This term has been busy, with many fun events and learning opportunities.

Harmony Week

This year, for Harmony Week, we had costumes from different parts of the world and pretend food to role-play with. The children enjoyed dressing up and guessing which country they came from. The children also enjoyed guessing the different pretend foods and sharing if they had had them before. We also did some real cooking from the cultures we are from. We made Biscuits with Gravy from America, Fried Rice from China, Poffergies from Holland, Trifle from the UK and Goody, Goody Gumdrop Ice Cream from New Zealand.

April School Holidays

In these school holidays, we celebrated Easter and learnt about Jesus dying on the cross. The children went on an Easter Egg Hunt and did lots of Easter crafts.
In the holidays we also had a disco day, during which the children loved the lights, disco balls and dancing to the music with their friends. Space Day was a big hit, and we extended our learning into the term based on our interest in this day. To finish off the holidays, we went camping and roasted marshmallows on a real campfire.

Number Recognition, Counting and Subitising

We have had a big learning focus on our numbers, counting and learning to subitise (which is knowing how many without counting). We have looked for numbers in slime. We have played many board games. We made crazy Aliens by rolling dice to see how many of each body part we needed to draw. We played number-matching games by matching the number to the amount of dots. So much fun and different ways to learn our numbers.

Shapes

We have been on a shape discovery this term. We have gone on many shape hunts in the wild space, nature play, and our Koorlongka classroom environment. We have made our own shapes out of different materials and created shape posters by using the photos we have taken and categorised them into different shapes. We have looked at the properties of the shapes like the number of sides and corners etc.

Letter Sounds

We are starting to learn how our letter sounds, starting with SATPIN. We are learning how our mouth and tongue move when making different sounds. We are practising this in the mirror so we can watch it. Some of us are learning to read CVC words by sounding out the letters fast and hearing the words.

Earth Day 22nd April – Our Day Without Plastic

On the 22nd of April, we went without plastic for Earth Day. First, we talked about how plastic takes a long time to break down in our environment when it gets thrown away and that sometimes it can hurt the earth when plastic is made. We then looked at the room and put aside all the things and toys that were made from plastic. There was a lot, so we had to go and find some non-plastic toys to play with for the day. We thought of going to the studio to get some boxes. Then we thought of going to the nature play and collecting some leaves, sticks, mulch, etc. We set up an area inside and used our collected resources to make cars, cubbies, robots, etc. We had an awesome day without plastic.

ANZAC Day

On the 26th of April, we celebrated ANZAC Day. We started the day talking about what we did on ANZAC day with our families. Many of us went to the dawn services and ate ANZAC biscuits. We then read the story ‘My Grandpa Walks in the ANZAC Parade”. This talked about traditions that some families do on this day. We then decided to make some ANZAC biscuits and a wreath out of hand-print poppies, and we collected Rosemary.

Hail Exploration

The children have been exploring the weather, which came from the huge amount of hail that fell outside on Wednesday, 29th June. We did some experiments to see what solution or substance would make the hail last longer and not melt. This lead us to do some experiments on the water cycle, which lead to our learning of water pollution for World Ocean Day.

Resilience Project

This term, we have started a new project called the Resilience Project. It is about teaching the children emotional literacy and learning about their emotions and feelings. The program comes with its own workbooks (we are only using these for the Tuesday group). The program has set intentional teaching goals and exploration activities that the children can explore at their own pace and time. They also can take home Cosy The Koala, which is a teddy they can take photos with and then bring him back on a Tuesday and share what they did. So far, the children have engaged really well with this and love learning and sharing their emotions and experiences where they felt certain emotions. The Resilience Project has shown to be very beneficial to the children. They are learning to name their emotions, how to deal with these big emotions, how to change their mood, and how to be grateful for their friends, family, people, and things around them.

Cooking

This term, we have done lots of cooking, from making pancakes to slime, apple cakes and damper. We have also collected ingredients to try from the Wild Space area, like Rosemary, Mint and Lilly Pillies. We have also collected Pomegranates from the tree in the Koorlongka yard. Next term, we are going to extend this interest further by planting some vegetables for us to grow and learning about farms and where our food comes from.

Mrs Ralph
Teacher Koorlongka Room