Welcome to our Wednesday blog for the Kindergarten classroom. We are halfway through the week already and the children have been having lots of fun so let’s share what they have been up to so far.
The morning started off very energetically with lots of ball games and chasing games. I think the excitement of seeing their friends gets the children in an energetic mood very quickly which is great for their health and good to get it done before the day can get too hot.
We came indoors for morning tea/group time and read some stories including a new one Miss Emma gave us about viruses (particularly COVID-19). It talked about ways that viruses spread, how to stay safe and why we can’t do certain activities at the moment. The children had excellent knowledge and knew all the answers so the key is to just keep putting it into practice by covering coughs/sneezes, watching what we touch, washing our hands and keeping space between people not in your family.
Mr Andrew got a new dinosaur book for the classroom as we try and extend our non-fiction book selection. The children love them and Reid had his head buried in the book at any free opportunity. We didn’t get time to draw them like we planned but there is lots of time another day. Non-fiction books open up huge worlds of curiosity and lets the children explore a wide range of concepts like biology, geography or technology. It can help the teachers find what the children are currently interested in and we can use that to foster other areas of development like language.
Today for our sport and movement session we played “carnival games”. We practiced kicking into a goal, catching and throwing bean bags onto a target and also tested our balancing skills. All of these are vital physical skills for children to learn so they can engage in future activities like sports or games with their friends. Completing physical achievements also gives children a sense of pride and accomplishment. The Kindergarten children were excited to achieve the goals and win their “prizes” (stickers) at the end.
Just before lunch we also worked together to make some “ready made” banana bread that Sonni’s mum brought in a box for us to share on his Birthday tomorrow. We learnt concepts like maths as we carefully measured out all the ingredients. The children worked hard using different hand and arm muscles as the mixed the heavy and sticky mixture around the bowl. Baking has so many positive things for children to learn such as maths (reading numbers/measuring), vocabulary (with different foods/tools), talking about how food affects our bodies (all the time foods vs. sometimes foods) and also exploring where our food comes from as we often take this for granted. Many of our children said they help out cooking at home and that was awesome to hear. Children often have better relationships with food when they are able to make it themselves.
The afternoon was filled with free play with activities like puzzles, home corner activities, drawing and painting. It has been great to see some of the creations the children have been making and we will try send some of these home shortly in the future.
Thank you for a great Wednesday everyone and enjoy the rest of your day.
Eva taking the bug “back to his home where he belongs”. I have loved the children’s caring attitude for nature recently
