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!)
Monthly Archives: November 2009
Bugs at kinder
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 and volcanos
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…
a group effortThen came the chemical reaction to imitate a volcano erupting…
Catching up
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!