"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!

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

"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!

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).

How is a rainbow born?

After visiting Acorn School, a Reggio-Inspired school in Richmond Hill, as part of our CTInquiry network group (Connected Through Inquiry) a few weeks ago, Heidi and I felt inspired by one of their documentation pieces displayed. This documentation piece was a collaborative story written by their Junior Preschoolers and Senior Preschoolers of the school. Heidi and I absolutely loved how they co-created a story with their students around an inquiry question and thus, we adopted the idea while making it our own for our Rainbow Inquiry to follow suit with one of the initial wonderings posed by C.S (JK). 

To set a context for this post, I would like to highlight that much thinking and learning occurred within the walls of our classroom over the past few weeks that led up to this collaborative story being created by our students. With our students actively adopting the role of a "Scientist" as part of this environmental inquiry, whether it be through our daily conversations, sharing and building on each other's thinking and in connection to various literacy experiences and scientific explorations (e.g. read alouds, shared reading, experimentation, etc), as a teaching team, we made the conscious and purposeful decision to tie in this unique learning opportunity in a way that was unique to us and our learners. In doing so, we hope that this post illustrates to you that this was not something we saw and then "replicated," but rather this learning moment was something that was complimentary to our students theories and thinking about rainbows and where they come from.  

A special thanks to our good friend and inspiring colleague, Angie Harrison, for pushing our own thinking as a teaching team around how to make visible to our blog followers that as much as this post highlights a "product," there was still a process involved that got our learners and us as a teaching team to this point in our inquiry. 

Image captured from Acorn School during our visit

How is a rainbow born?

A Collaborative Story created by the Junior Kindergarten and Senior Kindergarten students 

in Ms. Schmidt & Ms. Theis’ class

A rainbow is born with just the air (E.Sz). The rainbow is also born with the sun (D.K). A rainbow can be born during the rain or after the rain in the sky (E.S). My thinking is when the rainbow starts it goes one colour to the other colour, to the other colour and that’s how it grows (C.S). 

The first colour is red. It is hot (M.P). The second colour is orange (R.T). It is warmish (L.M). The third colour is yellow (P.B). It is like the sun (V.D). The fourth colour is green (E.Sz). It feels like the grass (Z.P). The fifth colour is blue. It is like the sky (R.K). The last colour is purple (M.D). It feels soft (R.V). 

I see the rainbow start from the left and it looks like a semi-circle (E.S). Maybe the other half of the circle is in the ground? (T.B) The colours disappear but the rainbow is still there until another day of rain (E.S). When the rainbow camouflages in the air, it breaks off and turns into air (T.L). 

Then a new one is born (Z.P). 

But how? (T.D.)

We'd like to extend our sincerest thanks to Acorn School for opening their doors and welcoming us so kindly into their inspiring learning space! 

We hope to visit again very soon!

Somewhere over the rainbow...

Spring has sprung (finally!) and a lot of exciting things are unfolding in our classroom! To provide you with some context of where we are now, I'd like to highlight where we started from over a month ago whereby our students had shown a profound interest in putting on "plays." In order to honour their interests, we worked with our students to help rearrange our learning space to provoke and support their curiousity by turning one area of our classroom into a puppet theatre! After much excitement and many celebrated performances, a few students realized that we didn't have a name for our theatre! After a small group of students brainstormed some possibilities, one SK student (E.S.) decided to create a survey and collect data from her peers around what we should name our theatre based on the four collected names. 

Little did we know, that the winning name itself would shift their gears to begin inquiring about a completely new topic! "Rainbow 126" was the most popular name voted on and that has now opened the doors to our students wonderings about rainbows!

Here are a some of our colourful theories:

What does a rainbow look like?

It looks kind of like a semi-circle because a semi-circle really looks like a rainbow because it’s half of a circle. - D.K. (SK)

A rainbow is like this (makes an arch motion). It’s good because then it’s like a slide and maybe you can sleep on it! - R.V. (JK)

To make a rainbow, you need water because the word “rain” is in rainbow! 

- T.B. (SK)

I see that when rain comes you see a rainbow! It looked like there was red, orange, yellow, green, blue and pink! - J.Si. (SK)

Where do we see rainbows?

We see rainbows when there’s lots of rain and when the rain stops. We see it start on the ground and it reflects on the sky. “Reflects” means that the same things goes on that one thing. - D.K. (SK)

One time, I saw a water sprinkler and then the sun comes out and then I saw a rainbow you know? - Z.P. (SK)

I saw a rainbow in my cousin’s house. I saw it in the washroom and I caught it and then it got out of my hand. When the sun went away the rainbow did too. But then I found it again when the light comes back. - M.D. (JK)

In the sky where the sunlight is! Rainbows don’t live inside our house. Rainbows can shine on people you know? I was driving in my car and I saw it in the sky! 

-R.V. (JK)

Sometimes where it’s a beautiful rainy day and when it stops raining a rainbow appears. It looks like a beautiful rising colours in the sky! - C.S. (JK)

In the sky! It has to be day time because the sun helps and you can’t see a rainbow in the dark. - R.K. (SK)

Can you catch a rainbow?

When you touch a rainbow, it goes on your hand. It just feels like air so you can’t slide down because you’ll fall. It’s too high and there’s no oxygen there. 

- E.Sz. (SK)

No it’s because rainbows disappear after a long time and they come back when the rain stops. - R.K. (SK)

I think you can’t because rainbows are too big to get in a net and you can’t really hold a rainbow. When you touch a rainbow your hand goes right through it! It’s made of air too. - D.K. (SK)

I think it’s made out of sunlight. - S.R. (JK)

Rainbows are nothing but colours in the air. - T.L. (SK)

Some of our wonderings...

I wonder if rainbows fade and disappear? - M.P. (SK)

I wonder how the colours pop out? 

- E.S. (SK)

I wonder where rainbows come from? 

- J.H. (SK)

I wonder how a rainbow is born? 

- C.S. (JK)

I wonder why rainbows have different colours? - J.Sa. (SK)

To fast-forward a few weeks, our class has been actively engaged as Scientists as we continue to generate new theories, pose and answer our wonderings and collect information based on our discoveries and our own experiences with rainbows! Stay tuned for a post that highlights our first of many rainbow experiments!