We have been growing in numbers in Koorlongka this term. We have welcomed Gwen, Ja’Kyrom, River, Frankie, Blair, Maeve, and Pierce from Kodomo, who have transitioned up, as well as new friends Nico, Emily, and Lenny. They have all settled in well and are enjoying their time with us.
Harmony Week: 17–23 March
The children loved Harmony Week as we learned about five different cultures that we come from. On Monday, we learned about Spain, made chicken and chorizo paella, and learned some Spanish dancing. On Tuesday, we learned about the UK, made Cornish pasties, and played hopscotch. On Wednesday, we learned about South Africa and made some Hertzoggies. On Thursday, we learned about Zimbabwe, made a Zimbabwean lolly cake, and learned about the animals of Africa. Finally, on Friday, we learned about New Zealand culture and made a lolly log cake.
Throughout the week, the children engaged in role play by dressing up in different cultural attire and pretending to cook foods from different countries. We also looked at a world map and matched pictures of different landmarks to the countries they are in.
Purple Day (Epilepsy awareness) 26 March
For purple day many of us dressed up in purple clothing and we did many different purple themed activities. For example, we went on a purple nature hunt in the wild space. We found and collected many purple items like lilly pillies, eggplant, lavender flowers, purple leaves, other purple flowers etc. With these items we put in a large trough and mixed it with purple coloured rice for a fun sensory experience. When we picked the eggplant, we found a cheeky caterpillar in there and learnt how to care for it. On this day we also made some purple cupcakes by adding blueberries and dragon fruit. We also read a story that talked about disabilities and allergies and how we can help support a friend who could have this.
April School Holidays:
The school holidays was a fun, relaxing and exciting time for the children as we celebrated Easter. The children enjoyed many activities like Easter crafts, Easter egg hunt, autumn day, movie day, get into character day, skyrocket incursion, science experiments and a walk around the school. Some of the children’s favourite days was a water day where they could play water games, crack open ice blocks to free the dinosaurs and exploring floating and sinking. The movie day is always a popular day as the children can have a final day to rest and relax before getting back into the school routine.
ANZAC DAY:
For ANZAC Day, we started with a discussion about what we did as a family. Many of us went to a dawn service, where we watched our parents march in the parade. Others had ANZAC biscuits and spent the day doing fun family activities. In Koorlongka, we spent the week reading various stories that talked about ANZAC Day like, ANZAC Ted, My Grandpa on ANZAC Day etc. We also watched and listened to a dawn service and the last post. We made lots of poppies and added to our door where we made put up a reef we made. We also enjoyed making some ANZAC biscuits and ate them for afternoon tea.
Resilience Project: Emotional Literacy
This term we started our resilience project which is a program that helps us learn about our emotions and how to manage them. At the start of the program, we have focused on emotional literacy which looks at naming our emotions and what they look like when we or our friends are expressing this emotion. We have looked at many photos, pictures and even looked at ourselves in the mirror expressing these different emotions and see if we can name them. This program also has a bring home Koala (Cosy) that the children take in turns taking him home and spending the week with the family. At the end of the week the children present the workbook that has photos and stories about what they did with Cosy in that week.
Kiddo Program: Running
Kiddo is our physical literacy program which teaches fundamental movement skills through fun games. This term we have been working on our running skills. The children have been learning how to pump their arms while running, having high knees and making sure they are looking forward where they are going. We have been practising these skills through fun games like traffic lights, remote control, here, there and everywhere, floor is lava etc.
Rhyming and Opposite words
This term in literacy we have been focusing on our rhyming and opposite words. We have enjoyed doing many activities like words puzzle matching, with bee pictures to their hives, clip and match, peg match etc. We have also played dice games and thinking of a rhyming word or an opposite word from the picture we landed on. Our favourite activity to help these skills is reading funny books that contain many rhyming and opposite words like piranhas don’t eat bananas and many Dr Suess books.
Counting, subitising and number recognition skills:
This term in numeracy we have been focusing on our counting skills and shape recognition skills. We have been really enjoying playing many dice games like Snakes and Ladders, Ladybug game and Scaredy Cat. This helps us recognise numbers, practise our subitising skills (knowing how many without counting), and develop counting skills as we move the pieces around the board. Other fun activities that help us practise these skills is our fishing game, playdough counting mats and building towers with blocks and counting how many we have used.
For our shape recognition skills, we have been going on fun shape hunts in nature play and in the wild space. We have been making some funny shape pictures by using shape stamps in paint, tracing around shapes and cutting and glueing with shapes.
Cutting practice
This term, we have been working on our fine motor skills like cutting and threading. We have done many activities that have helped our cutting skills like cutting and creating with playdough, cutting out shapes on paper, cutting out various pictures and cutting along lines to make various puzzles. We have been practising our threading skills by threading beads on a string to make necklaces, threading paper straws on pretend pipe cleaner hair and threading string through the holes in various pictures.
Hospital/Vet:
We have shown a strong interest in the emergency services. We have read many books about their role in our community. Our favourite part is role-playing, where we dress up in their uniforms and acting out our thoughts on what they do. This term, we set up a hospital area where the children pretend to care for each other and for the pretend babies. We have also at times added pretend animals and made it into a vet. There have been occasions where we have pulled out the police costumes and firefighter costumes and had a day or two role-playing arresting speeding cars and putting out fires. Perhaps next term, we could arrange visits from these emergency services.
Stick insects
The children have shown a strong interest in bugs and creepy crawlies. They have spent many times looking under mats, logs, the bark on the trees and rocks to find and catch these bugs. From this interest we decided to get some pet stick insects to care for in the room. We love to go out and collect leaves for them to eat and spray them with water. Many of us also enjoy holding them. We further extended this interest by inviting the “Willy Wagon” to come and show us some other reptiles and insects we could hold. We were shown how to hold them nicely, pat them and even care for them. We were taught what to do if we see them in the wild as some of them are too dangerous to touch in the wild. Finally, we learnt the importance of looking after the outdoor environment by not littering, not using too much water and recycling in order to keep the environment clean and healthy so these animals don’t get hurt or sick.
We have had a fun and busy term and looking forward to another wonderful Term 3.
Mrs Ralph
Kindy Teacher