Pirates

The children of this group have always loved Pirates.  During 3 year old Pre School they fell in love with a book by Mem Fox about Boris the Pirate.  Over the two years we have often revisited Pirates and made pirate worlds in our tray.  The boys wanted to play with the pirates again this week and they made a small world in the tray under Cooper’s direction.  However this time we had lots of exciting things like bones and skulls collected from Bush Kinder to add to the ‘world’.  It looks amazing.  The children spent along time setting it up, but didn’t play with it.  It will be interesting to see if they play with it next week or whether they have made it for ‘display only’!

 

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Emu Caller

Hailee brought a boomerang and an emu caller to Morning Meeting.  They belong to her family.  The boomerang had patterns painted on it.  We got out the book we published last year on Aboriginal Symbols to refresh our memory on what the mean.

Hailee showed us how to call an emu.  Some children thought we should take it outside and try to call an emu.  Tay said “We should take it to Bush Kinder because that’s where emus live.  In the wild.”  So we decide we would do that.  The children were concerned that Lachlan was away and wouldn’t know how to use it.  Hailee suggested that we write Lachlan a letter.  I suggested that we put it on the BLOG.  Thank you for sharing your culture with us Hailee.

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Strawberries

We have been growning strawberries for the past two years in a barrel in our garden.  We have been getting the odd piece of fruit from them but this week we had lots of ripe strawberries.  (We have learnt to leave the flowers there and wait until the berries are red and sweet to eat before we pick them!)  Hailee was on fruit duty so she carried out the bucket and we all picked the crop.  We we came inside we counted them.  We had 31 strawberries!  Mrs Grant washed them and we enjoyed them for morning tea.  Yum!

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Family Night – Concert

Every year we have a family night at the end of October.  This year we did a concert for our families and friends.

Tay welcomed everyone to our Pre School.  We sang Bonkers Beat.  Our favourite song of all time!

 

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We showed everyone our Chineese Dragon.  We played percussion instruments to chinese music and the Dragon woke up and pranced around.

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We sang a song called Three Little Tadpoles to explain the frog life cycle (also from the Bonkers Beat CD)  A very funny thing happened in the last verse of the song,  Mrs Gayle (dressed as a frog in a onesie!) joined the children on the stage.  The children were amazed and almost forgot to sing!  There was lots of laughter.

 

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We did a play about Tiddalik the Frog.  This is an Aboriginal Legend and linked well to our learning about Frogs.  The children used puppets for the animals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We found partners and did the Heel and Toe Polka

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Then we enjoyed a late afternoon tea with our families and friends.  We shared our portfolios and our special books with them.  Thanks everyone for coming along and making it a great event.  It is fun to share our learning with others and we get to feel proud of what we have done during the year.

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Jayda’s Calf

Jayda brought photos of her ‘bucket calf’ to Pre School for Morning Meeting.  We went to Jayda’s house to have a look.  We watched Jayda feed her calf.  He was scared of us and hid behind the plants.  Thanks for sharing you calf with us JOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAayda.

Bush Kinder 2

Today at Bush Kinder we found a dry channel.  We walked and ran through the channel – going up the sides and down again.  It wasn’t easy because the sides were loose with dirt.  We slid on our bottoms.  We found sink holes in the bottom and rabbit holes in the sides.  Cheyenne was checking all the holes and reporting to the teachers if they were ‘safe’ or not.  Cooper and Anders were running fast right through the channel.  We struggled to get up the sides.  We used walking sticks to help us.  Kyle’s root was shaped like a foot.  He said ‘ This is my foot.  It helps me climb.’  This is good physical development for Manangatang children who mostly walk on level surfaces.

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The children are learning a good lesson about the effects of adults ‘dumping’ rubbish in our bush.  We found a huge pile of rubbish today.  We collected the tape recorder and we are going to see if we can take it apart at Pre School.

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Hailee’s Grandma came out to Bush Kinder with us today.  Karen  had a great book to help us identify all the bones we found today.  We found a sheeps skull, kangaroo toes and a cows leg.  Though Lachlan is sure the sheep’s skull is a Terradon.  Lachlan wants to be an archiologist and Anders wants to be a zoologist.  Karen told us a story about how the crow became black.  Thank you Karen.

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Jayda’s school bag full of ‘treasures’ was priceless.  Bones, glass, a skull, dried flowers, sticks and of course her lunch!

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Bush Kinder

October is Bush Kinder month at Manangatang Pre School.  This is our third year of taking children out into the bush for sessions.  This year we have changed our location to the Lake Lulla Reserve.

Bush Kinder recognises the place the bush has in Australian way of life and the significance of the land in aboriginal culture. No toys, No tools, No art supplies. Our imaginations will all benefit from using only what nature has provided.

Australian and International research shows that children today are spending much more time in doors, in front of screens and participating in structured activities. These activities restrict children from participating regularly in outdoor unstructured activities and exploring natural environments. It has been documented that this shift is contributing to health problems such as increased anxiety and obesity, while children are suffering from a lack of connection with nature and the outside world. We want to help turn this trend around and give the kids at Manangatang a chance to spend quality time in nature with teachers to encourage them to explore and learn.

We have been looking forward to Bush Kinder all year.  Many of us went last year as Three Year Olds.  Cooper said, “My birthday is when Bush Kinder is on.”  So we have been looking forward to October.

This week at Bush Kinder we foraged for Bush food and found Bush Berries and Pig Face to snack on.

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We worked together gathering big sticks and branches to build a shelter.  Lucky we did because we had a bit of rain.

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We found a great tree to climb.

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We enjoyed some solitude with our friends.

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We learnt about Aboriginal tools with help from William Hannah (Koorie Educator).  We threw the come-back boomerang, a spear and played a didigerdoo.

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Puffy Paint

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We made puffy paint at Pre School this  week.  We mixed together 1 cup of self-raising flour, 1 cup of salt and 1 cup of water.  Then we didived it into four dishes and added some food colouring.  We painted our pictures onto heavy card and then put them in the microwave for 30 seconds until the paint was puffy and dry.

We are displaying our art work at the Manangatang Flower and Craft Show.

 

Roman Numerals

In our investigation into clocks we have come across Roman Numerals.  We wrote our numbers on the white board and the Roman numbers underneath.  Very interesting.  Number ‘1’ is the same.  Number ‘2’ is two number ones and number ‘3’ is three number ones.  Then it got tricky.  I showed them that number ‘5’ was a V.  Then we went back to number ‘4’ and we talked about how it was 1 before 5 and we wrote IV.  Then we did number ‘6’.  It is one after five.  So we wrote VI.  The concepts of before and after are very important in counting and also apply to ‘time’.

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Book Bus

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After lunch we have a quiet read on the mat while we wait for the slower eaters to finish.  Sometimes we sit on cushions and the bean bags, but lately we like to sit on chairs.  Today the children ended up with their chairs in a line.  Cheyenne said “It’s a bus.”  I said “It’s a Reading Bus.”  Kyle said, “It’s a Book Bus.”  And so the “Book Bus” was born!  We usually reread favourite stories that we have heard through the year.