footy day at kinder

Posted on September 20, 2010 by Louise under Games & Activities, Kids Go For Your Life, movement & physical learning

We had a footy day for our last day of term before our break.

Not everyone follows a team but we were all able to say something about one of the teams because everyone knows something about football in Ouyen!

Sam brought along a footy board – a coaching board where he had written all the names of the boys from kinder in the different positions. He could tell us what each position is called and what the player has to do.

We had some kicking and marking practice – the children chose whether they wanted to kick or throw, to mark or to fetch – and then there are the umpies and the crowd…

and we all enjoyed having some little savs for lunch (at the end of our healthy garden lunch).

Happy holidays and if your team is in the grandfinal, good luck!

We are on holidays now for a fortnight…

harvesting our crops

Posted on September 17, 2010 by Louise under Kids cooking, Kids Go For Your Life, The Natural Environment

We have a very healthy crop of snap peas and silver beet, which we have been tending and monitoring – lots of excitement when we found our first pea pods!

Now it’s harvest time….

and some of the children (including some of the most faithful gardeners) announced that they don’t like peas or silver beet – or both!

Anyway, everyone enjoyed picking their share of the crop.

We used Jenny’s (from Let the Children Play) recipe for quiches in bread cases to include the silver beet.

So we had to…roll … pull..shape…cut…mix… measure… stir…pour…

and then wait for them to cook.

We also mixed some dip and ricotta for a snap pea dip.

And the verdict was….

delicious!

even from the people who thought they didn’t like silver beet …

or peas….

the duplo game

Posted on September 16, 2010 by Louise under Games & Activities, Maths

This is a group game that we are enjoying at the moment.

Take some duplo blocks, an animal and a dice.

Throw the dice, pile that many duplo blocks onto the back of your animal.

And enjoy the excitement of seeing them crash when they get too many for the poor old seal.

It’s one game that the boys especially love to play….

postcard from the digging patch

Posted on September 15, 2010 by Louise under Early Learning, Kids Go For Your Life, movement & physical learning

Real women don’t let skirts stop us!

Making rainy music

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Louise under Early Learning, music & movement

It’s been an unusually wet winter and we are all very happy to still be getting some rain in spring, even though flooding is a problem elsewhere – the children know how vital it is for the crops! So we made rain sticks today. They involved a straightforward sequence of steps.

Covering the end of a cardboard cylinder with some fabric and a rubber band was probably the trickiest part.

Then we rolled some aluminium foil into a long snaky shape to insert into the tube. (It has to be twisty.)

Then we poured some rice into the tube. Stop when it’s only half full!

Then cover up the other end….

…decorate…

and play….and listen..and play…and look..and try some didgeridoo sounds as well…

The dog game

Posted on September 7, 2010 by Louise under Early Learning, Games & Activities, Learning through play, Maths

We had the Responsible Pet Ownership Program visit us this week.

We met Celia and her dog Barnaby. We danced, sang, pretended to be dogs, and learnt how to pat a dog and when it’s safe to pat one. And we are enjoying lots of dog stories and games.

One of the games we are playing at present is the dogs game.

We use table games a lot at kinder – they are very motivating, but we find that many commercial games are too complicated or take too long to play. The ones we make are more open-ended, to suit the skills and understanding of the players. The children like to make up their own rules – as long as everyone agrees!

Kylie and Jade set the game up according to how it seemed it should be played, with bones to be collected if you land on a “bone” space.

Then the boys put a bone on every space, to increase their chance of picking up a bone.

Then Jade and Samuel decided to put 2 bones on every space, so each of them would be able to pick one up wherever they landed.

There’s a lot of discussion, negotiation and problem-solving involved here – and adding new elements actually increases the counting and maths involved – so we are all winners!

An award…

Posted on September 5, 2010 by Louise under Uncategorized

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Thanks to Maria over in Sweden at Förskoleburken for passing on a Versatile Blogger award to me here at Tales from the Sandpit – I will just say that I am overwhelmed by the fantastic early childhood, craft, parenting etc blogs out there, and each one of the blogs that I have on my favourites are really worth visiting and they will link you with others in turn…a lovely treasure hunt of goodies for our inspiration and enjoyment….

Now, for 7 things about me –

I am a Christian.

I am a Mallee farmer (due to having married one) which means that we get used to dust, drought, flies, mice and now locusts this year – but get the most fantastic sunsets! (the Mallee is in the North West corner of Victoria, Australia).

I have 5 children!

I have been to Europe but not to the Great Barrier Reef (it’s on my list)…

I love the beach, rivers, lakes, puddles, fountains – anything with water basically (which has to do with living in the Mallee…)

I do patchwork – in a big rush then stop for a much longer time.

I love the internet but hate reading books electronically.

Gingerbread men at kinder

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Louise under Early Learning, Kids cooking, Learning through play, Maths

We have been reading and playing the story of the Gingerbread man.

So we did the cooking today.

Another time for developing vocabulary and finemotor skills, for using maths (especially important to share out the smarties evenly!), for observing changes, for using our senses, for making judgements and choices…