I sure miss our wandering Wednesday fun so I thought I would share some fun I had in the forest some time ago. One day I noticed some young huckleberry bushes just starting to grow and I looked really closely and saw that they had square branches!  Can you believe that?  Have you ever seen a tree or bush with square branches? so I sat and thought about this for a while and came up with this story:

The Story of Huckleberry by Ms. Marianna

To listen to me reading this short story

click here

 

 

Once upon a time in a magical land Father Wind came and knocked Cedar down.  Flying above the forest, Hucklefairy noticed majestic Cedar had fallen on the ground and felt terribly sad.  She gently patted Cedar’s bark to comfort him.  The warmth from this comfort released the seeds from her heart in a desire to keep life in the forest.  From Hucklefairy, Huckleberry was born.  A secret gift from Cedar to protect Huckleberry was to have square and grooved branches.  This gift allowed Huckleberry strength to endure Father Wind and hope to mature. When Summer came she could give back the gift of love and friendship shared with her by bearing fruit to share with those in need coming to the Forest.  Have you ever tried a Huckleberry?  I love them.  They are ready to eat  when you see them turning reddish, but always ask first before trying anything in the Forest.   Hope you enjoyed the story and if you have a story you think of as to why Huckleberry has square branches, please share with me.  Stories are a great way to be brave by sharing our ideas and keeping our imaginations strong.

Do you remember planting our seed potatoes before spring break? Look at them now!  they are so healthy and tall.  Since we will not be having our potato harvest party this year, I was wondering if you could all send me some of your favourite potato recipes and we can create a book of recipes to share out.  Please email me if you are interested at marianna.cavezza@burnabyschools.ca Do you also remember we took guesses as to how many potatoes would grow?  What do you think now, how many will we harvest in June?  Write the number down and I will tell you how many there are.  I wonder which class will have the most: Ms. Doust &Ms. Singh, Mr. Sinclair or Strongstart? Let me know what you think.

 

Here is a fun way to the make the ordinary more extraordinary.  To children much of the world is extraordinary, but as adults we may take for granted what is more familiar to us.  One example would be dandelions which we see so many of at this time of year.  I can still remember making garland necklaces and bracelets with dandelions as a young child.  I also remember blowing on them to make a wish and so as way of marking this extraordinary time we are experiencing now, I thought a fun family activity could be to record what each of your wishes are in a memorable way and put them together into a book.

 

 

Materials needed:

A paper towel roll or toilet roll, scissors, a brush or q-tips and white paint for this activity as well as a tray or cookie sheet to place all the materials in.  For  younger children you can help them to cut little slits on the ends of the paper towel roll as shown in the first photo below. You can also sprinkle a little table salt once your done onto your picture for a cool effect or use a few q-tips wrapped in elastic to dab around your dandelion for the seeds. I did this activity with my youngest daughter and you can see her wish is to see her friends.  What do you wish for?  Send me photos, I would love to see them.  Also, to listen to an audio recording of me reading  I wish you more by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lightenheld please click below the storybook photo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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offers lots of support to families.  Many of you will remember Anita Olson,  the Early childhood consultant that would come in to visit us at strongstart.  She is currently offering zoom sessions.  If any of you are interested in having a virtual coffee with her and I please let me know and we can schedule something.  If you would rather meet her more privately her contact information and website information is as follows:

Anita Olson (she/her) ECE, BA, MEd

Early Childhood Community Consultant

T 604 525 9144

M 604 723 9548

3^rd Floor – 321 Sixth Street, New Westminster BC V3L 3A7

www.fsgv.ca

Click here for 7-tips-talking-to-kids-COVID

Burnaby Family Life is hosting a virtual parenting group for fathers, starting today! Check out the description below and sign up for the first session at 6pm this evening.

Fatherhood, a journey: A virtual group for fathers with an opportunity to connect with other fathers and also to learn about raising children in today’s world. Topics include modern parenting techniques, how to notice and provide encouragement, modeling affection through communication, and age-appropriate expectations. We will also look at some effective strategies for positive discipline and communication. Other topics may be included to meet the specific needs of the attending fathers.

 This 8 session group will be led by Roland Boutin, MA, CCC.

When: May 6, 2020 06:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

 Register in advance for this meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwpdO6hqjwjH9dOb7WvCWp3hlvZA5KCTKnm

 After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

 

 

Atticus and Madeline have been busy learning about the planets and wanted to share some of the fun activities that they have been doing.  They learned about constellations and made their own using marshmallows and toothpicks.  Looks so yummy! They also had some gross motor fun and learned about craters by taping up some paper and making a moon shape with toothpaste and throwing a ball at it!  Below you will see that they then made sun catchers inspired by the planets using wax paper,  crayons, a pencil sharpener, and an iron- their parents ironed  the different shavings together and then Atticus and Madeline cut them out.  Great work!  If any of you have other projects you are working on together or want to share something to inspire others please email me at marianna.cavezza@burnabyschools.ca and I will share it here.

 

Did you know sticks can dance? don’t believe me, have a look ( as found on Facebook)

If you would like some real family fun head down to Stoney creek and see if you can find some sticks like this.  You can also try making your own stick people together, maybe one for each member of the family.  Just bring some wool, fabric, pipe cleaners or twine whatever you may have around the house and let your imagination run wild.

Here are the people I made the other day- mine really like to dance!

Once you are done, pose with your stick friend and tell me all about the adventures you have in the forest.  I can’t wait to hear all about them.

 

 

There is so much wonder to be found in nature.  While you are out, count how many petals you see in the flowers around you or if you have some at home pick them  for your children to observe. What different ways could you count the petals? Can you count the number of petals out using rocks or sticks? Have fun with this and see what flower you can find that has the most petals.  To extend this activity further you could also ask what shapes do you see in nature? Can  you find a square? a circle? can you see spirals?

This photo above is from Reggio Inspired Mathematics by Janice Novakowski

For an example, what shapes do you see in the photo below?

To encourage more counting as well as fine motor control, try stacking rocks.  Can you stack 5 rocks?  We tried to do this today and  stacked 7 rocks.  Try this and let me know how many rocks you can stack.

For an extension to this activity, you could also reuse your drinkable yogurt containers as in the photo above to encourage further one to one correspondence as well as fine motor control.  If you do not have plastic tweezers, tongs will work too. Have fun!

If you want to encourage your child’s imagination, you can collect some toys and other materials from around your home and if you have some playdough or old calendars with pictures, magazine photos, or placemats, let them explore and see what happens.  Is there a story coming out from the materials?

Start just with a few materials and toy figures then build from there.  Encourage your child to tell you what the characters/animals are doing, or how they are feeling?  Then write it down for them and keep adding to the story over time if they continue to show interest.  For older children, you can encourage them to write the words as they sound and read their story to you.  Don’t worry if they are not writing the words correctly for now, they will with more practise.  Most importantly, have fun and enjoy this family bonding time.  If you would like to send me your stories via email, please send them to marianna.cavezza@burnabyschools.ca and with your permission I would love to share them on this blog.

Some ideas to do with your children now that Spring is here and the days are longer :

Do some cloud gazing, look up and see what animals or shapes you can find hiding in the clouds?

Go on lots of walks and use all of your senses to take in your environment.  You can collect fallen branches, leaves, flowers, pinecones and make some art on the spot then photograph what you create.  My daughters and I made this one with the word  nature below as an example.

Keep your eyes open for all the garden friends that are out now too.  You never know you might see a caterpillar, a ladybug, spider, a butterfly or dragonfly.

Another great idea to do on a sunny day is take some paper outside with  your child’s favourite toys and make shadows.

If you would like to share your art or ideas with me please email me at marianna.cavezza@burnabyschools.ca