Term Three is always a very busy time of the year, not only because we are gearing up for the Art Show, which is the Kindy’s biggest day, but also because of the way the children play and learn. They have been here for long enough that they are very comfortable with each other and the environment, they understand their responsibilities, their social skills have developed a great deal and they are ready for extended, rich play in collaboration with others. Our job at this time of the year is to provide interesting provocations and resources, to try and spark more complex thinking and skill development.
Because the children are feeling so confident at Kindy, we have observed many instances of children teaching each other skills. How to climb a knotted rope. How to build a spider out of Duplo that is symmetrical and can move and transform. How to lift a heavy rock by creating a lever using a plank and another rock as a fulcrum. Explaining how to best avoid tidy up time by drawing with chalk a map on the underside of the fort showing the best hiding places around the kindy. The flaw in that plan was doing it while their teacher was watching, but the effort was highly commendable in its detail and presentation. Peer to peer teaching and learning is an incredibly effective way to acquire skills and can sometimes be more effective than learning from a teacher. It has the additional benefit of building the self-esteem and confidence of the child passing on their knowledge and skills, and this is something that we strongly encourage between children.
We are noticing changes in the children’s play since the beginning of the year:
Building projects –
More organized play
More communication
More complex ideas
More co-operation
Greater resilience and perseverance
“Do you want to build a tower together?” (Zoe to Romeo)
“We should add some blocks to the base to give it more support” (Romeo to Zoe)
Also with dramatic play:
More co-operation
Better communication
Play is more cohesive and lasts longer
Reserved children becoming more involved.
We are loving using REAL hammers and nails to have a go at woodwork. Working with real tools builds:
responsibility for self and others
mathematical understandings – measurement, comparison
Co-ordination
Problem solving
Resilience.
We have been selecting books for group story time that feature characters experiencing a range of emotions. As we read the story together, we stop to notice facial expressions on the characters – what are they feeling now? Why might they be feeling sad right now? These are questions that we ask the children during story time. The ability to recognise and label feelings is a key social skill. Being able to read how another person is feeling and respond appropriately enables getting along with others. Being able to identity our own feelings enables us to understand what makes us happy, sad or anxious, and helps us, over time, to learn to regulate our emotions. The Kindy children have shown great interest in analysing and discussing the expressions and feelings of book characters and have shared sometimes surprisingly insightful reasoning. So that’s emotional literacy – in terms of language literacy the children are loving playing rhyming games and making up spontaneous rhymes throughout the day. Rhyming is a key element of early literacy development - rhymes teach children that words are composed of consistent sounds that can be played with to make other words - some real and some silly! And the silly is the fun part.
Of interest to families may be the information I brought back from a professional networking meeting at one of our local schools. The prep teachers were keen to share with us what they would very much like children to be able to do by the time they start prep. I think that it is a most reassuring and realistic list.
1. Independence. To be able to go to the toilet by themselves and dress themselves. To be able to clear up after themselves, for example once they have finished an activity.
2. Social and emotional skills. To be able to interact positively with others, to share and take turns. To be able to cope with typical disappointments and frustrations without often having meltdowns.
3. To be able to recognize their own name. Being able to write their own name is a bonus but not essential, as this is easy to teach once the previous skills are in place.
4. To be able to hold a pencil and use scissors effectively.
These are skills that we support every day through play, and it was great to hear from the school how much they value the work that we do, in collaboration with families, to nurture confident, independent and inquisitive children.
Art Show
Every day we are talking about the Art Show. “This is for the Art Show” friends will say as they thoughtfully and proudly offer us their paintings, drawings and other creations. We have had so many offerings that we could fill the kindy walls two times over! We have seen a great change since the beginning of the year when it was very hard for us to “borrow” any artwork for the Art Show (as it all HAD to go home). Again, this shows that our children are becoming more resilient and that their horizons are broadening.
In brief……
We have begun learning to use real hammers, nail and wood. We have two rules: the hammers stay down low and they do not go”. They have approached woodwork with seriousness and responsibility and we look forward to supporting this useful and rewarding skill to develop.
We have added some more words or phrases to our repertoire of Yugerabul language including “birpi” meaning “small” and “kurumba” meaning “big”.
Now that it’s August we have started celebrating all the 5th birthdays and have had to put another candle on the sand cake. How big we are getting!
We have experimented with dropping coloured vinegar onto bicarb, to explore cause and effect and to learn some scientific thinking and language.
Thank you to:
Lydia. Today we said farewell as she moves on to another work adventure. We have enjoyed so much her friendship and support as our Administrator over the past six years and we will miss her very much. We are looking forward to working with our new Administrator, Jill, and feel confident that she will quickly become a valuable and happy part of our team.
Our committee for your generous gift to the team of a night out to celebrate the end of A&R. Hopefully the result due in a few week’s time will be worth celebrating and we can enjoy dinner together and truly relax. We’re almost there, thanks to all!!!
