Introducing Quinn Sawyer!

Our sweet baby boy Quinn Sawyer was born on July 1, 2012 at 11:10 a.m., weighing 7 pounds, 5 ounces. Life with him has been an absolute joy and we are enjoying every moment!

Thank you!

Families and Friends,

I wanted to thank you for a lovely last day on Friday! As many of you know, I am moving on to a research assignment at the school board beginning March 5 and ending June 29. I am also pregnant with our third child and will be on maternity leave for the 2012- 2013 school year. I have been so proud to be an educator involved with the Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten Program for the last two years and have loved every exciting minute in our classroom. We could not have done it without your interest, support, donations, and encouragement along the way. From the bottom of my heart, thank you! Until our paths cross again, please take care of yourselves and your precious children and have a safe, healthy and happy March Break! Although this blog will not be posting classroom news until I am back in the school, I will periodically post interesting news, activities, and articles that might interest you as parents. Check back in July for a new baby picture!

Deanna McLennan

Barrier Games

 Barrier games are two sided game boards that use little manipulative pieces to create pictures. We have a store purchased one in our classroom. On Friday we placed it on a table and invited the children to use it. A player sits on each side and the children take turns giving each other instructions like "put the flag on the moon" or "put the spaceship on top of the planet". When the pieces are used up the players compare pictures to see if they match. The point of the game is to give clear instructions and be an active listener so that the pictures are identical.

Not only are barrier games fun, they encourage turn taking, active listening, and build oral language skills too!

Red Sand on the Light Table

We purchased some very neat decorative red sand and put it on the light table this week. It was beautiful!

The children were very eager to explore it, using their hands and fingers to swirl and shape the sand into letters and designs.

The light from the light table illuminated their drawings and printings.

Here's a beautiful spring butterfly!

Lots of printing practice too!

Square Prints

It's amazing how such simple materials can be used by our very creative children to create some amazing, unique pieces of art work!  We used stacking squares as print makers this past week with paint.

Some children patterned with them...

Some children stamped and then smeared the squares, and then stamped again on top. The paper we used retained the original colours so that a layered look could be achieved.

Some made geometric prints...

Smeared art work...

Folded symmetrical art work..

Beautiful background with geometric print on top...

Gorgeous!

Mouth and Foot Painting

Our children have started an amazing inquiry this week that we were so excited to share with you! It all began last week when one of our children brought in some old calendars that had been donated to our program for use at the art center.  The children enjoyed looking through the calendars and were admiring the beautiful paintings.

Mrs. Bombardier and the children looked at the 'artist information' page to see who had created such beautiful work and were amazed to find that the artists had painted the pictures by using their mouths and feet!

The children were intrigued with this idea and wanted to know why this was and how the artists learned to paint using a different part of their body. Miss Waites helped us to do some research by using the Internet and Smart Board. The children were able to view videos of people painting in this interesting way!

Of course this inspired many of them to want to try this themselves, so Mrs. Bombardier set up two areas where children could explore.

One center encouraged children to attempt to paint using just their mouth - children had to hold the paint brush, dip it in colours, and swish it in water to clean it in between colour choices. Covers were placed on the brushes in order to prevent germs from being spread.

Another area encouraged children to try painting with just their feet!

Although we are always fans of art activities, what we loved about this inquiry is that is really encouraged our children to think beyond their immediate lives and perhaps appreciate another's perspective - hopefully creating empathy and understanding for people who may look or act differently that we do. We can't wait to see where this inquiry takes us!

Fantastic Finger Painting!

Is there anything more fun than getting your hands full of colourful paint when finger painting? Our children just love to spend their time swirling, printing, and drawing in colourful shades of thick paint! Not only is this a great art activity as children choose which colour combinations of paint they explore, literacy is also a focus as children draw and write repeatedly in the paint.

Melted Crayon Art

The children participated in a very interesting art activity that combined their interests in drawing with their recent observations of things melting. Mrs. Bombardier set up a griddle that was covered in foil and turned on the 'warm' setting. 

The children helped us peel some festive colours of crayons.

With adult supervision, the children were invited to draw on a piece of paper that was placed on the warm surface...as they coloured they noticed the crayons begin to melt!

The children observed that the slower they moved the crayon on the hot surface, the faster it melted.

And the more they coloured, the more wax was left on their paper, creating beautiful textures and the blending of new colours on the surface.

The finished product was a masterpiece of colours, lines, and textures!  As the art cooled and the wax hardened, the children could feel their artwork as well as see it!  Beautiful!