Paper Comes from Trees... But How?

The children have been experimenting with manipulating paper at the art studio and thinking about how different types of paper move (bend, fold, crumple, etc.). During a class discussion about this, some of the children mentioned knowing that paper comes from trees, but no one was quite sure how.

One popular theory was that paper is found inside of the trunks of trees. So the children tried to open up a tree stump to find out if they were right.

After days of prying this tree stump open, the children realized that their theory was not correct and that wood and not paper makes up tree trunks.

This has led us to more theories...so stay tuned.

Stained Glass Art

While researching castles, we noticed stained glass art in some of the windows so we decided to create our own.


First the children drew straight or curvy lines across a piece of tissue paper.

Then they traced this onto transparency film.

After this, they used watercolours to paint their piece of film.

Instead of placing the stained glass art in our castle, we decided to put them up against the window to get the full effect of the sun shining through the film.

Surveys and Graphs

The children have been enjoying creating their own surveys to find out what their friends, neighbouring  classes and grown-ups in the school are thinking. 


The children used their understanding of tallies to keep track of information on their surveys. They know that four lines with one across the centre equals 5.

 Some of the questions children used for their surveys were: "Do you like cats or dogs?"  "Do you love rain or snow?" "Do you think the rails on the ramp or the circles on the floor are more beautiful?"

We then turned our surveys into bar graphs. This child learned that more children think the open pinecone is more beautiful than the closed one. The graph makes it easy to see this.

The Castle Project

After voting to change our dramatic play area into a castle, the children became completely engrossed in this endeavour.

First, we researched castles and the children chose photographs from the internet to print out. They used these as inspiration when creating their own castle blueprints.

We also explored books about castles to help us identify important features.

After castle blueprints had been created, we compared all of our blueprints.

This helped us generate a list of important features we wanted to include in the castle for our dramatic play space.

We then created one blueprint with all of the features that we would follow when building our castle.

We knew we had to move our old kitchen furniture out of the drama area.

Then we got to building! We needed lots and lots of boxes!

After making grey paint, painting became our next big task.

Finally, we added a Canadian flag to our castle and it was complete!

Since this was such a complex project, we had the children reflect on the process they had undertaken. They selected photographs that showed their work and wrote about their experiences. We put this up in the dramatic play area so that they may further study it.

Sorting

The children have been exploring the mathematical concepts of sorting and classifying concrete objects and describing the rules they used to do so. 

The most popular materials for sorting is our diverse button collection. The children have been sorting buttons by colour, shape, size and the number of holes they possess. 

Here, tiles are sorted by colour.

Sorting circles can add challenge and offer more complex ways of sorting materials. Here, a child has sorted leaves by colour. The yellow and red leaves have been separated and leaves that are both red and yellow are placed in the overlapping section in the centre.

Sorting tiles by shape and colour is also becoming popular with the children.

At home: Sorting and classifying comes naturally to many children. Work with your child to sort objects around the home (e.g. socks and other types of clothing when you are doing the laundry, their toys when they are tidying up) and have them explain their thinking by describing how they have sorted the objects.