Jungle Animals

Today we adapted an Abecedarian Game called “What’s Gone?” to help learn the names of the animals in the jungle. The children have been confused between a tiger and a lion and also a zebra and a giraffe. The lion is particularly confusing because only the male has a mane and the female can be easily confused with other large cats. In the game we had an elephant, tiger, lion, zebra and giraffe. After ensuring the children could correctly label each animal, I got them to close their eyes and I took one away. The children had to say which animal was ‘gone’ or ‘missing’. They learnt the ‘rule’ of the game was that they couldn’t look behind my back… they had to remember. After a few times they got to be the teacher. You can play this game with any objects. This will help build your child’s vocabulary and help them develop memory strategies.

An Owl

There was a lot of commotion in the overhanging gum tree this week. Upon closer inspection we saw there was an owl in the tree and the resident magpies didn’t like it. Then all the other birds came and joined the magpies in making lots of noise and flying at the owl. The owl held his ground. On Thursday the owl was gone. Hopefully he will come back next week. We would all much rather have a friendly owl in residence than feisty magpies!

Authentic Dough

Authentic Dough is an idea my colleague (Thanks Louise!) shared from a trip to New Zealand. It involves the children using real dough to develop their hand muscles for future handwriting. This week we made shortbread. The children love that they can eat the dough at the end of the activity. The smell of warm shortbread in the centre is beautiful. Stay tuned for some more cooking in the coming weeks.

Gross Motor Skills

Here is an activity the children loved that is designed to develop core strength. Core Strength is often used to describe the power and stability of the muscles of our back, stomach and chest. In this activity we had to kneel up on our knees and catch bean bags.

Autumn Leaves

It is the beginning of Winter, but the Autumn leaves at Pre school are providing some beauty and lots of fun for the children. For the next three or four weeks we will be doing lots of raking and playing as the leaves just keep coming down. This is a lovely sensory experience for us all.