15 of March
Gas Station Play
This week children have been demonstrating an interest in the
cars and bikes while playing outside. Building off the children’s
interests we included a gas pump with the cars. The children,
used the combination of the gas pump, cars and bikes as a
stimulus to create a gas station. The children worked together to
create a gas station, thinking about what they have seen in gas
stations- a cash register, money, credit cards, fridges with food
and drinks, and people to drive cars through and work in the gas
station.
Through this dramatic play children engaged in social skills, working
together, listening to each other, taking turns with using the cash register,
and cars. As well as practicing and refining their fine and gross motor
skills through manipulating the cars and bikes, working together to carry
the fridge down to the bottom of the garden where the station was set up,
and using their fine motor skills though handing the plastic money and
the keys of the cash register.
How does this play contribute
to children’s development and
learning?
Developing Children’s Sense
of Identity
•
Children were taking
initiative, asking questions
about where to find things
and what to included.
•
Through dramatic play the
children were able to explore
different points of view –
How the driver felt who did
not have money for petrol.
Engaging Children as Confident and
Involved Learners
•Children were expressing wonder and
interest in their environment.
•The children were able to follow and extend
their own interests with enthusiasm, energy
and concentration- the play was sustained,
and children activity shared ideas on how to
further develop the gas station, by adding
new items to it that they deemed necessary.
Encouraging
children's
connections and
contributions to their
world
• The children listened to
and respected each others
different ways of engaging
in play.
•The children were able to
express their opinions on
what they wanted to be
included in the play- one
child wanted to include
credit cards for the
costumers so when we
went inside she drew,
glued and cut credit cards
for the other children to
use for their play.
•The children were able to
cooperate with each other
and negotiate roles and
relationships in their playwho were going to be the
drivers, and the cashiers.
Creating an Obstacle Course
To day the children created an obstacle course. We focused on the
process of creating the course and working together, listening to
each other and acting upon others and their own ideas. Not only
did the obstacle course practice children’s gross motor skills but
it gave meaningful context for children to engage in problem
solving.
How can we make this safe ?
We can put the
mats on the wall
and the floor
How can you carry the climbing
equipment down to the obstacle
course ?
I have strong
muscles see !
How can we make all the
climbing material fit in one area?
Luka move the red
one there…Yes, that
fits well like that…
Watch me Jump
17th of March
The children also came up with
rules to follow to ensure that they
would not hurt them self's,
because they created these rules
they felt they had ownership over
them. Thus allowing children to
actively contribute to their
learning environment.
How does this play
contribute to children’s
development and learning?
Outcome 1: Children have a
strong sense of identity
Children feel safe secure and
supported-respond to ideas and
suggestions of others
Children develop their emering
autonomy, inter-dependence, resilience
and sense of agency-persist when faced
with challenges and when fist attempts are
not successful
Children learn to interact in relation to
toher with care, empathy and respect reflect on their own actions and consider
consequences for others.
Next week the
children will be
given the option
to take the
obstacle course
outside and add
more materials to
it.
Children become strong in their social,
emotional and spiritual wellbeing
• demonstrate trust and confidence
• increasingly cooperate and work
collaboratively with others
• assert their capabilities and
independence while demonstrating
increasing
awareness of the needs and rights of
others
Children take increasing responsibility for
their own health and physical wellbeing
• engage in increasingly complex sensorymotor skills and movement patterns
• combine gross and fine motor movement
and balance to achieve increasingly
complex patterns of activity, including
dance, creative movement and drama
• demonstrate spatial awareness and
orient themselves, moving around and
through their environments confidently
and safely
• show enthusiasm for participating in
physical play and negotiate play spaces to
ensure the safety and wellbeing of
themselves and others.
17th of March
Respecting Friends
Today we focused on respecting others, and listening to
other. We started with a discussion on how we like our
friends to treat us, and how we don’t like to be treated,
as well as what we can do when some one dose
something we do not like. The children decided that we
must be gentle with each other when playing, we need
to respect other work, and listen to others when asked
to ‘Stop’.
This discussion was aimed to help promote children’s
social emotional skills, and arm children with ways to
independtly attempt to resolve possible conflicts.
Moreover this was futhur develop when we all sat down
and play board games which the children each choose,
listened to the instructions and waited very patiently for
their turn.
First its Aliah’s turn then
Luka then it’s my go
How does this play contribute to
children’s development and
learning?
17th of March
Helping Out a Friend
My light is
broken. I
need help.
I can do it
for you.
I'm good
at fixing
things
Luka found his head light
had broken off and he was
unsure how to reattach it.
As I walked over to show
him Will rushed in and
appeared happy to show
Luka how to reattach the
light.
Will showed empathy
for Luka today when
he noticed that Luka
was frustrated at not
being able to fix the
light. Will as he
attempted to fix the
light also attempted to
explain to Luka how
to fix it.
17th of March
Dinosaur Family Play
The children found a small dinosaur outside today which
sparked their interest in dinosaurs. Therefore a box of
dinosaurs was brought out for the children to use. They
decided to use sheared paper and arrange them on a
table. After arranging the dinosaurs on the table, the boys
started to engage in dramatic play with the dinosaurs.
Specifically playing families with them, the father, son and
baby.
You talk to my
baby sister to
make her
happy
Hi hi
Thanks bro
you’re the
best
Ok we have to save the
others son
18th of March
The Who’s Who of the Dinosaur World:
Herbivores, Omnivores, and Carnivores
Dinosaurs
•
Today we extended the dinosaur play by putting a mat
down with shredded paper, and using the interactive
whiteboard to classify the different dinosaurs that we had.
We discussed which dinosaurs were herbivores,
omnivores and carnivores. We also found a lizard in with
the dinosaurs, and talked about reptiles being cold
blooded animals.
10 meters is close
to 20 of my big big
steeps. Form the
wall to the end of
the lockers
We discovered that a
triseratops was 10 meters
long. We roughly measured
10 meters of the classroom
to see how long it look.
Weekly Reflection
week starting: 15th of March 2010
Week 1
Outside Play
Through out the week the gas station has been a popular feature of play
while out-side.
Next Weeks Extensions: Sponges will be brought out for children to use
to wash the cars with. Children will be shown common road signs and
road safety will be discussed. Children will be asked what we can do to
promote road safety with our cars and bikes.
Inside Play
The dinosaurs have been very popular this week, we have sorted,
classified and discussed dinosaurs and their eating habits .
Next Weeks Extensions: If the children still show the same interest in
the dinosaurs the activity will extend to an indoor out door activity. We
will discuss different habitats, and recreate these habitats. We will also
continue to use the interactive white board to learn more about the
dinosaurs.
Indoor Out Door Play
This week the children have been actively creating obstacle course and
practicing big jumps, as well as learning about safety requirements for
setting up the obstacle course- eg mats must be down, one at a time and
watching out for others.
Next Weeks Extensions: we will move into the climbing area and
incorporate the climbing equipment into the course. As the children in the
late part of the week showed a growing interest in the climbing frame and
slide.
Weekly Focus
•
Children have also been practicing self help skills of responding to
potential conflicts that may occur, how to treat others at kinder. They
have also been encouraged in practicing self help skills of putting on
suncream and putting on their own shoes and socks.
Next Weeks Extensions: we will continue building upon these self help skills
and children’s independence by continuing to encourage children to
apply their own suncream, remember to get their hats and put them on,
and encourage children to put on their own shoes. We also will
encourage children to further develop social skills of turn taking and
listening to others, this will be done through group games both indoor
and out doors.
18th of March
Trees Roots and Flying Ants
Will had shone some reluctance to engage in any drawing
or painting activities while at kinder, so when he
showed interest the whiteboard, Will was given a
whiteboard marker and he started to draw. Will drew
one horizontal line and vertical lines. When asked what
the drawing was he explained pointing to the horizontal
line “this is the ground, and these (pointing to the
bottom bits of vertical lines) are the bits of trees that
suck up all the water” we discussed that these bits of
the trees were called roots.
Tree
Trunk
Roots
This is a flying ant.
I did 9 legs incase
he wanted to walk
22 of March 2010
Flying is Hard Work
Today Luka and Will got dressed up as super hero's
Batman and Superman! Not only did they decide that
they both helped people but they both flew !
During morning tea we read a book and
noticed some of the different birds that were
in the book. So after morning tea Will and
Luka wanted to work on our kinder art
project of creating wings. The wings had
been painted and cut out last week, and
today the boys decided to add feathers and
things that would help them to fly.
While working on the wings we
investigated how birds can fly. We
watched a 10 minutes video
explaining how birds took off, flew
and landed.
Flying into a New Day
Today we continued with the creation of our bird. More
feathers were added then it was decided that the bird
wings needed a birds body to be attached to. So the
children found a block of foam and asked me to cut it into
an oval. The children then asked if they could paint it.
While they were painting the girls decided that the bird
was now a parrot . We looked up parrots and looked at all
the different colours they had in their feathers.
Hari ini kami bicara
bahasa Indonesian
Today we started our Indonesian
program. We learnt how to say
good morning “Selamat pagi”
and count to ten.
One------------1----------------Satu
Two------------2----------------Dua
Three----------3----------------Tiga
Four------------4----------------Empat
Five-------------5---------------Lima
Six--------------6----------------Enam
Seven----------7--------------Tujuh
Eight------------8--------------Delapan
Nine-------------9--------------Sembilan
Ten--------------10-------------Sepuluh
23 of March
Piloting Planes
Today boxes were left out on the floor, when the children walked in
and saw the boxes they decided to create a plane out of the boxes.
The Children then had to decide how to join the different pieces of
cardboard and practiced tearing off bits of tape.
Once the structure was complete the
children decided to paint the plane.
There was much discussion about
what colours to paint it, however all
of the children decided that the best
colour to use was blue! We mixed
green and yellow, white and dark
blue, purple and blue, and green and
blue. While mixing the paint, the
children engaged in scientific
thinking - predicting what the mix of
colours will make and then adding
more paint to create their desired
colour.
Possible Extensions- if the
children are interested tomorrow
we will finish the wings of the
plane and add cockpit gadgets.
A Guest with a Special
Treat...
Today we had special guest, Sophie. Sophie brought in a very special
surprise for us, DOGS, and lots of them. All the children gathered round
and looked with excitement at the dogs, Aliyah’s dog barked when she
pushed its back. Wills dog growled when he pulled the rope in its mouth.
While Luka held his dinosaur close and looked on the tags for the dogs
names.
Luka, Aliyah and Will chose names for all the dogs, and Sophie made us
all laugh telling us she had named them all Hippo when she was little.
Will chose the name ‘Soaklet’, and Aliyah named her dog ‘Johnny’.
We had a special picnic lunch with Sophie, the dogs,
and one dinosaur.
Measuring Up
Over the last two weeks children have shown an interest in measuring things.
This interest was first sparked by learning that a triceratops was 10
meters long. The children wanted to know how long 10 meters was, so
we roughly measured it out using informal measurements of Wills steeps.