We have had a super busy, full of learning and discovery term in Koorlongka.
Literacy space
All the children in Koorlongka have shown a big interest in writing in all forms. Through this interest, we set up a literacy space where we have created a word wall with the children. This is full of words that interest them. Children have been using the whiteboard table, their own writing books and on the iPad to practise their writing. We even used white crayons to write secret messages to each other for friendship day. The friend we were writing to went over the crayon with coloured water paint to reveal the message. The children enjoyed this so much that we did the same process for some of our word wall words. The children could also use this space to practise their letter sounds and work on identifying the initial sound in words. Some of them are extending themselves by trying to sound out the CVC words on our word wall.
World environment and ocean day: (fish aquarium)
We celebrated World Environment and World Ocean Day by dressing in blue. We used this day to talk about water pollution and how it affects sea life. We filled up our blue trough with water and added our favourite sea creatures into the water. We then talked about what and how rubbish and pollution can enter the water. We added these to our water and watched how the oil covered the sea creatures and made them dirty and watched how the plastic bags trapped the sea creatures. We then talked about ways we can help by putting our rubbish in the bin. We loved this experience so much that we made our own aquarium and added some robotic fish named Mango and Pauline. We enjoyed taking care of them and looking after their environment by cleaning it.
Shapes
This term, we have been learning all about 2D shapes. Our children have been going on shape hunts, where they point out and take photos of all the shapes in our environment. We enjoyed sorting all our shape photos into posters and discovered we have lots of circles and rectangles in our environment. We also build upon our learning of the properties of shapes i.e. the amount of sides they have and their names by creating shapes out of different resources and materials.
School Holidays: (camping, Pj day, role play, bugs)
We had a fun and enjoyable July school holidays. The favourite days this time were the camping day, even if it was raining, our ever-favourite PJ and movie day, which we enjoyed two more times as we celebrated National PJ Day, dressing up as our favourite book character and what we wanted to be when we grew up and finally our bug day. The children are really excited to find bugs in our outdoor environment and care for them.
Dental week
Our children were so engaged in the dental week and learned a lot. We loved hearing the stories of the children talking about looking after their teeth and brushing them to get rid of the plaque monsters. Colgate had created this wonderful superhero cartoon, which the children loved, which talked about the importance of brushing and flossing your teeth. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxvDny_OwE0) We also set up teeth brushing and flossing discovery tables for the children to practise their skills. The highlight was definitely our eggy tooth experiment. We placed eggs into five different liquids and watched how these liquids affected the eggshells (like our teeth) over the week. We discovered that juice and vinegar (soft drink and lollies makes acid, i.e., vinegar) eat away at your teeth, and cordial and coffee stain your teeth.
Scales
We have been learning about opposites this term, and one of the main opposites was heavy and light. Our children have been loving exploring the different scales (comparison and weight). They have been practising their prediction skills by first guessing which object is heavier and then testing it using comparative scales.
Space
We have been going on a journey through space this term. We have been fascinated by the planets, stars, comets, etc. We have created shape rocketships, crazy aliens, planets and stars. We have been really enjoying singing along to the funny story bots space songs. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb2ZXRh74WU)
Science week
We celebrated science week in style by having a different theme everyday. Monday, we did space experiments where we discovered balloon rocketships and a bicarb and vinegar rocketship. Tuesday was weather experiments where we learnt about the water cycle, lightning, and rainbows. Wednesday was opposites where we investigated heavy and light, floating and sinking, tall and short, hot, and cold, etc. Thursday was a colour day, where we did the magic milk experiment, red cabbage pH indicator and painted a colour wheel. Finally, we got messy on Friday by exploring different mixtures like oobleck, snow, kinetic sand, etc. We have continued these fun experiments and more throughout the term.
Book Week
Finally, we end our term with a fun book week. It was wonderful seeing the children dress up each day as their favourite book characters. They brought in their favourite books, which the educators read all day and week long. Us educators could not help but join in the fun. What a great week we had diving into literature.
Mrs Ralph
Kindy Teacher-Childcare
