Friday afternoons are quickly becoming one of my favourite times of the week. As our kindergarten class continues to work on our learning goal of building a school community we have begun to meet weekly with our grade 3 big buddy class to create nature crafts together. I have been working on building a predictable framework for these weekly visits. One buddy (sometimes the Kindergarten, sometimes the third grader) teaches the other buddy the activity. Then through discussion they make a plan, divide up the work and together create the artifact. When done, the kindergarten students get their personal book tub to have the older buddy read to them in a quiet corner of the classroom. This week as the children were working in two classrooms with their big buddy they each had a leaf to paint and decorate. As they worked together they were getting to know each other, talking about sports, play and family. It was such an honour to observe the students obviously enjoying each other...

Float and Sink in the forest :) As we grew our community of learners this fall the kindergarten students worked on their first inquiry. We go outdoors every day either to the forest or onsite to the field. Students spend some time in circle conversations then a teacher led activity followed by self directed play.  During Thursday forest mornings we are fortunate to include Morgan from NS3 who facilitates science activities such as sound mapping, exploring the forest with our senses, a quadrate exercise with hula hoops and a nature scavenger hunt. In the classroom we deepened our understanding through participation in knowledge building circle conversations, books, videos, nature art and special visitors.  M ...