Spinning colors

imageThankyou to the person who first applied paint to paper inside a salad spinner! This is an art activity made for preschoolers! We have 2 different spinners, which take real motor planning to operate. An art experience of mixing color becomes very physical as you learn to pull and then let go quickly, because to hold the string means it doesn’t retract and the spinner has to be taken apart and string rewound. The children who practise their bowling in cricket quickly understand about this variation on the same skill of releasing. Others needed hand over hand tuition sometimes, but they all persevered – building learnacy skills through this strong motivation to explore color through movement. (with engagement comes language, planning, review and evaluation, concept building and personal choice.)

The results were as individual as they are.

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Welcome to Mie

We have a new helper at kinder sometimes. Her name is Mie and she is from Japan. Today she told us a little bit about Japan.

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She also showed us how to make some animals by folding paper. We used big paper, not true origami paper.

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And we practised using chopsticks! We are looking forward to learning lots more from Mie, and teaching her about Australia as well. Thanks for coming to our kinder!

 

our rain man

IMG_2235 rain man I have wanted a rain gauge for a long time, rain being such a precious commodity and exciting event in our part of the world. This very special rain gauge stand has been made for us by one of our very talented dads, a farmer, one of the multi-talented people who keep our farms going and the food coming to our plates. I love this rain man, the same height as a kinder child, who is holding out his cup in hopes of getting some rain in it – maybe even praying for rain, which we are also very familiar with in the Mallee. Thanks so much to Jolie’s dad!

Learning about hunting for emu eggs

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We had a visit from Auntie Colleen to tell us about looking for emu eggs and being safe in the bush.this is always a fascinating visit for the kinder children, as many of them are already familiar with being out in the bush but may not have been shown tracks, nests, or ways to recognise signs in the bush environment. Learning the Barkindji word for emu – gulti- and other words is very empowering – some children weeks later are still referring to emus as gulti. Most of the children were keen to express their new understanding through their art work.

planning our garden

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At last we are getting close to planting our flower garden – and we have been thinking with the children about what we could have in our garden. With the discovery of a dung beetle in the horse manure last week, Kai thought that we should have a dung beetle to make good soil – the one we had has disappeared so we hope it’s gone back into the manure to chomp away a bit more. The children’s plans ranged from flowers – poppies, sunflowers, rosemary as well as lots of colors – to ants and birds. Let’s hope we see all those in our garden!

Finding out about guitars

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we had so much fun playing our pretend guitars last term! We asked families if they knew anyone who plays the guitar – and Bill does. He came in this week to show us a little bit about it and to play us some songs. It was lovely to hear the music of the guitar and to sing along to it. Visits such as these are very helpful in extending children’s understanding and learning – about music and instruments this time, but a community or family member really focuses the children’s attention. And when we value the resources that our families have to offer, it emphasises to all the children, not just the particular grand-child, that families matter, they are welcomed and appreciated and they can help to shape our learning.
Thanks for sharing your music with us, Bill!

The joy of blowing bubbles

We have been blowing and chasing bubbles outside, a great activity for active play, sensory awareness and supporting a sense of wonder in play, with the uniqueness of every bubble and the rainbows that they contain within. So we thought that bubble prints would be interesting – they always are! it’s one of the privileges of working with preschoolers, to have time to be involved in such seemingly simple but very engaging learning opportunities. Thee was a crowd milling around the bubble blower as he layered the prints of bubbles on top of each other: a collective sense of the beauty of what was emerging.

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One handy hint I came across years ago to prevent children from sucking up the bubble mixture instead of blowing (they are used to sucking up their drinks after all), is to prick a hole towards the top of the straw, to stop the liquid from going past. It does help.

Observational drawing

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The sunflowers have been flowering bravely on the sides of the roads for weeks now, so I thought they would be a geat way to start our gardening focus now that the weather is cooler. Finding out what children know – the excitement of their knowledge and discoveries- and then learning how they make sense of new observations – we are all learners together in this endeavour. And observational drawing is very valuable to help us to really see what we think we already know.

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