Thursday, September 29, 2011

Stained Glass



Today we discussed fall and special things that happen in fall time. The children wanted to make more fall leaves so we decided to make stained glass leaves. The children exercised their small finger muscles by tearing the tissue paper and sticking it to the contact. We then decided to also make pumpkins since the children had such great fun making the leaves. They repeated the process but this time for the pumpkin and we focused on creating shapes with the pieces of paper.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Computers!

The children have been very interested in learning about the computer this week. We decided to spend a lesson exploring how the computer turns on and all the different names of the parts. We then learnt as a class how to play our cat in the hat phonics game.  We listen carefully to the sounds and then use the mouse to click on the correct letter that makes that sound. If we get it right we even get to colour the picture in using paints and crayons on the computer. These lessons were used to reinforce the children’s literacy learning skills and introduce them to the computer.
 

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Happy Birthday Ms Lauren J

Today the children helped to celebrate Ms Lauren J's Birthday. They made her some beautiful flowers by tracing around their hands and cutting them out then rolling the ends to create tulips. The children also wanted to make Ms Lauren J a card. Together we sounded out the words Happy Birthday and we wrote Ms Lauren J a very special message inside the card. We hope she had a great day :)

Monday, September 19, 2011

Ballet


This month in Ballet we are focusing on our arm positions. The children have been using repetition and silly rhymes to remember how our arms look in the positions and how they move throughout the positions. We have learnt from bra ba through 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th. The children also helped to choreograph these movements though a new dance they are learning. Within these dance classes the children are not only learning choreography but they are learning about levels (high, low) tempo (fast, slow) counting in beats (1–- 8) and developing their loco motor skills (skipping, jumping, running).

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Science



This week the children have been exploring textures. We have conducted some science experiments where we wanted to find out the difference between textures. The children found a collection of materials and together we sorted them into bumpy and smooth materials. We discussed how to use our different senses to determine whether our materials were bumpy or smooth. We used touch and sight mostly. Everyone did a great job sorting all the materials!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Friendship!

In these first few weeks of school all of the children are learning about friends. They are learning:
·        How to be a good friend
·        What being a friend means
·        How we can be friends with everyone at school
·        How to choose nice words to say to our friends
·        Looking out for our friends and making sure they feel ok
These are all integral lessons for our children to learn for both their schooling and personal lives. The children have put their learning into practice by using nice words to enter group play situation games and be using negotiating language to share toys and materials. What a wonderful group of friends they have all made!


These are pictures of the children making their friendship flowers and friendship letters.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Happy Birthday Ms Ingrid!



Today we celebrated Ms Ingrid’s Birthday! The children made a special birthday cake and all took turns icing it. The children were very excited to make Ms Ingrid’s Birthday cards. Together we sounded out Happy Birthday and the children all wrote their own special message to Ms Ingrid. We gave Ms Ingrid a present and said, “Surprise!”  We hope Ms Ingrid had a great day!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

First day of School!





Today was our first day back at School! We played some getting to know you games with all of our friends. We shared what our favourite colour is, what we like to eat and our favourite thing to do at school. We had circle time where we practiced our phonics and then had a treasure hunt with the phonic cards! The children did a great job demonstrating their phonetic awareness!
We were very lucky it didn’t rain today so to make the most out of it we went outside in the playground. We played small group games like Captain Ball and Ring around the rosy. This allowed the children to engage their gross motor skills as well as learn group play entry skills and negotiation skills. After lunch and rest time we had a special art class where the children made a school bus. To finish off our first day the children had their special dance class. We focused on our ballet techniques, isolations in hip hop and our balance track in yoga. We cant wait until tomorrow!