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.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Friday, December 31, 2010
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:
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
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!
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!
Rolling Downhill
You would expect this blog to be a posting about Forest school, but in fact, it is a quick classroom observation from October.
We have really reached kind of a dynamic equilibrium: Normally September starts out with a little bit of chaos as everyone (parents, children and teachers) adapt to the new environment. This is somewhat highlighted in our new school where everyone is experiencing firsts, but, it is also somewhat moderated by our small size. After this adaptation period you start to get glimmers of an equilibrium where everyone is active and a lot of learning and growing is taking place and less of the adjument activities are occuring.
We settled into this early in October and one of the big indicators of that was activities of one of our little guys. He has really internalized the idea of the sequence of materials in a specific area. In particular he has identified an activity in the math area involving what is called the "Thousands Cube" (10x10x10 units arranged as a cube). He understands that this activity is a few steps further along than his current activity.
He has had converstations in the class about what he needs to accomplish to get to that activity and has now really engaged in the math area and is entirely rolling towards that goal on his own momentum, actively choosing this area and requesting lessons. This rolling analogy is not to suggest the activity is passive he is very much engaged, and indeed, even the teachers are helping and instructing to avoid snags. The satisfying observation for us is that this momentum is a great indicator of a class running well.
Aside: It reminds me of a really attractive element of child centered learning programs: He can spend a few weeks working hard in one area as his interest and focus are inspired and it does not disrupt the process by which all of the material is covered. But less obvious and perhaps even more profound he has experienced learning and understanding and even goal setting as a positive experience and that will carry him much further, and much more contentedly, than any math activity.
We have really reached kind of a dynamic equilibrium: Normally September starts out with a little bit of chaos as everyone (parents, children and teachers) adapt to the new environment. This is somewhat highlighted in our new school where everyone is experiencing firsts, but, it is also somewhat moderated by our small size. After this adaptation period you start to get glimmers of an equilibrium where everyone is active and a lot of learning and growing is taking place and less of the adjument activities are occuring.
We settled into this early in October and one of the big indicators of that was activities of one of our little guys. He has really internalized the idea of the sequence of materials in a specific area. In particular he has identified an activity in the math area involving what is called the "Thousands Cube" (10x10x10 units arranged as a cube). He understands that this activity is a few steps further along than his current activity.
He has had converstations in the class about what he needs to accomplish to get to that activity and has now really engaged in the math area and is entirely rolling towards that goal on his own momentum, actively choosing this area and requesting lessons. This rolling analogy is not to suggest the activity is passive he is very much engaged, and indeed, even the teachers are helping and instructing to avoid snags. The satisfying observation for us is that this momentum is a great indicator of a class running well.
Aside: It reminds me of a really attractive element of child centered learning programs: He can spend a few weeks working hard in one area as his interest and focus are inspired and it does not disrupt the process by which all of the material is covered. But less obvious and perhaps even more profound he has experienced learning and understanding and even goal setting as a positive experience and that will carry him much further, and much more contentedly, than any math activity.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Forest School Adventures
We have had an enormous amount of fun in our first two weeks of Forest School getting into the natural world—learning, exploring, and adventuring. During the first week, we explored the backyard of the school and developed our daily routines and safety protocols. The children particularly enjoyed playing a hide-and-seek game called Hawks and Mice—getting ever more adventurous (and muddy) with their hiding places as the week went on.
In our second week, we ventured through the back gate and into the natural area behind the school. We used magnifying glasses to look at milkweed and goldenrod plants and watched Monarch butterflies pass by on their journey south; we played a Monarch migration game in which the children ran from a northerly starting point to a warm, southerly wintering site stopping along the way to rest and drink goldenrod nectar; and we explored several new areas including the edge of the marsh and a grassy wooded area filled with ash and maple trees.
Already, after just two weeks, the children are demonstrating greater comfort in the outdoors as they climb up and down a steep hill, encounter living things (like birds, toads, earthworms and dragonflies), navigate off-trail through tall plants and grasses, walk on uneven terrain, and spend time outside in a variety of weather conditions.
On the topic of weather: A particular highlight of the week was a very happy morning spent outside in the pouring rain. We set up the tarp and sat beneath it listening to the loud sound of the rain. Under the tarp, we completed our daily weather report and read stories using a flashlight. Then, with arms outstretched and palms up to feel the water, singing songs about the rain, we made our way through the tall, wet grasses, down the big hill to the fabulous puddles below. The children loved jumping in the puddles! They jumped. They splashed. They giggled. They put their hands in the cold water. They got extremely dirty. What fun!Check back for more updates about our woodsy adventures.
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