We have had such a great start to term 3, the children have been super busy in the kindergarten environment building new interests and ideas and just being back at kinder having lots of fun with their friends.
Being kind
We have started the term talking about friendships and being kind to others. As a group we read a story called ‘kind’ and made a chart using visuals about how we can be kind to others and what are some unkind things we should try hard not to do to our friends. The kindness chart has been displayed in a learning space where a child can sit and read the visuals, have the opportunity to draw a picture if they like or look through the books. This is providing the children a quiet space to reflect and learn more about their and other peoples emotions.
We spoke about when you are kind to someone it makes them feel happy as well as making your body feel happy. We spoke about different things you can do to be kind to someone and a couple of kindness acts that the children felt were important were drawing a picture for someone or saying something nice about a friend.
On Thursday and Friday each child had the opportunity to draw a picture for a kinder friend and told Jess something nice about that kinder friend to write on the picture. When all the children have had a turn drawing a picture for a kinder friend, we are going to be making a book using a copy of the children’s pictures and voices to keep at the book corner for the children to read and look at. The children will also be able to take home their beautiful picture that their kinder friend made for them this week.
Other areas of interest inside
Play dough with cars, road signs, road place mats and natural materials- this area was very popular, the children enjoyed creating roads with the play dough and the different resources that were available. There was a lot of negotiating and sharing skills being used in this area, the children were counting out how many road signs or cars there were and if everyone at the table had the same. community, communication, wellbeing
At the easel the children were able to be creative with rollers and paint with very thin paint brushes. wellbeing, communication, identity
Water dye- The book ‘one’ was on display for inspiration for the children’s paintings. wellbeing, communication
Construction- We reintroduced toolo to the program last week. The children have been very creative building different kinds of vehicles. A great activity to build the children’s fine motor skills, problem solving skills and imagination. community, learning
As always the magna tiles were a huge interest in the room. identity, community, communication, learning
Sand tray– This area was very popular, the children had so much fun pouring sand down the big tubes using small jugs. Great team work, problem solving and mathematical knowledge has been used at this area. learning, community, communication
The children had fun investigating with magnets at the light table, exploring what materials attract to the magnets. learning
We have set up a board game table. There are about 4 games the children can choose to play. A great way to build the children’s attention span, turn taking, following instructions and rules, numeracy knowledge and problem solving skills. community, learning, communication
Areas of interest Outside
Home corner- We have seen a small group of boys enjoying this area mostly outside, they have been pretending that the area is their holiday house. The children have also been using the food and kitchen equipment to go on a picnic, they have been packing their basket and driving their car to the picnic spot. identity, community, communication
Large wooden blocks- The children have building vehicles using the large wooden blocks and utilising the steering wheel as a starting point for their creation. We have had cars, a bus and a car with a trailer being made. A lot of negotiating, problem solving, team work, prior knowledge and turn taking skills being used in the block building area. identity, community, communication
The children last week showed a lot of interest playing soccer and basketball outside. wellbeing
Sand pit- there has been a lot of dinner and birthday parties been happening outside in the sand pit. The children are enjoying having the new sand in the sand pit. identity, community, wellbeing, communication
Group time
This term we will be focusing on pre literacy and numeracy skills. We started the term by engaging in a fun block challenge, as a group we had to roll a numbered dice and what ever number we rolled we had to make a tower using that amount of blocks. We then extended the block challenge on Friday by adding the plus and minus symbols. One child rolled the plus and minus dice and another child rolled the number dice. We started with 10 blocks, our challenge was not to get down to zero blocks. At the end of the activity we were left with 23 blocks, we are going to try to beat that amount this week. Learning, communication, community
Practicing our gross motor skills– The children were able to engage in a obstacle course where they were able to practice some balancing and crawling skills. wellbeing
Experimenting- The children were so excited to pretend to be scientists, we pretended to put on our very important scientists uniform before we started to experiment with Electricity. We touched a little bit on energy and the children were able to learn more about a electric circuit by using a battery and wiring to turn on a light and a buzzer. We also learnt that the electricity can go through anything that is metal, we were able to experiment this by using different resources in the room that was made out of metal, and what do you know the light and the buzzer still turned on even though scissors were connected in the circuit. The children will be able to explore with the battery more this week and we will be learning more about Energy and experimenting with static electricity. community, learning
Music and movement- we danced to ‘Highway number One’ and ‘Then I stop.’ community, learning
Last weeks photo link-
https://photos.app.goo.gl/KmWmc7RKcYqzner1A
What’s happening next?
- We will continue our discussion about emotions, this week we will be looking at what makes us feel happy and reading the beautiful story ‘In my heart.’
- The children will have the opportunity to draw a picture of their friends at kinder for their special art/recipe folio.
- A literacy table will be set up for the children to extend their pre literacy skills.
- New board games have been added to the board game area
- Letter stamping- the children will be able to explore with letter’s of the alphabet
- Music at the easel
- On Friday we will be cooking Pumpkin muffins- Thank you to Chet and his mum for sharing a recipe.
- We will be starting Secret in a box with the group this week- each child will have a turn taking the box home over the term. More instructions will be placed in the box.
- We will be talking about safety- especially road safety to get ready for our walks around the kinder.
- Exploring with static electricity