Friday, 30 September 2011

September highlights



Oh, September has been great. We've been getting to know each other through games, projects, and respectful discussions. 


We've also been sharing our unique talents and interests with each other and learning how each of us have something special to contribute to the group. We decided on the name "Peaking Penguins" for our group! In the next few weeks, we'll continue these discussions and decide on the rules, responsibilities, goals of our small community. 


A couple weeks ago, we met up with our "Buddies" group for the first time, five kindergarten kids from Dewson Public School (they have Erin and April as teachers). Together, we surprised Maylee with happy birthday wishes, fall leaves, and cupcakes. We'll be meeting those guys every month to do activities together.


Last week, we had the Autumn Harvest Olympics where there were five other teachers and 25 other kids! We did different activities with different teachers in groups. We wore the tie-dyed capes we made with Maria and Maylee. Some of the activities included playing blindfold games, making paper bag puppets, and creating leaf imprints (photos to come). There will be an Olympics at the end of every month for all the groups, and every month there will be a different theme!


Our city hall trip was great. We were all a little overwhlmed by how crowded it was, but at the end everybody felt safe and had lots of fun. There was singing, dancing, and waving the signs we made. One of the signs read: "unicorns save the day, stop Rob Ford"!


Today we took another walk around our neighborhood and visited Food Share at Bloor and Brock. Here are some pictures:


We got local apples and pears from this nice lady.

Another nice lady taught us a few things about sunflowers.

We explored the urban veggie gardens outside of Food Share.

We each made a few drawings from observation.




We'll go on more walks in the neighborhood next month and start marking down places we've visited on a map that we'll put up at the playschool space.

Sunday, 25 September 2011

Good bye summer 2011

Surprise beet chcoclate cupcakes for Maylee!

Practicing the flashmob dance for Stop the Cut rally!

Can't wait to do this dance with a bunch of other strangers!

Monday, 19 September 2011

Autumn falls!


Last week, we went to the Sauroren Farmers' Market on Monday to find vegetables for making natural dyes, we enjoyed a puppet show, talked about autumn harvest, celebrated Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival with the story of the Chinese moon lady, and ran around on the field. On Friday, we meant to visit Food Share, but instead took a stroll in the Bloor/Dufferin neighborhood – visiting La Tortilleria, reading in the Gladstone library, and playing in Dufferin Grove. 

There will be more pictures this week!


Monday, 12 September 2011

Back To School!

Last week was great! We played lots of games to get to know each other, and set down some rules that we all agreed to, like "be nice to your friends"! We learned how to use a talking stick.

On Friday we went to Dufferin grove park to enjoy our snacks, and play some blindfold games. It was a beautiful day!