Overall Expectations:
1. Demonstrate an awareness of the natural and built environment through hands-on investigations, observations, questions and representations of their findings. 
2. Conduct simple investigations through free exploration, focused exploration, and guided activity, using inquiry skills (questioning, planning, predicting, observing, communicating).

Specific Expectations:
1.1 Ask questions about and describe some natural occurrences and representations (e.g. drawings, writing).
2.2 Make predictions and observations before and during investigations.
2.4 Communicate results and findings from individual and group investigations (e.g. state simple conclusions from an experiment, record ideas using pictures, numbers, and labels).