The swing experience just got a bit harder this term.  The children have the choice of two swings – one offering a bit more support and one designed for the children to learn the art of swinging their legs to keep the momentum.

On Wednesday we visited the Residents at the Hospital and played a giant game of ‘Snakes and Ladders’.  We were practicing one-to-one counting, numeral recognition and resilience.  It’s not much fun when you have to slide down a snake and start all over again.  And of course there can only be one winner and that can’t be YOU all of the time.

I’m not sure how we have missed knowing about the ‘Pete the Cat’ books until recently.  (Thanks Bree for adding another book to our favourites!)

We love Pete the Cat and his Groovy Buttons.  The book is great for counting but we really like the resilience message in the story.

“Did Pete cry?”

“Goodness no!”

“Buttons come and Buttons go”

“He just kept walking along and singing his song.”

We made “Pete the Cat” with jumbo icypole sticks, buttons and a head.

We had some very windy weather on Tuesday.  We read the story Rosie’s Hat.  The wind is funny because you can’t see it you can only see what it does.  On Tuesday the wind snapped a very large limb off a gum tree just outside the outdoor area.  The limb blocked the road and Mrs Gayle couldn’t drive her bus through.  Hunter’s Dad came with a chainsaw to cut the limb up and move it away.  We went for a walk to inspect the damage.

The children have enjoyed playing with the ‘shape puppets’ and singing the song “Five little Shapes jumping on the bed” so much that we made some cartoon numeral puppets.  Jaice loves to order the numerals and share them out with his friends at lunch time.

Our exploration with shadow continued when we made shadow puppets.  To make a shadow you need an object to block a light source like the sun, a torch or a lamp.

This week the children were given a glass of fruit loops to sort.  WE also had coloured strips cut up to match the colours of the fruit loops in the centre of the table.  The children had to sort the fruit loops onto the coloured strips.  They managed to sort the fruit loops in different ways.  Some children got one of each coloured strip from the beginning and sorted all the colours as they went.  Some children chose one colour and completed all that colour before going on to the next colour.  Both ways are efficient.  Teachers could have set this activity up for the children to complete, however it is better to provide the materials and let the children do the setting up for themselves.  The idea of ‘making the maths messy’ is so the children have to THINK about how they are going to tackle the task.

It seems like we have been waiting a long time for Autumn to begin this year.  At last the leaves on our trees have turned red, yellow and brown and they have started to fall.  This means lots of raking and fun games in the fallen leaves.  We collected some leaves and laminated them for display and we have been sponge painting with leaf shapes and Autumn colours.

We were invited to attend a gymnastics session in the stadium at school with the Playgroup Families.  WE got to use lots for the soft gym equipment and the balls.  Some of the children tried somersaults, we walked on planks and up and down stairs.  We went over, under and through.  We rolled in a cylinder.  Zoe taught us the Hello and Goodbye song and the actions.  Thank you for inviting us Playgroup.  We had a fun time.

Today we had a delivery of lots of edible seedlings.  We have planted Asian Greens, Kitchen Salads and Lettuce mix with a few onions.  We had to weed the garden beds and dig them all up.  When we were digging we found two worms.  After we planted the seedlings we had to water them in.  Now we need some more rain and sunshine to help them grow.  Thank you to Abbey and Haydn for preparing our garden beds for us with some new soil and mulch.