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
Flowers, gardens, tadpoles, insects, and caterpillars are interests that children revisit year after year each spring. In an effort to support learning in literacy and music and movement, our team introduces shared poems and songs that we sing with the children each day for one week. We also send a copy home for families to… Read More Spring Poems on Google Slides
Apples, pumpkins, Thanksgiving, and Hallowe’en are interests that children revisit year after year each fall. In an effort to support learning in literacy and music and movement, our team introduces shared poems and songs that we sing with the children each day for one week. We also send a copy home for families to reinforce… Read More Fall Poems Shared on Google Drive
Before transforming our yard into our outdoor learning playspace, our early years team shared our hopes and dreams for the children in the space. We wanted it to provide opportunities for children to develop curiosity, exploration, creativity, innovation, resilience, problem-solving skills, risk-taking, collaboration, oral language skills, mathematical understanding, and connect with nature. We also kept… Read More Planning Outdoor Learning Playspaces For All Seasons
As I continue to learn from and with my early learners, I find myself increasingly curious as to why children are often innately drawn to types of learning that they would benefit from. For years now my early years team has observed children with lower language abilities drawn to language rich activities like small world… Read More Creating Meaningful Small World Play that Supports Language Development
This blog post is about our early years team’s inquiry into early reading. We’ve been on a reflective journey and rethinking our practice over the last 4 years. Do children achieve greater success in reading in kindergarten if they are instructed uppercase or lowercase letter names or sounds first? From what I’ve heard many primary/junior teachers, like… Read More Do You Teach Upper Case Letter Names First? We Don’t. Here’s Why.
Hearts are something our early learners beg for all year long and not just on Valentine’s Day. We’re probably not alone either. Hearts are one of those shapes some little people crave to learn how to draw, and when they figure it out, they are unstoppable. We have one little this year that when asked what… Read More The Way to Their Heart Through Sensory and Loose Parts
Christmas and winter holidays awe children with their colours, lights, textures, smells, and sounds. We’ve decided to tap into this natural interest to encourage learning in math, science, engineering, fine-motor, sensory, literacy and art. Sensory Holiday Exploration We love how educators can intentionally add different materials to sensory exploration for different purposes. If we add… Read More 10 Christmas and Holiday Explorations
Since the new Ontario Kindergarten Curriculum was released this summer our kindergarten team has spent some quality time reflecting and re-thinking how we document and organize this documentation with regards to the four frames. We’ve narrowed our scope of documentation to 4 main documentation formats and we’re sharing templates for you to use, tweak, improve upon, and share… Read More Documenting with the Four Frames
“Every leaf speaks bliss to me fluttering from the autumn tree.” -Emily Bronte For many children and adults a natural interest in leaves re-surfaces each and every year when the leaves change colour. Fall is an amazing opportunity to nurture children’s natural curiosity in the environment and outdoor learning. Below are some playful invitations to play and learn… Read More Exploring Leaves Through Play
inspired by play 