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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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!

Book Launch at The Monkey's Paw

The Monkey's Paw warmly invites you to attend a dual book release party for:

Leanne Shapton's THE NATIVE TREES OF CANADA (Drawn & Quarterly)

  -- and --

Jason Logan's FESTUS (J&L Books)

Saturday, October 30, 6-8 p.m.

at... the Monkey's Paw

1229 Dundas St. West, Toronto

Afrooooo Beeeeeat

A couple of weeks ago we started learning about Afro-Beat w/ Mr. Daniel. We have been doing our music lessons with the Wandering Hamsters, which works out much better for focusing (when one of our peers is being distracting, it affects everybody less when there are more of us).

Checking our pulses and feeling the rhythm of our hearts.

Tapping along to Mr. Daniel's rhythm.

Learning about the pioneer of Afro-Beat, Fela Kuti from Nigeria. We also learned about tape players!

Then we played percussion along with Fela Kuti on tape and danced around.

Jamming Along to Fela Kuti from Bellwoods Playschool on Vimeo.

More Tree Fun

Playing hide and seek in the trees at Trinity Bellwoods is a popular game.

Seeing how many Twirly Birds and Wandering Hampsters can fit on that giant stump in Trinity Bellwoods. We counted the rings to be about 150.

Urban Sights + Sounds

One of great advantages of being out and about on the street (instead of contained in a room or yard all day) is being able to see people at work. Watching construction machines, workers painting up high or down low in pot holes are always very interesting.

New Bonsai Tree

We ventured out to Chinatown to choose out a Bonsai Tree. It was tough because they were all so great and we had to come to a 5-way consensus. It ended up being 4 to 1, so the 1 chose the ornament to go under the tree. We had snack at a restaurant where we shared some shrimp dumplings (these sure were a big hit). The nice waitress let us see the giant lobsters they had in the aquarium up close.