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This month the children in Cohort A have been exploring the concept of survival. This week we brought that to life with an interactive game in the gym to test their survival skills. The game was aptly named 'survival' and the kids were split up into two teams of four. Each team had a hula hoop on their side filled with four pieces of food, the name of the game was to get all eight pieces into your hula hoop without getting tagged. This team was so close to winning it all, with only two pieces of food left to collect to survive! Each child was also given a tool to help fight off the opposing team. Now what tool might that be, you ask? A flashlight! The use of such a tool is to "tag" the opposing team members by shining the light on them. To up the anti, we also added mats set up as barriers and shields. The children were really great at working together as a team; while one child would guard the food, the other team members would run across the gym to capture food from the other team. Each person had a role to play in the survival of the team. Once the game started to die down and there were only two kids left, they took it upon themselves to adapt the game and make it their own. One child grabbed all the food pieces and hid them around the gym and behind the mats while the other child closed their eyes. Once all the food was hidden, the challenge of finding them all began. It was a hunt for all the food needed for survival. I can't wait to see all the other ways these kids can show off their survival skills!
- Katie
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On a cold winter morning, Cohort A had the opportunity to create animals out of clay! They were given two prompt questions to help encourage their thinking process which led them to their design! Where does your animal live? How does your animal survive? Some of the children flipped through animal books to inspire them, while others relied on their imaginations alone to create their animal. The children rolled the clay into shapes and used toothpicks as tools to cut, carve and add texture to their animals. One child decided to stick toothpicks into his clay animal to represent antlers! Another child mixed two colours of clay together to create a marbled effect. Each child took on a different approach, resulting in so many unique creations! When the children were asked about their animals, they all came up with very detailed answers. One child named the beaver she made George. A second child explained why her two caterpillars were different colours... she explained that the larger one was older and lost its green coloured stripes as it grew! A third child explained that her unicorn eats rainbows for breakfast. Later on, one child presented another question to the group... "After you make your animal, draw its habitat and think about what's in it... is it a magical habitat?? After hearing this prompt, some of the children drew their animals habitat on a piece of paper and then started playing with their clay animals. We also overheard the children talking about how they wanted to preform a play with their clay animals and habitat drawings! We will definitely give the children the opportunity to explore this idea sometime in the near future, stay tuned!!
- Vita For quite some time now, we have noticed that the children in Cohort A have been exploring what survival skills would be needed within different scenarios. If you were to hatch from an egg as a dinosaur how would you survive? This is some of the ideas we had in mind. Would you grow gills if you hatched at the bottom of the lake? Would you be able to grow wings if you hatched at the top of a mountain? Would you be able to grow spikes if a predator was coming to eat you? To expand on the idea of adapting to the environment and problem solving how we would be able to survive. One morning I presented the children with a provocation that showcased some different shelters that one might build to survive, and set up an area of loose parts so that they could create on of their own. The children had various kinds of blocks, rocks, marbles, shells and other loose parts to use to build their structure. As the children were building, they discussed different things that they would add to their shelters such as a swimming pool, a lake, a fire pit and of course every shelter needs a diving board on the roof of the house!! In the afternoon we decided to take it one step further and try building life size shelters outside! We used sheets, rope, tarps, rugs, sticks and clips to create shelters within the forest. Some of the shelters had some extra perks such as a hammock bed and even a bakery that sold snow bread! The children used their imagination and creative minds to build blue prints in their head with a plan of action. Through problem solving and communication they were able to work together as a team to create their shelters.
Everyone Survived!! Up next, we are going to make up some unique experiences and have the children create their own survival pamphlet! - Raelien |
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