What a wonderful start to the new year we have had. Throughout January we started transitions with the Kindy Koorlongka children moving to pre-primary and to Minasan. Kodomo children had settling visits into Koorlongka, we had some children moving into Koorlongka from Pikanini two and we had 10 new children to the centre.
School Holidays:
We started the year with the January school holidays, so we do a fun themed day. The popular days was tools day, shopping day, water play day, messy play and science day. This gave the children opportunities to get to know the new room and experience lots of fun and excitement.
News:
To get to know the new children better we encouraged them to bring in something special from home that means something to them or something they are interested in. We had children bringing in cars, motorbikes, space books, rocks, dolls etc. Many of the children brought in news and confidently stood up in front of the class to share about their news. This developed their confidence in speaking and listening to others. We also learnt about questioning.
First day in Kindy/ Koorlongka:
The start of Kindy is a big transition in a child’s life. They are starting a new school part time, part time in a new room (Koorlongka) at childcare and some even start in Minasan (before and after school care). In Koorlongka, we try to ease the anxiety by asking them to reflect on their first day at kindy or Koorlongka. Ask them to draw a picture of a moment and the teachers would write about it. We also ask them to reflect on how they felt throughout the day. The children enjoyed this process and felt calm in their reflections.
Transition people:
Another activity we do to ease the transition is everyone decorates a paper person with their face on it. This year I updated the photos on the Koorlongka room and the SCBC Kindy room. The children then drew pictures of their houses on the other two rooms.
The children then move their paper person to the room that they will be in for the day. This also allows children to see where their friends that they made last year in Kodomo are for the day. As some may be in Koorlongka, some may be at school, and some may be at home for the day. This process helped ease the anxiety of where they are in the day, which friends will be with them and where their other friends are.
Measuring:
Measuring each other using tape measures, using tools and comparing their heights, interest came from the tools day we had in the holidays. Children also started building towers with blocks and seeing if they could build it as tall as their friends. From here we set up a construction dramatic play area and measuring exploration table. Here the children could use tape measures, repeated pattern ribbons, rulers, blocks etc to measure things around the room. The children showed a great interest in measuring each other’s heights, so we created a height chart.
Syllables:
Syllables is a skill we start to teach every year. This year the children used stickees on a discovery table to help practise this skill on their own. They would choose a stickee, tap out the syllables and then place it on the correct number/picture prompt. The children loved the stickees and talked about what their favourite fruit or vegetable was. We also used the Diana rigg syllable time resources to teach the children the skill at mat times.
Chinese New Year:
This year is the year of the dragon. We talked about how the Chinese people believe that the colour red and gold gives you good luck and how they use lanterns in their new years’ celebration. We practised our cutting skills as we made red lanterns with gold paint.
Writing and recognising the letters in our name:
This year we have focused a lot on writing the pre-writing shapes and starting to trace and write the letters in our name. We have done this in many ways like writing on whiteboard tables, whiteboard sheets, in sand, with playdough, magic writing with white crayons and water paint, in the air with dancing ribbons. We also did lots of different activities with finding and ordering the letters in our name. Like finding the right letters on pegs, the right lettered blocks, cutting out letters and glueing them in the right order.
Water day:
We celebrated national sea week on the 2nd-10th March. We learnt about and named all the sea creatures we knew. We explored these through role play. We learnt about water pollution and how it is affecting the water ways and the sea creatures. We also discussed what we can do to prevent water pollution. We learnt we must put our rubbish in the bin and if we see rubbish around on beaches, parks, playgrounds etc we can pick it up, put it in the bin and wash our hands. Mrs Ralph showed us how rubbish and oil in the water can hurt the sea creatures. We set up a trough full of water and sea creatures. We then added rubbish into the water and saw how the creatures got stuck in the bags and couldn’t breathe. We also saw that the creatures got covered in oil and this made them sick. We each got a turn at saving the creatures from the rubbish and clean off the oil.
Mrs Ralph
Koorlongka (Kindy) Teacher
