Welcome to Wednesday everyone and another wonderful day in the Kindergarten.
Today we welcomed a new friend to our Kindergarten family Phoenix, it was wonderful to see the children inviting him into their play and supporting him throughout the morning. We are looking forward to getting to know you and your family more over the coming weeks.
At group time this morning we started with our usual greeting songs of Hello to the children of the world and Tena Koe. We then moved on to exploring culture this week we will be focussing on the New Zealand culture as this is where Miss Emma is from along with some of the children from the room having New Zealand roots. We started off by watching a video about New Zealand, particularly looking at the maori culture. After watching this video Miss Emma then asked the children if there was any information that they wanted to share from the video. There was a popular topic as the children fed back their information they had learned which was about the hangi where maori particularly on special occasions will cook food in the ground. Here are the responses from the children. Elliott “The corn was cooked under the floor. Astrid “The corn was cooked under the ground in the honey. Layla “The corn was cooked under the ground.” Miss Emma then posed a question to the children which was, How did the people greet each other? as it was different to how we would say hello to people. Elliott replied “They touched their noses”, well done Elliott that’s right they have a special name for this which is called a hongi. After our discussion it was now time for us to transition from the mat into our morning activities, today we used the song five currant buns which the children really seemed to enjoy.
As the children have been showing an interest in shop play, today in home corner Miss Emma had set up a fruit and vegetable shop and had added some Australian money to the cash register for the children to use in their play. As the children engaged in their play Miss Emma suggested that we make a price list for the fruits and vegetables that were for sale in the shop and stick some of the noted next to the fruits and vegetables so that people knew how much they cost. This was a fun way for the children to explore numeracy as they used the money in their play through reading the pricelist to see how much they had to pay the shopkeeper. We will continue to have this area set up for the children over the week for them to explore, changing the type of shop that we have, encouraging the children to set up the area for the next day.
As we are currently exploring the New Zealand culture today the children had the opportunity to paint a picture using a picture of a maori carving as inspiration. The children did such an amazing job at using their creativity to recreate this carving through their paintings.
Other play that occurred during the room this morning included play dough explorations where the children using their imagination and creativity to create a variety of sculptures. This included a volcano, snakes, watches and snowmen to name a few. Our new friend Phoenix was making codes. Harper and Elliott enjoyed exploring the say it, make it write it experience with their names.
At our group time before lunch time we talked about the experiences that we enjoyed during the morning. Wynter enjoyed everything, Layla enjoyed doing the money,Elliott painting the maori painting, Phoenix enjoyed painting with his friend, Austin enjoyed playing with Wynter and Astrid enjoyed playing in the shop giving money. Two of our friends also had show and tell this morning Elliott and Phoenix. Elliott showed us a picture that he had drawn of the aboriginal flag and people that lived in that country and he also showed us his writing of all the birthday months. Phoenix had some beautiful photos of his family to share with us, it was great to see him so comfortable and confident to share these with us. Thank you to you both for sharing these with us. We would love to have some more show and tell from some other friends during the week too.
After eating our delicious lunch we went outside into the treehouse for Yoga with Miss Gabi, what a great time we had dancing to some relaxing music, singing our calmer Koala song and blowing bubbles.
We hope you have a wonderful afternoon
Miss Emma and Miss Sarah