Hand painted mural: Underwater Friends

I designed and painted this mural with the requests of my colleagues and the preschool children in the class I was supporting. I was able to paint on top of the bright blue my mentoring educator primed the surface with, and with her help I used outdoor acrylic paint to plot out the shapes of my design and fill them in, adding layers each session. Over a period of two weeks the entire mural was done and we just had to add some finishing touches. That’s when I suggested all the children be involved in decorating the front of the shed with bubbles that the preschoolers painted by dipping a cup in paint and pressing it to the wall. They were very intrigued by the process and still engage with it according to my mentoring educator. It served as a prompt for outdoor learning in I-spy, ocean related songs and dance, sensory and dramatic play. It was so valuable to be offered the opportunity to bring a painting to life and open the imaginations of the children during outdoor play.

Land-based activity: Building Boats from Natural Materials

This experience prompted tactile connection with nature materials (along with overall familiarizing ourselves with the land as we search for materials) and cognitive and scientific explorations like measuring what floats. I appreciated how leading this experience benefitted the burgeoning sense of self in preschoolers as they participated in creative collaboration making these boats with their group members; they see their ideas come to life. The land is a teacher directly in these interactions between the gathered natural materials and the water, and how they communicate with us by responding to the qualities of the other. The experience integrated storytelling and songs with reflection and sharing histories support the Truth & Reconciliation call to action #12: The histories of the land that our experience is held on (the “highway” of the Humber river) was shared and how the materials that came from this land were and are used to build canoes (i.e. birch trees) which are shared through reference pictures, stories and closing song.