Generosity Abounds #3: Give and Take

Connection: There is give and take in generosity

To understand the give and take in generosity, Water group read The Self Crocodile by Faustin Charles. In the story, a selfish crocodile would not let anyone drink from or swim in the river and said that it was 'his river'. All the animals feared him until one day he had a bad toothache and a brave little mouse helped him. The crocodile was so thankful that he gave the mouse a present in return and invited all the animals back the river.

The children enjoyed this story so much that they dramatized it with puppets and even made stick puppets to bring home. They could see it is very important to share and be kind to others. Sophie said: "If you're mean, then nobody wants to play with you." Jayla added: "You have to have generosity then other people will be happy." We started telling about a time when someone else was generous to us and what they would do in return to thank them for their generosity.

Olympia: Bela plays with me. I will make him a card and give him a hug.
Sasha: My daddy and mommy plays with me. I will make them a heart.
Charlie: My daddy helps me.
Jayla: I was generous to my brother, I gave him a jellybean and he put on the TV for me. 
Sophie: My family takes care of me and play with me. I will make a picture for them. 

Generosity Abounds #2: Helping Hands

What is generosity?

The water group read Ribbon Rescue by Robert Munsch to get some ideas. In the story, a young girl gives away the ribbons from her new dress to help various people on their way to a wedding. As the children listened, they noticed that Jillian is so good at helping others and sharing her things. "She doesn't even mind when she falls in the mud!" Olympia pointed out. "Yeah, she's very generous," Sophie added.

For an art activity, the children made hand prints and on each hand print, the children listed ways of being generous. As the unit continues, we will add more hand prints or examples of generous acts.

Generosity Abounds #1: Who We Are

When the children were told that our new unit would be about generosity, many asked, "What is generosity?" I explained to them that generosity is the quality of being generous/kind. "Oh!" they said. Then I asked if they remember a time when they were generous and here are their replies:

Olympia: I'm generous when I share with my friends and play with Bela.
Sasha: When I play with my mommy and daddy.
Theo: I'm generous to my mommy and daddy when I dress myself.
Sophie: I give my mommy hugs.
Lucas: I'm generous when I am caring.

To explore a little of Who We Are each child created a poem titled "I am".

Colour My World #6: Nature Painting

We ended our colour unit by doing a nature painting on canvas. During the planning stage the child identified something from nature they wanted to represent and the colours they needed. They were given the primary colours, white, black and they created other colours they need. The children all showed their knowledge of mixing paint to get a specific colour and adding white to create a tint or black for a shade.

Colour My World #5 - Inspired by Matisse

To further into complementary colours, Water group looked at how Henri Matisse used complementary colours. I showed the children the stained glass of Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence. They were immediately drawn to the blue, green and yellow patterns. We studied how Matisse presented nature through these 3 colours: yellow for the sun, green for vegetation and cactus forms, and blue for the sea. Next I showed the children The Parakeet and the Mermaid. They loved the colours because it made the painting danced. Inspired by Matisse's artwork, the children demonstrated their perspective of nature with their own cut-out designs.

Colour My World #4: Colour Magic!

After all the colour mixings, the Water group took a closer look at the colour wheel and learned about complementary colours (colours opposite one another). We read the book Mouse Magic by Ellen Stoll Walsh. In the book there's a Wizard who knows how to make colours jiggle and shake. And just like Kit, the mouse, the children tried to make the colours jump around by placing any two complementary colours together. 

Friday Art: Inspiration from Paul Gaugin

AJ: The sky is blue, the ground is blue
and the rocks are red!

Lucas: I'm painting orange rain.

From the children's idea of what their wonderful would look like, I introduced Paul Gaugin (GO-GAN), a French Post-Impressionist artist from 1848-1903, to them. I explained that just like their use of different colours for things in nature, Gaugin loved using unusual colours in his paintings of everyday things, people, and nature.

Sophie: I have yellow sky and dirt.

Then the children experimented with unusual colours in their landscape painting.