We planted some daffodil bulbs at the start of term and it has taken a very long time for some of them to come up – but at last they are all up!
Last week Harrison brought us in a special present – a book about growing daffodils. We loved it – it’s called “That’s Not a Daffodil!” and it’s by a wonderful Australian author called Elizabeth Honey. It was perfect to read as we started to see the shoots appear in our pots.
What a very thoughtful present – thanks Harrison (and his mum, Bec!)
One of our old favourites, the book “Who Sank the Boat” by Pamela Allen, is a great one to start off early in the year with – its rhythmic, repetitive, patterned language, the ridiculous illustrations and the power of knowing who did sink the boat, make it a winner.
This group is very tuned into stories and language and we had a great time with some stick puppets made using the photocopier and some textas (nothing fancy but just enlarged a bit, then laminated.).
It was hard for the other children to not have a go in front of the whole group – we all want an audience! – but they coped…and will get a turn in the next week or so (and they don’t know it, but they are also learning vital life skills around self-regulation and resilience – dealing with disappointment, all part of sharing and taking turns).
We had to remember which animal came next in the story while we joined in with telling the words…
Afterwards some children were so keen to play the story that they didn’t need an audience or an adult. This is when you know they’ve caught the book bug!
I visited a great little kinder in Melbourne last week at North Carlton and the children were reading lots of books by one of our all-time favourite preschool authors, Juliet Donaldson…they had 2 copies of The Smartest Giant in Town, which I haven’t been able to buy anywhere – and when I said that we hadn’t been able to find that book, they very kindly gave me one of their copies to take back to the Ouyen Kinder kids.
We are lucky enough to have a couple of real Gruffaloes, so we wanted to send one back to them, as a thankyou present.
We worked out what we wanted to write in the letter, then Elliott wrapped the present.
We love our Gruffalo so we hope they do too!