Our focus for creating Matisse style art this week was with the aid of an iPad app. We used and app from MoMA to create these images in the style of Matisse. This was a great activity for children who don’t yet have the fine motor skills to control scissors with precision to ‘draw with scissors’ using technology.

We added fake grass to the top and bottom of our wooden spool. This was an idea from Louise (Ouyen Pre school) With the addition of rocks, wooden bits and greenery we turned it into a dinosaur mini world. The children are developing their oral language skills as they make believe play here. They are also learning some complicated dinosaur names!

We used the story “Mix It Up!” to explore colour mixing. This was a follow on from Lily’s comment, “I like red because it makes my favourite colour pink.” However when she was asked what colour she mixed with red to make pink – she unsure. We mixed all the primary colours and then we tried mixing black and white to make tints and tones (ie lighter or darker). This lead to a session of finger painting on a table outside. Now we all know how to make brown!

Our Matisse focus last week was cutting paper into squares to make ‘Matisse Snails’. For some of us we were using scissors for the first time.

We made pancakes for Pancake Day on Tuesday. We ate them for morning tea with jam and honey. Our pancakes were created with different facial emotions using a pan from Aldi. This gave us an opportunity to talk about emotions- something we are trying to do more of this year. Ingrid said, ” Just like emojis!” We also did the Pancake song.
Mix a pancake
Stir a pancake
Pop it in the pan
Fry a pancake
Toss a pancake
Catch it if you can!

Teachers at Manangatang Pre School have embraced the Abecedarian Approach in our interactions with children. The overriding element of the approach is called “Language Priority”. This element encourages parents to put language at the top of your list of things to do with your child. Language Priority can turn an ordinary event into a chance for learning. In Language Priority we use the 3N Strategy: Notice, Nudge: Narrate.
Here is an example of how this went down with a three year old at Pre School this week:

Child: I’m a boatman
Notice (Notice what the child is interested in): Child, you have found the boat.
Child: I want to take the boat home.
Nudge (prompt the child for more information): What would you do with the boat at home?
Child: I would take it fishing.
Narrate (Put the experience into a story): You could catch some fish if you took the boat fishing at the river.

This strategy created an opportunity for a back and forth conversation between the teacher and child. It tells the child the teacher is interested in what they are interested in and this inturn builds relationships. It also gives the teacher knowledge about the child’s experience, vocabulary capacity and knowledge of sentence structure. Parent Challenge: Try this at home this week and let me know how it goes.

The children are being influenced by Matisse in their art work in two ways: Firstly: they are keen to paint snails on the easels

Secondly: They are using blocks of colour on their paintings.

Today we had a visit from the dentist at Pre School. We all had a check up and we were taught how to clean our teeth. The dentists gave us a toothbrush and a sticker. Tomorrow Mrs Grant will teach us about the foods that are good for our teeth. There is a display for parents in the foyer on “Keeping our Teeth Healthy”. If any families would like copies of the brochures displayed please ask a teacher. This service is operated by qualified dentists donating their time with dental students assisting for experience.