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

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Music with Ohbijou

We met up with some of our friends and were lucky to spend our music lesson with half of local Toronto Indie band, Ohbijou. We did vocal exercises with Casey, Heather + James. We heard their recordings and shared our own songs with them. Casey taught us part of a song that she wrote for a children's compilation that is being put together and sold to help the relief in Japan. We ended our lesson with recording a part for the song. We are so excited to be part of this project!

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Ride Your Bike to Work Day

Monday, May 30th!


Maybe you can ride to school too!

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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

True Green Thumbs

Today, the kids planted herbs with local gardener Kira. They were totally into it. They talked about how to take care of seeds and plants. They made scarecrows to go in their pots. They also talked about how Kira found the pots on the street and took them so that they could reuse them for this project. Their session ended with feeding food scraps to the worms in the compost bin.
 
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Parkdale Trip - Enjoying the Urban Landscape

What can I say? They love urban structures and they love running... and hiding!
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Dandelions + Spring Art Designs

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Cherry Blossoms + Sharing

We admired the beautiful cherry blossoms in High Park last week. We talked about how in Japan so many trees are covered in these beautiful flowers right now and people gather and drink tea by the trees. Instead of tea, we shared a ceremonial Chinese coconut bun. We sat for 20 seconds in silence to admire the falling petals then passed the bun around, each taking a piece and passing it on to the person next to us. It was brilliant. Nine children, two adults and one bun, silently sharing. Each person thanked the cherry blossoms as they took their share of coconut bun.

Sharing other delicious treats... one slice of cake and five children. One and a half cookies and ten children (with two going around making sure everyone gets their share).
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Saturday, May 07, 2011

Outside All Day

 playing the tree game - switch 5!

 painting on the sidewalk



 "lightning hands"

 sharing the "powers"

 showing off their painted hands

 free time
 sitting on Daniel's bike in a new way

rhythm with Daniel
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