Tales from the Sandpit

We can’t omit a mention of the Farmers’ Festival and our fantastic float for the procession – in Ouyen’s centenary year, the kinder mums decided to go with “zooming into the future”, and the children were very happy to come on board the mother ship and set off in their own rockets. Even D.o.g. had one! (And we won the prize for best float!)

Insects and bugs have been an ongoing interest now for a few weeks and some children have used the playdough and plasticene and other bits and pieces to create their own special bugs. Finding a couple of butterflies in the garden gave us a chance to really study these insects up close. Children tend to have particular ideas about how to represent things from their world, which may not always be accurate – but it’s hard to change our very deep beliefs. Looking at a picture of a butterly, then looking at a dead one they had found, we noticed that in fact butterflies have 4 wing parts – and Hollie who had made a special butterfly with 2 wings, quietly went back to her table and modified it so that it would be accurate.

Everyone ended up making a creature of some sort, mostly insects – and the people from Ruby Home Group helped us to make books about our bugs.

We also had a visit from the people at the CMA’s Waterwatch program, who brought some Murray River water for us to observe and study the water insects that live in it. It was fascinating to see how many little creatures were in just a few cups of water.

Dinosaurs have become a big interest both inside and outside since Aden told us about the museum and showed us his drawings of some of the dinosaurs that he saw there. I wondered whether the interest would develop into an enquiry into their size – the bones and fossils – the volcanoes?

The children started to make volcanoes in the playdough, so that was the answer! We got the sculptamould out and some of them created volcanoes, then a group contributed to a Volcano Island and we had to have a volcanic eruption…

Then came the chemical reaction to imitate a volcano erupting…

We did some cooking and made German Bread, one of the recipes Mrs Bell enjoyed when she was a little girl. We wanted to use eggs, because we are thinking about eggs and chooks at the moment.

Nearly everyone enjoyed the German Bread but every one enjoyed making it!

Cooking involves so many sorts of learning – the fine motor skills of pouring, cutting, mixing, turning – the maths of measuring , estimating, timing, cutting into halves and quarters, following a sequence of steps - the social of sharing tasks, taking a turn, contributing to a group product and enjoying food together – the emotional of linking with our own favourite foods and recognising that we can all have different favourites but we all have the same feelings about those different foods – the cultural awareness that different cultures and groups have special foods that are unique -  the sensory experience of  smelling the cooking and tasting the finished product – the science of observing chemical changes as a result of mixing different substances together and of heating them.

This is holistic learning all wrapped up in a delicious snack!

checking our heart beat

We always appreciate the input that parents and other members of the community can give us with our program and the learning that we are all doing. It makes things real, to hear that the pretend is based on real life – it deepens  understanding and helps the children make links with their own experiences. And it underlines the fact that the children are a part of a larger community than just their family or kinder – this isn’t necessarily something that all the children have a sense of. And it’s wonderful for the kinder child in question, to see their parent contributing to everyone’s learning. It makes them feel very special.

Lillian just happened recently to have both mum and dad help us out with learning about our bodies and how to keep them safe.

Lillian’s mum, Rosey, came into kinder to help us listen to our hearts through the stethoscope. We used one of the kinder stethoscopes and it worked really well. We could all hear our hearts beating and the whoosh of the air as we breathed in and out. (Later on I saw the “doctors” in the emergency department practising what Rosey had modelled, and tap the stethoscope before they used it on their patient.)

Then Lillian’s dad popped by on our farm safety dress up day, and showed us the First Aid kit that he keeps in his ute.We all had a great time dressing up in different ways to be safe.

Seb came back to kinder with a bag of things from the hospital, and as we’ve been learning about farm safety we  set up an emergency department to treat the kinder patients. We had such a busy time treating patients with sore legs, sore tummies, breathing problems and more. Sarah was resting in bed while waiting to be transferred to Adelaide – because “they’ve got more machines over there” according to Seb.

This play has involved literacy – writing signs, taking details of appointments, role play, general knowledge, and some body science  as we have talked about the equipment that a doctor or nurse uses to check us out. I hope we can have a visit from a real nurse soon to help us learn even more!

role play of familiar situations is a way of thinking about different possibilities

We are enjoying our turn of the Farm Safety is Fun kit which arrived last week. Children who don’t get to visit farms are learning so much about the life of some of their peers especially through discussion around the posters and songs. The model farm is the best part for most of the children – they love the gates that they can open and close, the moveable buildings, and the familiar features of the Australian farm environment of rain water tank and silo, quad bike and ute, as well as the big machinery. And farm animals hold a special appeal for all of them – although there is often a fair bit of practical farm activity, including killing, involved in their storytelling. The kit has freed some children up to speak much more confidently in front of the group, as they share their knowledge and experiences and ideas.

The ambulance, tractors, ute and quaddie have been working overtime at the farm.

It was such a windy day on Thursday that some people immediately wanted to make kites, and then to fly them in the wind behind us as we ran.

Talking about the wind, Tiarna and Hollie had ideas for how to paint some windy things, especially the wind towers that Tiarna sees on the way to Ballarat. Hollie “knows how to make a kite because her brother made one.”