Kindergarten News
IMPORTANT
Budja:
It was a fantastic week in our Budja class as we continued to look at the concept of self and our personal identity. This week started with children sharing their weekend adventures, Nihad's pictures of the whale skeleton at the museum led directly into the discussion around our anatomy and skeletal system. We then used this to unpack how our bodies move and grow and how we can use our physical self in safe and supportive ways.
The week was filled with dancing, adventures out into the school, augmented reality anatomy and lots of art and construction as we explored this concept.
This week we are going to investigate how food contributes to strong physical health and participate in harvesting salad from the kinder garden and cook vegetarian fried rice using veggies from our kinder community.
Al, Mardi and Carol.
Marram:
With the never-ending rain hampering some of our efforts to get outside, this week we brought out our big, colourful parachute to get our big muscles moving. Parachute play is one of our favourite group time activities! It's a fantastic way to support children's physical skills like hand-eye coordination, balance and mobility. It's also great to promoting social interaction and communication. We swung the parachute up and down whilst lifting a leg, shouting hooray, bending our knees! There was lots of giggling as we tried to coordinate our movements. We can't end our parachute play without participating in our favourite activity, which is singing 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat' and screaming and diving under the parachute when we see the crocodile! A short week this week - we look forward to more fun and learning next Tuesday.
Theresa and Mardi
Wimbi:
In Wimbi, we continued to explore musical instruments in the form of our jingly, jangly, bells! Using musical instruments has so many benefits for children, especially when accompanied by movement, as we did today. Offering movement to coincide with concepts in music gives children a concrete experience to build understanding of more abstract principles. For example, we shook our bells to gain more understanding of concepts such as "fast and slow", "loud and quiet", and more subtle concepts such as comparing higher and lower, faster and slower, louder and quieter. Giving children opportunities to play instruments also offers practice using the small muscles of the hand, important for developing eye-hand coordination skills. There were also times during our songs when children had to pause and hold their bells still, which gave them the chance to practice their self-regulation skills. Shhhh - we may also have been using our bells to practice for a special event coming up at the end of the year 😉
Theresa and Kristy
Gawarn:
We have had a wonderful day in Garwan class this week. Some children visited their prospective Primary school for their very first Prep orientation this week with many exciting stories and experiences to share with their peers and teachers.
The children have had a wonderful time exploring and experimenting with the new activities incorporated in the program. The children are being very creative building with construction materials and exploring with the arts and crafts activities.
Puzzles have been extremely popular. Puzzles develop memory skills, as well as an ability to plan, test ideas and solve problems. Whilst completing a puzzle children need to remember shapes, colours, positions and strategies to complete them. It is so rewarding to witness the children’s sense of accomplishment when completing the puzzles.
Wishing you a lovely week.
Kelly and Kristy
Dharug:
We had a lovely day together in class. Even though the weather was quite unpredictable we were able to spend quality time out doors in the morning. The children enjoyed swinging on the trapeze and swings. This activity further promotes gross/fine motor skills and hand eye co-ordination.
The children enthusiastically took part in our group music and movement session. We are finding the children are becoming very confident and enjoying all aspects of the music program. This activity provides children with the opportunity to enhance their social skills, practice taking turns and cooperation. It also helps children learn how to express their emotions in different ways and communicate messages through actions.
Show and share was very popular this week. It was rewarding watching the children confidently come to the front of the class and share their precious items with their friends and teachers. Well done Dharug class!
Wishing you a lovely week
Kelly and Kristy