the what’s rubbish? game

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Louise under Health & Wellbeing, learning about our community, Learning through play, Maths, The Natural Environment

We are thinking about rubbish this week – although we always think about sorting our scraps and papers etc from lunch, and we have a number of green objectives in our program. But this week we are going to start off our rubbish-free lunch program – and we are playing a game that focuses on recycling. Unfortunately, the makers of the game don’t seem to know about composting and the game asks us to sort banana peels or fish bones into the rubbish bin along with broken lampshades etc.

We needed a compost bin, so Parker chose a box from our recyclables and we made one.

still working in the digging patch

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Louise under Early Learning, Health & Wellbeing, movement & physical learning

After our long weekend, the workers were keen to get back into the digging patch.

They were so busy that we nearly forgot to pack up and finish! Ben, Will, Sam, Joel, Blake and Isaac were the main workers, but Thomas and Aiden were helping out too. The deep channel that they dug last week has become a ditch for pipes – it’s become an engineering job.

When the boys put the water in the pipe at the top, they found that there was a leak. So they had to find where the leak was. They got quite muddy.

When they had fixed that problem they had to find where the water was finishing up. It was just going out into the dirt and soaking up. Sam had the idea of putting some vinyl mats under the pip, to line the ditch. He raced over to the shed and we found them.

The digging patch is always a favourite part of our outside playspace, but it was always hard to dig in the really dry weather – which we get a lot of in the Mallee! Using water to soften it was fun, but not really responsible to use lots of water just to be able to dig. So we had some sand incorporated through the dirt and now it’s usable all year round.

back to the boxes

Posted on June 10, 2010 by Louise under Creativity & Imagination, Early Learning, Emergent Curriculum

There has been a renewed interest in the boxes since we went to Ben’s workshop – inventions and tools and machines are being produced.

Elliott had planned her bed for Pinky and Pussy before she got to kinder. She got the shoebox but needed something soft for their bed.

She spotted some wadding up high in the storeroom – that was perfect.

She made it a folding up bed – so it could be closed when not in use but then she had to work out how to keep the lid open when they were in bed. She solved the problem with some straws – “they’re hinges” she said. She showed us how she could take them out when the box was closed.

Samuel spent a long time on his creation – an animal boat. He used the paper crimper to make waves and pasted the water onto the boat. Then he cut out the animals to go in the boat and then he put “nuts” in a feeder for them to eat.

So much thinking and language and planning and experimenting and problem-solving – all with some recycled bits and pieces, some basic essentials and some simple tools that children can use themselves – building independence and great satisfaction.

Mandarin counting

Posted on June 8, 2010 by Louise under Kids Go For Your Life

We know that maths is everywhere – we’re finding it in mandarins at the moment!

Mandarins are a great snack food in the wintertime – and a perfect invitation for children to estimate and then count the pieces. We made a counting chart and the child places their named sticker in the appropriate column. So it builds on the counting and number recognition to include estimation and chance and data and graphing.

We think Aidie’s mum might have had to buy a bag of mandarins – he’s bringing one every day!

This also becomes a literacy activity as children learn to read their own and other people’s names.

a trip to the workshop

Posted on June 8, 2010 by Louise under Emergent Curriculum, Enquiry & Discovery, learning about our community

We went down the street to visit a real mechanic’s workshop. We had thought about some questions we wanted to ask Ben.

Ben told us that he fixes most bigger engines – and that he can make things too. We asked him if he could make a robot – he said that nobody has asked him to yet!

Then it was time to look inside his workshop.

We saw some of his tools and safety gear.