What an exciting and busy term we have had. Full of special events.

School Holidays:

The July school holidays were full of fun, interesting activities based on the children’s ideas and interests. We had a day discovering the weather and winter. Fun adventures outside, going on treasure hunts, exploring in the garden and learning about the animals that visited Minasan. We had our forever popular movie day, superhero day and art and craft days.

Kiddo Program: Throwing

Kiddo is our physical literacy program, which teaches fundamental movement skills through fun games. This term, we have been working on our throwing skills. We have been teaching them overarm throws and using the ques: Stand like a surfer (side on), Aim by making a muscle man arm, point non-throwing arm at target and fire. The children love the fire moment. Next term, we will learn kicking.

Measurement: Weighing

This term, we have explored measurement in terms of weight. We set up a weighing exploration table with comparison scales and measurement scales (numbered). The children then assisted the educators in gathering a collection of items to weigh on our scales. It was wonderful to see the learning developing in this space as the children discovered the difference in weight as the scales moved. They were also fascinated by reading the numbers on the measurement scale as the needle moved to a bigger number every time they added more to it.

Resilience Project: Empathy

This term for our resilience project, we have learnt about empathy. This has been a tricky concept for the children to understand so we have explored it further and extended it. We have been looking at stories (a favourite one is sharing a shell), pointing it out when we see it, and teachers have been modelling empathy. This has helped the children gain a better understanding. Cosy the koala visits have been well-loved, and thank you to all the parents who have filled out the book and taken photos with Cosy. It has been wonderful hearing all the stories from home.

Patterns

We have been exploring patterns this term. The children have loved making bracelets and necklaces with the beads, making some simple and even exploring more complex patterns. The children also transfer their understanding of patterns into the construction area and make patterns with the coloured blocks. We also explored what patterns we can see in nature and looked at the wonderful patterns God has made in the flowers, trees and leaves.

Shapes

The children love the outdoors, and we have gone on many shape hunts in different outdoor environments. We have learnt about the properties of the shapes like the amount of sides, corners, length of sides, etc that distinguish one shape from another. The children have loved recreating the shapes they are learning about from different recycled materials. We have also incorporated tracing and stamping with shapes in our art and craft.

Number recognition

We have been playing lots of fun games and activities in Koorlongka to help with our number recognition. Catching fish with varying numbers of dots on them and matching them to the right numbered fishing bucket has been a popular game, as well as the ice-cream cone to ice-cream scoop match. Children also created a fun superhero number match game.

Positional language

We have started learning about positional language through a fun game of Timmy’s clues. This is where Timmy the teddy poses a question like, What is my favourite colour? And the children have to look around the room for four paw prints, which are either on top, next to, behind, etc, a clue that helps answer the question. The children get so excited each day to find these clues. We have also incorporated this language into a follow-the-leader game and treasure hunts that we like to do.

Dental Week

Dental week was full of learning and exploration. We focused on how to take care of our teeth and what could happen if you don’t brush them. Our eggy experiment was an eye opener for our children. It looked at what different drinks and foods do to our teeth if we don’t brush. Some drinks and food, like juice and lollies eat away at our teeth causing holes and others, like coke and coffee stain our teeth. We learnt the right way to brush our teeth and to brush them twice a day.

Science Week

The Koorlongka children loved our science week. We had a different theme each day of the experiments. The children were full of questions, excitement, wonder and surprise as we explored colours, space, different textures, weather and sinking and floating. The children developed their observational skills and descriptive language.

Book Week

What a wonderful world of literature we dived into for book week. Thank you to everyone who dressed up in their favourite book characters; you all looked awesome. It was wonderful reading and sharing favourite story books from home. The children loved acting out popular stories like We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Wombat Stew and The Graffalo.

Cooking experiences

We have had lots of fun cooking experiences this term. We have explored healthy eating by making pizzas and loading them up with lots of vegetables. Making fruit smoothies and exploring the wonderful fruits God has made. We have also explored the yummy sometimes foods like cupcakes, pancakes, cakes and chocolate truffles. The children were encouraged to weigh out, measure, chop, mix and roll the ingredients. They learnt to read a recipe and learn the importance of following it. They helped source the ingredients from the garden and kitchen. The best bit, as always, is eating what we make, and it always tastes better when you make it yourself.

Mrs. Ralph

Koorlongka Kindy Teacher