Valentine's Centre

We sure have been busy this month celebrating love and kindness.  These centres have been set up for the month of February and I will be adding new ones tomorrow for Valentine's Day too.  I will try and post those pictures too!

 Happy Valentine's Day tomorrow everyone!

This Week at a Glance

My first week back to work!  It was sure exciting to meet all these amazing kiddos and most of the parents/grandparents.  I have already felt such a warm welcome to the school and community.  I can't believe how quick this week went by and I didn't get to capture very many moments because I was busy learning names and routines!  But I did capture some moments in our days that were pretty special.  Being an artist, I love to weave art throughout our day.  

The children learned how to draw a snowman and afterwards we had it out to recreate during Exploration Time.  I can't take credit for this snowman.  If you have time to draw with your children this is the youtube link.  This artist is amazing to follow and draw along with your little ones.  My son and I do this activity quite often.

We also made a Snowman Factory for Exploration time.  This space was always filled up throughout the week.  The children created lots of different kinds of snowman from fashion snow people to snow spiders!

Finally, on Friday we attended a puppet show at the public library.  It's free to anyone and must-see (in our eyes) if you get the chance.  They had the kids laughing so hard and jumping in their seats!

This was such a fun week learning the ropes of the school, meeting everyone, and learning more from the kiddos about who they are.  I can't wait to explore and create more with them next week.

Pillow Art

Some of you may have seen previous posts about our Jackson Pollock inspired mural.  We created this piece in two series.  One part with chalk and oil pastels and the second part with paint!

Then I stretched it out on a canvas and it was 10 ft by 6 ft haha.  It was HUGE!  Found out we have a fire safety code in our school that this large canvas wouldn't work in the hallway.  However I put my thinking cap on and came up with another great idea!  I asked the kids what they were thinking and funny enough they came up with the same idea!  Great minds think alike!

Let's make pillows!  So that is what we did.  We cut the canvas into little pieces and created these amazing pillows for decoration in our homes.

Didn't they turn out fantastic?

How To Draw a Realistic Snowman

We learned how to draw a snowman last week and some of the children have been asking if I can post the videos so they can draw this snowman at home.  Here are the videos!  Enjoy!

How to draw a head

How to draw the eyes and mouth

How to draw the hat and nose

How to draw the buttons and scarf

How to draw the arms

How to colour the snowman

How to colour the snowman part 2

Thermal Energy

Today we learned about radiation.  Radiation is basically the heat you can feel without having to touch anything.  Its a form of energy that is transferred by waves.  For example, the sun or feeling the heat when you put your hands next to a fire.

Today we learned how to make a solar oven from a pizza box.  The kids were very excited to see this oven in action.  Unfortunately we don't have a lot of sunshine lately (we don't need it to be hot but we do need some sun) and we have an overhang outside our window.  The kids think we might have better luck sticking our oven outside.  We are currently trying to melt marshmallows from the sun so we will see.  I looked it up and apparently the pizza box ovens can get up to 200 degrees so which is pretty hot!

Here is a video of how to make one.  In case you would like to try at home!

Also the link to understand how it all works.

If you haven't checked it out yet... check out your child's Fresh Grade account to see more images of our presentation on Thermal Energy by High Touch.  It was pretty amazing!

Elf on the Shelf

If you can believe it, Sparkle, followed me from Big White and came to visit us for the month of December.  We are so excited to find this little elf everyday!  

Our Christmas books are on display!  Along with a few other festive decorations to celebrate this wonderful holiday.

Abstract Expressionism

This is how we experiment and discover with art mediums!  I love watching children explore with paint... they aren't worried about making mistakes or creating something ugly.  They don't know or have any boundaries... they explore!  We used scrapers, squeegees, foam brushes, and rubber rollers.  

Here are only a few examples of their masterpieces.  I highly recommend buying an ikea frame to display these art pieces.  

I have a student from my previous school on display in our living room.