The natural beauty of autumn leaves and fall harvests continue to impact our early learners as we explore, create, and imagine outdoors in our forest and school garden. As a way to integrate children’s fascinations with all that comes with autumn our team has co-created some intentional learning explorations that also connect to our student’s developing… Read More Autumn Play and Learning Invitations
This past year we’ve challenged ourselves to thinking about how kindergarten prep coverage can be responsive to student learning and well-being with considerations like the flow of the day, interests and inquiries, documentation, and the Ontario Kindergarten Curriculum. Our prep teacher coverage was assigned phys-ed for 40 minutes everyday and an extra 40 minutes at… Read More Responsive Prep Teacher in Kindergarten
Our team has previously shared how we document children’s learning with tools like Seesaw and Google Forms. However, the tool we’re sharing in this post is about what we document with regards to noticing and naming the learning. It’s a compilation of “I can” statements in the form of Learning Goals in Kindergarten which correlates to the 2016… Read More Documenting with Learning Goals in Kindergarten
Let’s begin with a story. A year 2(senior kindergarten) student enters the outdoor classroom on the first day of school with his mom smiling quietly behind him. His first words are, “Look Mrs Max. I found a worm in my peach pit at breakfast. I wonder why he’s in there?” Some might think, he didn’t… Read More Creating a Culture of Curiosity in Kindergarten
We believe that building a culture of transparency connects us to our community in a powerful way that demonstrates our commitment to our earliest learners. In our ongoing effort to be transparent our early years team has created a philosophy display for families, visitors, and fellow educators to review. Through newsletters, Seesaw (documentation app), Twitter, Facebook,… Read More Making Our Philosophy of Learning Visible
At the beginning of every year my teaching partner and I incorporate lots of name recognition, construction, and writing provocations to engage children. Here are some of our favourites so far this year. This invitation to play begs for children to think about constructing names, patterning, and measurement. Some children have added dice and used their… Read More 6 Playful Name Provocations
Since the screen-obsessed child began to dominate much of western culture many parents have been struggling with how to foster the creative play they once experienced as children in the forest playing with sticks. In Kindergarten classrooms across Ontario, Canada, educators have begun connecting children with nature by bringing natural materials into the classroom for… Read More Hey Educator, What’s This Loose Parts Play You Keep Talking About? A Parent’s Guide to the Benefits of Loose Parts Play
It’s not just another classroom with neutral colours, stones, and baskets. We live in Muskoka and our environment as the third teacher reflects our culture of living and how we encourage children to care for our forests. We spend lots of time exploring forests using a forest-school type approach: playing with bugs, building dens, and inquiring about… Read More A Reggio-Inspired Classroom Design – Kinderland Tour Part 2
We love having one table designated for loose parts play. It’s an opportunity for our learners to create, collaborate, and design. The children were really enjoying reading Eric Carle books and using them as inspiration to create with loose parts. The gems were sorted by colour so the children would be intentional about their selection. The process… Read More Loose Parts Art Inspired by Illustrators
Welcome to Shapeland! Kinderland has been excited to build Shapeland using 3D shapes with blocks, tree blocks, rocks, and cut up pool noodles with long tooth pics and skewers. Our early learners began exploring shapes through play and then their own inquiries. They added materials as they wanted to use them. This constructivist approach enabled our… Read More Pool Noodle Shapeland
inspired by play 