Spooky cookies!

For our spooky Halloween party the children decided that they wanted to make a spooky treat. Ms Ingrid found us some very special Halloween cookies for us to decorate. As a team we sorted out the coloured icing and sprinkles. We discussed different patterns we could make using different coloured sprinkles. The children made some very spooky cookies!

Halloween Pumpkin!

When discussing what the children knew about Halloween some of them mentioned carving a pumpkin. We decided to buy a big pumpkin and carve a spooky face. The children practised what kind of spooky faces they wanted to make by drawing them on paper. We watched Ms Ingrid cut the top off the pumpkin, then we worked together as a team to scoop out the middle and seeds. We all put gloves on to keep the pumpkin seeds clean so we could use them later on for a baking experiment. The children had a great time getting the pumpkin ready. On Friday we carved a spooky face into the pumpkin with Ms Anieka. Happy Halloween!

Specialised Class - Dance

Ballet

The children in our specialised dance class have been working very hard on their ballet routine for the winter concert. We have been following the RAD syllabus and focusing on our arm and feet positions as well as learning sautees, jetes and spring points. As we learn our choreography the children are learning to point and flex their toes, extend their arms and legs to create beautiful long lines and also to bring expression and imagination into their dance.Here is a sneak preview of our ballet class.

Fall Fun!

The children have noticed that there have been a lot of fallen leaves collecting in our playground. Since we have been learning about Fall the children knew why the leaves were falling off the trees. We decided to have some fun and we raked all of the leaves into a big pile then jumped in them! We practiced how high we could jump in the leaves and even threw them as high as we could so we could dance under them as they fell to the ground.

Field Trip to see Thumbelina

On Friday the 14^th of October we went on a field trip to see a play called Thumbelina. It was a fantatsic opportunity for the children to see how the dramatic concepts they learn about at school are put into practice. The children had a wonderful time watching the play with their friends and their parents. Look at how much fun we had!

Let's learn Literacy!

The children have been working very hard on their language books. We have been using our flash cards to practice our phonics as well as exploring concrete materials such a magnetic letters to further our understanding. In our literacy workbooks the children practice printing their letters and we focus on the directions of the lines used to make the letters. We also link the sound to the letter and try to think of words that start with that sound to lead into initial consonants. We use a lot of positive encouragement to encourage all levels of learners in the class. Emergent writing skills range from meaningful strokes of a pencil all the way to word recognition and letter representation.

Paper Mache Turkey!

For Thanksgiving the children decided to create a 3Dimensional Turkey. We all brainstormed together what the best way to create our turkey would be and the children decided on paper mache. We used a recipe and discussed how a recipe is a specific text genre and followed the instructions to make our paper mache. We then painted our turkey and added feather suing our handprints. Throughout this visual arts experience the children discussed what they like about Thanksgiving and their plans with their families.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This week we are learning about Thanksgiving. The children are very interested to know how people used to find food before there were grocery stores. We did some research together and learnt about cornucopias. The children made their own cornucopias and chose what produce to make out of playdough. We made strawberries, oranges, bananas, grapes, mushrooms and even a potato!

Families are...

This month we are learning about families. The children had a discussion about what a family is, who is in their family and what is special about their family. Together we wrote some sentences about our family. The children then labelled their drawings using familiar sight words such as Mom and Dad. We also focused on our symbolic drawing by drawing our family members slowly. We drew their faces, eyes, mouths, bodies and some children even drew their clothes!

Construction!

In their creative play time the children have been very interested in constructing the marble run. They work together in either small groups or as one large group and create outstanding pieces of work! As they are constructing these towers they are learning many things. For example: Negotiation skills with peers, conversation skills, problem solving skills, learning about balance and counter balance and many more exciting skills!