Goodbye 2010 #2

Goodbye 2010

Skating was great fun! We'll definitely be skating in the new year too!

It wouldn't have been Dufferin Grove without the mini pizzas and cookies

 Have a cozy, delicious, and warm holiday everyone!

Winter Fun

We got very excited about rolling down and running up snowy hills upon arriving at Dufferin Grove last Thursday.

By the skating rink, there were piles of icy snow, so we decided to build an igloo.

It took brute force, perseverance, creativity, and cooperation.

Mad dog's music and stories accompanied us during snack time and while we enjoyed cookies! We also got seeds for the Trinity Bellwoods Community Green House at the farmer's market. The seeds were planted on Friday. So, with good care, there should be mustard greens and cheery tomatoes comes springtime!

Monoprint

Monster! Run

Bundling Up, It's Cold Outside!

Earlier last week, we observed a protest at Nathan Phillips Square. We danced to the drum beats, enjoyed observing all the different signs and noise-making devices people had, and were attentive and patience during the speeches that were very difficult to understand. Most of all, we enjoyed the hot cocoa a nice lady made for us!

She brought everything she needed to make everybody hot cocoa on her bicycle!

Hanukkah Olympics

We lit the Hanukkah Menorah together, on the fourth day of Hanukkah.

On the last Friday of every month, all of us get together to have an "olympics" where there are multiple stations of activities that all the children take turn participating in. 

Making dreidels out of clay!

A game of dreidels!

The very delicious latkes making station was unfortunately not photo-documented.

Classroom responsibilities

We introduced "classroom responsibilities" last week and completed a chart that will keep us on track with the weekly rotation of jobs. The jobs are: teacher's assistant + time watcher, nurturer, lead janitor, crossing guard, sweeper, and waiter / waitress. So far, the children are doing a great job. The idea behind this exercise is not only to instill a sense of responsibility and empowerment, but it is also a practice in leadership skills and a way of demonstrating that everybody has something unique to offer our community.

The name tags are made out of cracker box and velcro!

Also, we laminated the name tags with plastic tape.

Done and on the wall!

 We've also been having brainstorm sections about respect, hopefully we'll come to a signed agreement this coming week.

Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art

We had loads of fun at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art on Friday! We met up with the Pouncing Pumas and they brought us little notebooks and pencils to draw down inspirations. We spent most of our time on the third floor of the museum checking out sculptural works by four Canadian artists – Shary Boyle, Marc Courtemanche, Carmela Laganse, and Brendan Tang. We also had a lot of fun looking at all the very different Christmas trees throughout all floors of the museum. We all can't wait until we can get our little hands on the block of clay already sitting in the studio!

Learning about what clay is, how it turns into ceramics,  what a kiln is, and about glazes.

Artsy outings

This week we visited artist-run center Xpace on Ossington and the NFB Mediatheque at John and Richmond.

We learned that these murals were painted with regular house paint and that you are free to touch the paintings!

We took turn telling stories we saw in the paintings.

This installation in the basement was a big hit; we all LOVED going through the drawers and playing with all the strange things in them. We loved this piece of artwork so that that we're really hoping to come back next week so that Hanna and Finn who weren't with us could see the show... and so that we can play more!

 

Watching movies with a friend at the NBF while snacking is one of the best things to do on a rainy day!

We took turn operating the viewing machines.

 

Field trip: Queen St. W., Koreantown

Even though the weather is getting cold, there were many beautiful sunny days last week that we had to take advantage of.

Queen St. W.
On Tuesday, we walked through Trinity Bellewoods, snacked at a picnic table on the south side of the park, and learned about sound waves and "timber" (property of sound). We walked a few blocks east on Queen Street to listen for the different sounds that were all around us. It was then when "Prickly Caramel", the latest addition to Team Cycling Giants, came into our lives.

Meet "Prickly Caramel"!

We also got to wave hello to Ruben (a Wandering Hamster) through the windows of White Squirrel (coffee shop) and enjoyed story time at Type, the local bookstore. I love those unexpected surprises during outings!



Koreantown 

Pose for the camera in P.A.T. Groceries.

Scavenger hunt 1: find Kimbap.

Scavenger hunt 2: find chocolate snack.

Scavenger hunt 3: find a vegetable that you've never seen before.

Bitter melon!

We paid for shrimp chips and mango candies ourselves and said "hello" in Korean.

Taking public transportation during rush hour is as easy as pie now.

Collaboration: 3D

A few weeks ago we went to Show&Tell Gallery on Dundas and checked out artworks by Know Hope, an Israeli artist know for his street art pieces that often make use of found wood.

On the way back to studio...

 

We found some scrape pieces of wood (along with a bunch of fabric samples) on the street to make our own art in the style of Know Hope! It took two Wednesdays to finish this collaborative 3-dimensional sculpture. Most of us think that it is a city, while other are convinced that it's an alternate universe. Hopefully, we'll make use of this awesome sculpture in a future project (hint: as a backdrop)! 

I wonder if the pink heart (bottom right) is a reference to Know Hope's work!

Kimbap is like the Korean version of a sandwich

In preparation of a visit to Koreatown, we started learning a little bit about Korean culture. First, we made some delicious kimbap. Kimbap is like the Korean version of a sandwich: you just stuff whatever you can find in the fridge into some rice wrapped in seaweed for a quick lunch!

First, a tasting of store-bought Kimbap. We guessed each ingredient in here – eggs, crab meat, tofu, radishes, carrots, spinach and mushrooms – and learned about how they grow / how they were made into food.

Then, we tasted a little piece of each traditional filling that is going into our kimbap. The teacher bought these already prepared (pickled, marinated, cooked, cut into strips) at P.A.T Groceries on Bloor Street in Koreatown. The rice was made by Angel in advance, it was seasoned with sesame oil and some salt. However, we thought you can only taste the sesame oil and not so much the salt. (Note: season the rice while it's hot, but let it cool until it's comfortable to touch, though if the rice is near room temp, it won't stick to the ingredients as well.)

Theo demonstrates an important trick in this picture: wetting your hands before handling the rice helps to keep your fingers stickiness-free!  

We figured out which way the ingredients go eventually.

Wax paper is used just to keep from too much rice sticking to the bamboo mat

Finn is on a roll! 

It's not as easy as it looks, we all needed a bit of help.

We each made two small rolls of Kimbap – one traditional and the other experiemntal. Other than some traditional fillings that were left, we had mango, kiwi, and avocado for our experimental rolls!

Almost done!

Voilà!

After learning about kimbap, we tried writing some Korean characters that we found on the packaging of seaweed and etc..

 

It was hard! But, all of us got the flipped "F" right.

Finally, the thing we wanted to learn the most, Korean-style chocolate treats!

We also learned how to say "hello" in Korean: "an nyong ha seh yo". Now, we're very ready to take a trip to Koreatown!