Program delivery for the Kindergarteners at the YMCA Sir William Osler location this summer kept me on my toes every single week in the best ways possible. The children that participated in our projects always explored fresh and outlandish ideas through the provided materials within the themes of each week about our 5 senses.

During week 1, the kids made stamps from plasticine and ink of neat textures in their environment to document in their own booklets. This project brought the most excitement out of the kids since it was very new to them, and the class was very diligent with all the different textures they came across. One particular girl was engrossed in making stamps out of the plastic food toys in their room into stamps, but she eventually ran out of toys to make prints of but wanted to continue the project. She asked me what else she could use, and I hinted at maybe making a stamp from something she may be wearing. It was like watching a lightbulb turn on right in front of me as she took a second before immediately taking her plasticine and squishing her shoe right on top of it to make a very defined stamp of the tread of her crocs! The other kids caught wind of her idea and there ended up being a whole gallery of prints showing the variety of their tiny little shoes.

In week 4, our sound week, I had the children do two segments of our project: individual drawings and then one big collaborative drawing of how they interpret certain sounds. I would play a sound that we had recorded during the day at the Hamilton Conservatory of the Arts/Arts For All, and have the class close their eyes and listen carefully as they guessed what it could possibly be that they’re listening to, and then draw what they think the sound may be or how they may interpret it creatively. The kids would spitball ideas to each other of what the sounds were and would draw on their own sheets of paper all sorts of different subject matter trying to guess the sounds. One interesting moment was when playing sounds of tapdancing, one boy excitedly announced that he thought they were fireworks, and the rest of the kids unanimously agreed with him. We ended up having an entire firework show on their papers, which then also bled into the collaborative segment of drawing windchime sounds together as the class kept the theme rolling with smaller, more quiet firework drawings to pair with the musical chimes.

This group at the YMCA was highly collaborative and loved bouncing ideas off of each other and expanding their 5 senses by including their friends and sharing excitement when getting to create with free reign, thank you to the wonderful ECEs who allowed them to be authentic and explore their small world!