Happy Friday everyone. Welcome to the Kindergarten blog today where we have lots to share with you.
Our morning started out with some water play in the playground. The new water pump has been an exciting addition to the playground and it has allowed the children to get closer to our more natural areas of the playground like the rock stream, herb garden and flower beds. Today we even had a fun estimating game where we had to guess how many tomatoes were on the tomato plant. It was interesting to hear the replies which ranged from 2 to 100! (according to Mace).
Estimating values is an important mathematical skill with helps solidify counting and can help them navigate in the world e.g. “find the table with the 4 chairs” is an easier command when they can estimate small groups of numbers. We do lots of estimating in our small sport and movement skills sessions when we guess how many bean bags we caught or when we have to get into small groups of 2, 3 or 4.
After this little maths exercise the children gathered in the playground for a special surprise. We had a guest named Miss Bea who did some energetic Zumba and traditional Spanish dancing with the teachers!! She returned later in the day to do some dancing, balancing and gymnastic activities with the children. The class loved her fantastic energy and got really creative with their dance moves. Little classes like this are excellent for eliciting some creativity and confidence from the children. When the music is pumping they are much more likely to give things a go and I was impressed at the athletic ability of Ellie and Eva when doing their forward rolls.
Storytime today was The Gingerbread Man, the children helped Mr Andrew create their own unique gingerbread man by colouring his eyes, nose, mouth, buttons, mittens and socks all different colours. Initially I had slide shows going to help them follow the story but I have taken these away as I have loved hearing their imaginative descriptions of the characters in the stories as we draw them on the board together. We even did a gluing activity to decorate our own gingerbread man with glitter, stars and sequins (which today I learnt was spelt sequins!!).
During the week we have been doing lots of ANZAC related activities and today we stuck our poppies on the reception desk in the foyer in remembrance for the soldiers in the ANZAC armies and their families. We listened to the Last Post song while we had a small moment of silence. I have been impressed this week with the children’s level of interest and respect towards this topic which is great to see. This could potentially lead to some more activities related to historical topics.
Today was a fantastic Friday and a great way to end the week. Thank you everyone for continuing to show your smiling faces in this tricky time. See you all next week.
