Clay ! Clay! Clay!

Why are we experimenting with the Clay?

Manipulating a piece of clay develops the child’s large and small muscles. Clay play fosters eye-hand coordination. Soft clay is receptive and responsive to all kinds of emotional expression. Clay is so fascinating that some children work for long periods without any adult motivation to maintain their interest. It can be a great way to extend the attention span of some children.
Around three years, children become more deliberate in their clay experimentations. “As scientists, they put clay to a series of tests by rolling, pinching, tearing, pulling, and poking it. Four year olds begin to take their scientific studies to the next step by bringing their clay forms to life. Rolled balls can become snowmen with feelings and thoughts of their own. While they are now making real objects and creatures, it is happening more by chance than actual planning.
At about five years, children now have the confidence and ability to come to the clay table with an idea of what it is they want to make. For them, their challenge is to find the right processes and strategies to fulfil their ideas. This helps children learn to problem solve and to come up with creative solutions to their own ideas (Schirrmacher, Robert. Art and Creative Development for Young Children. 5th ed.
Thomson Delmar Learning, 2006. 254-265).

That’s why we decided to extend our children’s interest in “Rainbows” using Clay as a medium.

The children were very excited to see the white ceramic clay. They did all sorts of things with the clay such as rolling, twisting, spreading and punching it with their thumbs. Then they carefully moulded it in the shape of a rainbow and placed the beads in the right sequence of colours to make an awesome Clay Rainbow. Making this clay rainbow was a great medium for the children to express her creativity and her emotional needs (Well- Being 2:5).

There goes the sun do do do do do

Well it’s getting cold outside. So we have decided to keep very active, to keep ourselves nice and warm. We have had a fun week playing all sorts of games that involve a lot of movement. We’ve been playing Hide and Seek, Tag, and Soccer, to brush up on the gross motor skills. When we are inside, there has been a group that have loved the game of Insey Winsey Spider. As it gets colder, we will have to find fun activities to do to keep us all active, warm, while we also continue to have fun learning.

Our very own Playball session

With it being the school holidays, Playball does not come to preschool. Our 3 year old teachers thought it would be a great idea to continue on with the movement theme, which also is heavily involved in our planning at the moment.
The 3 year olds loved this concept, and had a fantastic time doing our wonderful session. Although it is not the same, as it would be, with our orignal Playball coaches, the children thoroughly enjoyed being able to participate.

We can also draw cool pictures on the projector

What can we do with our hands?

Last Friday, we tried to use our hands to do different shapes and shadows on the over head projector.
We used our imagination to create shadows.  We had lots of fun with it.

French Class this week!

Today, the children had great fun when French class happened in the staff room. They revised their knowledge about the fruits, colours, body parts in French through songs and memory games. The children participated very enthusiastically identifying the objects, when the teacher asked them in French. They identified different colours by spotting the objects in the room. Then they learnt new words in French about the vegetables. They learnt the names of peas, carrots, cabbage and tomato in French. The children had great fun learning new words and showed love for learning (Belonging 2:1).

flying kites

It was a great windy day for flying our kites. All of preschool children had lots of fun flying their kites up and down the playground!

little preschool drummers

Royalty visits the Preschool!

Well, Will and Kate might be all the news in faraway Canada, but the rest of the royal entourage made their entrance in all the pomp and spendour expected of such important guests, to the Preschool this morning.

After weeks of preparation; building castles, designing crowns and listening to fairy tales, the children rose to the occassion and came dressed in a flurry of colour, lace and finery to celebrate 'Prince and Princess Day". We also welcomed a tree from the Enchanted Garden, a cowboy visiting from the US of A, a couple of pirates, a lion, peter pan, knights of the Round Table and many beautiful princesses and handsome princes. We supped outside on our picnic whaariki's while soaking up the warm, winter sun.

The sun will set this evening on some weary revellers; but as they pack away their crowns and cloaks, no doubt they will fall asleep with smiles on their faces and dream the true dreams of children.