WE STRIVE TO SEE THE WORLD FROM A KIDS-EYE-VIEW
Bellwoods Playschool uses a child-centred, socially conscious pedagogy to engage young children in social and artistic thought and action. Using what the city has to offer, we empower our students with the knowledge to be socially and environmentally responsible citizens while they develop into explorers of their urban landscape.

WE THINK OF THE CITY AS OUR CLASSROOM
A valuable aspect of the Bellwoods Playschool program is to empower children as navigators of their city. We journey on regular excursions, by foot and by public transportation, to art galleries, museums and cultural events, as well as markets, parks and city landmarks.

WE KNOW ITS TAKES A VILLAGE

Our Playschool runs on a model that links a range of artists together to engage and inspire children. We like to bring in different perspectives and actively pursue a diverse teaching staff. As such, professional educators and artists trade chalkboards for personal anecdotes and textbooks for real life experiences. Together, they create an atmosphere that is at once intellectually stimulating and deeply personalized.


Our Community

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Green House Work!

We are happy to be part of the Trinity Bellwoods Community Green House! Last Friday we choose the shelves that we will be sharing with the other playschool groups. We will plant some leafy greens and herbs, as recommended to grow this winter. We took turns sounding out and writing "Bellwoods Playschool" and decorated our shelves with tape, hearts and a garden princess. We talked about our shared responsibilities, and how every 4 weeks, we will be responsible for watering everyone's plants. We learned about the soil mix we use for the seeds and mixed a small batch up. Later, the Wandering Hamsters, with a couple of our other mates who stayed in the playground for a game of tag, joined us and Roy explained to the whole group about our role in the community green house. All other 8 children were amazingly attentive!





Practicing Paint Mixing + Colour Making, Finishing Our Shakers





Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Pastels

Today we started exploring how pastels are great for mixing into each other. We also talked about how not many things in the world are just one colour. The ocean is at least 3 kinds of blue with some white and even green in it. When we draw the sun, we can mix reds, yellows and oranges together for a prettier and more real drawing.



Saturday, November 20, 2010

Practicing Using Watercolour Crayons

Colour like you would with crayons as usual, then apply a wet paint brush et voila! Your piece turns into a semi-water colour painting!

A Day In The Life of a Busy Babe

 Playing dress-up at the Drop-In Centre.

 Stopping in to check out the MOCCA. Only half of us were brave enough to check out the exhibit that required most of the lights to be off. Lucky our coop student was with us today. We were all pretty excited by the ice fishing hut installation, mostly because we all thought it was a rocket ship. 

 It was our first time checking out the statues outside of the MOCCA together.

We ended our day at the National Film Board, where we learned to log in and practice making our film selections. We watched some films on food and farming, including an episode from a claymation series called Wapos Bay. We enjoyed our free choice time and were highly entertained by The Cat Came Back.

We Love Music

Practicing our scales:

Having fun practicing our rhythm and playing percussion.

 Adding colour to our homemade shakers. Rice in vitamin/medicine bottles make the best sounds.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Working on Know Hope Inspired Paintings on Wood

Collaborative Drawings!

Each artist drew a different section of each piece with Mr. Daniel! We also came up with a secret name for our art collective. If we told you here, it wouldn't be so secret, now would it? ; )

Ginko Leaves, Dinosaur Stamps, Autumn



Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Enjoying Autumn Sun

We had some quiet time in the Autumn Sun last week. The Twirly Birds LOVE playing hide and seek behind the trees and climbing on logs. We painted our new Twirly Bird sign outside too.



Monday, November 08, 2010

C'est L'Hallowe'en

For the first time, the Twirly Birds, Wandering Hamsters, Pouncing Pumas AND Cycling Giants got together for a big Hallowe'en Olympics! Leah + April told the story of how the Witches, Ghouls, Wizards, and Goblins got together a long, long time ago and decided to mix up teams and play fun games. We ate apples hanging off a tree, mixed magic potions (juice), had a skeleton scavenger hunt, a witchy obstacle course and a slimy blind fold feel (hands in mushy things). It was super fun and we look forward to playing these Olympics with all these groups, at the end of every month!

Our mixed-aged, mixed-up-groups team names are named after natural disasters: 
The Tornadoes, The Tsunamis, The Volcanoes and The Earthquakes!

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Know Hope

We went with the Wandering Hamsters to the Show & Tell Gallery to check out the work of Israeli Street Artist, Know Hope. The kids went around in partners, talking about what they liked, what they didn't like and which pieces were their favourites. Gallery owner Simon Cole sent us off with a set of artist postcards. Later on, we scavenged for wood scraps to make our own works like this.  

Clay + Paper Theatre with the Pouncing Pumas


We met up with the Pouncing Pumas (Dewson Afterschool) last week to help decorate the props for the Clay and Paper Theatre's Night of Dread. We got to see real mask and pupper makers in action and contribute to the annual community halloween parade!