West Richmond Preschool

It all started with the amaryllis. Without exaggeration, each child has found a connection to this plant and it has become a huge part of our daily class life. Discussions took place about its size, observations made, rules followed... it has had a huge impact. Last week, we dissected the flower, looked at the parts and learnt their names. The children were absolutely fascinated and proceeded to ask questions. They naturally started to discuss pollination. I cannot begin to express how overjoyed I was that this field of inquiry emerged. We had planned to make mason bee house this Wednesday with the Hugh Boyd woodworking students. So, the fact that the children were leading themselves down this learning path could not have been more timely. After class we had a staff discussion about taking the conversation further from the parts of the flower to pollination to mason bees. I am a big mason bee fan so I was really looking forward to starting this unit. During our first ...

Chloe: I like Dustin so much I just want to hug him and hug him. Brooke: Wow, nice drawing Emily! ( Little Emily) Sidney: Where is Nicolas? Hmmm... I guess he went on a trip. Loreli: Brooke, will you measure me? Colin: I falled off my bike. I falled right in the dirt and got this ( the smallest  little cut ) when I was playing with my neighbour. Cash: I can practice my name. Little Emily: I like Archie books. And princess ones. Alexa: Dustin, can we play something? Luca: Penguins get camouflaged because the fish see them.  That whale tried to eat the baby penguins. That's bad for the penguins. ( he was looking at a penguin book) Zev: Excuse me ( listening to Luca's conversation), whales don't eat penguins. Catfish eat penguins. I saw it in a movie. Sidney: First it is just a seed. And then the stem starts growing. And then the flower opens and a little bit first and then it opens up bigger and bigger until it stops growing ( talking about ou...

We had a lot of things to get done today- group discussion, painting our papier mache eels, decorating our Valentine bags, exchanging our homemade Valentine cards, playing outside and of course, our party. As a team we discussed how the day should look and kind of mapped out some sort of reasonable schedule. I wanted to have a group discussion at first circle about a topic that has come up several times with various groups of children in the class. I know this is going to sound rather odd but there seems to be an interest in "poor people" (this is a quote from a child). Why are they poor? Where do they live? How do they live? What does it mean? Wow, pretty deep for four year olds! You can see why I was eager to engage the children further and expand on this idea. However, this discussion was not to be today BECAUSE one of our students knocked out their front tooth  at home yesterday and he was quite concerned about how his friends would react. So, upon arrival,...

Our childcare dept is supporting Anti-Bullying day by holding conversations in our programs, and selling t-shirts (proceeds go to the Variety Club). The t-shirts are hot pink and are cool because they have a blank line for the children to write in how they will stand up against bullying. Our preschoolers were tasked with brainstorming ideas about bullying. We then filled out a paper t-shirt to post downstairs in the community centre. Check them out- they are taped to the glass of the fitness centre, We opened up a discussion around bullying. I wasn't sure if the children were even familiar with this term, let alone understanding its complex undertones. As usual, they surprised me. Here are a  few of the comments we heard when asked what they thought about bullying: Chloe: Being bad, being mean. Zev: Bad means being a bully, someone who is not nice. Emily: Somebody tells you bad stuff. Luca: Someone who points and laughs at the person. Sidney: Makes people s...

Yesterday was about boundaries. For me at least. Finding the space where we can all be ourselves, both teachers and students. Yesterday forced me to think deeply about my role as a teacher, my core values,  and what I am and am not comfortable with. It pushed me to explore my philosophy on the early childhood setting and emergent curriculum. I questioned my ability to really be true to children's interests and allow them to be who they are and pursue what interests them. Luckily, I had a study group to attend last night; kind of therapy for people working with children. I was able to share my thoughts, musing, and reflections with this wide group of intelligent people and although we didn't have any definitive answers, it sure felt good. Let me give you one example although there were other situations. I am choosing to share with you this particular one because I believe it comes up a lot for many educators. And, dare I say without reprimand, mostly with female educators. I m...

Another day of fish egg discussions led to the children using Plasticine to represent the fish eggs. It was interesting to watch the children figure out different ways to roll out their "eggs". Some preferred to use their two palms to roll the balls while others placed the Plasticine on the table and rolled with one palm. The discussions were also intriguing as some children commented on the fact that they had never seen the eggs in real life while others told tales of eating them in their sushi. This art project also allowed for good vocabulary building as we discussed how each egg has a membrane, a soft transparent wall. It also provoked  some thinking around water- the temperature, the fact that they need clean not polluted water and how the eggs can die if the water is too cold. The children also learned about the composition of the egg and they were curious about the yolk sac. The following ...

Last week the children asked how fish have babies. Here is a glimpse of their beginning work on fish eggs. These discussions will continue next week.... more questions, thoughts, ideas to come. Emily