West Richmond Preschool

the farm today.....walking. finding treasures. running. holding hands. climbing hills. storytelling. lying on our backs on the grass. drawing in our journals. laughing. checking out playground development (none). picking vegetables. making salad. eating salad. negotiating seating partners on bus. another day of learning for all.   a heart shaped leaf.nature sharing its love.     it seems we like to hold things....    journal drawings    finding a caterpillar    our own greens, carrots, beans and tomatoes assembled into a beautiful salad. Emily

There was a lot of productive play today as children explored a few new materials. We had two clear bins filled with gigantic multi- coloured  pom poms and two bowls. This new activity was captivating for many children and I sat back and watched Colin and Cash for quite a while as they interacted with the pom poms. They initially began their play by sorting the pom poms by colour. Then Cash started to count the pom poms but quickly moved onto hiding them underneath the big container. He then turned the container over and declared that he was "The pom pom delivery man." and walked towards Colin. Cash dumped them out and Colin exclaimed "The pom poms are jumping out." They continued to play with the idea of the pom poms "jumping" out for a long time, at times spilling them all over their heads and then frantically picking them up and putting them back into the container. Soon, the two of them were holding one lid on top of the other and hiding them. Then the...

We were all excited to go back to the farm today to pick a few vegetables and explore the landscape. We knew there was a large group going to volunteer at the Sharing Farm today so we parked in the first parking lot which led to a discussion on road safety since it would require  a short walk along the road. We talked about the dangers of running into the middle of the road and then Colin said "If you run into the road you might get run over and then you would be flat like Flat Stanley". Then someone else said "You wouldn't be living". We stopped there before the graphics became too much for us to bear! We started at our garden plot and picked our beautiful kohlrabi, graciously donated to me as a small seedling from a friendly garden neighbour. We picked a few precious tomatoes and checked out our pumpkins. We then peeked into our slug traps (a sugary-yeast mixture) and found 3 slugs. This was both fascinating and gross for the children. We had discuss...

Mon, Sept 17 During our first circle, we poured our potatoes onto a huge sheet in the middle of our carpet. We were amazed at the amount of potatoes, the shapes, the colours and the markings. We heard many "ahhhhs" and shrieks of excitement. We then decided to categorize them according to variety - Yukon Gold, Red Pontiac and Russet.   Our Estimates We all tried our hands at guessing the total number of potatoes. The children were very interested in numbers and presented some very interesting estimates. We had a huge range, from 2 to 6000. My favourite guesses were "six five teen" and "13 to 11 to 21".   We peeled and cut. Pieces of potato were flying everywhere. I heard "It's wet", "These are too hard",  and " I like cutting this". "Potato juice" as titled by one child, threw a few children into a laughing fit. We mashed- even with our superhero costume...

Four Hour Class: Our First Day at the Garden @ Terra Nova We had a most amazing day at the farm. We harvested our potatoes, picked our tri-coloured beans, ate lemon balm, blackberries, apples, and plums. We ran, we walked, we skipped, we dragged our feet when we were tired and we drew pictures in our journals. Emily

  Is it really only the second day of school? The children seem so happy, confident and comfortable within the classroom. Friendships formed in last year's classes remain solid and already we can see new relationships forming. We started out our day making our pizza dough. I was surprised to discover the children really did not know what made dough so I was happy to have the opportunity to share the ingredient list with them ( flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar, and olive oil). We looked at each ingredient separately and talked about the role of each one. Each child came over to the cooking station during free play to roll out their dough and put on their toppings. Needless to say there was lots of cheese sprinkled on and I saw several children stuffing shreds into their mouth as quickly as they could! We ate outside in the sunshine and felt the chilly wind on our backs. We spent lots of time at the playground and then rushed to come in to eat lunch- a fabulous day! ...

Check out our new fence art project, a partnership between West Richmond Child Care Dept and Hugh Boyd Secondary. Thanks to the Boyd art and woodworking students! More to come.... Emily

As I sit at my desk very early in the morning, feeling the chilly air and looking out at darkness, I find myself slowly saying goodbye to summer. It is always a bittersweet time for us teachers as we bid farewell to the lazy days of summer....coffee mug still in hand at 10:00 am, reading in bed, gardening when the urge comes, canning local produce, and best of all, enjoying the company of our own children, who are also without schedule. Yes, unabashedly, we LOVE summer. But we also LOVE the school year. In the past two weeks, I have found myself starting to feel that excited bubble inside- the creative, full of ideas, images and questions kind of bubble. The bubble that keeps growing throughout the year as your children help it to become bigger and bigger. But, unlike other bubbles, it never pops; it changes shapes and may get smaller at times, but it is always there. As each year is unique, I ask myself what this year will bring. What amazing journeys will our class, our schoo...