Dear family and friends,
Welcome to our 13th weekly summary for week commencing 1st April 2019.
We continue to learn our letters for the week, just over half way now focusing on the letters M, N and O. The children’s knowledge of phonics continues to improve, and breadth of their vocabulary continues to expand with each passing week.
The children also revisited naming basic shapes and learning their unique characteristics. To assist with the consolidation of their learning their writing activity comprised of tracing various basic shapes. Their writing skills and pencil control is also building week by week.
Our athletes continue to be drawn to the challenges of our outdoor play equipment. Children wanting to test their limits continue to find innovative ways to complicate the use of the equipment. Our monkey bars now are used as chin up and pull up bars. More children growing in confidence are attempting to learn how to lock their legs so they can hang upside down…..and we are pleased to see a few traditionalists happy to use the monkey bars as intended. We haven’t forgotten about our other muscle groups, which can be tested and further developed by the cargo net and rock wall. To strengthen our core, balance unaided on large barrels.
Costumes and Various Items of clothing were out for the week. Our Butterflies didn’t waste any time getting into character of their alter-egos. Children were able to take on different characters based on their clothing choices. They were able to recognise when they needed assistance and enjoyed the independence and agency that comes form making your own choices and being able to dress and undress yourself further developing their self-help and life-skills. We were fortunate to be graced by Princess Elsa, Snow White, Eccentric Rock Star and even a Dinosaur, who would have thought? We would like to take this opportunity to thank our rock band and our little rock stars for entertaining us with their amazing music and dancing.
Through the children’s dramatic play, they were able to recreate a realistic experience which occurs at the hair dressing salon. The children were able to decide who would be the hairdresser and who the client would be. The hairdresser tried desperately to qualify what the customer wanted and was checking to see if they were happy and enjoying the experience. I was so impressed I’ve booked an appointment.
A few of the dinosaurs made their way into our sandpit, bringing so much joy to a few of our palaeontologists. I wasn’t sure what they were looking for in the sandpit, but they put my mind at ease when they said fossils. I only need to worry now when they actually find a fossil!! The children had a great time conversing about the diet of the dinosaur and hypothesising where to look for fossils followed by a lot of excavating. An excellent activity to challenge the children’s cognition and build on the developing language and motor skills.
The children were provided numerous opportunities throughout the week to relax and unwind by drawing and colouring in. As the children start seeing their world and themselves differently, this can be seen in the emerging clarity of their drawings.
Connector Stix provide the children with an excellent opportunity to construct products with scale in three dimension. Due to the length of the Stix, the shape of the product quickly grows both horizontally and vertically with the added illusive depth. Once the children commence getting a feel for that 3rd dimension of depth it is quickly transferred to other applications. Our magnetic shape designs are beginning to show an appreciation for that 3rd dimension. This now enables our conversation of basic shapes to extend to 3D shapes such as cubes, spheres, cones, pyramids etc etc. Watch this space.
A fun activity for the children to recall their learning of the alphabet was to build an “Alphabet Road” – the objective is to recall the letter you land on, if you are correct you move to the next letter, but if you are incorrect, you go back to the beginning.
Craft with Miss El was a highlight as messy play is always fun and painting with your hands or leaving your hand print, on your work seemed to be quite gratifying for our Butterflies. Hmm, I wonder what they’re making?
As an extension on all the pretend cooking and food handling that takes play frequently at SK, the children are presented with a number of real cooking and food handing experiences. Buffet Day is a favourite where we extend on the children’s interest of cooking and food. The children learn the importance of safe hygiene when serving themselves from a shared serving bowl i.e. using a serving utensil and not your hands. Table etiquette as you ask for items to be passed to you and when you are passing items to your friends remembering to use your manners. The experience also provides the children with an excellent opportunity to remind yourself of the foods you are and not allowed to eat whether it’s for cultural, religious or medical reasons and for your friends to understand that we all can’t eat the same food respecting everyone’s rights and beliefs.
コメント