We are Generous Beings #7 - Potlatch

Cake from Fire group

Potlatch!

 For our Generosity unit's summative activity, Creative Minds hosted a potlatch.

painting the pictures

A potlatch is a traditional First Nations gathering used to celebrate, commemorate, communicate and acknowledge specific events such as naming ceremonies, weddings, memorials and others.  Guests at these events offer gifts to the host family to support their event recognizing that these offerings will be returned at a later date.  The host family will redistribute the wealth they accumulated along with the new gifts received to those invited to the potlatch.

painting the frames

In preparation for the potlatch the children in each group thought about a gift they want to make and give away. All the children in the Water group agreed on making pictures for everyone and candies for the potlatch. We decided to paint the pictures and put it in a photo frame. They were all so focused on their project and they made sure that every child will receive a painting from them. What a thoughtful group of children! 

Cutting the shapes for our candies

kneading the candy dough

We are Generous Beings #6 - Connecting with our Community

Baking the muffins

Mixing the ingredients

Talking about what to paint for others lead us to the story Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen by DyAnne DiSalvo-Ryan. After reading the story to the children, I showed pictures of soup kitchens and other organizations around Vancouver that help feed those in need. We looked at what others are doing to help and the children started thinking about what they can do.

Putting up the sign

Natalya: We can give them clothes that are too small.
Peter: We can give them food. 
Aiden: We can give toys to the children.
Cameron: I can ask my mom and dad for some money to give them.

After Cameron's comment, everyone in the group wanted to go home and ask their parents for money to donate. So I said to the children that the money is earned by their parents and I suggested that they should earn their own money. I showed the children how other people raise money and they decided to have a bake sale to raise funds to donate to our local food bank and a toy drive for the children. The children were all very excited! They baked the treats and the bake sale was a success! 

Children from other groups helping out

Cupcakes donated by Alexis

Thank you everyone!

Thanks to all the children and parents at Creative Minds for your support! 

We are Generous Beings #5 - People Have Different Understandings of Generosity

Water group read the book "The Magic Paintbrush" by Julia Donaldson. In the story, Shen is given a magic paintbrush and everything she paints become real. However, she is asked to paint for the poor and not the wealthy. The children asked, "Why? Why not give to the wealthy? This prompted our discussion of what wealthy people might have and wondered if they need more. This allowed us this think about our needs and wants. I explained to the children that we need things to keep us alive and things that we want will make us happy or help make our lives easier. The children listed their needs and wants.



Natalya: We need trees and water.
Jayla: I want candies.
Aiden: We need clothes.
Cameron: We need money.
Peter: We need food.
Mila: I want toys.
Andrew: We need friends.
Alan: I need daddy and mommy.

We extended our activity by making our own magic paintbrush and imagined that we were Shen painting for the poor.

We are Generous Beings #4 - Do we Have to be Generous?

As the Water group explored with the book The Giving Tree, many made comments on how the tree was being too generous. As we looked closer at the Tree, the children saw that the Tree was happy in the end even though it was left with a stump.

We furthered this idea of "giving too much" with Mr. Gumpy's Outing and Too Many Frogs.

Mr. Gumpy's Outing
In the story, Mr. Gumpy lets children and animals join him on his boat ride as long as everyone agrees to behave. However in the end the boat tips because everyone does exactly what Mr. Gumpy asked them not to do.

Natalya: Mr. Gumpy was not angry at them (children and animals) because he invited them back for tea.
Aiden: Yeah, he said they could go on his boat again.
Mila: That's generous.

The children enjoyed dramatizing the story, especially the part where the boat tips. SPLASH!


Too Many Frogs
In the story, Rabbit lives alone and one evening while he gets ready to read himself a story, Froggie shows up at his door. Froggie invites himself in the house and Rabbit not knowing how to reject him, lets him stay. In the end, Froggie invites his entire family to Rabbit's.

Cameron: I ask my mom and dad if I want to invite friends to my house.
Aiden: Froggie is not very nice. 

We talked about what we should do or say with things that we don't agree with.

Natalya: You can say 'No, thank you'.
Aiden: When you don't feel like playing with someone then you can say, 'Maybe I'll play with you some other time'.
Mila: You can say, 'I'll play with you in five minutes'.
Cameron: You don't have to share if you don't want to.

The children made puppets for the story. When they finished they practiced accepting/declining offers with the puppets they made.

We are Generous Beings #3 - How Can we be Generous?

painting the Giving Tree

The children can see that the giving tree gives to the boy and the boy receives from the tree. I asked the children if they were the little boy, what would they do? They answered they would be generous and give something to the tree.

The children painted each part of the giving tree (trunk, branches, leaves and apples). Then they thought of what the tree will need and made their gifts with felt fabric. 

adding the leaves

Enxin and Natalya think that the tree needs a heart so they each made one for the tree.

Andrew and Cameron wanted to give the tree a cat and a boy as companions so it wouldn't feel lonely.

Jayla and Peter gave the tree apples because the tree gave its apples to the boy.

The tree will feel lonely anymore!

Even though the giving tree that the children created is made out of paper, the children felt a connection with it. As Enxin and Natalya put their hearts on the tree Natalya said: "I think the tree is feeling happy right now."

Putting the tree together

Giving hearts 

We are Generous Beings #2 - What is generosity

The Water group began this unit by telling others who we are (the transdisplinary theme). The children told what they like to do and some of the qualities they have.  
Next we looked at Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree. The children immediately noticed that the tree always gives the boy something when he visits the tree. Enxin commented: "Genenosity is sharing so the tree is being generous." Natalya noticed that the tree is just a stump in the end of the story. Peter added: "Yeah, the tree has nothing left." I asked the children: "Do you think the tree is happy?" Below are some of their answers:

Aiden: "The tree is happy when the boy is happy."
Cameron: "No, the tree is not really happy. Sometimes I don't have to share my legos."
Jayla: The tree is angry.

We are Generous Beings #1 - Generosity Party

 On Monday we brainstormed about generosity with the children. Here are some of their thoughts:

Sharing treats

Trystan: Generosity is helping friends when they are stuck.

Enxin: It is helping people when they are hurt.

Lysander: Sharing!

Tai: Hugging.

Aiden: Generosity is really good.

We told the children that we are going to hold a party where everyone is celebrating the new year and Orin suggested: "We can have a generosity party". What a great idea! I asked the children what we should do to make it a generosity party. The children said they could bring something to share with everyone and started to think about what to bring from home. 

Dancing with our friends

Laughing with our friends

Cheers!

Yum!

The children could not wait for the party! Even the children who did not attend the discussion day wanted to share something from their lunch kits. Everyone enjoyed the treats (thank you parents!) and dancing to the music(shared by the teachers). After, the children gathered together for a story The Gift of Nothing. It is about Mooch (a cat) pondering what gift to give Earl (a dog) when Earl has everything. The answer, of course, is nothing. Inspired by the story, the children wrapped empty boxes with colourful wrapping papers and played with them in our block area. 

Playing with the gift boxes

Gift wrapping

Please view our IB Wall to see the concepts, lines of inquiry, and teacher's questions for our new unit.