Air Carmelite by Gayle

In the SK room, winter celebrations have been a focus in December, January and moving into February. The SK’s boarded “Air Carmelite” and travelled around the world to discover traditions surrounding Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa and the New Year. For February we have been making and hanging lanterns in anticipation of Chinese New Year. Students have gained an appreciation for the Earth and environment around them by discovering where their favourite foods are grown and favourite animals live. The SK’s made Mexican dip using a variety of herbs and spices and donned their home-made goggles to go “deep sea diving” in the comfort of our classroom!

In keeping with the theme of winter (despite our own lack of snow) the SK’s wrote about the first snowfall, responding to pastel drawings they created in Art. Having learned about and used burlap in a variety of Art projects with, the SK’s are presently working on taking pictures with their best friends to place in burlap frames made in art for Valentine’s day. Our goal is for the SK’s to recognize that like burlap protects our trees, friends need to care for a protect each other!

The Red Prince Apple

Thornbury, Ontario
The Red Prince apple, which originates from England, grows on fences rather than on trees.

Please join us for our Apple Crunch in March.

All of us from the DiscoverAbility program would like to have an event during the nutrition month (March) which focuses on cooking and creating various recipes using apples provided by us. Please share with us your favourite recipies involving apples.

During the nutrition month children will also be cooking with eggs and studying their life cycle.





The Great Big Crunch
Why:
· kick off nutrition month
· promote healthy snacking
· highlight availability of local apples all year round
· use the apple as point of departure for activities on nutrition, cross pollination, composting, food systems, and more
http://www.foodshare.net/school-crunch.htm

Please check back for updates on this event.

Home-made Corn Chowder for a Chilly Winter Night

This recipe was made by the children at St. Gregory's Before and After School Program as part of "Harvesting". It is simple and quick to make and very delicious.


Corn-Chowder Recipe

Ingredients:
2 lb. WHITE POTATOES, medium diced
1 BAY LEAF
3/4 lbs. SHALLOTS, diced (we used sweet onion)
3 tbsp. BUTTER
1 GREEN PEPPER, finely chopped
2 tsp. CUMIN
4 CELERY RIBS, finely diced
3 tbsp. FLOUR
1/2 tsp. SAGE
1/2 tsp. WHITE PEPPER (or black pepper)
2 cups MILK
1 lb. FROZEN CORN

Directions:
Boil potatoes until just tender in a litre of water with bay leaf.
Saute shallots (or onions), green pepper, celery and cumin in butter until shallots are tender.
Add sage, pepper and flour to the shallot mixture with some of the potato water and stir to make a paste.
Add this mixture to the potatoes. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat.
Add milk and corn. Heat thoroughly.

Enjoy!!

Looking Back at 2009

We would like to highlight kids get growing! and our students who captured and celebrated each of the seasons through nature’s life cycles!! Students in DiscoverAbility’s art programs across the GTA participated and created very special art projects in workshops that focused on materials from the natural environment. Read below about how students learned to use their imagination to explore nature’s diverse eco-system. Imagine a world where we respect our resources and use materials in a creative way. The spirit of growth is a magical process, where wonder can bring us the kind of change we need to make or improve on, in our lifestyles in order to prepare for a healthier planet!!

Thanks everyone for making 2009 so awesome!

Kind Regards,
Zara Natacha Diniz
Visual Artist and Artist Educator


Edible Container Garden Show
In the spring of last year, DiscoverAbility staff from Carmelite Day Nursery attended a herb and edible flower workshop hosted by Margery Mason at the Royal York Hotel. Shortly thereafter we volunteered some time at both the Royal York herb garden and Margery Mason’s garden. We also visited the Toronto Botanical Gardens with our students, and walked around one of the most distinct garden spaces in our city. We wanted to bring what we had learned to the children we teach, and thus were inspired to begin a summer long project called “Kids get Growing” and the Carmelite garden with the “Three sisters gardening project” in our playground.


Children were introduced to the story of the three sisters (corn, pumpkins and beans as life’s sustainers), which motivated them to paint a garden in an old apple-bushel barrel and plant each of the tree sisters garden vegetables. Students participating in this particular growing project also learned about gardening through several gardening related lessons leading up to the actual planting and exhibited their crops at the “Strawberry Social” event on site.

Then on Saturday, August 8th, 2009 DiscoverAbility participated in the Edible Container Garden Show at a weekly farmer’s market located in Withrow Park. Students at Carmelite Day Nursery created a growing space that incorporated the use of storytelling to design a sustainable environment for vegetables, and express creativity through found, recycled materials.

Students were represented by Visual Artist and DA Art Educator Zara Natacha Diniz and received the educational nomination for “The Three Sisters” bushel barrel.

Visit www.torontobalconiesbloom.ca


In Bloom
In Spring and Summer 2009, students at Carmelite Day Nursery and St. Gregory’s B & A explored their creativity and participated in local Community Garden Tours. Inspired by nature’s beauty, students experimented with mediums like photography, painting and sculpture to express the diversity of animal and plant life. They also ventured out on field trips, including the AGO where they were exposed to art history and the collections that supported their learning experiences. Using all these as opportunities to record learning stages, students compiled all their discoveries in a reflective journal with research activities, games and more!!

Four Seasons Garden
Last fall, Kindergarten and School Age students enrolled in the DiscoverAbility art program at North York Little Prints Daycare, St. Cyril site, created flower paintings with DiscoverAbility Art Educator Margaret Mieradka. Their “Four Seasons Garden,” celebrating awareness for the environmental changes that occur throughout the seasons, inspired these paintings. Complete with a burlap backdrop to frame the garden’s setting, we also displayed dream catchers, birdfeeders, Christmas wreaths, Bottled icicles and more.

The Busy Busy Jungle Tree
Kids get growing! programming strives to develop each student’s literacy skills while integrating creativity through a cultural framework. In summer 2009, Senior Kindergartens at Carmelite Day Nursery created The Busy, Busy Jungle Tree independently with the editing assistance of Zara Natacha Diniz. This book was a product of a 6-month curriculum based project where students imagined they were traveling to Egypt. Kindergartens were able to experience this culture’s historical background through the food, music and art, and investigate Egypt’s ecology through science. Students concluded the project with a visit to African Lion Safari where they researched animals in a drawing workshop. When they returned from their adventure they illustrated and wrote a collaborative story about what they had learned throughout their travels into Africa.


Falling Leaves

Students created beautiful landscape paintings, depicting our wonderful Canadian environments to display at home. Paintings that emphasized the rich assortment of vibrant colours like red and yellow that can be seen all around us at this time of year.
Explore nature and venture into a playground with our students in kids get growing! and find out why different shaped fallen leaves helped us to create a harvest collage. Play with leaf patterns and printmaking techniques that allow you to paint over and mix with textured materials that represent fall ideas. Burlap for example, is an important material we use to signify hibernation and storage. As winter approaches, we must remember to take proper care of our trees that need protecting and collect or store food for the upcoming months...just like the animals!!



And what better way to end and celebrate fall then with a little Halloween decoration. Scarecrows are known and often seen on farms. Farmers create these human looking figures to scare small animals and birds away from snacking on growing crops. Students created mini-scarecrows using materials like burlap and colourful fabrics. They learned how to sew clothes that gave their garden soldiers a very fitting fashion statement.






Tis the Season
The holidays are a time to spend with family around a festive table, where delicious treats fill the air with the warm aromas of traditional classics and cultural meals. This year in our art program, students in kids get growing! created holiday centerpieces and placemats and beautiful greeting cards. Making gifts is just one way we can personalize and show how much we care about the people in our lives that bring us joy.

Happy Holidays to everyone from DiscoverAbility and kids get growing!

Winter Garden Event

I am looking forward to the winter garden candlelight celebration at your DiscoverAbility school sites from December 14 to 18, 2009. What a great way to celebrate the Christmas season, bring families out to view our Canadian gardens in winter and to just be together. Merry Christmas from Herman, J.P. Margaret and I to your family, grandparents and friends.

Irene

July 2009 Newsletter

Hello and welcome to the new DiscoverAbility Kids Get Growing blog!!

This is where we will give you information about what is going on with the Kids Get Growing project, a programme that has created a great deal of excitement with our families. We will also give your families a chance to show off the progress in your own gardens by sending us your photos and stories and giving us permission to post them on the blog!

First of all, let's talk about the Strawberry Socials held at each school at the end of June. This is where the children signed the Kids Get Growing Pledge stating that they would plant something to take care of over the summer months to bring to the Harvest Festival in the fall. They also each took home a strawberry plant. For help and tips on taking the best of care of your strawberry plant, please check the links on the left under "Helpful Gardening Links".

Strawberry Social Sign and children at St. Cyril School choosing their strawberry plants.

Through the months of May and June, we did a Three Sisters workshop at the schools where the children learned about a crop that is native to North and South America that has been planted for centuries by indigenous peoples. They learned about plant growth, why certain plants are beneficial to grow together, common pests and how to get rid of them, and different uses for the crops. At the Strawberry Socials, the children had the choice to take a three sisters garden home with them. There are links on the left hand side of the page for more information about the Three Sisters.

Choosing the Three Sisters garden.

Over the summer, a lot of the children are growing plants for the Kids Get Growing project in preparation for the Fall Harvest Festival. We've just found out that this year, the Festival will take place in late September at the Toronto Botanical Gardens!

We would love it if you would send us updates of your gardening adventures with photos or drawings of your plants or stories about fun things that you've done in your garden this summer. We will also be following the progress of Irene's garden with photos and descriptions - look for that in our next post!

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