Wow, has this year gone fast? We have lots of exciting end-of-year events. We have our Kindy Graduation on 12th December. We also have our Centre Christmas party on the 13th of December. The end of the year also means reports. I will publish them on Xplor, and if you would like a PDF copy, please let me know, and I will email you.
October School Holidays:
This October holiday was full of fun and exciting activities. We started them off with a visit to the SCBC Kindy rooms. The current Kindy children showed off their classrooms to the Kodomo children/ pre-kindy children. The pre-kindy children were so excited and loved the rooms. The Koorlongka children loved showing their work and toys. During these holidays, we were lucky enough to have Lucas G’s dad visit us and teach us how to make pizzas. We learnt to roll and design our pizzas. We also dressed up in the same occupation we wanted to do when we grew up and did many science experiments. What a fun two weeks we had.
Resilience Project: (empathy)
This term, we finished off our final activities for the resilience project. We made mindfulness jars filled with natural resources like leaves, sticks, sand, etc. We use these to show what our minds are like when we are not calm. We shake it up, and the objects swirl everywhere, showing our scattered thoughts. Then we let the bottle sit, and then all the objects settle, and that shows when we slow down, our mind settles. This term, we also learned different breathing techniques to calm our minds. We finished our project with a celebration party with balloons, dancing games, popcorn and a movie.
Bugs (stick insects & ladybugs)
This term, Mrs Angela brought in some pet stick bugs. We were so excited to see them. It was hard at first to count how many we had as they looked so much like sticks. We had to wait until they moved, and then we counted five. We learnt to feed them fresh leaves each day and spray them with a bit of water to drink. We have been watching them grow, and we have three big ones with little wings and two babies. We also got ladybugs. We had them at different stages of their lifecycle. It was exciting to see the ladybugs hatch and crawl around, but sadly, like in the wild, none of them made it to the next stage of the cycle. We watched one of the pupa stage lady bugs turn into an adult lady, and now we only have the adults left to feed fresh flowers to.
Weather Exploration
We have been very interested in the weather this term. This interest continued during our science week, during which we had many weather experiences. We have been doing more experiments on the rain and water cycle. We have also made snow, played with hail and made lightning by rubbing balloons on our heads and holding a metal spoon close to it. We have also dressed our weather panda in different clothes and matched them to the season.
Add and subtract games.
We have had fun playing numeracy games that teach us to add and subtract small numbers. We have used sticks to represent simple equations like 2 + 3 = 5 or 9 – 2 = 7. Using concrete materials like sticks helps the children see the mathematical problem and makes it easier to understand.
RU Ok day
On the 12th of September, we recognised RU OK Day. Today, we talked about showing kindness and looking after our friends when they are sad or upset. We also made cards for our friends and wrote special sentences saying what we love about them. There were some beautiful messages to each other.
Nutritional week:
On the week of the 14th – 18th October, we celebrated Nutritional Week. This week, we talked about healthy and unhealthy food. We learnt that it is ok to have unhealthy food as a treat sometimes, but if we have it every day, it will make us sick and unhealthy and not good for our bodies. We also made some yummy fruit smoothies. The children helped the teachers cut the fruit and add it to the blender with yogurt and milk.
Grandparents and children’s week
We celebrated Grandparents and Children’s Week from the 28th of October to the first of November. Each day this week, we invited our grandparents to visit and play with us in the morning. We had a few visitors who enjoyed playing games with their grandchildren. On Tuesday, 29th October, we had a family picnic in the wild space where the children enjoyed balloons, a petting zoo, a ball pit, outdoor games and food with their grandparents and parents. Thank you to all who came and made it a wonderful afternoon. For children’s week, the children got to choose the special activity they wanted to do for the day. On Monday, they chose Nature play; on Tuesday, they chose board games; on Wednesday and Thursday, they chose Wild space; and to finish off the week, we decorated biscuits to look like our grandparents.
Christmas:
As we get closer to Christmas, the children have enjoyed decorating our room. We put up a Christmas tree, made a nativity scene, decorated felt Christmas trees and did lots and lots of Christmas crafts. We will have a special Christmas activity each day leading up to the centre’s Christmas party. So far, we have done Christmas colour by number, decorated wooden Christmas ornaments, and made Christmas angels and stars. We will be doing some Christmas cooking and making Christmas play dough.
We have had an amazing year in Koorlongka, and we wish all our families a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. To our Kind children, we wish you all the best next year in Pre-primary, and to our pre-kindy children, we look forward to another exciting year with you next year.
Mrs Ralph
Koorlongka (Kindy) Teacher
