“PLAY FOR LIFE”
“Bodies, Balls and Brains”
We have begun our Wednesday gross motor programme with ‘Play 4 Life’.
We have been having great fun participating in activities and games, as well as dance and music and movement activities.
Practising these skills helps with our listening and processing, along with developing strength, balance, movement and the correct use of equipment.
Wednesday is our favourite day of the week! 
MORNING STATIONS
This term our morning stations have a MATH focus.
Most of us are adept at finding our group and starting our activities as soon as we have put our name up.
We have tried…
Threading beads of varying colours, sizes and shapes.
Some clever kids even threaded according to a pattern they made!
Playing Dominoes, matching the number of spots.
Finding the shapes to match the Geo Shape block patterns.
Making towers of Unifix cubes to match the numbers on the mats.
Stacking Donuts to match the number tiles.
It’s a good idea to CHECK and recount your stack to be sure it is correct.
How many ways can you show a number?
We line up all the ways to match the numbers 1-10.
Using coloured pop sticks to copy the pattern cards- trickier for us than you might think!
Roll the dice and place that many marbles in the dish- can you fill it to the top?
Count the pictures and decide how many, then choose which is the correct numeral and clip a peg onto that numeral.
Read the number and place that many stickers along that line to make a stairway.
Playing Dominoes by matching the numerals.
Most days we also practise ordering numerals 1-10 in a number line.
We try to remember to use words like “…move in between…” or “…goes after…” or “…is more than…”
to move incorrect numbers to the correct place.
We always have to read and CHECK that we have the numbers in the correct order.
Then we have to find answers to tricky questions like “Which number is between 5 & 7?”, “Which number is one more than 8?”, “Which number is one smaller than 3?” , “Which number comes after 7?”.
19th July 2017
Dear Families,
Welcome back for more fun and learning in Kindy!
Please take the time to read through our programme information for this term and mark in the important dates and events into your calendars.
During St Emilie’s week we read all about St Emilie to learn some special things about her life and how she looked after others who had little by way of food, education or medical care. She dedicated her life to the service of others, that they may gain strength and experience God’s message of love.
We read our school prayer and viewed both the statue outside the church of St Emilie and the stained glass window inside the church.
We met up with our Year Three Buddies to chat and share the colouring of beautiful Mandela designs.
St Emilie would have been proud of the way our buddies were so kind and nurturing of us and our efforts to colour inside the lines!
Thank you St Emilie for showing us the way to care about and share with others.
Thank you God for our wonderful buddies who are so generous to share their friendship with us!
FINE MOTOR STATIONS
This term we have been using FINE MOTOR STATIONS on arrival at Kindy each day to strengthen our finger and hand muscles.
We have really enjoyed trying different equipment, materials and procedures each morning .
It has helped with our organisational skills as we have had to learn the three clues that show us which station we are on each day:
1. Check for the Australian Animal mascot for my group over the term.
2. Check for my name on my group for the term.
3. Check for the people I work with at stations every day this term.
Usually who ever arrives first in the morning is able to demonstrate to the others in the group how to follow the tasks.
These stations really test our perseverance and concentration as we repeat the tasks or practise what we are trying to teach our brains and our hands and fingers a number of times each session.
It also helps us to slow down to be able to carry out a task well.
For example, you can’t put tea leaves into miniature tea sets with tiny teaspoons accurately if you let your hands rush and pour the leaves on top as if you were using a shovel!
Slow and steady wins the race!
Practise makes perfect!
Mother’s Day Pamper Morning
Thank you to all our lovely Mums and Grandmas for coming along to our Pamper morning last week for Mother’s Day.
The Kindy children were thrilled to have you at school as their special visitors.
Nail painting was especially popular, as was the jewelry making. Some beautiful, sparkly crowns fit for a queen were made at the play dough table and Mum’s actually put paint on their children’s hands on purpose !…to make a handprint keepsake that is!
We had a lovely sunny day to enjoy the sandpit, driving in the cars and other fun outdoor pursuits.
We love you so much Mums and Grandmas and we hope you felt very special on your pamper day!
OPEN NIGHT
Thank you to all Families who were able to come along and share in the children’s learning over Term One.
The children were beaming as they “Taught” their family members all about different aspects and particulars of the classroom displays.
At long last our families had the chance to meet Freda the frill necked lizard.
Many of our visitors had heard of Freda and had actually thought she was a real lizard, such was her fame!
But alas, she is our Science mascot for this term’s topic “The Sun Changes Everything”.
We made Observational Drawings of Freda. She posed for us as we looked very carefully at her to capture her characteristics with black pen and water colour paints.
THE SUN CHANGES EVERYTHING!
As families moved into the wet area they enjoyed reading about our Science experiments!
We had filled a Solar Shower with cold water, placed it in the sunshine for a day and hey presto- the water was hot at the end of the day!
Our families had helped with one of our experiments- they added water to a container holding some dye, put it in their freeze, then brought it to Kindy.
We stacked the large ice blocks on top of each other to create an ice berg!
We had set it up outside in the sunshine and watched throughout the day to see what changes would occur.
The ice slowly melted away due to the power of the sun to leave teeny tiny ice blocks by the end of the day!
We all know what happens to chocolate if we hold it too long in our fingers- ooey gooey!
We broke up a chocolate bar , placed some on three plates, then put one plate outside in the sun, one in the shade and one inside to see what would happen.
We found the chocolate in the sunshine melted really quickly, while the chocolate in the sun did not. The chocolate we left inside did not melt at all!
The energy of the sun strikes again!
Did you know that you can put Solar Lights outside in the sunshine for the day and the sun’s energy will power up the cells to make the lights work when it is dark?
We tried it- how awesome!
Before leaving our Science display families were able to look at pictures of our Kanyana Wildlife Rescue incursion.
We were so lucky to touch and find out about animals from the Reptile family, which we had been finding out about!
We also met a Tawny Frogmouth and 24 year old Elle the Echidna! She was so cute, using her long tongue to eat her food and then sniffing our shoes with her long snout!
We brought in photos of ourselves as babies and then drew and painted pictures of ourselves now that we are big KIndy kids.
We have changed so much and have learned so many things!
We even tried writing our names too!
Did you know that God made all of us, even our Teachers and He knew our names before we were even born?
We have been learning about Jesus’ life from when the angel Gabrielle told Mary she would have a baby and His name would be Jesus, to His resurrection on Easter Sunday.
We have a big map that shows where He was born and all the places He travelled to teach people about God’s love over His life.
Our families also found out about the Maths activities we have been practising at Kindy.
We have been making and counting collections, reading numerals, sorting materials according to various attributes, subitising with dice and cards and learning number through nursery rhymes!
Whew, we have been busy!
Thanks again for sharing all this learning with us!
See you next time!
Phew! There’s so much to do in Kindy Blue!
We have had a busy, happy, teary, smiley, giggly, fun start to our Kindy year!
We have been busy finding out about each other and sharing lots of things about ourselves too.
Thanks to our families who helped us bring our baby photos to school for our Guess The Baby session!
We tried to guess which of us matched the baby photos and then we would tell everyone something about ourselves.
How amazing that God knew us before we were even born! He gave us our Mums and Dads and He is so happy to see us enjoy our days at Kindy now!
We have been thinking about how much we have grown since we were babies and how much we can now do now that we couldn’t do before.
Things like holding drawing tools well to be able to draw on wooden stencils that we think look like us…
…then we put all of our stencils together to make a model that shows all of us learning and playing together at St Emilies school!
We can draw and paint pictures of ourselves too. It might look easy but you need to look carefully at yourself in the mirror and try to draw what you see on the paper…there’s lots of information to think about. Then you have to learn how to use water colour paints and brushes to bring the drawings to life. It all takes lots of good listening, watching, thinking and concentration and SUPER BRAINPOWER!
We have also been learning how to get on with others, practising friendly talking and behaviour with other children, how to look, listen and think at mat time and activity times, how to be patient and wait our turn and how to do things for ourselves.
We are learning to be a member of our class, the Kindy year group, our Early Childhood block and our school.
It takes a long time to grow a St Emilies’ child but we’ve set out on the right foot!
It makes our hearts grow when we can help others to do a job…
…or we take the hand of someone who is feeling alone and put a smile on both of our faces!
Thank you to all families who came along on Wednesday evening to our Information Evening for 2017.
Your attendance was greatly valued and we hope you received some positive messages from our leadership team and class teachers, to assist you in helping your child/ren have a successful and happy year ahead.
Please take some time to read through our Information Booklet.
