One of our favorite topics in our class is family. We love our family so much, and can talk a lot about them no matter what our family looks like or how old we are. With the Olympics this year, it gave us a chance to talk about where our families are from, and our culture.
Culture is defined as a particular form or stage of civilization as that of a certain nation or period, which can be the misleading definition when talking about a families culture . For many, culture is the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular person (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/culture). We had a "Culture Day" in class for all of the children to bring in various items that reflect their culture. A persons culture is a complex compound of who they are and where they came from. For some that is their nationality. We saw some neat flags and costumes, and ate some yummy treats. Other children shared stories of their families with us, such as how one child's great grandfather was one of the first people to bring coloured photography to Alberta! Culture is something you create with passion and time. A mentor teacher of mine was adopted, and wanted to share how even though her family was not of blood, they still shared a culture based on their traditions.
We really enjoyed the Olympics in the classroom!
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| Cutting strips of paper to make Olympic chains |
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| Making circles from found recycled materials |
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| Playing hockey under our classroom table |
We flipped over one of our classroom tables to create a skating rink in our class! The children used Popsicle sticks cut up as hockey sticks and a black button as a puck. It is nice to make toys from recycled items and items in the classroom.
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| Watching the Canadian Mens hockey team play live |
To support the children understanding of where we are, I offered them tin cans with photos of them.
The small one had our schools picture on it, which is IN Edmonton, which was a larger can with the photo of Edmonton on it. Edmonton is IN Alberta, which we would put the other smaller cans inside of a can with Alberta on it. Lastly we had a large can with the photo of Canada on it.
The children had access to play with the cans after, to experience the order.
We also spent time talking about what our houses looked like, where we live. In our journal the children would either trace found shapes in the classroom (toys, recycled materials, etc) and would then add details.
In circle we used math to create a tally chart of what kind of house we lived in. We found out the children all lived in various types of houses. The children loved finding out that they lived in the same kind of house of some of their peers and that some of their friends had different looking houses.
Green - T/TR class
Orange - M/W/F am class
Red - M/W/F pm class
It was really exciting to use "concrete" (shaving cream) to build houses. Some children created their own houses, and some made replicas of photos of houses.
During our enjoyment of building and creating, we built large tracks from marble works.
And from duplo.
Enjoying the weaving basket.
Sincerely,
Ms Asha
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