Over the last few weeks, our socio-dramatic play area in our classroom has undergone a transformation from a very successful bakery to a movie theatre! The reason I wanted to highlight this on the blog was because it has truly allowed for our students to build on their imagination through play, incorporate rich and meaningful learning opportunities for both literacy and mathematics, and lastly, "spark" our students' ownership over their learning space! It is truly inspiring to witness our youngest learners so eager and excited to take charge in their learning and, as an educator, it couldn't feel more rewarding to support them throughout the process!

Here are some highlights from our transformation; all of which have been led by students' interests and ideas and supported by us as a teaching team:

After brainstorming ideas for our dramatic play area, students then voted on the one they wanted! 

Movie Theatre was a clear win! Students enjoyed analyzing our collected data and even made a list of students who had yet to vote due to their absence! It was wonderful to watch them take such pride on ensuring the decision-making process was inclusive of all students!

Students began brainstorming as a team what our movie theatre needs and what sorts of materials we will need to create! A list of movies that they wanted to have playing in our theatre was also co-created!

After posing this question to students: 

"What special jobs does our movie theatre need?" 

students came up with the following:

1. Ticket Agent

2. Ticket Taker

3. Popcorn and Drink Maker

4. Customer

5. Poster Maker

Afterwards, we brainstormed what materials we could use that were already in our classroom that could help our movie theatre feel more "real"! Our students' imagination continues to amaze us as they thought of 

some of the following materials:

- small cups and large cups

- variety of cubes (linking cubes and wooden cubes)

- baking trays

- tissue for the napkins

- clipboards

A special thank you to Jennifer Tompkins, an FDK Teacher at Bond Lake Public School, for inspiring us to use linking cubes for our popcorn! Our students have easily named the "yellow" ones as buttery popcorn and the "white" ones as plain popcorn!

Students have truly taken on the various roles throughout our movie theatre! Their dialogue, exchanging of ideas, teamwork and oral language skills have really helped make our theatre come to life!

So much so, that it has officially been named "Room 109 Movies!" and has a list of "rules" that we follow based on our prior knowledge!

 As part of showcasing each movie at our theatre, we really make it official by watching a short clip of the "featured" movie using our classroom's tech cart! This has really made our theatre feel real since once the clip is over, students practice leaving the theatre and tidy up as a team before 

the start of the next movie! 

Since our movie theatre was becoming so busy and popular in our classroom, we problem-solved as a team and came up with the solution that the movie space has room for only 6 chairs! In doing so, one SK decided that by keeping track of who has bought tickets (using tally marks), we can tell people when the show is "SOLD OUT!" - how awesome is that! Whoever is the "Ticket Agent" now has this responsibility added to their job! Moreover, our "Popcorn and Drink Maker" is in charge of reading each ticket order and choosing the correct size container (small or large) which has given us the opportunity to begin to explore mass and capacity!

We hope that this transformation leaves you feeling inspired to think about the ways you integrate literacy and mathematics into your dramatic play areas of your classroom! 

We hope you enjoyed the show! 

What is a Superhero? What makes a Superhero special?

After taking a break from the blogging world for the past month or so, and in part of celebrating the new year, I wanted to finally showcase and share our documentation from our students' Superhero Inquiry (since it's been on my very long "To-Do" list for a while)! It was most definitely an inquiry that was fantastical in nature, however, it was so empowering for our students to take lead on answering each other's questions and wonderings and using their imagination to drive their thinking forward! 

This inquiry has tied in perfectly to our "What can you see? How can you help?" global inquiry project since our students made the connections to "heroes" in our community! Police officers and Fire Fighters were at the top of the list and it was incredibly meaningful since many of our students' family members are part of those professions! 

Moreover, as a teaching team, the Visual Arts was a perfect opportunity to celebrate their imaginative thinking by creatively designing their own Superheroes and describing the powers they uphold! We used Sharpies and water colour crayons to create these representations of each students' unique visions of themselves as a Superhero! We have selected a few products to show and celebrate with you!

Superhero rules:

Be Kind

Be Brave

Be Extraordinary

Be Strong

Be the best you can be!

What can you see? How can you help? - Our First Skype Call!

A few weeks ago, our class had the wonderful opportunity of connecting with another Full Day Kindergarten class from Keswick, Ontario as part of our "What can you see?" global inquiry project! 

This was most certainly an exciting announcement since our students have had very little exposure to what "Skype" is all about and seemed quite puzzled by the fact that they would actually be able to see, hear and talk to another class over the computer!

In preparation for our very first Skype call, we wanted our students to come up with three questions that they would like the students in Mrs. Harrison's and Miss Sanders' class to answer so that we could gain a deeper understanding of their school and where they live! Here is what we came up with:

1. Why are there so many "graders?"
2. What are the workers building near your school?
3. What are milkweeds?

Here is what we learned about their school, Lake Simcoe Public School:

1. We learned that graders are scrappers and their job is to go across the ground the scrape the dirt. It goes inside the truck and later goes out the truck.
2. We learned that the workers are building houses! Lots of houses! So far there will be 4 new roads and lots of new houses.
3. We learned that milkweeds were near their pond and monarch butterflies need milkweeds because they live on them. They are a type of plant and help with the life cycle of butterflies.

Here are the three questions Mrs. Harrison and Miss Sanders' class asked us about our school yard:

1. Why is your school called Robert Munsch Public School?
2. Why is your school look like ours?
3. Why do you have a park?

We had a lot of fun answering these questions and teaching our new kindergarten friends all about our school, where we live and what we can see! To conclude our Skype call, Mrs. Harrison and Miss Sanders' class came up with "compliments" for our class. Here are what some of her students had to say:

"I really liked your class."
"I want to compliment your class for talking to us."
"I would like to compliment your class for your book so we can read it."

Some other interesting facts we learned about our friends at Lake Simcoe Public School was that their school is 13 years old even though it looks a lot like our new school. We also learned that they have a new highway that goes to their school and more and more people will start living near their school in all those new houses. 

As a way of consolidating our new learning about Lake Simcoe Public School and our first Skype call, we asked our students what they enjoyed about this experience! Here are some of their thoughts:

"I liked how we could see them on the screen and talk to them!" - C.L. (SK)
"I liked when I got to ask them a question." - A.O. (SK)
"I liked how they reached us about their school." - C.D. (JK)
"I like how they have a pond too!" - E.B. (SK)

This first experience and exposure to what Skype is all about not only gave our students the opportunity to connect with other students their age, but also allowed them to begin to gain an understanding of different communities and how they can be similar to our own. We truly look forward to connecting with Mrs. Harrison and Miss Sanders' class again over Skype very soon as we hope to compare our ponds and the changes that we observe! 

Since this year's "What can you see?" project also extends to "How can you help?", this month, our class decided to get our school registered for the York Regional Police's "Holiday Heroes" Campaign and donate non-perishable food items to our local community for the holiday season! This is one way we are showing kindness and making a difference in our community!

Photo from: http://rmpsyr.com

A sincere thank you to Mrs. Harrison, Miss Sanders' and their students for opening up their classroom and school yard to us and teaching us something new about the world around us! From our class to yours, we look forward to growing and learning together this year! 

Please be sure to visit our "What can you see? How can you help?" collaborative blog to read more on this exciting project! #WCYseehelp

http://whatcanyouseehowcanyouhelp.blogspot.ca