Uno's Garden #1

One of the teachers in my teaching team arrived this year with a great idea for a unit theme. Each year we select a theme for the unit (grade) and each class chooses a relevant class name. This year we are Uno's Garden based on the book by Graeme Base. Our class names are Magnificent Moopaloops, Talented (instead of Timid) Tumbletops, Super Spectacular (instead of Sneaky) Snagglebites and Great Galloping (instead of grazing) Gondolopes.

On our first read through of the book, we did not show students the pictures. I'm sure this is some kind of sin when it comes to the amazing work of Graeme Base, but our motives were pure!
In line with the Australian curriculum we want our students to: identify visual representations of characters' actions, reactions, speech and thought processes in narratives, and consider how these images add to or contradict or multiply the meaning of the accompanying words (ACELA1469) We thought a good way to get students to start thinking about this would be to take away those images and see what the students would create in their minds. Our students then drew what they imagined the class' mascot to look like. They wrote a description of the character below the picture using this model:
A Talented Tumbletop is ... small, soft, and furry.
It has... big eyes, a tiny nose and a long tail.
It (does)... swings in the tops of trees and tumbles back down to the ground.
The students' work was marked, collated in a plastic sleeve folder and then used for an overnight take home book. Students take turns to take the book home, share it with their family and return it the next day. Parents leave a comment for the class in the back of the book.

Image: Uno's Garden book by Graeme Base. You can buy the book here.

Enjoying the Garden

Just thought I'd share a couple of ideas I've tried to make the garden fun for my little guy.

Dinosaur Garden

And a dinosaur!

At the preschool we have a fairy garden for our students to play in. Bouncing on from this idea I decided to make a dinosaur garden at our house. It is a herb and veggie garden in a planter box. My little guy chose which seeds to plant and where to plant them. We then watered them and have been watching them grow. A week ago the dinosaurs moved in. I imagined that my little guy would move the dinosaurs around and make roaring noises, but that hasn't happened yet. He does, however, take care of the garden - watering it regularly and noticing the changes.

Veggie patch
We also have a larger veggie patch where we have enjoyed growing and harvesting snow peas, beans, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, corn (our favorite), silver beet, tomatoes, basil, tarragon, garlic, onion, lettuce, and broccoli.

Berries
We have two strawberry patches, some raspberries and three blueberry bushes. My little guy enjoys finding, picking and devouring the fruits.

Sunflowers
My little guy found sunflower seeds at the shops and wanted to get them for our garden. As they were only $1 I figured we could give it a go. It was exciting to watch the flower head grow and then close in. When the birds started eating the seeds we cut the head off and looked at the seeds together before husking and eating them.

Seeds
We've also collected and scattered seeds from other ants including coriander, parsley and marigolds.

Friday Fun

It's the end of Week 1, Term 1 and I am exhausted! The first week takes a lot of energy and requires a lot of extra bits and pieces to get things underway. Time is spent organising the classroom, sorting and labelling stationery, collecting assessment and talking with teachers from the previous year. We've also been trying to piece together information for our parent night, structuring our timetable and planning our programs. Given that my evenings are usually very family oriented, I have been skipping my lunch break to try to fit everything in, and hoping that somehow I'll be able to get ahead of the ball sometime soon! On a personal learning level, I have been familiarising myself with the iDoceo app for iPad and supporting other teachers as they get started with it too.

But, let's face it. The first week back is about the kids - getting to know them, meeting their parents, enthusing them about the year ahead, and stomping out the unwanted behaviours early. So... here's some of the fun stuff the kids got up to this week.

Flap Book
Students made flap books containing their teacher's name, class, something they enjoyed from the first day, something they are looking forward to and some of their friends. We planned to take these home on the first day, however they needed a little more time so took them on the second day instead. These were designed to be a prompt for students and their parents to use to discuss the first day.

Portrait
Students created a portrait of themselves depicting how they see themselves as adults. They also wrote a text to go with the image. These will be displayed in our unit on completion.

FRIENDS Values
My school has developed a values curriculum around an acronym for FRIENDS. This is taught at the beginning of each year and referred to continually. This week students were engaged in a quiz related to the values and completed a worksheet which is now displayed in the classroom.

House Meetings
Our swimming carnival is just around the corner, so today students met in house groups to select Year 6 students as their House Captains. They then practiced their war cries.

Of course there have been many other activities through the week, but some of those will form other posts I plan to write this weekend! Bring on week 2!

Lost and Found

When we returned from our overseas trip in the USA, we were disappointed to discover that somewhere we had misplaced our old camera, which we had given to our son as a learning camera. While disappointed, we shrugged it off as just one of those losses. The little guy, on the other hand, was not so willing to let it go and often talked of how he missed his camera. So, I decided to put in a little more effort toward finding it. And, alas, we found out that we had left it at The Donatello Hotel in San Francisco. Our stay there had been fantastic and the staff were very helpful with tracking down the camera and sending it back to us. It arrived this week and we were very excited to see the camera again and to get a glimpse of the trip through the eyes of my little guy. 

There were many photos like this:

And this funny one, which says to me: "What is that two-year-old doing with a camera?" (We don't know who this lady is, but she was one of the many photographing Lombard Street!)

And this one, my favourite, which we have unofficially named Reflections of Lombard Street

Now the little guy has got his camera back, he has moved on to learning about the zoom function and use of the flash. Yesterday he also took it further and learned about how the camera connects to the laptop to put the photos on our server! As one who loves to take photos, it's nice to know that he can get back to his experimenting without impinging on my own camera time!

It's fun to see what he captures, often by chance, in that moment when the shutter opens. One might wonder whether more guidance will help or hinder his ability to capture creative images. What do you think?

Tech Tips Tuesday

iPad for Preschoolers #5 Bookshelf

Today I thought I would share some book apps that are available and beneficial. I must admit that these apps have not had much use on my iPad, as I'm still quite committed to the old-fashioned, ink-on-pages variety. While I agree that it is nice to have a book with moving pictures and flashing words, my son also prefers to cuddle up on the couch and read one of his favourite, slightly torn and buckled books. While he will sit still for multiple readings of one such book, I struggle to keep him from pinching the page of the electronic version! And so, I think to myself, "Why am I fighting this?" and put the iPad away for another time, draw him up onto my lap and read with my own voice and expression - maybe this is what it is really about after all!

That said, there are some great book apps, that provide for interaction with the text and images.

Sesame Street Books - I love some of these, particularly The Monster at the End of this Book which was a favourite of both my husband and I when we were growing up. The original version of this book draws the reader in and Grover asks (or begs) the reader not to turn the pages as they draw us closer to the monster at the end of the book. The electronic version does not disappoint, and equally enjoyable is Another Monster at the End of this Book.

Dr Seuss Books - I was amazed to see how many Dr Seuss Books have now been made electronic and are available through the app store. I remember learning to read with Dr Seuss and his zany, rhyming tales. As in the original version, these texts are fairly lengthy - too lengthy for my two-year old at this stage. The apps allow you to read the story, hear it read, and touch words to hear them again. I bought a selection of these stories when they were on sale recently.

Graeme Base - The work of Graeme Base is a sight to behold. His detailed illustrations attract and captivate the attention of both children and adults. The text is also amazing, reminding us of how beautiful the English language can when words are carefully selected. Through his work we can teach children about using adjectives, adverbs and interesting verbs to paint with words. In Animalia, Base makes good use of alliteration to explore each letter of the alphabet. The Waterhole is a counting book with so much more. Base illustrates different regions of the world and the issue of biodiversity and shared resources. The apps encourage the reader to take a closer look at the details within the illustrations and to find the hidden items.

Bedtime Stories - Here are two apps I have found that work well at bedtime. Goodnight Safari is a read-along story that invites children to interact with the safari animals. It also includes some learning activities beneficial to preschoolers. Nighty Night has been a favourite of ours for bedtime. Children turn out the lights in the farmhouse and put all the animals to bed before going off to bed themselves. It is in the 'book' category on iTunes, but doesn't include written text, and children choose the order in which they interact with the farm animals.

If you'd like to read more on selecting appropriate book apps, you should read this article: Let the Reader Beware:| Evaluating Digital Books.

Other posts that might interest you:
Tech Tips Tuesday - iPad for Preschoolers #1 Mathematics Concepts
Tech Tips Tuesday - iPad for Preschoolers #2 Alphabet Apps
Tech Tips Tuesday - iPad for Preschoolers #3 Let's Pretend
Tech Tips Tuesday - iPad for Preschoolers #4 Creative Play