Somersaults

 

 

 

 

 

Today Mitchell taught Rory how to do somersaults.  ‘I did it,” exclaimed Rory when he got it right.  To learn he observed what Mitchell was doing,  listened to his instructions and then he practiced a lot.  The boys wore themselves out doing somersaults over and over.  Mitchell tried two in a row.

Number Pretzels

 

 

 

 

 

For Authentic Dough this week we made a bread dough and turned it in to ‘Number Pretzels’.  The children are learning to recognise the numerals to 10 as well as continuing to develop their hand and arm muscles for fine motor activities such as drawing and writing.

Syllable Jump

 

 

 

 

 

Today we showed the children how to take steps or jump to match the syllables of their name.  (This is a Learning Game based on the Abecedarian Research.)

This will increase their awareness of the parts that make up words.

Why this is important?

The actions of children’s bodies can help them pay attention to the sounds of words and parts of words. When children learn through their body as well as their mind they understand it better. Hearing and responding to the smaller sound units in words (syllables) is part of the foundation of reading and spelling.

“Bats”

 

 

 

 

 

Our discussions about ‘Bats’ continues.  This week the children made night time bat pictures using black paper, sticks and wriggly eyes.  At night time the bats are well camouflaged but you can see their eyes.  This is what these pictures represent.

The children heard a story called “Owl Babies” and they learnt that many nocturnal animals have orange coloured eyes to help them see well in the dark.

SHAPES

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs Gayle found a Shape Song (to the tune of 5 Little Monkeys) on YouTube and we made some shapes and sang the song. We have started learning a new shape song which has some harder shape words in it – this song talked about the number of ‘sides’ on each shape.

 

 

 

 

 

Jaice loves shapes and numbers.  While we were eating lunch he laid out all the ‘shape puppets’ on the table.  Then he carefully selected a shape for each child and gave it to them.  Then he collected them all back again and repeated the process – giving each child a different shape.

Pop-up Adventure Play – Week 3

 

 

 

 

 

This week we had visitors from the Sea Lake Pre school come to Pop-up Adventure Play. It was fun to have so many children to play with. The Manangatang children practiced their friend making skills and all of the children made new friends during the session.

 

We did lots more box play with our cubbies. Some of the children made some more Mother’s Day gifts to take home.

 

The favourite activity today was to run around with plastic bottles tied to string. There was lots of running between the showers of rain.

Ecolocation

Bats fly around using Ecolocation.  This is when they send out noise signals and use the returning echo to determine the size of object in front and also the distance away.

We played a game of Marco Polo to illustrate this to the children.  The children made beeping sounds and the child with the blindfold had to find them using their sense of sound only.

What does blind mean?  It means you cannot see.

 

Bats

Our fascination with ‘BATS’ began last week when we  found a bat hidden in a sheet at Pop-up Adventure Play.  It was alive.  We put it in the dark in a small box and the children regularly had peeps at it until it was time to go.  Then we released it under the building.  We have started a learning project on ‘bats’ at pre school.

This week we made paper plate bats.  Mrs Grant has found a lot of facts about bats to teach us.  WE have a display on the wall.  In the next few weeks we will do some research about ‘echolocation’ and ‘nocturnal’ animals.  If parents have any resources at home to help with this subject – please send them along.

Mrs Wishy-Washy

 

 

 

 

 

We used the world tray to set up an animal cleaning station to role play from the popular Joy Cowley book, ‘Mrs Wishy-Washy.  The children has fun making the animals muddy and scrubbing them clean with toothbrushes in tubs.  The children talked about animals on their farms during the activity.

Concert and Play

We spent today in Swan Hill at the Mik Maks Concert and enjoying the Tower Hill Playground.  The concert included some catchy dance tunes and the children created a ‘mosh pit’ for some dancing.  Supporting live show that come to the region is an important part of our Pre School curriculum.  The children see that music is created by real people and have an opportunity to participate as an audience.

After the concert we went to the Tower Hill Playground for a play and lunch with the Tooleybuc Pre School.  We first met the Tooleybuc children in the ‘mosh pit’ at the concert.  As we are such a small group – opportunities to mix with larger groups are very important.