A Beautiful Day at the Market

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….warm temperatures, some sun, some clouds, time with family – Bonus!

Today was a special day. Time spent with my husband and youngest daughter are always special but when the weather in late October is pleasant and doesn’t require umbrellas, hats and mittens it becomes extra special. This is especially true when we venture out to one of my favourite places in the city…..the St. Lawrence Market and Farmers’ Market across the street.

Today there were lots of vendors outside the market under canopies, selling paintings, jewellery, clothes and lots of flowers, fruits and vegetables. We met our daughter around 9:00 at the market and decided to eat breakfast before we started our shopping. Normally that means pemeal bacon on a bun but we decided to sit down to for a complete breakfast meal.

Afterwards we headed out in separate directions. I looked for cheese and freshly baked bagels while G and K bought free range chickens and other meat for later in the week. Across the street at the north market we took in the sights and I purchased some beautiful orange sunflowers. Here are a few of things we saw today.

Monster ‘Friends’

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….Mies Van Hout has illustrated and written a wonderful book called Friends

Image borrowed from:http://cache1.bdcdn.net/assets/images/book/medium/9781/9359/9781935954231.jpg

This week I read Mies Van Hout’s book Friends to many of my library classes. I shared the book with my kindergarten class and instructed them to create and draw their own monster. We started with a free hand blob, turned it around and decided which end was up. They then added eyes and any other features they wanted to make a unique monster. They were encouraged to add a lot of colour using oil pastels. Considering that these children are only 3 to 5 years old I think they did a fabulous job. Enjoy!

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Creating New Colours and Turning Them Into Bugs

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…..after learning about primary colours the kindergarten class mixed two primary colours together and voila!  ……  instant bugs

Of course it was more than that. When two primary colours (red, blue, yellow) are mixed together you get secondary colours (purple, green, orange). The object of the lesson was to see which two colours made each secondary colour.

Each student was given three small squares of watercolour paper and the three primary colours in watercolour. They were instructed to put two different colours on each half of their paper and while it was still wet, fold the paper in half and press hard. When they opened the paper they discovered that they had made a new colour.

This part of the lesson took an entire period so we put the squares aside to dry and in the next class we looked at the shape on the square of paper and cut it out and glued it onto a piece of construction paper. I had no idea how difficult this step would be for so many of the students. They had no idea how to hold a pair of scissors, never mind cut with them. After some trial and error, everyone managed to cut out at least two bugs.

Once they were glued down, the students were given markers and were encouraged to add details to their bugs, things like eyes, legs, wings, antennae, etc.. Here are a few of the finished papers. Enjoy!

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Meet the Leaf Man

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….in kindergarten we collected leaves and created these wonderful leaf ‘people’ and creatures

Lois Ehlert has written and illustrated a wonderful children’s book called the Leaf Man. She is a collage artist and writer and has illustrated the entire book with the use of leaves. Using her book as our inspiration the kindergarten children created their own leaf people during art class. They really enjoyed the process.

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Lois Ehlert has illustrated and written many children’s books. This cute video is narrated by a little boy name Jonah. He’s actually reading The Leaf Man. Enjoy!