Boxitects STEM Challenge!

Posted on May 1, 2021 by msmcdonell

Boxitects, by Kim Smith, is a book about Meg, a brilliant and creative child who can make masterpieces out of cardboard! Meg is so talented her mom decides to send her to Maker School. There, Meg meets Simone, another Boxitect, and the two creators don’t exactly get along. The story highlights the importance of collaboration and teamwork, as well as thinking “outside the box” (*ahem*) when considering what materials can be used to create works of art. This is a perfect book for teaching and learning online as it reminds children that they can use simple materials they already have at home to build and create with!

Click here to visit Kim Smith’s website to learn more about the book: https://kimillustration.com/index.php/portfolio/boxitects/

I discovered Boxitects because it was selected this year in The Forest of Reading shortlist for The Blue Spruce Award (for Canadian picture books for children in Kindergarten to Grade 2). The Forest of Reading program is run by the Ontario Library Association and aims to spread the word about new and wonderful Canadian books and foster a love of reading. Readers of the books are encouraged to vote on their favourites, and winners are chosen based on votes cast. I always find The Blue Spruce award-nominated books to be wonderful resources for teaching. If you are interested, you can visit the Forest of Reading website to learn more about this year’s shortlisted works as well as lists from years past: https://kids.tpl.ca/ready-for-reading/books/booklist/blue-spruce

After reading the book, we watched the video above to find out why cardboard is such an excellent material to build and create with! In the video, the author of Boxitects, Kim Smith, demonstrates why corrugation makes cardboard so STRONG! She also talks about how much she looks forward to seeing what the children will make with their cardboard and asks for us to send her photos of our creations – something my students were particularly excited about!

After reading the story and learning about carboard corrugation, we gave the children a challenge to create something (anything!) with the cardboard they had at home. Since we are learning remotely, it was important to me to provide my students with plenty of material options for this project. We talked about using carboard boxes used to ship parcels, shoe boxes, cereal boxes, egg cartons, and even paper tubes! Prior to the lesson, I asked our families to gather their materials so the children would have them ready for exploring. I also asked the children to bring their science notebooks (sent home in their remote learning kits) so they could work on drawing a plan or brainstorming ideas about what they could make prior to building.

Some of our Boxitect creations: an airplane, a dinosaur, and a vending machine.

And then they were off! Our Boxitect challenge was listed on this week’s choice board, which meant the children had all week to work on it. Each day, as children finished their creations, we spent time during Reflection sharing and talking about them. There was such a variety of ideas presented: from houses, to boots, to robot costumes, to airplanes! I began compiling photos of the children’s creations in our special “Boxitect Gallery” slides. My Twitter timeline has been filled with amazing ideas for teaching remotely this year, and the “Art Gallery” idea (originally posted by Kenrick DeoDat – @KenrickDeodat) has to be one of my favourites! My students are incredibly motivated to send me photos of their art works and creations when they see that they’re going to be displayed in a beautiful “art gallery” or “museum.” The art gallery is a way of highlighting the work the children are doing and communicating that what they learn and create is special and has value. At the end of the week, I posted our Boxitect Gallery on our online classroom for everyone to see.

Online learning in Kindergarten can be a challenge. I’m always looking for ways to give the children opportunities to play and create as they would if they were in person at school. This Boxitect challenge reminded me of the kind of excitement we would experience in our regular classroom – the children excitedly talking about what they could make, drawing plans in their notebooks, and getting creative with materials.

If you would like a copy of the Google Slides I prepared for presenting this to my class (including a copy of the gallery ready for editing), click on this link and “Make a Copy” for yourself: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19sAoUsLa6HPZ8wAAhuJfWd7Frvk_HU6mGG2Y3jhqN5E/copy?usp=sharing

In the Studio: Self-Portraits

Posted on September 20, 2018 by msmcdonell

And just like that, another school year begins! I can’t believe we are already in week three of the new year. I tend not to work on too many “projects” so early in the year, preferring to give the children time to get comfortable in our space, explore, and make connections with classmates and staff. However, the one project I will dedicate time to is self portraits. I always find the children exhibit a high level of interest in drawing and painting at this time of the year and portrait work excites them. Additionally, portrait work requires slowing down, looking closely, and noticing details: all skills I want to emphasize and encourage in the first term. At the start of the year, we are also looking to develop a rapport and make connections with our students, so small group work like this often leads to relationship building.

“When we invite children to create self-portraits, we offer them mirrors and encourage long, sustained study of their faces from [an] unfamiliar perspective. Then we ask them to re-create themselves on paper, weaving together the image that they see in the mirror with the person they experience themselves to be. Their portraits are eloquent statements of self.” (Ann Pelo, The Language of Art (2007))

If you are new to self-portraits, I highly recommend reading Ann Pelo’s book, The Language of Art, to get an idea of the process. Ann so clearly lays out this project from beginning to end, including how to set up the studio, what prompts to use, cleanup, and ways to build on the experience.

This year I decided to take a new approach to our self-portrait work. Rather than limit the children’s experiences to the Art Studio, we would take some time before drawing our portraits to look more closely at faces and facial features. We began by reading Faces by David Goodman. In this story, the author shows us how we can spot “faces” everywhere in our environment and how we can construct faces out of loose parts. After reading the story, we set up a simple provocation with loose parts and mats/cork boards:

These mats can be downloaded for free from Picklebums at https://picklebums.com/people-play-dough-mats/

Our next step was to move beyond loose parts into a drawing/sketching phase. From what I had seen of the children’s drawings so far, I knew that most children were using simple mark making (dots, lines, etc.) in their pictures. We decided to take some time to look more closely at our facial features and break down how to draw them with increased attention to detail. Each week, we take time in our schedule for a focused art and drawing lesson (if you want to read more about Art and Fine Motor Instruction, click here: https://thecuriouskindergarten.blog/2014/01/16/art-and-fine-motor-instruction-snowflakes/). In our first lesson of the year, we decided to focus on faces. Now, I know that giving a large class of somewhat-new-to-school 3-5 year-olds whiteboards, erasers, and dry erase markers seems daunting in the first few weeks of school. In fact, I almost bailed on the lesson myself out of fear. In the end, I decided to have confidence that I could capably walk the children through the process of listening and following instructions, managing their materials, and successfully drawing themselves. And wow! Were we impressed! At the start of the lesson, each child gets a 9×12 whiteboard, a tissue or sponge (for erasing), and a whiteboard marker. I absolutely love using whiteboards for this kind of lesson because they are totally “risk-free” for the children. If they make a mistake or are unhappy with what they’ve drawn, they simply and easily erase it and try again. Even the most reluctant of artists are willing to give drawing a go on a whiteboard, in my experience.

During the lesson, I modeled looking in a mirror, talking the children through what I noticed, one facial feature at a time. I had extra mirrors on hand for the children to look in too. The children felt extremely successful with their finished works and we photographed them to share with our parents at home. I really believe that walking them through this process together helped to increase their interest and confidence in drawing their portraits at the Art Studio.

A few days later, we opened the studio for portrait work. This year, we decided to use sharpies on acetate (overhead paper) so that we could paint them afterwards and not lose any details of the children’s sketches. Once again, we had mirrors on hand for the children to look in.

This student was clearly very proud of his amazing dimples!

This student was so excited about his work, exclaiming, “My first nose! Ms McDonell, I did it! I drew a perfect nose!”

Honestly, the black and white portraits were beautiful enough, but we decided to carry on with the painting portion of the project. When everyone had completed their sketches, we read Shades of People by Shelley Rotner and Sheila M. Kelly. I absolutely love this book as it talks about all the wonderful colours of skin we see in the world. As a follow up, we set up a selection of “skin tone” coloured tempera paints (we used a collection created by Crayola) at the art studio. The trick with this technique is to flip the transparency over and paint on the back. When the paint is dry, you flip the transparency back over and all marker sketching that was covered by the paint is visible from the other side. It makes for a bit of a “surprise” when the children see all their work revealed to them in complete, detailed form. It is very important when painting on acetate to mix the tempera paint with a bit of white glue. Otherwise, when the paint dries, it will flake off the plastic sheeting.

And voila! Our first art project of the year is complete! I love how each portrait is unique and special and I can see the children’s personalities and characteristics so clearly represented in their work. This is the first time I have scaffolded the children’s portrait work in this way, and it just reminded me of how truly capable children are when given the tools and support they need. If you haven’t given portraits a try, I hope this post will inspire you to do so!

The Super Hero Inquiry Project

Posted on February 6, 2018 by msmcdonell

Last year my class was absolutely OBSESSED with Super Heroes. They were everywhere in the children’s play, indoors and out, but most especially at the small building centre. It really all started with two boys who began creating super heroes out of linking cubes. After sharing their creations with the class, more and more children began turning up at the small building centre to make and play super hero games.

Can you guess who these Super Heroes are??

At the same time all this was going on, one of my favourite bloggers was also experiencing some Super Hero mayhem in her class. Mrs Meyers began posting some amazing STEM ideas based off the characteristics of Super Hero stories (along with many other super hero related questions, which she wrote about in her blog here: http://mrsmyerskindergarten.blogspot.ca/2017/03/what-we-learned-by-investigating.html)

All of the ideas we tried were hugely popular and led to a lot of experimentation and conversation in our class. We added some of our own provocations based on the children’s overall interest in certain materials (e.g., Plasticine, Lego). Here is a gallery of some of our work:

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This STEM flying challenge was VERY popular and led to a lot of collaboration and teamwork. In fact, many children challenged themselves to come up with multiple ways of making these Duplo characters fly. One group of boys was ecstatic when they figured out how to make a catapult. For days, Duplo Super Heroes were flying across the classroom!

Another gem from Mrs Meyers! Our students loved making their own spider webs and looking in the non fiction books to learn more about them.

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By far the most popular provocation was this one which gave the children an opportunity to create a Super Hero out of Plasticine (modelling clay). Most students came here often to make a number of different Super Heroes. We loved sharing these at reflection time and talking about the aspects of the costumes that helped us identify each Super Hero’s identity. I was amazed at how detailed these creations were! We had a collection of Super Hero readers which I gathered from the library that the children were intent on consulting as they worked to make sure they got everything just right.

A few of the super hero readers we had out in the classroom. These were SO popular – even the most reluctant readers were eager to look at these.

One of the thinking routines we relied on heavily for this project was “Can…Have…Are…” This unique take on a concept web really helps focus the children’s thinking on a specific topic. We used it to organize our thinking about villains, specific superheroes like Spiderman, and about Superheroes in general. Each time we used it, the children got more skilled at communicating their ideas.

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What Superhero inquiry would be complete without some creative costume making? The more we talked about superheroes, the more interested the children were in developing their own superhero personas. We used small cardstock cards to make masks and plastic table cloths to make capes.

We wrapped up our learning with a “superhero day” where everyone came to school dressed as their favourite superhero.

In addition to celebrating our learning with a Super Hero day, we also celebrated by creating a display of our work. The children were so incredibly proud to see their work on display and could often be found admiring their work with classmates and friends.

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A BIG thank you again to Mrs Meyers for sharing her class’s learning online and continuing to inspire me and my students!

The Third Teacher: Classroom Layout 2017

Posted on September 1, 2017 by msmcdonell

I can’t believe we’ve arrived at another September. This year I moved rooms so I had the opportunity to design a new learning space – which is really one of my favourite aspects of teaching. I take classroom set-up pretty seriously, because I know in the end, the way the room is designed is going to do a lot of teaching for me. When I’m setting up a learning space I’m thinking mostly about how I want the space to feel – homey and inviting are two adjectives that come to mind. I want my students to feel comfortable, to feel the space is theirs and ours together. I also want the space to communicate to anyone who comes in that we believe the children are capable, creative, respected, and valued.

The first thing I do when I’m laying out a new space is make a list of all the centres/learning areas we’d like to include (large gathering space, big blocks, writing centre, play dough table, snack table, water table, sand table, science centre, art studio, small building area, drama centre, math centre, quiet centre, light table, computer area, guided reading table). Then I take out a pencil and paper and start drawing floor plans. There are always elements in every room that dictate where certain things have to go – outlets and internet drops determine where computers will go (although I have been known over the years to use 20 foot cords and duct tape to make things fit where I want them to…); flooring (if you have carpeting and tile) will often dictate where sand and water will be located. I prefer to have art spaces and science areas near windows, so I try and arrange that in my planning. Once I have a few plans worked out, I get started moving the furniture. My partners and I had to move the furniture around a bit before we got everything where we wanted it. Some days I went home knowing it “wasn’t quite right” only to go in the next day and know just how to fix it. It’s a process.

Once the furniture is in place, it’s time to decide what materials we will offer. At the very beginning of the school year, I prefer to have most of my centres open, but with limited materials (the exceptions are: water and sand are not open at the same time, and I tend to leave the paint easel closed the first couple of weeks). I generally select materials that are inviting, but familiar. I steer away from anything that will require teacher help (like art projects or work we will put up) simply because the first days can be unpredictable. We want all staff available to observe the children, help them find learning opportunities that interest them, model tidying up, etc. Sometimes children are upset and need comforting, leaving one staff member to manage the larger group on their own. For this reason, I want the materials and provocations to be safe, easy to tidy up, and accessible to the children. We don’t put anything out on the shelves that the children are not allowed to play with. I also lean towards more open-ended materials such as loose parts and materials that encourage social play and interaction. Since writing is such an important skill we want to encourage, I try and include writing materials (pencils, crayons, paper and clipboards) at most centres. This sends the message that writing is important and it also helps the children develop independence by having the materials they need at their fingertips.

So here we go! A photo tour of the new space…

Our main meeting space. This space also doubles as our big blocks area during discovery time.

The Small Building Centre. We have the doll house, people, and furniture out at the moment. This centre will need no explanation to the students and is always a popular choice during discovery time.

The Writing Centre. We have it set up with mirrors on which we will write the children’s names with a whiteboard marker; the children can cover the lines with loose parts.

Writing Centre materials. We have beads with laces for fine motor development, magnetic letters, paper, markers, pencils, crayons, glue, scissors, letter tiles, and letter stamps.

The Art Studio. Simple materials for making and creating are out right now. My students from last year were very interested in creating with recycled cardstock that a parent donates regularly. They love the stencils and making books with tape/washi tape. All of those materials are out for them to use as they wish and I’m confident the returning students will model for their new classmates how to use these materials creatively!

I love this simple shelving for storing supplies. We can easily switch out or add new materials as interests arise.

I like to have these guys on hand at the Art Studio. We will be getting to self-portraits this month and I find them helpful for that process! You can also see one of my many plants in the room. This one is fake, but I have a number of real plants as well. I think the greenery adds a softness to the space. Plants are also supposed to be calming.

This shelf at the Art Studio doubles as a divider for the drama centre. I attached the bamboo trellis to the legs of the shelf for stability. Sometimes you have to get creative!

Drama centre. I always start the year with a “home” set-up in the drama centre for comfort and familiarity.

Home is where the heart is! This shelf has homey knick-knacks now, but I hope to add some of the children’s creations to it later.

Tea, anyone?

Math Centre. We have materials for sorting and counting out at the moment. I love my number line cards from Right Brained Mom – you can download them for free on her website: https://rightbrainedmom.com/2017/08/28/free-printable-numbers-1-10/

Close up of math materials. Sorry for the fuzzy photo – it was particularly sunny when I took the picture!

The Quiet Centre. A space for children to “get away” and have a moment to themselves. I introduced a quiet centre to our class last year and it was absolutely invaluable for encouraging the children to self-regulate. We have a number of children with special needs and they also found comfort in having a spot in the class to go and “take a break.”

Science Table. I have a few monarch caterpillars at home so I will be bringing one in to school. We had Painted Lady butterflies in our class last year, so I thought the children would enjoy seeing another species of butterfly. We also have some milkweed plants in our outdoor play space so I hope to teach the children how important the milkweed is to the monarch species.

Sand Centre with natural loose parts and dinosaurs.

This is actually our water table, but we are choosing to set out Lego for the beginning of the year. This is another centre that will need no explanation to the children. Lego always inspires creative work and the children often work collaboratively on these green building mats.

Here is a picture of the whole space. You can see the snack table and the play dough table in this picture.

So there it is! A new space for learning together. Today while I was working, a family who was registering their child came in and exclaimed, “Wow! It looks just like a home!” I hope our students feel the same way when they see their new home away from home next week. Happy weekend, everyone!

In the Art Studio: Plasticine Art Inspired by Barbara Reid

Posted on May 23, 2016 by msmcdonell

This month we have been inspired by renowned Canadian author and illustrator Barbara Reid. Barbara Reid has worked on some of my class’s favourite read-alouds: Picture a Tree, Perfect Snow, and Subway Mouse. When reading, we often discuss how an artist may have created their illustrations. My students were very interested in how Barbara was able to achieve such realistic and detailed pictures using Plasticine.

Lucky for us, Barbara Reid has created a series of tutorial videos which you can find on YouTube (links below). In her videos, Barbara talks about how she goes about creating her artworks: from the planning stage (researching, sketching a picture), to creating a background, to adding fine details and textures to her work.

Video: Making Plasticine Pictures with Barbara Reid Part 1

Video: Making Plasticine Pictures with Barbara Reid Part 2

Video: Making Plasticine Pictures with Barbara Reid Part 3

For this project, I cut our Plasticine into very small pieces so it would be easy for the children to manipulate (and because a little goes a long way!). I arranged the pieces in small containers by colour. I also included some of Barbara Reid’s books and a non-fiction book about Barbara Reid herself. We also had dry cloths for wiping our hands (as Barbara suggested) and some tools for adding texture. For the planning process, the children had pieces of cardstock and pencils for sketching. We made our Plasticine pictures on small canvas boards I found at the dollar store. The children were extremely excited to do their work with “real artist materials.” For me, it is very important to give the children beautiful and authentic art materials to use and work with. Their art is more than deserving of quality materials and in my experience, they seem to take their art more seriously when they perceive materials to be “special.” For this project, the strength of the canvas boards was an added advantage, as it made it easier for the children to spread the Plasticine.

During the planning process, I really didn’t meddle too much in what the children were sketching or wanting to create, thinking the children would figure out on their own what was going to work and what wasn’t. For example, the first group of children who visited the studio realized that creating people with Plasticine was a big challenge, and advised their classmates accordingly during reflection time. Spreading the Plasticine was also a challenge for some (and a great fine motor muscle workout!). Some children took a few sessions to complete their backgrounds, pausing and coming back later to give their fingers a rest. Other children wanted to persevere and complete their backgrounds so they could get to adding their flowers or bugs or animals. If you’re wondering how long it took the children to complete their pictures, it varied between one session (about half an hour) to a few days, depending on each child.

Y.A.: “I want to make a picture of a cat.”

A.J. spreads the Plasticine to make a sky. “I’m mixing the colours. A little bit of dark blue and a little bit of light blue.”

Y.A.: “I’m making my grass like Barbara Reid. I’m rolling snakes and making them flat like grass. I’m doing a pattern: light green, dark green, light green, dark green…”

R.A.: “I’m making a little mousey like Barbara Reid. It’s just like The Subway Mouse.”

Here are some of the children’s completed art works. I have them displayed on a low chalkboard ledge in our classroom and the children can often be found admiring them!

S.C. “I made a rainbow and a little girl is camping in the tent.”

Honestly, the children were SO proud of their completed art works. They loved showing them off during reflection time and talking about the process they used to make them. During one reflection session, we started talking about how Barbara Reid gets her Plasticine pictures in the pages of her books. One student remembered that Barbara’s husband photographs her art for her so the pictures can be used as illustrations. One student suggested that we take photographs of our work and use the pictures to make a book by writing our own stories. I loved that the children were inspired to create their own stories, so we set up a story-writing invitation.

At the writing table, I gave the children some mini easels to place their art on. I put out plain paper and some black pens. The children could choose to write about their own work or a classmate’s work that inspired them. This proved to be a popular invitation! Some children returned each day to write a new story! We loved listening to each other’s stories during reflection time – some children’s stories were so popular, the class asked them to read it aloud more than once.

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E.H. “Once there was a little ladybug. She wanted to rest on a flower. The red flower was wet but the purple flower was just right. The End.”

“I went out on a stormy day.”

We are still in the midst of our story writing. I was interested to see the emergence of a narrative voice in the children’s work and am curious about exploring this further with the class. Stay tuned!

The Mystery Object Inquiry Project

Featured

Posted on March 28, 2016 by msmcdonell

Don’t you love a good mystery? I know whenever I’m reading a book or watching a film with an element of the unknown, I am always SO curious to see how things will turn out in the end. This year, I decided to spark some interest in a new inquiry by adding in an element of surprise: a “mystery object.” I started with an amaryllis bulb. You can really use anything for this project, but a plant was a great option because of the fact that a plant is always growing and changing. I knew the focus of this inquiry was going to be on building the children’s capacity for making good observations and predictions, and I wanted them to be able to revisit their predictions as the plant grew and changed. An amaryllis blooms in about 6-8 weeks from the time of planting so the children had plenty of time to practice their inquiry skills!

I introduced this project with a game that our music itinerant taught us: “What’s in the box?” I placed the bulb, pot, and bag of soil in a box marked with question marks. We passed the box around the circle asking each child in a sing-song voice, “What’s in the box?” and the children sang back their guesses in turn. After everyone had had a guess, we opened the box to reveal what was inside. I passed around the bulb and each child tried to guess what it was. I recorded their predictions in my notebook. After we had all had a turn at guessing, I asked the class what they thought we should do next. Since there were no instructions with our mystery object, we would have to figure out for ourselves what to do. Right away, many of the children suggested putting the object in the pot with the soil. One child suggested that we need to put water in it too…because that’s what you do when you put something in a pot of dirt.

Our Mystery Object in its bed of dirt. One student suggested we leave it on the windowsill at the science table so it could catch some sunshine!

We placed our mystery object at the science table. It was the first place most children visited when they entered the classroom each day! Every time there was a change in the mystery object, we took time to discuss our observations as a group. The children had access to our See Think Wonder and “My Prediction” recording sheets throughout the project. It was interesting for me to see which children changed their predictions based on new information and observations as the mystery object grew (and which children held fast to their original ideas).

A.R. records her thinking about the Mystery Object on a “See, Think, Wonder” recording sheet.

Some of the children’s predictions about what the Mystery Object might be/grow into: beans, a blueberry, a beanstalk, onions, an apple, salad.

Our object changes! The students were excited to see these “sprouts” emerge – first one, then two, then three, then four!

One of the interesting questions that arose from one of our reflection discussions was “Is our mystery object a living thing?” This was a question that divided the class! We decided to do some further research to find out. Our librarian gave us a book called “What is a living thing?” which we read in hopes of answering the question once and for all. Again, some children could see right away evidence that our object was indeed living (it was growing, changing, requiring our care and attention) while other children had difficulty connecting the information from the book to their observations of the mystery object.

The discussion this day revolved around the growth coming from our object. Many children noticed that the new “sprout” looked different than the previous growth. I was encouraging the children to be specific with their observations and descriptions. The leaves were described as “smooth,” “flat,” “pointy” and the new growth as “fat,” “curvy,” and “round.” Many children felt there might be a surprise inside the new growth which caused them to rethink their original predictions.

The children measure the mystery object to keep track of its growth. J.T. visited the science table every day to measure the mystery object and update the class on how much it had grown!

The day our mystery object bloomed was incredibly exciting! We decided to google “bulb plant that blooms after 8 weeks” and found a matching image for our flower in our search! Giving our plant a name (Amaryllis) was quite satisfying to the children. Every visitor to our classroom was immediately shown to the science table and told about our mystery object – “Do you wanna see our mystery object? It’s an AMARYLLIS!”

Our beautiful amaryllis bloom. We were shocked to discover that each pod (we ended up with two) held not one, but 4 blooms inside! Amazing!

Taking a closer look with the magnifiers…

Counting the blooms…and wondering what might be inside this little pod??

Overall, I feel like the mysterious element to this inquiry was an asset to piquing the children’s initial interest and keeping it sustained throughout the project. My goal from the beginning was to provide an opportunity for the children to practice their inquiry skills – and in that, the mystery object inquiry was very successful!

Documenting our work

We thought we’d add a little element of mystery to our hallway display…

Have you ever tried teaching with a mystery object? I’d love to hear what you used as the spark for your learning!

Winter Expressions: Exploring Winter Experiences Through Art

Posted on January 23, 2016 by msmcdonell

“This is a snowman and me. I drew snowflakes and wind and trees. My mom threw carrots everywhere; even on the tree – for the animals!” (J.A.T.)

After finally getting a proper dusting of snow, the children were extremely interested in talking about all things winter. Our morning circle time was dominated by stories about snowy walks to school, wet mittens, and plans for play in the snow later in the day. However, I still have quite a few children who are hesitant to share their thinking during our large group conversations or reflections, so I wanted to find a way to provide all my students with an opportunity to talk about their experiences with winter. I have often found that some children are more willing to open up when they are engaged in some sort of activity – be it building, drawing, or even cleaning up. I remembered a beautiful blog post I came across last winter when I was at home on maternity leave that documented the winter conversations children were able to share while creating art about winter in their atelier (you can find my inspiration here: Conversations About Winter, Solstice, and the Changing Light). I decided that art was definitely the way to go.

This exploration was done on acetate sheets (I placed a white sheet of paper underneath each acrylic sheet for better visibility) with permanent markers, tempera paint, and glitter paint. Tempera paint will peel/flake off the acrylic paper when dry, so you must use the glitter paint (mine was a washable tempera glitter paint, but dried like plastic) with the tempera together if you don’t want the paintings to fall apart when they are done. I didn’t try using acrylic paint, but that would likely work as well. Perhaps even finger paint….but I suggest you test your materials before you try it with the children.

First, the children drew their pictures with the permanent markers. As they drew, many children looked out the window for inspiration. Most of the children talked openly about what they were drawing. For the children who are more hesitant to talk, I tried to guide the conversation by asking open-ended questions about the weather, winter activities, and family life.

“That’s me and my snowman. I see wind out our window so I’m adding swirly wind. And here are the trees with no leaves. The sun is shining on my snowman so I put something special on it so it won’t melt.” (R.A.)

When the children were done sketching, they used the paints to add colour and extra details to their work. When I introduced this centre, we talked about why we were using tiny brushes in the paint – specifically, how the small brushes allow us to add fine details to our work. This idea recently came up in another painting project we had done and the children are beginning to understand how material choices can affect what they are able to accomplish. By highlighting that small brushes make for finer details I find that the children go into the project with the mindset of adding special details to their work.

I noticed that when children are engaged in detailed work they really “lean in” to the project. You can tell by this student’s body language that he is extremely focused and engaged in his work.

“This is me and my dad and my brother. I like shoveling the snow. This is my shovel.” (C. P.)

Each day we took some time during reflection time to share some of the children’s finished art pieces. Either I read my notes about what the children said while they worked (their “stories”) or the children presented it in their own words, or both. It was definitely a celebration of learning!

“I was outside playing in the snow. The wind was almost coming! I see the sun up in the sky. I think the sun is shining on the snow. I wonder if the snow is going to melt?” (F.M.)

“I like that it’s snowing in winter – that you can catch snowflakes with your tongue. We are playing outside. We’re going to [the school] to slide down the big hill.” (J.T.)

“I like snowflakes because I get them on my tongue! I made LOTS of snowflakes. Look at my snow! I’m outside with my hat. I have snow on my head but it’s okay.” (C.G.)

“I’m in the snow. I like that it snows in the winter. I love it to be snowing. So sparkly!” (E. H.)

Art Studio Inspiration: Drawing Projects for Children

Posted on August 10, 2015 by msmcdonell

It’s summer, so if you’re anything like me, you are spending quite a lot of time reading resource books to get ideas for the new school year. I am moving to a new school this year and am therefore starting with a blank slate for my classroom set up. How exciting! One area I have been thinking a lot about is the Art Studio space. So many of our most engaging and creative inquiries have at some point involved work at the studio. Over the years, I have recommended Ann Pelo’s The Language of Art (you can read about that here and here) as a wonderful resource for artistic inquiry. And indeed, I am re-reading that in preparation for the new year…there is always something new to discover!

Today I have another wonderful book to recommend. A couple of weeks ago, I happened upon a new resource for Studio work that is so inspiring I was practically giddy while reading it. The book is called Drawing Projects for Children by Paula Briggs. I came across a recommendation for this book via the following pin on Pinterest titled, “The Perfect Activity to Start Your School Year” (I mean, who could resist clicking on that? And aren’t I so glad I did! What a find!):

In her book, Paula speaks about “playing it safe and taking risks.” She says, “For children to get the most out of drawing, they need to be encouraged to push beyond what they consider ‘safe’ (‘safe’ drawings are those in which we know what the outcome is going to be before we have even started making them) and to take risks. By doing so they will widen their concept of what drawing is and what they are capable of achieving.”

Many of the projects in Drawing Projects for Children involve experimentation with different kinds of materials and ways of mark making as well as some dramatic extensions (my favourite is the “Making Spells from Still Lifes” project). Be sure to take a look at the link above on The Art of Education which features an amazing idea from Paula’s book that is perfect for exploring lots of different drawing materials (and which The Art of Education suggests is “the perfect activity to start your school year”).

I can’t wait to give the projects in this book a go! If you’d like more information about Paula Briggs, you can check out her website AccessArt (with loads more art ideas) here: https://www.accessart.org.uk/paula-briggs/

Happy Reading!

The Butterfly Inquiry

Posted on March 8, 2015 by msmcdonell

Have you ever had live creatures in your classroom? There is something quite magical about having a living, breathing part of nature in the classroom to inspire some deep thinking. Beyond the obvious scientific connections, having live creatures in the classroom also provides opportunities for social development around respect, responsibility, care-giving, and self-regulation. Over the years I’ve had many insects, amphibians, and animals come through my door but butterflies are definitely my favourite. The whole process of watching and waiting for metamorphosis to occur provides endless opportunities for observations, predictions, hypotheses, and of course, lots of excitement!

This inquiry project turned out to be quite all-encompassing and there is a lot I want to share here. This post will be mainly photo based, with some captions for the photos to describe what we were doing. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Our caterpillars on the day of their arrival. We ordered our live caterpillars from Boreal Science.

Our caterpillars on the day of their arrival. We ordered our live caterpillars (Painted Lady Butterflies) from Boreal Science.

E.A. thought our caterpillars should have names – here, she made name tags for two: “Zigzag” and “Stripey.”

Our literacy connection for the start of this inquiry was The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Here, a student records a shadow-puppet retelling of the story on the iPad.

Our literacy connection for the start of this inquiry was The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Here, F.S. records a shadow-puppet retelling of the story on the iPad.

The children take time to record their observations of the caterpillars in their science notebooks.

A closer look at the science notebook.

We represented each phase of the butterfly life cycle through an art piece. Here is our collaborative art piece for the caterpillar, based on Eric Carle’s famous story.

Racing caterpillars at the math centre. The children negotiated the length of the course and recorded the results of their races.

Our caterpillars inspired so much writing at the writing table!

Writing letters to our butterflies while we wait for them to emerge from their chrysalises.

We found this idea on Pinterest – recording the growth and change of our butterflies. We kept this record on the SMARTBoard.

Art and Fine Motor Instruction: learning how to draw a butterfly. Much of this lesson was dedicated to symmetry.

Our See, Think, Wonder graphic organizers were available throughout the entire inquiry. This one says, “I see the butterfly has spots. I think it is camouflage. I wonder how the butterflies get their designs.”

One of our main questions was “how can we care for our caterpillars/butterflies?” This led us to think about how to create a habitat for the butterflies where they could thrive while we had them indoors. The children recorded their ideas on butterfly habitat planning sheets and gathered their materials in our outdoor classroom.

Our representation of the chrysalis stage: creating a chrysalis out of papier mache. The children added finer details with permanent markers when their work was dry.

You can see how excited the children are to catch a glimpse of our first butterfly!

Representing our butterflies with beautiful watercolour paintings. The children worked very hard to create symmetrical designs on the butterfly wings.

Documentation of our learning. We layered the children's work in a display that captured not only the growth and change of the caterpillars but of our own learning and understanding.

Documentation of our learning. We layered the children’s work in a display that captured not only the growth and change of the caterpillars but the growth and change of our own learning and understanding.

Halloween Inspirations

Posted on October 20, 2014 by msmcdonell

An emergent curriculum is one that is guided by the children’s interests. I get a lot of questions about what this looks like in Kindergarten. In particular, many educators often express a fear that an emergent curriculum will be random, unorganized, and not tied to the curriculum, which is everything it is not! So today, I thought I’d share an example of how you can incorporate the children’s interests into your weekly planning.

When my partner and I sit down to plan, we have the curriculum goals in mind that we want to address – the challenge is coming up with creative and interesting provocations or activities that will be inviting to our students. The easiest way to do that is to fuse our curriculum goals with the children’s interests. When you spend time listening to your students – really listening – you will find the things they talk about to be a source of great inspiration!

At this time of year, Halloween is a big source of conversation and excitement amongst my students, and really, it’s not hard to see why. Dressing up? Free candy? No wonder the kids are so excited!

An exciting event like Halloween is a great opportunity to inspire children to try activities they might not normally try simply by putting a Halloween twist on them. An example I can share is a provocation we created at the Art Studio last year that asked the children to design a face for our Jack-o-Lantern. Even my most reluctant artists were eager to try their hand at creating a spooky masterpiece! What a great opportunity for the children to talk about their preferences, past experiences with celebrations, and future plans. Here is a picture of the provocation:

Often, we set up such experiences for the children and they take on a life of their own or go in a direction we didn’t initially expect. In this case, our fine motor and language activity developed into a mathematical discussion after one student who visited this centre created two options for our Jack-O-Lantern: one happy, and one spooky. You can see he also added the words “YES” and “NO” to his design.

“I’m making a survey…so we can vote to see if we make a scary face or a happy face.”

After sharing Sam’s idea during reflection time, of course the class was excited about the opportunity to put it to a vote! After looking at some pictures online of scary and happy Jack-O-Lanterns, we did our survey on the Smart Board. What an authentic way to talk about the purpose of surveys. Afterwards, many children were inspired to replicate this idea on their own during discovery time.

Around Halloween we were also working on measurement and pumpkin measuring became another popular and interesting provocation. Here, the children were given snap cubes and pumpkins of different sizes (which we happened to bring back from a recent trip to the farm). The children were asked to find out how many cubes tall the pumpkins were. I was also interested in finding out if the children could identify which pumpkins were the tallest or smallest and how they could prove their thinking. Because pumpkins are round and we were measuring with cube sticks, it became clear that accuracy in the measurements was hard to prove simply by using our eyes. I asked one student how she was sure her measuring stick was the same height as her pumpkin, and this is what she did:

During reflection time, we posted this picture on the SmartBoard so this student could share her thinking with the class. It gave us an opportunity to talk about the importance of accuracy when measuring. Later that same day, a group of excited boys called me to the math centre. They had been inspired by our discussion before lunch but had come up with a “better way” to show their measurements were accurate:

The boys then used these structures to directly compare heights to see which pumpkins were taller. Amazing!

Are your students excited about Halloween? How are you incorporating your students’ interests in this spooky holiday in your classroom?

The Curious Kindergarten

Category Archives: Art Studio