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Welcome to a new week here at Riversdale. The Kindergarten 1 classroom are excited to share everything they have been up to today. We had Miss Shannon visiting us and helping out today from Benowa Early Leaning and the kids enjoyed her presence.

It was a perfect morning this morning with some nice sun and also cloud cover to keep us cool. Mr Andrew spotted many friends all piled together on the swing and even taking turns to push it. A simple play experience like this consists of lots of learning opportunities like communication, turn taking, sharing space, teamwork and cooperation not to mention all of the imagination that goes on during this play. Others enjoyed the physical challenges on the hills, climbing ropes and obstacle courses.

As we came indoors and washed our hands ready for morning tea we first gathered on the mat to do the roll and some group time activities. We read an interesting story called “Milo goes bananas” which Carter kindly brought in. We paused the story lots of times to try and get the children’s ideas about what would happen next. Exercises like this help children feel more engaged with the story and show greater critical thinking skills about the plot. It also increases confidence to speak in front of others and suggest ideas. The moral of the story was one about treasuring the friends we have more than material things which was a great lesson to learn. We also played the “hungry fish” and “spy game” which I will let your children try and explain to you to test how well they remembered the games.

Later in the morning we had some free choice activities on the shelf. Joey, Harry, Arlo, Tanner and Noah where exploring the book “monkey puzzle” and matching the animals to each picture, there were lots of discussions about the different features of each animal.

We got outdoors just before lunch to test our strength and jumping skills with a few different games. It is great to try and frame gross motor skill learning within a game to make it more motivating, exciting and it also makes the learning more effective too. Later in the afternoon we plan to play a body part bingo type game where we have to point to a certain body part depending on the number that is rolled. Marlie also brought in an interesting game of quoits which will be an exciting afternoon activity for some children to try and test their aiming skills.

Thanks for joining us today and enjoy your evening everyone!

Mr Andrew and Miss Shannon