Happy Valentines Day 2015

This week we discovered about Valentines Day and explored about how to show others that we care about them. 

 We made love bug bookmarks with our thumbprints. Click for a pdf.

My youngest son and I went out the other night and collected small stones and the children used them to show someone special that 'you rock!' Click for a pdf.

We made delicious waffles with maple syrup. Luckily my waffle machine makes a waffle that you can split into 5 hearts.

We made bead bracelets to give away.

And we used marbles to make these cool heart paintings to take home.

I was really pleased to have 9 new children come today for their first discovery session, it is always exciting to meet new children and see younger siblings of previous students finally come to school. We encourage parents or caregivers to come along to our Discovery sessions with their children (at least for the first few sessions). So today was very busy! 

We call our pre-school visitors Mountaineers and they have between 7 and 10 visits before they start school. Our Discovery sessions are only until 10.30, but for our Mountaineer's last 3 visits they stay longer and participate in a normal classroom programme. We have found that by the time our Mountaineers turn 5 they are ready for school and confident and excited about starting.

Easy Marble Hearts

 We used shaving cream and paint to make these hearts, it's easy marbling for kids. The children were very impressed to see the marble pattern and it is always a nice surprise for them to see what they have created.

Squirt shaving cream into a shallow tray, drop on a few blobs of paint (we used red and a little blue), swirl it around, gently push the paper on top then peel it off carefully, use an ice-cream container lid to scrape of the paint and shaving cream and reveal the marble pattern. 

We did both sides of the paper which was little messy and I made sure to use extra thick cartridge paper.

I've done this paint activity before, you can check it out here if you want instructions with pictures.

Welcome Back

Welcome back to school, I just wanted to show something amazing that one of my 5 year olds created last week.

This fantastic Lego aeroplane. 

I put the Lego out as one of our writing activities of the children to explore during a writing session. Lego encourages fine motor skills, problem solving, and creativity, all skills children need for school. We have been very lucky and have been given different Lego bits and pieces, but we are always on the hunt for more!

 

Give a Little For Callum

Callum was in my class last year and is now seriously ill again after defeating cancer as an infant. Please think of Callum and his family.

Cat and Bird Art

 Cat and Bird (1928) Paul Klee

Our amazing Cat and Bird art is up in the office. I was inspired by this post at Rumriver Art Center. We used paint rolled on with a roller, vivid marker, and pastel.

I really enjoy mixed media art projects with children, and Paul Klee is great inspiration. I used Paul Klee's Senecio portrait as a model for some amazing self portraits that I created with my class last year. Thanks to Use Your Coloured Pencils.

Outdoor Week

Check out some of our outdoor week photos. We have been so busy, I was falling asleep straight after dinner! Just like the children.

Staglands....

 Kite making and flying....

Watching the raft race....

Chalk people....

We also dug for treasure, walked to the duckpond and feed the ducks, exploded the air rocket, played on the playground, and made rock art. 

Happy Diwali

Diwali is the Indian Festival of Light and falls between mid October and mid November each year. We celebrated Diwali with lots of exciting activities. 

One of the favourite activities was henna designs with real henna. Henna is a temporary tattoo, and the children enjoyed receiving a small tattoo on their hand. Once the henna dried the children washed it off and a pale brown tattoo remained.

We also had a vegetarian dal curry for the children to sample with basmati rice. Dal curry is made with lentils, and for some children it was the first time they had tried them.

We also dressed up in traditional Indian clothing, created rangoli patterns with coloured salt, and made diya to take home with tea-light candles and plasticine.