If they love to build...

From

As the year progresses it is interesting to see how the interest of the children has changed and been influenced by past experiences. After our trip to the ROM many of the children would use the Pink Tower in conjunction with the Broad Stairs to “build” the Museum. The building has a very geometric entrance area that drew a lot of attention while we were there.

Building on their interest in architecture we have introduced a set of cards, each with a picture of a famous structure. These include but are not limited to Big Ben, Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Water Cube, the Bird’s Nest, the CN Tower and the Eiffel Tower.

At first we looked at the photographs and discussed the names of the buildings, which quickly led to where they are located in the world and what are their uses. Due to high interest it was a mere day or so before they could all identify each of the buildings by name.

With little encouragement I suggested that they use the materials available in the classroom to “build” these structures. The challenge was one they took up with a vengeance. One of the youngest members of our classroom got out his mat and carefully chose the card with the CN tower. He sat for a few minutes examining the sensorial shelf before selecting the Broad Stairs. Standing each of the prisms on their end he built a structure using the broadest until just as high as he could reach. He then sat down and took the card in his hand. Looking at his card and then to the structure he’d built several times before he looked to me confused. I stepped in and asked if he had a problem. Pointing to the rounded part of the CN tower he said “We don’t have anything that makes that shape”. I assured him that there had to be “something” we could find. Within moments another child who had overheard the conversation made a couple of suggestions. The young architect took both and tried them on the top of his structure, in the end he did use one of the suggestions, a rounded heavier lid from another piece of work. With that problem solved he sat down again and examined the photo. Declaring to no one in particular “Now I just need this part here” as he pointed to the top most point of the photograph. Carrying his card with him he did another tour of the class before exclaiming “Hey one of these would work, look it’s got an end on it” showing me as he walked back to his mat. Standing on his tippy toes he reached up and placed the tall thin cylinder from the cylinder block on the top. Once again he referred to his card and then his structure, satisfied that he was finished he asked if I could look at his building. He was proud of his work because he’d made the choices, solved the problems and had succeeded in completing his work.

Editorial on Schools

Slate has an interesting discussion over formalizing education. It dovetails nicely with the approach Echo works towards in terms of spontaneous learning and exploration of a child's environment.

http://www.slate.com/id/2288402/

TEDx

Anyone in the region that likes to hear interesting and inspiring speakers should take a look at TEDx.


TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design and is a very special conference bringing speakers from all over the world. It includes speakers on children and education such as Gever Tully and a couple presentations by Ken Robinson: School Kills Creativity and Bring on the Revolution. There are of course hundreds and perhaps thousands more, but, the above are a handful that we have found interesting.


Waterloo and other regions host a branched out version of TED called TEDx that brings some substantial speakers to individual regions. This year in waterloo it includes the astronaut Roberta Bondar and the young sailor Abby Sutherland. The format of TEDx preserves the format of TED: Tightly limited 20 minute presentations on “Ideas worth sharing”. This year the TEDx theme is Discover Explore Challenge – The Uncharted.


Let us know if you do end up planning on going it should be an exciting event. One of us will be going and will post our thoughts on the speakers after the conference on March 3rd.

Photographic Updates

Hope you are all having a great holiday.

Wanted to include some photos of the ROM trip here:

Also, check out our holiday party:

10 006555 PR

10 006555 PR is the id given by the city of Guelph for the now the APPROVED building permit. Hooray! Completion of the work associated with this permit will allow Echo to accept additional children into the program.

ROM Romp

On Friday we ventured out for our first ever field trip. We loaded our small group of children into cars with as many adults as children joining the trip. Our destination was driven by the interests of the children in the class:
Our oldest two have been spending many hours conversing over dinosaurs and early mammals. The discussions ranged from their names to how they became extinct (generally pronounced by the 3 year old as ‘instinct’). Not a day went by that it wasn’t discussed and the topic eventually came to family trip one of the children made to the ROM to see the bones last spring. This fascinated even our youngest members of the class. “You can see the dinosaurs?” they all asked. Our 3 year old expert was happy to fill everyone in on the details. And thus an idea was born. Let’s take the children to the ROM to see the dinosaur bones. Plans were made, permission forms signed and car seats installed.

The drive there was relatively uneventful but it is interesting to listen to a couple of ‘almost’ three old discuss what they see out the window of the car. The giant inflatable gorilla, a school bus on the roof of a building; things you and I have seen a thousand times driving down the 401 yet to them they were new finds and something to share with their buddy.

Working with children for several years does not dull the amazement of seeing children experiencing and observing the world. As we approached the geometric architecture of the main entrance the 2 youngest were mystified. They kept pointing the different shaped windows and talked about the “unusualness” of the building: They aren’t even three and prompting they were admiring architecture! We gathered in the front entrance, arranged name tags and jokingly made sure that each child was responsible for an adult so that the adults didn’t wander off.

And with that we entered a different world.

Taking the stairs to the first exhibit we made sure that the children all entered the room as the same time. The moment they saw the size of the skeletons there was a spreading look of wonder that was something to behold. The two youngest were stunned into motionlessness staring at the Albertasaurus. And then it bubbled over. The sudden inability to make a coherent sentence and stay in one spot for longer than 2 seconds hit them. The children spontaneously explored the room looking at the different dinosaurs, the big the little and those in between. Interestingly, the children were drawn to the teeth: were they scary like the T-Rex or small like the brachiosaurus. Each child was able tell you if the dinosaur was an herbivore or carnivore by looking at their teeth and that became a bit of a game; although the omnivore really threw them for a loop.

When it was time to enter the second display (the one we knew housed the T- Rex) we again made sure we entered as a group; and again stunned silence. The size and ferocious pose overwhelming our little charges but moments later they all took turns being “fed” to the T-Rex for ( ‘epoch’ologically impossible) photographs. We spent a long time examining the beast and its body parts. The children had previously tried to make dino tracks in the snow and were studying the feet now so that they could be more realistic.

The dinosaur exhibit, while being the main draw, was not the only exhibit we visited. We enjoyed seeing all the fossils with the fossilized sea shells being another favourite. However, we also entered the forest of the biodiversity exhibit and looked for the hidden animals amongst the display. The children were able to name many of the species in the forest in both English and French. This area was a great ‘hands on’ area with puzzles, a fox den to crawl through and skulls you could actually touch. The excitement meant that this area was explored particularly haphazardly but our group was able to deal with this fun way of learning that was at the heart of the experience.

The grown-ups at this point realized that they were getting a little hungry and checking watches realized that we were a good 15 minutes past our usual lunch time. Not wanting a meltdown in the middle of the ROM we quickly moved on to the young children’s play area with an eye to getting to lunch.

And what a great time! There was sand with dinosaur bones to dig for and goggles and brushes to look like a real paleontologist. Again finding the T-Rex teeth was the highlight of the “dig”. Knowing we needed to quickly find the school lunch room area we went quickly through the rest of the play area with only a brief stop at the castle and dragon toys.

Sitting in a lunch room with our packed lunch we enjoyed listening to everyone tell their versions of the experience. Each had different things they liked and remembered.

At 1:30 we walked very tired children back to the cars, buckled them in and headed for school. It was only moments before all were sound asleep.

This trip was particularly successful even compared to other trips I have been on as a parent or teacher or organizer and in reflecting on it I think in part it is explained by the circumstances where we were able to follow the interest of the children both in the planning and in the logistics at the ROM. Definitely an approach we will be trying again.

Finding Patterns, Patriotism and Humour

Our children have been learning about different bird species that inhabit the woods behind the school. One of the things they have become interested in is the differences in the bird calls. One of our youngest members of the class was being asked by Jen "What is the call of the chickadee?" His response was immediate: "chickadee dee dee". "What is the call of the blue jay?", Jen continued. And once again he responded correctly by saying, "jay jay jay". Jen then asked, "What is the call of the Canada Goose?" He stood to sing his response at the top of his lungs, “Oh Canada our home and native land”.

We of course shared the real bird call with him, but really loved his zest.

Another forest school note: The children were very excited last week when they had a chance to see a porcupine in a tree in the woods. One group of children also had a chance to see a deer!