What a great start to the kinder year! The first couple of weeks of kinder is about the children getting to know their peers and the teachers and becoming familiar with their new environment and the new routine. All the children have settled in nicely and have enjoyed engaging in all the different play and learning areas available.
The kinder environment is set up to help scaffold and build the children’s interactions with their peers and extend their confidence and skills to join and initiate play with a small group of peers. The kinder program is based around the children’s learning needs and skill development and most importantly the children’s interests.
Last week and for the next couple of weeks we will be focusing on getting to know each other, building connections with our peers and teachers, learning our kinder friends names, learning the kinder routine and building on interests that develop over the weeks.
Below I will be highlighting the areas the children showed interest in last week, the mat time activities the children were able to engage in and what is planned for the next couple of weeks. I will also highlight the benefits each experience provide for the children’s development and learning.
Areas of interest Inside
- Home corner- The children enjoyed role playing and cooking in the home corner last week. We have many chefs in wattle group that loved to cook a meal for the teachers.
- Small world areas- There are many small world areas set up in the room, these areas help the children develop social and emotional skills, promotes language development, extends their prior knowledge, encourages children to be creative and use their imagination and build their confidence and self esteem. The small areas that have been set up for the last couple of weeks were; -Doll house furniture with people figurines -Australian animals small world play with kinetic sand -The Sea imaginative area -Car mat and cars
- Puzzles- Floor and table top puzzles are available for the children to build their problem solving and cognitive skills, hand-eye coordination, fine motor development, persistence and confidence. The puzzles are usually changed on a fortnightly basis to help further the children’s skill and development as well as interest.
- Art and craft- At kinder we love to engage in all kinds of art and craft experiences. The kinder room will always have the pasting/collage table, art easel and drawing table set up for the children to be creative, explore their imagination and extend their skills. Last week we had many artists at the easel and being creative at the collage table. At the collage table the children have access to many different materials and resources to help extend their ideas, creativity and imagination.
- Block and construction play- Block and construction play is extremely beneficial for the children to build their social and emotional skills, problem solving and cognitive skills, turn taking and working with others, negotiating skills, spatial awareness, language development, numeracy and science concepts. Block and construction play is available in the program every week, the resources might just be changed to extend on the children’s interests and skills. Last week the children enjoyed building the Magna tiles, LEGO and zoo Duplo.
- Tap Tap- The children enjoyed using the hammer, nails and farm yard wooden pieces to create a picture
- Sensory Play- Having sensory play available in the kindergarten environment is very beneficial in so many ways. Sensory play provides exploration, problem solving, encourages children to use their senses, develop and build motor and language skills, and helps regulate emotions. Last week the children enjoyed playing with pouring and measuring equipment in the water trough and playing with the play dough.
Areas of Interests Outside
We are so lucky with our outdoor space, the children have a big space to explore and connect with nature as well as build their gross motor skills and extend their interests and skills.
We try to plan a program that mirrors the inside environment. This means that children can engage in similar play areas outside to what they play inside. We have areas outside where the children can engage in creative and imaginative play, art and craft areas, block and construction play and sensory play.
Last week the children showed interest in the below areas-
- Fire fighter play– The children enjoyed dressing up as fire fighters last week and pretending to put out fires and help people around the yard.
- Monkey bars-Being able to climb the monkey bars is a goal that most of the children set themselves at the start of the year and that is exactly what has happened this year. I have had many children express to me that they want to learn how to do the monkey bars and they have said they will practice every day when they are at kinder.
- Obstacle course- Outside we have many obstacle courses and climbing equipment for the children to practice and build their confidence and skills to climb.
- Slide- The children enjoyed climbing down our wooden slide. The children showed great confidence to climb over the top of the rail to slide down the slide.
- Small world play- Barbies on the tree house, LOL dolls and Safari Imaginative areas were set up outside.
- Sand and mud patch- The children enjoy exploring in both sand and mud patch areas. In the mud patch the children have been pretending to be workers and fixing the road. In the sand pit some of the children have been using the cubby as a café and making yummy food.
- Tennis- Some of the children have enjoyed playing tennis outside, using their hand eye coordination to hit the tennis ball and taking in turns hitting the ball.
Mat time
At the start of the kinder year, mat time is very active and interactive. For the children to be able to build their stamina and
- 5 cheeky monkeys- On Thursday all the children had the opportunity to stand up in front of their peers and play the roll of a cheeky monkey while Crystal was the very hungry crocodile. All children were encouraged to sing along and use their hands for the actions.
- Music and movement- We love to dance and be active at kinder, this might be through different music, yoga and movement experiences. The children will learn new songs and reconnect with songs they have heard before. Last week we danced to ‘The Fancy Dance’, and ‘stand up, sit down.’
Make sure you click the below to see all the photos that were taken last week.
Last weeks Photo link – https://photos.app.goo.gl/Auc1buyE3CrhMLGBA
What’s happening next?
Below I have listed what has been added to the weekly program and what experiences have been changed. The program is changed to extend the children’s interests, development and skills. Not all experiences are changed due to the children still showing interest in those experiences or the teachers feel that those experiences can be extended more to help develop certain skills and interests.
- Since the children have been showing interest in dressing up as a fire fighter outside we have set up a fire fighter imaginative area inside where the children can extend their play. The fire fighter costumes and ladders will be available again this week outside for the children to play with outside.
- This week the children will have the opportunity to help create a ‘Wattle Group friends book.’ Once the book is finished the children will have the opportunity to take the book home where they can learn their friends names and become familiar with the peers in their group.
- This week we will be reading a book called ‘The Kinder hat’ and extending the book by making our own kinder hats.
- To extend the children’s interest in road workers we have added Trucks, Rocks and road signs to the black tray.
- Mat time- Music and movement- Fancy dance