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More about the worms

May 10th, 2012 by

The worms are an ongoing interest with some of the children. We have put them out in their big worm box outside and we sort out our scraps to feed them (the children know that they don’t get the mandarine peels – that would hurt their skins).

Today we set up a worm sandwich – also known as a worm farm – to help us to see how they actually work down under the ground.

(In other years, when we have done this, we have used our little glass fish tank – but then we can’t use it for other nature “specimens” that we might want to study, so we thought it was a good investment.)

The farm came with instructions and some colored sand – which wasn’t quite enough – to make the layers with the soil. We added some of our own sand as well – but the colored sand showed up really well.

Then we had to sprinkle some water on the sandwich.

Then add the worms.

After that it was time to add some screens – “for privacy” –

and let them settle in. We wonder what we’ll see next week?

 

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Meeting the worms

Apr 19th, 2012 by

Now that some cooler weather is here, we will start up our worm farm again – the really hot days are not so good for our little compost helpers.

Looking at the container of worms tipped out onto a tray – now you see them …

now you don’t …

“They’re shy” said Arley.

They were very interesting over on the science table…

and some people drew them

but most just enjoyed interacting with them – “they’re tickly” !

 

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Harmony Day – Italiano style

Mar 23rd, 2012 by

Mia is enjoying her spaghetti – but what does pasta have to do with diversity?

Harmony Day is about celebrating diversity – the differences and the similarities that make our community and our country so special.

I really want to help the children to respect and appreciate  the hidden diversity in our own kinder community, the cultural backgrounds of the people around us that we don’t really know about or just take for granted – and food and language are a wonderful place to start.

(Cooking is also a great science, sensory, fine motor and language activity)

Pasqualina – I hope I got the spelling right! – otherwise known as Pat, one of our mums, has been in to teach us some Italian – Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, so for Harmony Day we asked her to visit and help us make pasta the way she and her mum and other Italian cooks make it – because it didn’t start off being made in a factory!

The recipe is sooooo simple!

3 cups of plain flour.

1 egg

enough water to make a dough.

Then extra flour to stop it from getting too sticky, or extra water to stop it from being too dry.

Then work it with our hands until it’s our turn to use the machine. We explained that if we dropped it on the floor we wouldn’t be able to use that dough – and everyone managed to hang onto their piece.

Turning a handle to make something work is  very satisfying.

Did you know that pasta has to dry before it can be cooked?

Liam sat and watched it dry for quite a while!

Then it was into the pot to be cooked and served with a cheese sauce -

Yum!

We sang our surprise song for Pat – Ciao buon giorno, and she read us a book about a magic pasta pot – Strega Nonna by Tomie de Paolo.

The children loved discovering the secret background to the pasta they see in a packet – and they love using Italian words – maybe they will go into the post office and say Ciao or Grazie to Esther and Tony – I hope so!

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Posted in Kids cooking, learning about our community, Rituals & celebrations | 4 Comments »

Kinders at Work

Mar 8th, 2012 by

With the recent rain and cooler weather, it’s time to uncover the digging patch.

REAL work is so engaging.

It’s wonderful open-ended play because one child can be absorbed on their own, a group can all work together, a pair can cooperate to help each other…

There are lots of links to be made with other knowledge that the children have, like gardening, building, digging for treasure, laying pipes, creating lanscapes, or just mucking around in the mud.

The sensory aspects are very rewarding for  children as well – whether it’s heavy work for the big muscles or  sensory input from feeling and smelling the dry dirt and wet mud, observing changes (being scientists) or just being outside under the tree and close to nature -  the digging patch is endlessly interesting.

Next time we’ll get the workers’ vests out and see what else they might like to use to extend their game.

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Posted in Early Learning, Enquiry & Discovery, movement & physical learning | No Comments »

Sand Dough

Feb 24th, 2012 by

We have added a new sensory and manipulative material outside – sand dough. (Where did the recipe come from? I can’t remember – thanks to the people out there in the blogosphere who invented and shared the recipe, if you are reading this, please let me know who you are so I can acknowledge you properly.)

It was very popular – “squishy’ said Oscar, but also a little bit gritty. Like clay because when it dried out, we could mix a little water back in and reconstitute it – and the children can do this.

The children found different ways to use it:

- shaping it with fingers;

scratching a picture into  it with a stick or stem;

decorating it with gumnuts and other treasures;

and then discovering that the decorations leave a mark. (The pine cone leaves a mark like a rose.)

HOW TO MAKE SAND DOUGH

4 CUPS OF SAND

2 CUPS OF CORNFLOUR

1 CUP OF WATER.

I used very fine sand and needed to add some plain old sandpit sand to give it more texture – and I also found I needed to adjust the water a bit, then the flour…but it lasted well in the fridge in between uses.

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Creativity & Imagination, Emergent Curriculum, The Natural Environment | No Comments »

A new year at kinder

Feb 9th, 2012 by

We have started our new year with a smaller group,  very sociable and active. More girls than boys, but all very tuned into role and pretend play, in different forms. The children are interacting easily with each other and are very switched on.

We notice that in this time of transition and settling in to the full kinder routine, that the children are intent on processing everything, and enjoying their favourite areas as well as getting to know the new possibilities available to them. They are busy!

While the home corner was busy, this is what was happening down on the floor in the corner of the photo….

Oscar was looking after his baby, named Cooper (big brother’s name). He spent a long time tucking him into bed, arranging his blankets, taking him out and putting him back. Beautiful, caring play.

Outside Harry and Maya set up the tea table under the tree’s shade, then Mia came along and then Seanna. There was a wonderful bit of role distribution: “Can I play?” “Well I’m the mother and Harry’s the father and Mia’s the big sister – you can be the other big sister.” and that was okay.

So much else happened – too much to tell in one go!

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Posted in Transitions | No Comments »

The last day of the (kinder) year

Jan 3rd, 2012 by

I wanted to (belatedly) record the happy day we had at the end of our kinder year.

Yes, Santa did come…

and there were presents (traditionally, the committee gives a book to each child)

but the children stayed remarkably calm and no-one opened the presents that the teachers gave them (we had asked that they save them till they got home or even until Christmas!). Thinking about this in contrast to other years, we didn’t have a different or more “mature”  group, really, but we adults were more explicit and encouraging about some guidelines for the children – like each child waiting to open Santaa’s present until everyone had received their gift: this helped the children to share the enjoyment and  to stay calmer. (Two children even kept Santa’s gift unopened!)

And yes, we did have our concert in the evening – a concert being about 10 minutes of singing some favourite songs – but with an audience watching which made it most children’s first experience of “performance”.

By this time of the year we usually have most children okay with participating, but if they aren’t keen, there’s no pressure – we want them to enjoy sharing their songs.

All the children were happy to join in this year.

And of course we had the usual toddler joining in as well!

Then came the time to give the children their certificates and their journals and the calendars they had made for their families.

And the toddler came over for a special hug as well.

And then we all shared a family tea.

It was a nice fairly low-key but still special day. as you can see, we don’t make a big thing of either Christmas (sometimes we may have CALD families who don’t celebrate Christmas) or their “graduation” which is not appropriate to a group where most years we have a child or two return for a second year.

But also the children are still too busy doing kinder stuff till the last minute – when we talked about what they would like to do on their last morning, Ruby asked for the hook-ups – and so we did our usual BrainGym exercises.

It’s interesting that learning how to do some coordinated sequences of movements in BrainGym marked the start of our sessions at the beginning of this year, and choosing to do the same activities, now so easily mastered, helped to finish it.

We look forward to seeing them all come back as “big” school kids in another few months!

If you do have a holiday at this time of the year, we hope you have a safe and relaxing break. See you in February!

Louise

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Posted in Early Learning, movement & physical learning, Rituals & celebrations | 2 Comments »

plumbing experiments at kinder

Dec 15th, 2011 by

We have been inspired by the water walls that are on so many early childhood teaching sites, so when the High School students kindly made us two frames to hang our music from, we knew that they would also  be useful for other things as well - like water activities!  now that the warmer weather is here, we have put the two together and come up with – our plumbing experiments.

The setting – up appealed to the workers and fixers amongst us:

and to those who like making things work

but a job’s not worth much if it can’t carry a couple of people who can give advice…

When the boys started they discovered that all the water was running out on the ground. As our rainwater tanks are very low, and we have limited water available each day, they soon decided that they needed to catch the water so they could recycle it.

This is where our new bins came in handy.

The cooperative nature of this job, and the sense of agency in  the children who organised and solved problems for themselves, was just as valuable as the science involved.

And then there were the added dimensions of representation and literacy when two of the boys decided to draw the pipes so they could make a book about it.

We discovered that drawing a funnel is tricky!

Water really does offer a multitude of learning possibilities!

 

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Posted in Enquiry & Discovery, The Natural Environment | 4 Comments »

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