West Richmond Preschool

We arranged a field trip to meet the Orchestra at the Vancouver symphony and to listen to Carnival of Animals. Prior to the field trip we had talked about instruments. Chuck (Garrett’s dad) who is a professional musician spoke to the class about the various families of instruments as well as playing the guitar. We had arranged to meet the children with parents at the theatre and when I arrived I was suddenly taken back to my own childhood when walking into the theatre, at that moment I thought how amazing and beautiful this theatre looked.   I wondered if the preschoolers would feel like that when they reflected on what they had experienced today. When the performance began I looked over at Magnus, Charlie and Roan, who were sitting in front of me. At times the boys were watching and enjoying the performance and other times they were looking around at the theatre taking in the view of their surroundings, even enjoying the comfortable chair swinging it up and down whis...

The children experimented with oil, water, food colouring and pipettes this morning. They squeezed drops of coloured water into a layer of oil and were engaged for a very long while. This is a simple activity with an intriguing effect.  Irena gently and carefully shook the tray back and forth, blending colours.   Roan watched a small drop rolling up and down the pipette.   Daniel said “The circle drop is getting bigger and darker. It's dark green and red and purple.”   Charlie seemed intrigued while watching water move up and down the pipette as he squeezes the bottom. Lucas thoughtfully puts the strips of paper from a weaving activity in order, and then begins threading the strips through. A very time consuming activity.     While Lucas was having snack, Tiffany and Cara decide to take over where he left off. Lucas comes over to check out the progress. Lucas, while looking at the completed a...

This week in our class, the children got to explore flowers through different activities that were provided. Tuesday The children made their own drawing interpretations of flowers in a vase as the first activity. Oil pastels and black paper were the materials used for this art.   Some children said “I don’t know how to draw” and did not want to do the activity. I reminded them that they just have to draw what they see and it is okay for all the drawings to be different. We also made an experiment to try to color the flowers. Each child got to put one flower in their chosen colored water.   Thursday I brought the flowers to a table with some magnifying glasses for the children to use for observation. Some said that they saw a little bit of color but the flowers are still white. Mia suggested that we leave the flowers in the jar to see more color and that’s what we did. We shall check next class for more color on the flowers.  ...

Last week our morning class had their second visit with our big buddies from Gilmore Elementary. This time they hosted us at their school for a fun-filled morning. Our day began in the library where two students picked a story to read aloud to the group. Our children were so engaged in the story that Deanna and I discussed bringing the students back to Merry King for a daily story telling. They did an amazing job capturing our children’s attention and drawing them into the magical story. Next, Mrs. McCarthy planned an activity for the kids to work on together. The big buddies were to trace the little buddy’s bodies on a piece of paper and then draw their outfits on the paper as accurately as possible. This seemed like a daunting task at first however the end result was so special. We hung the finished products up in the hallway outside our classroom if you wanted to have a look for yourself. We then headed to the gym for a quick snack and then free play. This part of the morni...

We decided we would have an imagination market of materials we had collected over the year like paper towel rolls, stones, egg carton sticks etc.             The children then selected materials they would like to use to make their valentines card/gift. It was hard to wait a turn to visit the imagination market! Some of the children decided to sit close and watch until it was their turn to pick from the imagination market. While the children were waiting they began talking among themselves about what they were going to make. Charlie said he was going to be making a robot.   On the day of the exchange children brought their cards/gifts they made at home. The children put their cards/gifts into a basket which we then exchanged by each child picking one on the first turn and two on the second turn. As the basket went around and children picked from it some of the children would recognize the card/gift they had made and p...