We Decorate our World #3 - Perspective

During group time one day, I showed the children a slideshow with different decorations. As they watched, they made comments to things they liked and didn't like. When they saw a picture of a white room, many of them didn't think it was decorated and wanted to add different colours and things to it. This is the perfect opportunity for us to explore the perspective* concept for this unit.

We read the book The Big Orange Splot by D. Manus Pinkwater. It shows how Mr. Plumbean is able to convince his neighbours to use their imagination to transform their houses to reflect their dreams.

Singapore boat house

The children used their imagination too and designed their own houses (a kleenex box) with a yard (a piece of cardboard). The children researched through many books to help them gather ideas for their structures. They were quite surprised to see how some houses were designed, especially ones from another culture.

mud houses in syria

mud houses in Africa

*PERSPECTIVE:  What are the points of view? The understanding that knowledge is moderated by perspectives; different perspectives lead to different interpretations, understandings and findings; perspectives may be individual, group, cultural or disciplinary

We Decorate our World #2 - Who We Are

The transdisciplinary theme for this unit is WHO WE ARE. The children from Water group briefly introduced themselves and it was amazing how they listened carefully to what others had to say about themselves.

Molly: "I like to to catch butterflies and my favourite colour is red. I love to play with toys."
Brendan: "I like to play with playdough and my favourite colour is orange."
Allye: "I like to play with playdough too and I like blue and green."
Angela: "I like to play and I like red and orange."
Alfie: "I like to play with Transformers and my favourite colour is all the colours and black. I am going to learn Chinese soon."
Theo: "I like to draw and my favourite colour is green."
Lucas: "I like painting and write with paintbrushes. I like blue."

Then the children each made and decorated a puppet that represented who they are.

We Decorate our World #1 - Decoration Hunt

 We began our "We Decorate our World" unit by going on a decoration hunt around the neighbourhood last week. The children noticed many decorations and some even found things they could use as decorations.


Allye and Angela noticed purple spider webs for Halloween.

Theo felt the green paint on his hand was decoration. 

Alfie saw a ghost decoration for Halloween.

Lucas thinks leaves could be used as decorations. Molly thinks fire hydrant is a decoration for the streets.

Brendan likes the design on the mailbox.

Sound Travels #12 - Water Group's Summative Project

We have ended our Sound Travel unit. For the summative project each child created their own tune using found objects or musical instruments. The children brainstormed the feeling or thought they want to reflect in their music and used Garage Band to create their own music sequence.

Allye

Theo

Molly

Lucas

Brendan

Angela

Alfie

Sound Travels #11 - Vivaldi's Four Seasons

Today I started off group time by playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons for the children to listen to. Immediately the children got up and started dancing to the music. I asked the children why are they dancing. They said the music makes them feel happy and their bodies want to move to the music. I let them know that they are expressing their feelings about the music through their movements.

The Four Seasons Concerto was inspired by four paintings of the seasons by the artist Marco Ricci. To help the children understand that people have different perspectives and ways to express themselves, I asked them to paint a picture to each season as we listened to the music. It was interesting to see their colour choices and how each piece made them feel. I'm eager to see how they feel and their thoughts when I show them the paintings that inspired Vivaldi.

Sound Travels #10 - Express Feelings and Thoughts

On Tuesday, the children explored how music and sound are used to express feelings and thoughts (perspective). We sang the folk song "Daddy Loves the Bear". Here are the words:

Daddy loves the bear, 
Daddy loves the bear, 
Daddy loves the bear and gives it lots of care/takes it everywhere. 

Here are some of their thoughts or actions when they sang the song:
Alfie said: "It is caring."
Theo said: "You can give kisses."
Allye was swaying from side to side.  
We discussed more about caring (one of the ten IB profile words). What does it look like when you are caring to the bear? 

Brendan: I will hold it gently.
Molly: I will hug it. 

We ended group time by making a fuzzy teddy bear card for the ones we care about. 

Sound Travels #9 - Beats and Rhythms

 Yesterday, the Water group took a closer look at two different forms in a song, the beat and the rhythm. What is the difference between a beat and a rhythm? We used Hickory Dickory Dock to help us understand. First we tapped out the beat (tick tock of the clock) then we tapped the rhythm (words of the rhyme). We even created symbols (triangles for the beats and circles for the rhythms) to help us follow the beat and the rhythm.

Dotting Bumpety, Bumpety, Yellow Bus

Even though it seems a bit confusing for the children to understand, they did notice that a beat is steady but a rhythm can change and has different patterns. Today we practiced beat and rhythm with the song Bumpety, Bumpety, Yellow Bus and created a song dot map to add to our form book that the children are currently working on.

Beats and rhythm for Hickory Dickory Dock