Friendship fruit salad

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Louise under Kids cooking, Kids Go For Your Life, movement & physical learning

We all brought fruit today to share in making and eating a Friendship Fruit Salad. The peeling and cutting and mixing all promoted lots of language about cooking at home and the fruits etc that they like (or don’t like). Cutting some of the fruit was a bit tricky – slippery or squishy or rolling away…

This was a good exercise in practising a real-life skill that we all need to master.

The conversation got onto seeds and stones and nuts and then onto the outside and the inside, the peel or skin and so on.

We all helped to make it, and most people had a taste of the different fruits, which is all we ask of them, just to try something different.

Makenzie said “I tasted it but I didn’t quite like it.”

But some people – including Billy – polished off the lot!

Dams, floods and getting bogged

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Louise under Early Learning, learning about our community

The pump was busy again – with what?

The boys had spotted the canal system in the shed so we got it out. It’s much easier to adjust the slope in the sandpit than on the grass where we used to have it before the new sandpit was put in.

Filling up the dam became urgent work.

Dustin, Kaleb and James all helped with bucketting the water. Jack was the main water-man – he pumped water for the buckets.

Billy took the job of dam keeper – “enough – nearly enough – let it go!”

Then there was a “massive water slide”. It was exciting work.

The boys worked on the filling and flooding for quite a while, pushing the boats down stream. After a while the others went off to do other things, but Billy had an idea: “let’s dig a hole and make a slide.” Out came the heavy equipment and Billy and Dustin started on their dam building. Soon Dustin got bogged but Billy helped by pushing him out….

Later on when I tell Dustin’s mum about it, she says – “well it’s happening all the time on the farm – everyone’s headers have been getting bogged.” and of course, Billy’s dad drives a bulldozer sometimes, so the boys know what they are doing.

We think we will see a lot more heavy machinery at work in the sandpit before the end of the year!

Playing a story

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Louise under Early Learning, Language & Literacy

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!

At the sand table

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Louise under Creativity & Imagination, Early Learning, Enquiry & Discovery

Yesterday there was a lot of play at the sand table with mermaids and sharks. The sharks were not friendly – Ruby remembered a DVD about a mermaid who had to hide from a shark. We looked at some of the different sharks we have in the sand table and we wondered about hammerheads – would they eat the mermaids? What do they eat? So we decided to look for a book about them today. Ruby, Kodie, Jim and Harrison were the ones who were interested, then Makenzie joined them today.

We found out some interesting facts about hammerheads – but the main thing was that they don’t eat people. Sometimes if they get excited or worried they might bite someone but they don’t eat people and nobody has ever died from being bitten by a hammerhead.

So that was okay then and the sharks and the mermaids could be friends….

tERM 1 wEEK 2 tUESDAY 053 but they still tended to be in different stories!

When throwing in the sponge is a good thing

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Louise under Early Learning, Games & Activities, movement & physical learning

Well, it is summer and it’s hot – we all enjoy playing with water, so we set up a great target throw activity using wet sponges.

The wet sponges needed a bit of squeezing – good for those hand and finger muscles, then throwing them at the hoop involved eye-hand coordination, concentration and arm strength, as well as a cool satisfying splash when it hit the concrete …