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"There was a unicorn that galloped at the mountain, then he saw the big dragon breathing fire, the dragon found the disappear potion and got it on the unicorn, and then he disappeared." The artists of the Oak Tree group have recently been intrigued by the fantasy world of story telling, always creating new and improving stories. The most recent activity the kids found interest in was the story cubes, where you roll the dice, see what prompt you get, and create a story from the pictures shown on the cubes. Some creators even decided to write out the stories they came up with on a piece of paper to keep, and to show their parents! The inner artist came out as soon as the stories were finished, as some decided to draw a picture of the story they made! The artists loved the idea of being able to come up with their own fantasy stories with just a little help from the cubes, so they started to make their own. The educators put examples out and printed cutouts for them to create their own story cubes. The storytellers imaginations ran wild as the ideas flowed out. They created beautiful drawings and even added text above the images to show everyone what they drew. ,Shortly after the story cubes were finished the artists were still hooked on the idea of story telling, so the educators came up with a new idea; The Prompt Jar! The Prompt Jar was filled with creative words, with things like occupations, different foods and even all the planets! The creators had an amazing time trying to come up with stories out of the new and challenging words Pirate, Mercury, Autumn "Once there was an astronaut pirate who was flying around space, he flew to mercury and on mercury it was autumn! He kept flying around to find treasure then they went back to mercury! and they jumped back from mercury and they went down to their pirate ship, then they sailed off to find even more treasure!" The storytellers of the Oak Tree group are always making new and exciting fantasy worlds with fun adventures and crazy twists, so stay tuned for more thrilling stories that these talented young artists can think up!
- Jamie -
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Over the last two weeks the Maple Tree group has been engaging in different types of survival games to protect themselves and their friends from zombies. They started by making their own weapons from big plus plus and magnetic wooden blocks, and were designing their guns to be the world's best weapons in order to survive. Once they had their weapons made, they designed forts from square foam blocks to hide in from the zombies. Each fort was made for a different purpose, some were to hide in, and others were made for those who were attacked by the zombies to go and heal called the escape room. Now that the adventure had started, the children involved all started by hiding in their specific area of the forts from the zombies. All of the children were using their weapons to fight off the zombies and to be the last one to survive. The zombies could get you in two different ways... by shooting or touching!! Once someone was shot by a zombie, others who were still alive had magical healing powers and could place their hand over their body to heal them and then they could continue shooting the zombie’s by going back in their fort which was considered a safe zone. The second way a zombie could get you was just by touching you! If this happened, the children turned into a zombie and could only be cured by entering the escape room and staying there for a couple of seconds. One brave child suddenly said, I will be the first to go attack the zombie and protect you all while the other children stayed close by so that they could heal him if the zombie attacked! The Educator's noticed that the children engaged in this game were very loyal to each other and would protect each other at all costs! This helped the children to be more connected with one another and build stronger relationships.
The educators will continue to build on these types of survival games in the future to maintain a healthy environment between the children. - Navneet The last six weeks have been a whirlwind of fascinating, intriguing, and thrilling scientific experiences. Each week, the scientists were hard at work hypothesizing, problem solving, creating and collaborating with one another.  We started off Science Club with Scribble Bots! The scientists decorated their robot cup with pompoms, googly eyes, markers, and pipe cleaners. Next, they taped markers to the inside of their cups and were given a motor, two wires, a battery and an elastic band. Their job was to create a circuit by connecting one end of the wire to the motor and the other end of the wire to the battery. Once they attached their circuit to their robot cup, the motor would activate, causing the robot to move around and draw a picture. This was probably one of the most difficult tasks, due to its finicky nature, but it definitely paid off when we witnessed the motors spin and saw the robots drawing an elaborate design all on their own! “My robot made this!” “It’s moving!” Bottle Rockets were next on our hit list. The scientists decorated a 2L bottle rocket with their team, using construction paper, markers and tape. “I’m making fins to make the rocket go faster!” “I want to cover the whole bottle so you can’t see the inside.” “How do you spell ‘NASA’?” Outside, we made the rocket ship fuel. The scientists helped me fill the bottles with vinegar and fold baking soda into a paper towel. As we were waiting for the rocket to launch, we talked about we thought was happening inside the rocket…. “I see bubbles!” “It’s going to explode!” “The baking soda and vinegar are all mixed up!” When the rockets finally shot into the air, we were shocked and completely stunned at how high they flew! During the last week of October, the scientists made Glow in the Dark Slime! We all took turns measuring borax, glue, water, food colouring and glow powder (our secret ingredient) into a large container to create our HUGE batch of slime. At each step, I asked the scientists what they thought would happen when the next ingredient was added into our mixture…. “It’s going to fizz!” “The powder will disappear!” “It’s going to get sticky!” Once all the ingredients were added, it was time to stir the slime! One scientist insisted that we needed to add more water because it was too hard to stir. We agreed, and decided to deviate from the recipe and add some more water and glue in small amounts. Well… Our slime had a mind of its own and turned into a Jell-O-like substance. Some scientists squished to together into a round shape and discovered that it bounced! Then, we turned down the lights to see our slime glow in the dark! “It’s like a bouncy ball!” “You can see it glow if you peak through your hand” The next week, the scientists made Rubber Band Cars! Each scientist chose a car frame that was made out of popsicle sticks, straws and bamboo skewers. Then, they decorated their car with bingo dabbers, markers, gems, tape, pompoms and plasticine to help weigh down their car. When the scientists were done decorating, they sorted through a container that was FILLED with bottle caps to find the wheels that they wanted for their car. Shout out to the Dawn & Dusk families and staff who donated bottle caps for this experience! “I want BIG back wheels and small front wheels” “Can I have all big wheels?” The next step was to press plasticine into each bottle cap. Then, I glue gunned the wheels to their car axles and added a rubber band to each car. Once the glue fully dried, the scientists were ready to wind up their cars! To celebrate the last week of Science Club, we made Ice Cream in a Bag! Each scientist had a set of tools to make their very own batch. They had the choice between two flavours: vanilla or chocolate. The scientists added milk, sugar, vanilla and/or cocoa powder to their small Ziploc bag. Next, they added ice and salt into their large Ziploc bag. Many of the scientists questioned why we were adding salt to the ice. They learned that the salt makes the ice extra cold, helping the ice cream form. The scientists then zipped their small plastic bag up tight and placed it into the large plastic bag that contained the ice and salt. Now it was time to SHAKE IT UP! After all of their hard work, the ice cream finally formed. The scientists were so excited to taste their homemade ice cream. “WOW! This tastes great!” “I’m drinking chocolate milk!” “Mine tastes salty…” “I need more sugar!” “Can I have the recipe to make it at home?” “Next time I’m going to add strawberries!” That concludes our Science Club adventure! Congratulations to the scientists who participated each week! Even though our time in Science Club is over, it doesn’t mean that we need to stop being the curious scientists that we are!
During part of last week and this week, an educator put out some provocations using different items or materials to spell out words for the Maple Tree group. |
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