We started work on a huge map of Toronto (on a bed sheet) that has the homes of all the students marked on it. We looked together at the google map I made with students' homes marked on it, and the kids were very interested to see who they lived close to and to tell about the places near their homes. I explained that I had projected this map onto the bed sheet, and marked in pencil the roads, parks, bodies of water and the subway, as well as their homes. Small groups of students painted these features on the map so that everyone had a turn contributing. The big map will be on display for the night of the concert.
We spent the week looking at fractions in math. We read a book that shows the various ways to cut up an apple to share among 2, 3, or 4 people. We talked about how a "half" and a "quarter" come up in our lives all the time, in cooking, in sports, in making art, in talking about time...Then the kids did some exercises that asked them to sort drawings that illustrate a half or a quarter from drawings that don't, mostly to get across the idea that the parts need to be equal.
Our Father's Day art project used the idea of fractions, because we started by folding a long paper into quarters. The kids followed my example, using the dividing lines as reference points to draw the figure of their dad on the paper. Then they used these rough copy drawings as a guide to draw their dad again on a box. They went over the lines with black marker, and then painted over the drawing with light washes of tempura paint.
On Friday morning, we had a very fun time with the "Loose Parts" play session in the school yard. The kids played creatively with all kinds of materials, inventing machines and scenarios together. It was terrific!
No comments:
Post a Comment