Early years teacher with a focus on Inquiry-based learning, reggio-inspired spaces and documentation, and purposeful play.
Passionate about early years, inquiry-based learning, reggio-inspired, outdoor learning & all things play. @meljmaxwell www.inspiredbyplay.wordpress.com
12/17/2020
Irwin MPS' Holiday Concert
Snuggle up with your loved ones and enjoy this special gift to our
adored Irwin families and community.
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!
Part: 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vMt76WV9wc&t=5s
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ebpcl_x2F0
Irwin MPS Holiday Concert Part 1 See Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ebpcl_x2F0&feature=youtu.be
12/02/2020
We wondered what kind of animals lived in different sizes of holes. “The Big Book of Nature” supported our wonderings in the forest today. We sorted the animals by their size of holes and became animal detectives looking for holes. We looking for clues like tracks and left over pine cones from squirrel feasts.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CH_cVB8hDcl/
12/02/2020
Comparing the distance of bunny jumps to our jumps. Our child-led learning started with finding bunny tracks and noticing that sometimes they were close together and sometimes they were far away from each other. We wondered how far they could jump and predicted that they would jump that far when a predictor was after them. So we recorded how far they could jump and compared it to our kinder jumps. We measured in kinder feet and ensured no gaps, no overlaps, and to double check.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CIB-9iKBDsw/
12/02/2020
Clay creatures on sticks: We’ve done clay creatures on trees before, but these were fun too as the littles could take them on adventures in the forest and tell stories with them. Love when art lends itself to oral language development.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CIO4gZvhshm/
12/02/2020
“Over and Under the Snow” by Kate Messner inspired us to draw an animal from the story on a wood cookie and find or make a habitat for them over or under the snow. It got the littles thinking about what was under their feet and over their heads as they were hiking through the forest. We also created a shared diagram of our learning. Thank you forest!
https://www.instagram.com/p/CIUGCrPhRGW/
10/20/2020
Adventure Packs! Before wonder wagons we had an outdoor learning toolbox, but now we’ve moved to “Adventure Packs”. All the beloved tools that we once had in a wonder wagon, are now in individual backpacks. We have a magnifying glass 🔎, measurement tape, container for bugs and nature treasures, number path(on a paint stick), rekenrek, 10 frame, wood cookies, clipboard📋, and pencils. Kiddos measured trees, counted holes in leaves, collected beard moss, etc. Thank you forest for the good math learning and sparking curiosity with your endless wonders. Thank you to for your mad cricuting skills and creativity with the logo! 🌿
10/14/2020
Leaf Pounding. Today we tried something new to us. We did some leaf pounding where you make a print of a leaf on fabric by pounding the colour/chlorophyl from the leaf to the fabric. We used a wood block to pound and elastics to secure the fabric and leaf in place around a board. It was interesting to see how some leaves were easier to do than others. I bet spinach would br amazing with this. Love the connection with science, art, and nature. We also read “Autumn Leaves” and sang, “Know Your Oaks”.
10/13/2020
“Leaf Man” by Lois Elhert always brings out the creativity and connection to nature we crave in the fall. ➡️Swipe right to see a “Leaf Man” poem. 🍂
Sarah Cripps
09/30/2020
The forest continues to provide our math learning - today with leaf pattern necklaces. We just added a piece of tape to the end of the yarn(kind of like a shoe string) and that helped the children be more independent with their lacing. We also read the story “Leaf Troubles” and sang the song, “Brown Squirrel”(good old camp song) as the story is about a little squirrel who tries to understand why the leaves are falling.
09/28/2020
One of my favourite sounds so far this year in our outdoor classroom has been hearing children laughing as pine cones are being thrown down onto them by squirrels. In response to this excitement and wonder we’re providing children opportunities to inquire and explore squirrels, their caches, burrows, etc through playful experiences like this.
09/24/2020
These DIY gel boards have been so amazing for supporting letter formation, writing, and boy are they fun! We just put a bit of hair gel and food dye in a really thick plastic zippered bag and duct taped it to a thin piece of wood. A friend used a dry erase board instead of wood and they look great too. We use these in small group and whole group learning, and literacy intervention.
09/22/2020
As we’ve shifted our learning to full-time outdoors, we’ve continued to stay true to pedagogies that are central to supporting our youngest learners; like documentation. Documentation in the form of learning stories remain a cornerstone to how we make learning visible, honour and extend children’s learning, and connect home to school.