Category Archives: learning about our community

Bookmobile visit

Posted on by under Early Learning, Language & Literacy, learning about our community

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We make a visit to the bookmobile each year in first term; it’s parked just over the road from our kinder, and a short walk to practise our road safety. The children respond with interest, even absorption, to people with the important job of “librarians” telling them a story and giving them a tour of the truck. We prepared by trying to think about questions we could ask, and we reflected on our visit by drawing and dictating language as well as by writing a group letter to say Thankyou. Signing their names is a challenge for many of the children at this stage of the year, and makes our letter really meaningful to them.

Sushi

Posted on by under Emergent Curriculum, Kids cooking, learning about our community

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We have a new helper for a few weeks,  Mie. She is sharing some of her Japanese culture with us. This week we made sushi. The seaweed paper, as the children called it, was a new ingredient for our cooking, and a rather different vegetable! Most of the children didn’t know sushi- except for Blythe, who loves sushi! She recommends avocado but we didn’t have that. Some of the taste testers were not t at all keen on it, whilst others were very happy to eat the spares and everybody else’s too!

Welcome to Mie

Posted on by under Early Learning, Emergent Curriculum, Enquiry & Discovery, Language & Literacy, learning about our community

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

Posted on by under Enquiry & Discovery, learning about our community, Maths, The Natural Environment

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 our Australian heritage – the Aboriginal culture

Posted on by under Creativity & Imagination, Early Learning, Emergent Curriculum, learning about our community, Learning through play

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Our special visitor, Willy, came for another visit and we used twig brushes to do some dot painting on little boomerangs. And we had fun with him – he showed us how he used to make a hopscotch game when he was little.

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Thanks for another wonderful visit, Willy!

The Tyre Shop

Posted on by under Creativity & Imagination, Early Learning, Emergent Curriculum, learning about our community, movement & physical learning

Some tyres have been delivered to the kinder. Louise has plans to make a tyre garden. But in the meantime …..

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Setting up the tyre shop was simple – just start.

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Neil hauled some more spare tyres over.

Use the switches board from the shed to start the hoist and gently lift the car up to work on the tyres.

 

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Now “who was here first?” asks Rory?

Offering an environment that includes “loose parts” gives the children opportunities to create and develop their own ideas. And at the end, they go back to being tyres for other purposes, but in the play there has been independence, cooperation, imagination, role play, language and communication, ingenuity and the satisfaction of using their own ideas and skills. And they played safely and sensibly amongst the pile of tyres.

Anzac Day

Posted on by under learning about our community, Maths, Uncategorized

IMG_3495It’s coming up to Anzac Day in Australia, an important national event in the Australian (and New Zealand) community. In our town, we have several displays of poppies (the red Flanders poppy) and also posters and memorabilia about the wars that Australians, including local people, have fought in. We often have a visitor on this day to share their story, but unfortunately that didn’t work out this year – we do have an excellent book, just published, called Liam’s Story: Why do I wear Dad’s medals? which approaches the day from the point of view of a little boy whose dad has been killed in an armed conflict. This certainly got some of the children asking questions, and remembering their own great grandfathers or uncles who have been soldiers. Eliza’s great grandfather and great grandmother were both in the Second World War. We made paper poppies, a maths activity for folding and cutting (using the shapes of a square, rectangle, circle and cone), which we then colored in red. Many of the children gave us a poppy for our kinder Anzac wreath; we found the letter A and decorated an Anzac A; and we made (and enjoyed) Anzac biscuits.

The ambulance visit

Posted on by under Creativity & Imagination, Early Learning, Emergent Curriculum, Health & Wellbeing, learning about our community

With an ongoing interest in emergencies and the ambulance, a visit from the ambulance seemed like a good idea.

Natasha and Sam were the ambulance officers.

They showed us lots of equipment and showed us how some of it works – heart monitor, stethoscope, blood pressure, blood oxygen monitor. We all had a chance to have a tour of the ambulance truck.

Thanks very much to Sam and Natasha for a really interesting visit – we learnt a lot.

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Then we got the hospital box out and practised our first aid. Inevitably there was also at least one animal that needed medical attention.

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