Edible Art Work

Kids got the winter blahs? Visit your local grocery store and stock up on fruit and vegetable treats that are a variety of shapes, colours, and textures. Build children's oral language and vocabulary by encouraging them to describe what they see (e.g., pineapples have segments, bananas are long and curved, strawberries are triangular). Carefully clean and cut the fruit and vegetables into a variety of pieces. Using toothpicks, encourage your children to create three-dimensional art work by sticking the food together in a variety of ways. Celebrate the creations by taking pictures of the art and then deconstruct it and enjoy it together as a snack or after dinner dessert!

Helping Children Become Agents of Social Change

I have helplessly watched the tragedy in Haiti on the news. A local school in my community has decided to hold a fundraiser with the goal of the proceeds being sent to the Canadian Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders.

In troubling times such as this I think it's so important to help children feel empowered and provide an outlet for their feelings of helplessness. I know that as a person living far from Haiti, I still felt as though I had done some immediate good when my family made a small donation to the Canadian Red Cross.

Using real-life moments can help children become agents of social change, as they learn how to help affect their lives and those around them. Younger children may not necessarily be aware of the specifics of what is happening, but may indirectly sense the stress their parents and those around them maybe be feeling in response to situations such as the earthquake in Haiti. Regardless of whether educators decide to engage older students in realtime discussions about world events, many children will be aware of what is happening in the world as they listen to their parents' conversations at home, and have instant access to the television and internet. Helping children deal with intense feelings of helplessness and grief is a huge task for parents and teachers - I have never hesitated as a teacher to ask for help from administration, support staff, and educational counsellors to help me in times such as this.

Please consider donating to the Canadian Red Cross at 1-800-418-1111 and Doctors Without Borders at 1-800-982-7903 to help those in Haiti who need it most right now. Thank you!

Capturing Children's Interest in Winter and Snow

Children are naturally curious about the world around them. I've noticed that winter and snow are of particular interest to little ones. There are many experiences that can be incorporated into the various classroom centers around snow and winter. Classroom centers can be used to integrate multiple real-life contexts in order to capture children's interests and imaginations and encourage them to engage in cooperative play and exploration.

Consider:

· providing students with squeeze spray bottles of coloured water to use outdoors on a snowy day in order to colour, colour mix, and create designs in the snow

· placing shredded white paper in a large tactile tub (or empty water table) along with plastic trees, rocks, twigs, and various forest animals and encouraging children to dramatize a wintry forest habitat

· placing various combinations of ice cubes coloured as the primary colours (e.g., one blue and one yellow; one blue and one red; one yellow and one red) in separate bowls at the science area and encourage students to make predictions and then observations about what will happen the ice cubes melt

· pictures of winter activities (e.g., skiing, skating, sledding), summer activities (e.g., swimming, skipping rope, jogging), and general anytime activities (e.g., driving a car, eating breakfast) can be placed at the math table and students can be encouraged to sort the pictures into a Venn chart with the headings ‘winter’, ‘summer’, and ‘both’

· incorporating various sizes and shapes of ice (frozen using a variety of containers and molds) and snow from outside into the water table so students can explore, experiment, and create with these materials

· placing a large quantity of outdoor snow in large bins at the science table so students can explore it using large magnifying glasses and observe and record in a communal journal their observations and emerging understandings as it changes state from solid, to liquid, to gas