Welcome to our new CIS Spotlight Series, where we share educational stories and insights from our professional teaching faculty. 

Rachel Hanhart

Kindergarten Teacher

– Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from St. Mary’s University

– Bachelor of Education from St. Mary’s University

What Does A Building Center Look Like

When you enter a kindergarten classroom, you will likely encounter a learning space devoted to building. This space typically includes blocks, LEGOs, magnetic building tiles and other items that can be stacked, pushed together or connected. Spaces like these (often called ‘centers’) can also include loose parts, large pieces of cardboard, and items found from nature such as sticks, tree trunk slices and leaves. This is a Block Center, or what in KB we call our ‘Building Center’. But why is building so important for early childhood education and development?

Building For Problem Solving

A building center helps children develop problem-solving skills and supports their understanding of how objects interact with one another. Children have the opportunity to use foresight and to plan towards a goal of what they hope their creation might look like. They can test out their imagined creation by beginning to stack and connect pieces. As they do this, some pieces might not stack as well as they predicted. For young children, they are still developing their sense of spatial awareness and how objects interact. The best way for them to truly understand these fundamental concepts is to experience them firsthand. Research shows that children learn best by doing, which is why early childhood educators, myself included, work hard to create a classroom environment that allows children those opportunities.

Building To Express Creativity

A building center also helps children express their creativity and preferences. It is amazing what young children will build out of simple LEGO pieces. Some children might enjoy building the exterior of structures such as castles or houses while others enjoy creating modes of transportation meant to shoot into space or race on a road. Giving students more creative freedom to build and to test their predictions, allows them to learn from their own choices and experiences.

Building To Enhance Communication

Lastly, a building center encourages children to communicate effectively with one another. Children choosing to build as a team must discuss their ideas, negotiate and come to a collective decision. Many class projects KB students are challenged with involve some aspect of building. Students extend the skills they have acquired through play to effectively tackle building challenges assigned to them in class.

The Building Center In KB

The building center in our class includes a large carpeted space where children have room to work. There are open concept shelves containing blocks, LEGOs, and marble tracks. The top of the shelf is designated for students finished work to be displayed or for ‘work in progress’ to be saved for future building. On another shelf, there are loose parts and natural items for students to work with along with a designated table for building projects that involve cutting and gluing. We also have a large cardboard collection accessible for student to use as they please.

Provoke Ideas For Building

Based on the weekly inquiry, some form of provocation is placed at the building center to provoke ideas and creative thinking. For example, if we recently talked about different homes that people live in, I might place several pictures of different homes at the building center. What students decide to do with a provocation, is completely up to them!

Beyond The Walls!

A Building Center benefits the development of young minds by providing opportunities for children to plan ahead, problem-solve, communicate, collaborate and express their ideas. Children love to build, especially the ones in KB. And as you can see from the photograph, their opportunities and decisions to build often go beyond the walls of our classroom!

The wider range the possibilities we offer children, the more intense will be their motivations and the richer their experiences.

——Lori malaguzzi

Over the past two months, CIS students were challenged with digital arts, famous museum cosplay pieces and imaginary expressions. At CIS, we see art as an expression of feelings and also as a means of integration into our everyday lives. Starting in March, our students have been meeting their art teachers on Zoom regularly and sharing lots of amazing pieces with the CIS community!

Our Grade 1 and 2 students were challenged to make a scene of one famous museum art piece. They got very creative in recreating them!

Grade 3 students have been learning about agriculture and natural resources. We combined art and design with social studies. They were tasked to choose a natural resource and a vehicle to harvest their chosen resource.

Our Grade 2s are also exploring Analytical and Synthetic Cubism. They’ve been introduced to Andy Goldsworthy’s art with nature, too.

Grade 6 students are learning about space. So, we’ve incorporated design and art with this fascinating subject by tasking the students to design an astronaut helmet and space base. They needed to carefully think about what we need to survive in space. Housing, water, food, oxygen, and energy are key factors they needed to incorporate in their design.

In our ECE department, while exploring dinosaurs, the students kicked off art challenges by creating dinosaur eggs as well as T-Rex and Stegosaurus portraits.

It’s satisfying to see everyone enjoying the art process and we look forward to more artistic surprises coming in!

Laura Stachniak

Pre-Kindergarten Teacher

– University of Alberta’s Faculty of Education (Minor in English as a Second Language) 

– Focuses on teaching Pre-Kindergarten

Namrita Amarnani

Pre-Kindergarten Teacher

– Bachelor of Science from University of Alberta (Major in Child Psychology) 

– Speaks 4 languages

– Has 4 years teaching experience in Guangzhou

The Pre-Kindergarten program at CIS is founded on the principles of play-based learning and peer interactions in the classroom. Although we are unable to be in a classroom together at this time, we continue to encourage our Pre-Kindergarten 4 students (and their families!) to explore learning through ‘hands-on’ online learning activities!

Over the past few weeks, our 4 year old students have explored the concept of ‘colours’ and ‘colour mixing’ with exciting activities and experiments.

One of the stories we read was ‘Monsters Love Colours!’ by Mike Austin. We talked about how the colours of red, yellow and blue can be mixed together to create orange, green and purple. At the end of the lesson, students were inspired to draw their own colourful monsters. The students each had an opportunity to share their drawings with their peers and talk about why they chose certain colours and shapes.

To expand on our colour investigation, Pre-Kindergarten 4A made colourful, homemade ‘Play-Doh’ during one of our lessons! Using a visual tally, the students helped to vote on a colour of ‘Play-Doh’ that Ms. S. would make. Each student followed along with Ms. S’ recipe and helped to measure ingredients, mix them together and kneed their own ‘Play-Doh’ at home with parents and grandparents. It was so great to see the students’ excitement as they engaged in this sensory experience to create the dough themselves! What great fun!

While in Pre-Kindergarten 4B, some of the highlights have been creating and naming our own colours and building rainbows out of objects found at home! Our friends particularly enjoyed watching and performing colour mixing experiments.

With the ‘Walking Water Experiment’, our friends observed the experiment demonstrated during a live Zoom session and soon after, tried it out themselves. They were amazed by how the empty cups started filling up with water and how ‘new colours’ (secondary colours) were created. When asked how to make orange, most of the students responded, “by mixing red and yellow.”

As we continue our colour exploration, there will be more exciting activities like ‘Tissue Roll Buddies’, using empty toilet paper rolls and further explore colour mixing using ice and food colouring. We are eager to see what our curious, young minds create!

Welcome back to the CIS Story Time Series! 

If you can, pour yourself a cup of milk, or grab a set of colour pens. Let’s see what funny challenges we have this week in upcoming stories!

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, by Laura Numeroff

Read by Mrs. Lee

“This book is near and dear to my heart.  I remember reading it often when I was very young and it always made me smile. Though, maybe having the nickname Mouse made it extra special.  Whatever the reason,  I hope you enjoy it as much as I always did. And if you happen to enjoy a cookie with some milk while you read…Well, I’m sure that wouldn’t be so bad.”

The Gruffalo, by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

Read by Mrs. Uren

“My kids loved it when they were small and it shows that you do not have to be big and scary to be fearless!”

I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More! by Karen Beaumont

Read by Mr. Mitchell

“While it shows the playfulness and innocence of the main character, a young boy, it’s a reminder to us adults that it’s OK to connect with our ‘inner child’ once in a while, too!”

Welcome to our new CIS Spotlight Series, where we share educational stories and insights from our professional teaching faculty. To start with, Mrs. Fawcett is sharing her thoughts on “How Love For Math Is Nurtured In Kindergarten”.

Maria Fawcett

Kindergarten Teacher

– Bachelor’s Degree from Concordia University in Edmonton

– Bachelor’s Degree in Education from the University of Alberta

–  Experience at St. Clement’s IB World School and St Leo’s Catholic School in Canada

Did You Know?

Mathematics learning in early childhood can increase a child’s performance in both mathematics and literacy in their later years. Therefore, kindergarten is a crucial period in a student’s life if he or she is to achieve a level of academic satisfaction in later endeavors.

The Language of Mathematics

At CIS, Mathematics learning is designed to be as intentional as the acquisition of any language because mathematics is itself a language. To honour the unique developmental stage of kindergarteners, they are not expected to sit down for hours and plow through worksheets unless they have an undeniable desire to (which is extremely rare). Instead, students are invited to playful centers where they are given practical problems to solve. At our blocks center, for instance, students have to negotiate with one another the spatial placements of ramps such that theirs and their friends’ cars are able to pass through at the speed they like.

Learning From Others

While correct answers are recognized and appreciated, kindergarteners know that they are not sufficient on their own. Students are expected to justify their answers so that their friends may learn from them. Often at our group meetings, students say that they used a friend’s strategy in order to come up with their answer or to double-check someone’s work.

Teacher’s Role

Meaningfulness of concepts is vital in Kindergartners’ learning of mathematics. Concepts such as patterns and numbers first need to be meaningful and useful before it makes sense to memorize them. Otherwise, students (especially those who are already ahead) may lose their interest in mathematics . 

As their teacher, I dedicate a good number of hours a week where I am simply interacting with students during our discovery centres time. I am there to clarify what they mean, to challenge them, and to offer encouragement that they go even deeper in their mathematical thinking. I then help students synthesize their mathematical discoveries so that they are able to confidently share their theories and math-speak at our group meetings.

During times like these, when the world is “on pause,” we must find opportunities to enjoy love and peace through family storytelling. Even though the CIS campus remains closed, we are hoping to come back soon and remain committed to sharing our passion for learning and storytelling. Therefore, 12 special people from CIS have each chosen to read a story to you, our community, in a 4 part weekly video series. We sincerely hope you enjoy taking part!

I Like Myself, by Karen Beaumont

Read by Mr. Rehman

“Liking oneself is a beautiful act that is very important. We are all special and no one can tell us any different.”

Click to watch the video

Guess How Much I Love You, by Sam McBratney

Read by Ms. Baugh

“Every night before bed my mom sang to me and said, “ I love you”. It reminds us all, that Love is the greatest of all time. A love between a parent and child is infinite.”

Click to watch the video

Danger Is Everywhere, by David O’Doherty

Read by Mr. Cross

“Dangerologist Doctor Noel Zone, who finds danger lurking everywhere, humorously and unintentionally reminds us that the world is actually not such a scary place. If we live our lives in fear, too timid to take any risks, we’ll miss out on an awful lot. It’s better to ride a bike and risk a fall than never ride at all!”

Click to watch the video

Kim Romyn

Assistant Principal Elementary

Kim has both a Bachelor and a Masters of Education from University of Alberta with a focus on curriculum. Her past experience includes teaching Grades 3-7 in Alberta and Curriculum Manager for K-6 Mathematics in Alberta.

Recently we added additional classes to our online learning for students from grades 1-12. There are many purposes for having additional Zoom classes each day. The first one is to have a more similar feeling between the school day and a school day at home. The second purpose is to ensure students have more time to connect to their teacher and their peers, to interact in English and to ask questions in person and to get answers to their questions from their teachers.

What do you need to know about the new online schedule for elementary?

1. Currently, there are three sets of Zoom times each day – two in the morning and one in the afternoon. This more closely resembles a school day and is designed to keep students engaged and active in their learning throughout the entire day.

2. The schedule has both online times and personal study times. Students attend a live class on Zoom to receive important information and important instructions. Then, immediately following the lesson, they have a personal study time. This time is devoted to working on tasks that are assigned to them from their teacher.

3. Specialists are now also on Zoom. Although our PE, Music and Mandarin teachers have been providing lessons and activities for students to accomplish each week, there is now an additional Zoom time for the students to engage in in-person learning with their specialist teachers.

4. Elementary students also have two additional sessions in the afternoon with their homeroom teacher. Although some teachers will run an important lesson with their students, some will use this as homework time where students and parents can come and ask questions regarding their tasks and assignments. Make sure to follow your teachers’ directions – they will let you know if it is a class session or a homework and question session.

Tips for a successful Zoom lesson

1.  Come prepared. You should always have a paper and a pencil in case you want to write something down. But if the teacher asks you to bring something to class (your book, your journal, your drawing etc..) bring that too!

2.  Set up in a quiet space. Zoom is very sensitive. It picks up on small noises that you make and cuts out the microphone of the person who is speaking. But more than that, you need to focus to be able to understand the lessons and discussions. Try to be in a room that is quiet, with no siblings, parents, grandparents or animals that might take your focus away from your learning. This will help you place all of your focus into the lesson.

3. Sit on a chair and leave the computer or tablet alone. It is very distracting when students are running around the room (unless of course it is PE time) or playing with their computer or tablet during the lesson. Set up your device and leave it alone.

4. Don’t draw on the screen when your teacher is showing a Power Point or a Video. This is very distracting and means that others can’t focus and learn.

5. Leave your video camera on. We love seeing your beautiful, smiling faces. If you turn your video off we can’t see you! Also, sit nicely at your chair and face your device so that we can see you.

6. Come ready to talk. The reason for having Zoom lessons instead of just a video from your teacher is because Zoom allows people to talk to one another. We love talking with students on Zoom!