Tide Pool Investigation

Oh it was a blustery day to go to the beach.

But we were on a mission to answer this question.

 Last Friday I set up an ocean sensory table with just water and rocks.

I wanted to learn what the children know about tide pools.

And that is what brought us to the beach today.

It was very windy and even though the tide was going out 

the tidal pools were still covered.

We wondered if we would find anything.

So we searched under a lot of rocks,

and in little puddles of water.

 And we finally found some crabs.

This was a good size crab and he was ready to protect himself.

Even after we let him go.

Other treasures we found were...

A larger crab shell and one leg,

shells,

limpets,

an exoskeleton,

tiny periwinkles,

live clams that spit at us,

a hermit crab hiding in his house, 

and a crab with eggs.

What started as a cold adventure with little hope of finding anything

ended with lots of ideas to add to our tidal pool 

back at school.

A New StoryWalk

"Taan's Moons" by Alison Gear was created on Haida Gwaii,

the most western part of Canada.

The book was given to families entering kindergarten last fall.

All the pictures were created with the children in kindergarten and grade 1 

on Haida Gwaii with artist Kiki van der Heiden.

The pictures in the book were created by using a method of wet felting.

Since we were doing this in a limited time I decided

to try needle felting with the families.

I thought long about how to keep this a safe activity and found 

a multi-needle that has a safe guard.

We started by pulling the roving apart and laying it on a piece of felt.

Next the children took turns needling it.  This will be the background of our picture.

Then we went outside to read the book.

This was our evening session so we had older siblings that could help with the reading.

The book is about Taan, which in the Haida language means bear,

and how he sees a year go by.

As we read the book each child picked a colour of wool.

Back in school we started to create our picture.

First we started with brown to make Taan.

Then I asked the children what should Taan be seeing or doing

and they decided they wanted a rainbow.

They placed the wool in the order they wanted their colours 

then we took turns needling it.

One child took a strong interest in this project

and needled most of the rainbow.

Then her little sister helped add clouds.

For our first time trying needle felting I think it turned out really well.

st-Art-ing the Life Cycle

Here are a few art activities we did while waiting for our caterpillars.

Using styrofoam sheets I carved a leaf pattern,

the children used it to make prints.

The child above asked for coloured paint after making her leaf.

She added a caterpillar.

Which was an awesome idea and other children copied her idea.

Next we did the same process and made flower prints.

Then another day we used straws to make flowers.

 And finally on the day our larvae arrived we made little caterpillars to add to our

bulletin board.

 We often put out pipe cleaners and beads because the children

love stringing them together.

I love watching them increase their fine motor and eye-hcontrol.

When they finished making their caterpillars we glued them onto the bulletin board.

Waiting for Butterflies

It's that time of year, one of my favourites, when new life appears in our room.

We've already experienced tadpoles to frogs,

which happened a lot quicker this year then in the past.

And now our butterfly larvae are in transit.

One thing that has always bothered me about our learning of

the butterfly life cycle is that we never

see the egg form.

So this year I made pretend eggs by gluing tiny pom poms

on to fake leaves.

As we waited I encouraged the children to imagine

what colour the caterpillars might be.

I wish they were all these wonderful colours.