Promoting Peace & Preparing Poppies

In junior kindergarten, Remembrance Day is another opportunity to focus on peace. Promoting peace within our classroom is of utmost importance, and it takes shape in many different ways. As one of our little friends likes to remind us (daily) when we walk toward the buses, "We take care of each other in a day!" This is in fact, our class motto : The most important thing we'll do in a day, is take care of each other.

When we started introducing Remembrance Day to the children, we focused primarily on peace and poppies. Peace is not a new concept, and the symbol of the poppy is very familiar this time of year, as the children see them afixed to jackets. We have discussed the assembly and practiced standing (still?) for the Last Post and O'Canada. (The children made a good connection to the trumpet we examined in a the music room a few weeks back - good remembering!)

In creating a plan for making our wreath, we watched a few short videos depicting aerial views of poppy fields in England and California. We compared and contrasted the variations of poppies. We also googled painters' renditions of poppies and noted the colours of the petals. The children were encouraged to brainstorm how we could go about making poppies for our wreath, and paint seemed to be a popular material. But I knew that I also had some felt scraps, yarn and tissue paper squirreled away in the cupboard. A provocation was born, and the children were encouraged ...

To collaborate.

To play.

To explore.

To observe.

To create.

When the children broke out into their focus groups, they jumped into the paint straight away.

Working together, collaboratively, they started by making individual poppies on the page. Then I overheard someone say, "Hey! Look at this! I made orange!" The excitement over colour mixing never gets old. Remember, the little things are the big things in kindergarten! I can't be sure, but I think from that point on, they lost interest in painting individual poppies. I think they got caught up in the magic of paint - creating colours and line. Before the paper got too saturated to the point of tearing, the painting was scooped up and put on the drying rack for later.

The felt scraps, tissue paper and yarn remained. However, the felt was in squares.

"What shape are the poppies?"

"Circles!"

"Really?"

Picture a table of scrunched up faces. Too funny!

What followed was a discussion about petals, and stems. They're not circles.

"But the poppy on daddy's jacket is kind of a circle."

"Why do you think that is?"

We thought back to the videos - aerial views.

"When you look down, maybe it's a circle."

"How do you make a square a circle?"

The children were not impressed with the felt and scissors provided at this point. There was a lot of frustration expressed and another learning opportunity presented itself. Actually, many learning opportunities presented themselves.

In reflection afterwards, the children shared:

"The scissors only cut with little snips. Not my big snips."

"The felt wasn't cutting. It's different from paper."

"The scissors weren't closing on the felt."

"The scissors were sticking to the fabric."

"It was trickier because it (the felt) was soft.

The scissors were going up and down - kind of slow."

"The fabric doesn't work with scissors. Paper will work with scissors.

The felt doesn't work with scissors."

"The felt doesn't work with scissors because it's soft and fuzzy."

"I could do it with little bits."

"It was tough. It was closing but not cutting."

"It would work with sharper scissors.

Sharper scissors could cut off the corners and make a circle better."

The poppies were given a centre.

Felt poppies await the next part of the process.

Their "little snips" did work in the end, and the children cleaned up. As they were cleaning up the fabric scraps, an idea emerged, and the scraps were collected and tucked away for later.

The children had so much fun colour mixing, and the little "snips" of felt were too precious to waste, so another provocation and collaborative art work emerged. I regret that I didn't get photos of the initial "stage", but you can see from the one below that the children discovered that blue and yellow creates green.

A green "field" emerges

Little hands take turns applying tissue paper and felt scraps.

In "kindergarten" the flowers grow.

The earlier collaborative painting provides a bit of

dimension to the felt poppies.

At the end of the day, the children had worked together to create something beautiful to be proud of. There were lessons in comparing the many variations of poppies around the world. There were lessons in communication and problem solving. Value was given to process, cooperation and listening. Risk was taken, with the best of intent. We didn't know where the day would take us. All we had was paint, paper, some tissue paper and yarn. But we had ideas, and we were inspired, and we took care of each other in a day :)

Thank you for stopping in, and visiting our atelier.