Riding the subway!

We rode the subway together for the first time on Friday. I think the kids are pros. They enjoyed riding the front car the most, and Museum station was definitely their favourite. There was a lot of rushing around that day (to get to the Gardiner museum and back), and they all did a great job.

Koreatown Adventures!

We made a field trip over to Koreatown this afternoon; there were only two kids along today, but that gave them a special personalized experience. The walk to Bloor and Christie was a bit long, but we found some great discoveries along the way:

Somebody had painted a Toronto subway map on the pavement (and the cracks in the pavement became the Humber and the Don Rivers!). The kids ran back and forth, travelling the entire Bloor/Danforth line in a matter of seconds. We also liked how some of the stations were written in other languages, representing the diversity of communities in Toronto. Here's Ossington written in Amharic:

We also managed to find stations written in Korean, Chinese, Greek, and Russian!

Once we arrived in Koreatown, we stopped for a snack break, and enjoyed some almond cookies. After that, we headed to a Korean supermarket for a scavenger hunt. The boys found some interesting food items they'd never seen before (burdock root! soybean paste! tofu!). We finished the evening with a visit to the walnut cake factory, where we saw moulds that make the cakes look like squishy walnuts.

Mobiles to blow in the breeze.

At the library on Monday, we looked through a number of children's craft books. I got the kids to select a few things that they fancied making. They seemed to like the wooden mobiles and hanging sculptures, so we decided on doing that the next day.

 

It was just the two girls on Tuesday, and both were fairly excited to create the sculpture. We picked up pretty leaves and sticks on the way home in preparation. Then, construction began!

 

 

We added some ice cubes tied with string to the creation, it added a "time based" feeling to it. They were excited that it would look different the next time they saw it hanging up. With the wind blowing in cold air, we quickly hung it up in a tree and snapped a photo of it. Complete!

Music and More!

On Monday I took the Pumas to the College/Shaw library. It's getting into a nice routine on Mondays and the kids are really great about going to our little area and reading books. We've also started drawing while we're there, as everyone seems to be in creative spirits surrounding all the books. We looked into some kids craft ideas and I asked them to negotiate on a few that they'd like to do. More on that next week!

Tuesday was a musical day. It was an experiment, as I know how little attention span young kids have. I attempted to teach the three remaining students about some basic rhythms. We rotated between a drum, a cymbal and a glockenspiel. Each child was assigned a beat rhythm to strike their instrument with. Drum on the 2 and the 4. Cymbal on the 1 and the 3. The glock on the 1 and the 4 (actually a challenging one because the "1" falls immediately after the "4". IT WAS A SUCCESS! They all did their different beats quite well, and even mastered the challenges I set up. It didn't last long before everyone wanted to bang around, but it was great to see that they listened and were able to complete the lesson. They decided to make their own songs and their own band. The songs featured titles like "Macaroni Parade" and "Eyeball Stew". It was a really fun afternoon.

Ethiopian food and Bloor St scavenger hunt!

Behold the sight of a well-enjoyed meal.

On Thursday last week, we decided to explore the Bloorcourt neighbourhood (which is directly north of the kids' school, so definitely an important area to check out). We popped into Lalibela to share a mixed plate of Ethiopian food, which you eat with your hands instead of utensils, and you eat the "plate" too! Everybody got to try the assortment of foods, and some liked different stews better than others.

Afterwards, we walked back to Dufferin Grove Park with our notebooks in hand, trying to find all the items on our Bloorcourt scavenger hunt list. It was a great way to experience the neighbourhood, and the kids found themselves noticing a lot of little things when they kept their eyes peeled.

Ossington Ave Art Crawl

On Wednesday, we hit the streets and explored a few contemporary art galleries on Ossington Ave. The kids were equipped with little notebooks to sketch their favourite works of art as well as anything else that inspired them along the way.

They really enjoyed all the work they saw, and even suggested visiting other galleries when they saw things they liked through the window. Especially popular were Roula Partheniou's sculptures at MKG127. The gallery attendant there was really friendly and gave us an in-depth tour of the work. Also popular were the guest books located in each gallery. The kids took turns writing their names, and comments such as "Really cool!" in the books. I'm sure the artists will love to read them!

The week wraps up

The remainder of the week with the Pouncing Pumas was a lot of fun. Thursday we took a field trip to Queen St W and wandered around looking at the shop windows and galleries. We ended up at Criminal Records to watch my band perform an intimate show.We spoke to the owner of the shop about running a music store,  and he quizzed the kids about the Beatles (they actually recognised a lot!) The group was very excited to be around the instruments, and it was a challenge to wrangle them in before they all created their own cacophonous band. They were fantastic once everyone settled in though, and I was impressed at how quietly they sat and paid attention during the performance.

On Friday we treated ourselves to some hot chocolate from Lit Espresso bar, the nice guy behind the counter even piled up the whipped cream by the kids request. With our hands warm with our drinks we walked down to Bellwoods park. We played some tag games, had some swing time and eventually met up with the Cycling Giants. We introduced them to Macaroni (which they thought was hilarious) and then we played a new game "Touch the Trees" which got the kids running to each tree in a section of the park. It got a little chilly by the end, so we're working on a space to go when the weather gets even colder.

April has a blogpost about her group that also includes our group. It is a nice read, feel free to read it here: http://bellwoods.blogspot.com/2010/11/clay-paper-theatre-with-pouncing-pumas.html

Hope your weekend is lovely!
-Kat

So much fun in a pile of leaves!

The first part of this week has been a lot of fun in the Pouncing Pumas camp. On Monday we ventured over to the College/Shaw library and looked at books on music and sports. All the group has been learning how to search things on the computer, and they're catching on quickly. Sometimes they want to look for books on questionable subject matter [I'm sure you can guess], but luckily the library doesn't carry material on that so usually the search moves on to books they can actually read while we're there.

The sun was shining on Tuesday so we went down to the park and played some outdoor games. On the way the kids found a giant leaf pile so we stopped to jump in it for a while. They had a blast making it as tall as they could, and took turns jumping through it. Pretty hilarious to watch the excitement build. Once we got to the park, we played an invented game called "Macaroni", (in which the giggling noodles run away from the spoon). It was a hit, a lot of laughs and funny voices throughout the game.

Wednesday was a baking day! We headed over to Salvador's house on a bus and a streetcar (they were great on both) and gathered up the ingredients. We made a very simple cookie recipe, two different batches to satisfy everyone's requests, and they tasted delicious. Tasks were set out for mixing, measuring and choosing ingredients. The end results were warm, gooey cookies straight out of the oven. We played a series of get-you-energy-out games in the basement afterwards to burn off that sugar!

I'll post another update on Friday evening to re-cap the rest of the week.
Hope the beginning of your weeks were lovely!

-Kat