A Busy Week

Wow, last week was extremely busy. It's only now that I have had the time to sit down to write a post.

On Tuesday all of J-Block walked to Harcourt Park, we had a great time in the paddling pool and playing on the amazing playground. Thanks to all the parents who came along to help us out. Activities like this wouldn't be possible without parental support.

On Wednesday we celebrated Chinese New Year for Discovery. The best part was our dragon parade around the school. We made heaps of noise with our musical instruments and lots of children watched us out their windows and doorways.

On Thursday we had the 'Soaky' Olympics, the whole school split in to small groups, the big kids were able to look after my little guys and they all went round 6 different water activities. My favourite was the slip and slide, but we also had funny relay races, bucket and sponge races, and 'duck, duck, splash'.  

Now that we have experienced all of these fantastic activities, all we have to do is write about them!

Space Discovery 2013

 Our space discovery session was lots of fun, and I was very pleased to see some new Mountaineers (our pre-school visitors) start their visits today. 

There is a huge amount to learn about space and unfortunately one discovery session is not enough to learn about all of it. 

So today we just discovered about a small part of space. Here are a few of our favourite activities.

We could blast off to outer space in colourful shape rockets. 

 The children wrote each letter of their name on a square. This clever child wrote his surname too!

 Once you reach the moon you can collect moon rocks or meteorites. 

 (Our meteorites are really river rocks covered in silver paint and plenty of glitter.)

 These toilet roll rockets have flames shooting out the bottom just like real rockets.

 Some children enjoyed sitting on a cushion to read our special space library books. 

We also enjoyed watching video clips on You Tube. Here are a couple of favourites:

(I love this song!)

What a Racket!

For Discovery this morning we explored sound. Here are a few photos of us experimenting with different materials to create sounds. 

 

 

 (You can see what my favourite sweet treats are at the moment.)

The Capital E Arts Festival

Look at what came to take us into Wellington ....

A red double-decker bus, we were super lucky and got to sit on the top deck all the way into town. 

When we arrived we were off to see The Man the Sea Saw by Wolfe Bowart in The Opera House.

Then a quick morning tea in the Wellington sun ....

 .... and we were off to a showing of Like It or Loop It with Adam Page, the kids were standing up and dancing in front of their seats.

After lunch we headed to Reading Cinemas to see Mini-Sized Square Eyes, a collection of funny short films aimed at children. The children were even spontaneously clapping at the end of some of the films!

Here are some of the short films we saw that I managed to hunt down on You Tube.

Ormie the Pig

Dot

 Gulp

On the way home I counted 4 children asleep on the bus and many more drooping heads, they were worn out after a fantastic day of shows.

If you ever get the opportunity to see these shows or others at the Capital E Arts Festival I would take it, they are amazing and very entertaining.

St Patrick's Day Discovery

Our local kindy came to visit us for our Discovery session today. We tried to wear green (and so did they) while we were discovering about St Patrick's Day.

The children had a great time catching up with their kindy friends and teachers, and I loved seeing some of the new faces that will be joining us at school soon.

We were busy....

  .... making leprechaun spoon puppets ....

.... playing 'pot of gold' bean bag toss ....

.... colouring and cutting a silly shamrock person ....

....  and playing with green playdough.

We liked digging for gold coins in green goo ....

 

.... and waving magic shamrock wands ....

.... then drumming our own version of Irish music ....

....  and making a fort ....

.... gluing a paper rainbow ....

.... and lastly stamping a St Patrick's Day card with our fingers.

But the favourite part of most children's morning was eating morning tea together and playing on the playground with their friends.

Did you know?

• St Patrick died on March 17 in the year 461. He is a hero in Ireland.
• Wearing green and eating green food helps celebrate St Patrick's use of a green shamrock.
• Some places have parades to celebrate St Patrick's day.
• A leprechaun is a type of fairy that wears a green coat, has a red beard and gets up to mischief.
• Leprechauns make shoes when they are not playing practical jokes.
• Leprechauns have a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. One gold coin for every year of their life.
• St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland.

More Great You Tube Songs

We have been singing and dancing to these songs this week.

This counting back from 20 song is my favourite. (I especially love watching my class dance during the middle of the song.)

And counting forwards to 50 is great fun too.

There also some catchy phonic and sight word songs.

Our Favourite You Tube Songs

These are some of the You Tube clips that we have been enjoying lately.

  This is my personal favourite!

 

Mad Scientists

 Clipart from www.computerclipart.com

For Discovery today our Mountaineers turned into mad scientists and spent the session experimenting.

Floating and sinking oranges, We discovered that unpeeled oranges float better than peeled ones.

Heat reactions with popcorn, we discovered that heat makes the popcorn kernels explode into popcorn. One boy said "It's like a popcorn volcano". (We used polystyrene cups decorated with crayons to hold our popcorn.)

Musical jars, we discovered that different levels of water in the jar made different musical sounds.

Oil and water mixing, We discovered that the oil always floated to the top even after lots of shaking.

Fizzy lemonade, we discovered that when you added a little baking soda to the lemonade it fizzed. Just like lemonade you buy in the shop.

We have talked a lot about acting with integrity. I have been encouraging my class to think for themselves and do the right thing even if it is hard. So it was great to see children taking responsibility for their own learning during our Discovery session. They were making sure they went to each experiment to discover something special about it, just like a real scientist. I really enjoyed talking with children about what they had found out and hopefully they can go home and talk about their discoveries with Mum and Dad too. 

Music Makers

Now I'm the first to say that music is not my strength. I definitely can't hold a note, sing, or even play a musical instrument, but I had a great time planning and facilitating our 'Music Makers' Discovery session for our Mountaineers (Mountaineers are our four-year-old pre-school visitors).

(Don't worry if your child loves music and singing. I am great at playing CD's and using You Tube, and I love teaching new finger-play songs!)

Here we are making our own musical instruments; guitars, drums, and anything else we were inspired to make. We also wrote certificates for our friends to give to them for making such wonderful musical instruments, thanks Sparklebox.

We sold concert tickets and dressed up to perform a concert for our friends.

 

.We filled the little containers from the inside of 

Kinder Surprise eggs with different things. We loved listening to the sounds they made. (A big thank you to my two boys at home for eating all of those eggs for me!)

 We used these cards from Sparklebox to practice our handwriting on the mini-whiteboards.

We cut and sorted different types of musical instruments and glued them onto paper.

We used this website to explore music and different instruments on the interactive whiteboards.

We also had a great and extremely loud time playing lots of different musical instruments and exploring the different sounds they make.

This week we have been working on looking after property. Our musical instruments and the special things we have out for Discovery need to be used carefully. I was impressed to see children trying hard to use our equipment carefully and putting it away when they were finished. The ability to have gentle hands and look after things that we use at school also extends to looking after and using our gentle hands with our friends, this is very important and sometimes difficult for some children just starting school. (Something we are still working on is looking after property by tidying up at clean-up time - there is always a mess around the art and craft activities.)

I love to include our dress-up box during our Discovery session for several reasons:

• Children can practice opening and closing zips, buttons, velcro, and laces.
• They have an opportunity to take clothes on and off, practicing one leg before the other and turning clothes the correct way out so they are ready to wear.
• Dressing up allows children to have the opportunity to mimic in a safe environment things they have seen in real life.
• Children use their imagination by inventing multiple uses for different dress-up costumes.
• Children learn responsibility by returning the dress-ups to the correct place for others to use.
• Waiting for a turn at wearing a particular costume allows children to practice sharing and turn-taking - something very important for school children.
• Acting is also a great way for children to channel their emotions in a healthy and harmless manner.