It was the week of the big sledding trip and man, were we excited!
To begin the week we welcomed a student from McEwan University’s Early Childhood program. Larissa joined us this week and will be back in a few weeks to continue her field placement for four weeks. While she was here, she took time to understand how our classroom runs, and got to know all the wonderful citizens we have here in Jasper room. The children had her busy playing hide and seek outside in the yard, building Lego at blocks area and reading their favourite books over and over again. While she was here, she created a wonderful art provocation that tied to the book “Happy” by Miles Van Hout. This specific book has been on our shelf for a few weeks and has become a favourite among some children. It is a book with amazing pastel illustrations that depict different emotions, all centred around fish. To connect the book, Larissa read the story, and paired it with black paper, pastels and mirrors so the children could create and understand their own emotion driven fish. The children were very receptive to this provocation and there was a lot of discussion about what facial expressions match each emotion. The kids were excited to get to know her and can’t wait for her to join us again.
Onto Thursday, everyone’s favourite day by far this week. It was finally the day of the sledding trip, and by some kind of miracle, it snowed just enough! We began our morning pretty early and were headed to the hill by 9 am. The kids could hardly control their excitement, they walked so fast to Ottewell park they must have set a new record! It was a very successful trip, filled with risk taking, team work and laughter. It was amazing to see everyone let loose and enjoy the moment together. All of the kids helped each other up the hill, and they were quick to pair up and go down the hill together and share sleds. We ended our morning by all going down the hill together at one time. I’ve never seen some friends laugh so hard! Watch to see some of the amazing photos we captured to commemorate this great trip together.
To end our week, some of our friends chose to hand out valentines. There hasn’t been much discussion and interest quite yet regarding Valentine’s Day so we haven’t touched on it to much. We really enjoyed sitting with each other and handing out the valentines that did come. It was amazing to see how thoughtful and thankful the children were when handing out and receiving each valentine. One of the kind moments was when Henry asked if he could pause our team talk to give Isabella a very meaningful hug and say thank you for the valentines she had given him. This caused a chain reaction and everyone began giving such heartfelt thank you and hugs to each other. It was really an amazing moment.
Each week, we are all learning and discovering new things about our small Jasper community. This week, without even really discussing the concept of Valentine’s Day, or the importance of our group sledding trip, it was amazing to see the kids strip away the novelty of things and just enjoy each other’s company and everything each of us has to offer as a capable, caring person!