Kindergarten News

Covid Communication

Current guidelines allow for Kinder to remain open for all families, we hope to see all our children this week. 

Please note that Stay and Play will be paused until COVID regulations allow. 

Dickins Room

After last week's wet and chilly weather, it was so wonderful to have some sun and dry kinder days for our children. We made the most of the opportunities, with our Wimbi children digging in the sandpit after being inspired by the works going on in the school! They loved the big digger and took turns, waiting patiently to sit and control the arm. 

We have had a lot more co-operative play occurring in the class, with the children working in small groups to achieve a desired outcome together. This has fostered some amazing communication skills and networking that is essential for social learning and development. 

We have extended this through lots of group games and dramas, last week we acted out the story 'caps for sale', some of the children were the monkeys who stole the cap sellers hats. There was so much laughing and fun shared in this moment. At the end of the session, we used the song '5 grey elephants balancing' to engage turn taking, delayed gratification, leadership skills and confidence, each child had a turn of being one of the elephants- eventually crashing down as the 'string' broke. 

Our Marram class had a HUGE week, we have been able to step up in areas of conceptual learning as well as agency and independence. 

We have used augmented reality to further explore dinosaurs, bringing our drawings to life and developing concentration, curiosity, fine motor skills and communication skills in the process. 

The children were builders outside, helping to repair and maintain our outdoor blocks- sanding them back and developing an awareness of why we need to use these with care and regulation. 

On Thursday we engaged in some science, making salt dough as a group time activity and then using this to make our own salt dough dinosaurs! This was a fantastic extension of our learning about using shapes to create identifiable forms, development of fine motor skills and building literacy skills through open ended resources. 

We can't wait to see what this week will bring! 

Al and Mardi. 

Moore Room

We have been looking at the Olympics. We started with discussing the Olympic flag and what the rings / colours signify. We looked at our Earth globe to try to work out what ‘continents’ mean – this concept was a little tricky! We turned our attention to the colours and the way in which the five rings connect – bringing people around the world together. The colours are for all the flags in the world and the Olympic creed – ‘the most important thing is not to win but to take part’. We are also looking at the values; excellence – someone doing the best they can, friendship – tolerance and understanding between all people and respect - having consideration for oneself, others and the wider community. These discussions and hands on learning fit very nicely into our five learning outcomes, principles and practice.

We have thoroughly enjoyed baking with Cristina. Measuring, turn taking, rolling, cutting and using language to communicate these mathematical concepts as we made some animal biscuits. It was also a great example of delayed gratification, as we took these home to share with our families.

Other great moments have included; amazing sandpit work, problem solving to make some marshmallows for a camp fire, using some musical instruments, board games and some lovely quiet reading.

Have a wonderful week!

Kelly-Anne, Lauren, Cristina, Julie, Carol and Anna