Who We Are - #7

Ann began the lesson on "Who We Are" with a story about friendship and here is what Ann wrote:

The Earth group had a story about friendship and sharing. The children all agreed that sharing is generosity. As we reviewed the story, we drew down the plot of the story. The children were impressed by the way the boys kicked out their anger and became friends again. Orin and Alexis thought the boys solved their problem well. Other children and Ann wondered if there is a better way to share when we can not cut or split things into half. Then, we moved on to our project of making the generosity tree.

Once the tree was complete I couldn't help but notice it's unique shape so I asked the children what they thought it looked like, and here are their thoughts:

Ava - It is like my green robot

Tai - Red tree like my red McQueen toy

Francine- It is kind of long tree and happy

Orin- It's a bird bath carrying a baby

Alexis- A stroller with a baby in it

Pippa - It’s real!

It was time to make leaves for their generosity tree so I asked the children to draw what generosity means to them on their leaves:

The leaves from left to right on the picture below:

Pippa -A beach hug and mum and dad 

Tai - Playing together with Sofia, we both have swords

Alexis - A boy broke a tree and mommy fixed it she is generous

Francine- A tree broke and daddy fix it,  he threw away the broken part

Ava- I am smiling because I am happy because I am at school

Orin -Me and my brother holding the goalie hockey stick

Who are we?  How do the children feel about themselves?  How would they describe themselves?  To understand this, I asked the children to finish this sentence:  I am a little girl or boy who ....

Orin:      shares a lot and sometimes forgets to say thank-you.

Ava:       is happy, very happy and I like playing in the water.

Alexis:    likes to make Avery smile and play with Francine

Francine: likes to read books with Alexis

Pippa:     likes to help Camille cleanup after group time and I like it when we share treats

Tai:         like to play on the the playground with everybody

Giving to Those in Need - #6

We learned about what it meant to give something away to someone who needs it by reading "George the Giant" and acting it out, but the children thought that it would be okay for George to ask for his clothing back.  As a result, we read the book Some Friends to Feed: The Story of Stone Soup by Pete Seeger.   I wondered how we could be generous to BOTH the children at Creative Minds and to people who did not have enough food to eat?  I showed the children 30 rocks and a can of red beans.  Here is a summary of the brainstorm:

We can make a soup with a some rocks and beans
The rocks might be dirty.
There is only one can of beans but if we cook it it will be enough for everybody.

The I asked, "What happens after group time?" Lunch!
Then I asked, "Do you think the children at Creative Minds would like to have rocks or beans? What would you like?"
Rocks - but let's draw on them.
Then we referred back to the story to figure out where all of the wonderful food came from.  Everyone in the village shared a little food to make a big pot of soup.  I asked the children if they thought they had a can like this one in their kitchens.  The children realized they all had cans of food so the idea of a food drive was born.

Alexis painting her rocks

Francine and Ava decorating their rocks

Orin handed out the hands as the children create the food drive poster

Jeffery asked for red hands

Orin decided to wrap his hands around the can of beans.

Jeffery - red giving hands
Pippa - blue and yellow hands of shining sun
Alexis - blue hand of Francine smiling like shining sun
Lysander - green hand mom making pie and he is happy

Unfortunately, we ran out of time to start our food drive but we did manage to give away the rocks to everyone at Creative Minds.

Caring and Service Learning - #5

Earth group read the book  The Goodness Gorillas (Chicken Soup for Little Souls) by Lisa McCourt and Pat Grant Porter.  The story is about a group of children who do random acts of kindness for the community (like picking up garbage and recycling) and then they are challenged to be the "ultimate GG" by showing kindness to a boy who likes to tease them.  After we read the book we talked about random acts of kindness.  When all of a sudden Jeffery stood up and put away his toy and another toy that was on the floor.  When I asked him why he did that, he said "because we are in group time now."  We celebrated by giving Jeffery the "principled" t-shirt!

Then we wondered what sort of random acts of kindness we could do at creative minds.   When a child thought of something,  we "adorned him" with the red gorilla, and watched what she / he was doing.  It was wonderful to see the children make the connection between their actions and their intentions.

Pauline offered to sharpen a pencil crayon for Jeffery

Today the children were inspired to clean the paint easel, all of the tables and chairs, and organize the pencil crayons and felt pens.  We were sure to record these acts of generosity on their generosity boards!

Sharing - #4

"We want to play in the sand table!"Well, it doesn't get any more child lead that that!  I asked the children if there was enough room for everyone and enough tools for everyone.  We checked and there was.  They had plans to make a sandcastle, mouse, a pie and starfish.  The pink egg carton dominated the play as the start of a bakery assembly line - they decided to make cupcakes.  Chocolate cupcakes with mint chocolate icing (oh yes, we voted).  I wondered out loud if there was anyway we could share this fun with all of the children at Creative Minds?  Pauline said that there was no room at the sand table but we could make real cupcakes.....

Tai and Jeffery put the paper cups in the tins

Eggs were cracked

Every child had a turn to use the egg beater.
Francine used both the handle and the wheel to move the blades

The children were more than happy to share the fruits of their labor.  The challenge came in serving all of their peers before themselves.  They made some great arguments for why they should "taste test" the cupcakes, but I encouraged them to notice how their peers react - are they happy, smiling, do they say thank-you?  Waiting is a skill vital to a child's success in both school and in life.  The children were very proud of themselves and so was I.

Community - Problem Solving -#3

The mast accidentally broke, so the children decided to use tape to repair it (after a many attempts with glue).

After the repair, they coloured the tape so that it would blend in.

I asked the children "what the best part of making your boat?"  Each child was very enthusiastic about their individual contributions:

"I cut all those tapes."
"All the purple strips are mine."
"I like the orange the best."

I assumed the children would reflect on what it was like to work together.  So, I switched gears and asked the children to draw a picture of how they have been generous with their families and peers at school:

"I like to share a little chocolate with Monty, but just a little because it's mine."
"I can swing Alan because he can't do it himself."
"When I talk to Avery it makes her smile so she's not crying so much."

This process helped me realize that while the children may or may not appreciate how they functioned as a community to create their beautiful boat, the concept of generosity is very much alive.  They worked as a team and no one was upset with the child who accidentally broke the mast.  Their first instinct was to solve the problem with glue (they are all quite fond of its stickiness).  What a lesson for us all: a mindful solution created a focused and engaged community of young learners.

Appreciation and Communication- #2

All hands on deck!  The children were presented with a task of building a group paper mache sailboat using all hands!  The challenge in any group project is to decide on the roles, to include everyone, to take someone else’s feelings into consideration. "George the Giant" gave Fox his shirt to replace the torn sail on his sailboat.  The sail / shirt became the object of desire for two of the children, and it was difficult for them to decide who could "take charge of it."  Now, the children have an entire boat to create together, each child taking turns to "take charge."

On the first day of this project, the children decided the boat needed to be taped together.   There was much excitement in the air.  Orin, Lysander and Tai, were in charge of assembling the 3D sailboat model.  Pippa volunteered to be in charge of masking tape distribution.  

Tai held the bow of the boat, Lysander and Orin the stern  The children practiced asking politely for the tape, requesting specific sizes, and saying thank-you. Pippa replies “You’re welcome.”

As the boys tape the boat together, they negotiate and pass the boat down their assembly line, each child taping as Pippa looked on.  When Orin tried to expedite the process and take the tape away from Pippa, Tai quietly said, “No, it’s her job.”

Each child has their own colour, and their challenge is to equally distribute the colours.  .  At one point Orin said “Hey we need more orange.” Acknowledging that Pippa needed to contribute more to their creation, the boys passed the boat to her so that she could decorate. 

The children continued to take turn adding paper mache strips to the boat.  Each child was given their own strips of newspaper but the bowls of coloured mache and the boat was common had to be shared.  They were constantly negotiating where the strips were needed, and how "flat" they should be.  I noticed that there was more a a desire to have "mache balls" inside the boat and flat strips on the outside of the boat.  They also decided to use different colours for the outside of the boat.  The children chose new colours, pink and blue prevailed. 

 This project gave the children a chance to practice their communication skills and exercise their right to be listened to: 

"no don't put it there!" 

"hey now I can't see my strip" 

"aren't you going to hold it for me?"

"it's my turn"

When a request was not met with action, the children were challenged to appreciate and consider the feelings and point of view of their peers.   Upon request, the child that dropped the boat, reciprocating in kind.  After much debate, some strips were rearranged.  

I was quite surprised to learn that the children would have preferred to make their own individual boats.  Inspite of the beautiful boat they were making together, individual preferences prevailed.  I had a sense that, unlike their other projects, this is one boat, that no one child can take home, and I had a sense that the children had an awareness of this as they were creating.  They always referred to the boat at "the boat" as opposed to "our boat" or "Earth Group's boat."

The only thing missing from the boat was the mast and the sail.  All of the children decided that we needed a stick for the mast and paper for the sail.  However, 3 children wanted to draw the sail and 3 children wanted to paint the sail.  So, they split into two groups and did both.

The children collected sticks from the forrest and are determining which stick is the right size.  Tai and Orin are using a ruler.  They think if the stick that is the same length as the ruler is the perfect mast for the boat.

Pippa is using her arm as her measuring stick.

           Two Sides of One Sail

Reflection: meaning of generosity - #1

Earth Group read the book, The Smartest Giant in Town by Julia Donaldson to help us think about what it means to be generous. In this story, George the Giant buys new clothes because he thinks his old clothes make him look scruffy and not smart.  He gives his new clothes to strangers in need and ends up with his old tattered robe and sandals once again.  Before re-enacting the story, the children put their thinking caps on and challenged their sensibilities:

Question: Is it okay for George to ask for his clothes back?  

Lysander: No, I mean Yes:

Orin: I want to say yes but I know the answer is no.

Pauline: Yes if he asks nicely, with manners, like please.

Pippa: No

Alexis: Yes

Francine: Yes

Question: Can you imagine giving away all, one or none of your toys?  Is there anything you have not played with in a long time?

Lysander: No way

Orin: No, well maybe sometimes

Pauline: No, I have to share with my sister

Pippa: Sometimes Monty shares with me

Alexis: No, I need all my toys.

Francine: No

Tai: My sister has her own stuff

Question: What about giving away clothes, like George the Giant?

Lysander: No way, but you could probably take my baby clothes.

Orin:  I can give away baby clothes too, but that is it.

Pauline:  My mom decides.  My sister and I are both girls.

Alexis: I don’t know.

Francine: No my clothes are pink, Damon can not wear it.

Tai: No, I need new clothes.

Orin setting up the story map to guide us through our reenactment.

Lysander as the George the Giant in his old robe and his new clothes

Alexis (giraffe)and Pippa (fox) in character.  Fox says “ Wet sleeping bag.”  Giraffe says “ I have a cold neck.”

The children use the story board as a thank-you card for George the Giant.

As the children set forth on the path to discover what it means and how it feels to give something away.  

Watching the children, I realize that working as a group on a community project is both challenging and rewarding.  The challenge for me as a teacher is making sure that each child has an opportunity to contribute to the project, by providing the materials and guidance they need.  The challenge for the children is to be aware that the one project belongs to each  and every child, so each and every child has the right to contribute.  I watched as the children debated over who could colour what, complained about not having enough room, and a few children even tried to pull the card away to make it easier to colour.