Team Work

This week, we tried a small group investigation activity to enhance the children’s concept of shape. The children were divided into three groups and were given a set of blocks to work with. Each group had a leader who initiated the conversations and made decisions about the outcome. The children really found the task challenging and hard. The children needed lots of remainders to keep them on track during this task. It was hard for the children to really go ahead with this group activity. We all sat on the mat and then explored different aspects of this group task in terms of what went well and what was challenging for them.

Next time, when we did the same activity,  the children were more comfortable and really worked hard to finish this group task. This activity gave each child a wonderful opportunity to work with a large group of children with different strengths. It also reinforced his/her team spirit and social skills (Contribution).

Olympic ceremony in the four year old's room

The children were very fortunate to participate in the “Olympic Day” that happened in the morning. The children marched around with the Olympic flags, they made to the beat of the New Zealand National anthem. After that the children were put into three groups for playing high jump, running race and overthrow. They had awesome fun and demonstrated team spirit during these games. They were very proud when we recognised their efforts by presenting them with the medals in front of the whole class. This activity enhanced their self-esteem and they are confident to participate without any risk of failure (Well-Being).

Baking in the four year old room

One of the most wonderful things the children can learn from baking is how to experiment, just by taking our creative cooking licence and letting go.

There is nothing quite like throwing all sorts of ingredients together and seeing what happens. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - it's all about learning through discovery. This way we create our own way of doing things, even if it's not exactly how it should be (Exploration).

By far the best thing about baking is how it brings people together, to make and to eat. Eating together is an opportunity to discuss what we are doing in our lives, to share what we're interested in and have a good old laugh ( Belonging).

obstacle course

It turned out to be a great obstacle course when the four year olds were chose to help in settling up the playground. They have used steppers, cones, hoops, boxes, balls etc., to build their own obstacle course and trailed it out. It was an amazing moment for them to listen to each other and coming up with solutions.

Olympic Games project in the four year old room

This morning, Bella excitedly shared about the Olympic ceremony she just watched on T.V. Arabella came along with her mum. Arabella’s mum told us that Arabella enjoyed watching Gymnastics. It is evident that some of the children are really interested in the Olympic Games that are happening.

We would like to extend the children’s interest

·        By reading them stories from the newspapers.

·       Making the Olympic flag.

·       Celebrating the NZ victory.

·       Making the medals and having Sports event.

  Why Carpentry?


As children explore with tools and wood, they will use large and small muscles. Sawing, for example, requires large movement, while holding a screw in place requires small-muscle coordination. As children make decisions about design, shape and type of wood to use, they participate in problem-solving skills. If children are working together to saw a piece of wood to build a bridge, they practice social skills. These skills may carry over into real-world settings (Skeen, Garner, & Cartwright, 1984).

Woodworking also allows children another avenue for creativity. When children are provided with enough materials, technical assistance, and limits, they can experiment as they wish. As they become more skilled, they can use more advanced tools and develop their ideas accordingly

When the children involve in simple carpentry task such as sawing a piece of wood into two, they are building self-esteem. When they use their constructions in other play episode, their self-esteem is enhanced. Children's work does not have to be complete in order for them to feel a sense of accomplishment. As with other successes, seeing some progress can keep a child going.

Making triceratops puppets was a great activity for the children to enhance their fine motor skills. They were given a template to work with that has parts of triceratops such as the body, head, four feet and a tail. They needed lots of perseverance and effort while cutting the parts of the triceratops. After this humongous job, they were all set to finish their puppets. It was a bit hard for them to handle the glue when they were pasting the parts onto the cardboard roll. Eventually, it turned out fine when the glue dried up and they couldn’t believe the outcome.

Now, the children are confident in designing their own triceratops that will become an example for their outstanding imagination and creativity.

Volcanoes and Dinosaurs

Volcanoes are fascinating to kids and adults alike.Our four year old children wanted to learn more about the Volcanoes when Jamie brought a book about Volcanoes and two Volcano rocks from a beach. The whole week we’ve learnt about

*How volcanoes are formed?

*Why do Volcanoes erupt?

* What is lava?

*How many Volcanoes are there in New Zealand?

            We also had conversations about the dinosaurs that lived around the “Jurassic Period” when Volcanoes were main part of the landscape. We’ve read the story, “Dazzle, the dinosaur” and interesting conversations emerged about the dinosaurs. We will be extending the children’s interest in dinosaurs and volcanoes by providing interesting child initiated first hand experiences.

Estelle brought a chrysalis from her garden and shared with our four year olds. The children decided to learn more about the caterpillars and the butterflies. This gave me an opportunity to extend their interest by reading, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” book by Eric Carl. After listening to the story, the children decided to make their own Caterpillar books to take home with them. We brainstormed about what goes into the book and also while making the book the concept of writing from left side of the paper to right side was introduced keeping in mind the Casey, the caterpillar literacy programme that will be introduced in future.

The children enjoyed making these books that required lots of effort from their part. They demonstrated good fine motor skills and imaginative skills when they drew the pictures. What a great effort from you kids and I am sure you can’t wait to show these books to everyone!

What an amazing exploration!

When Jamie brought in a swan plant tree with butterfly eggs, tiny caterpillars, aphids, ants and lady bird larvae, it was a great learning moment for the children and the teachers as well. The children were amazed to sell all these little creatures on a single plant.  During this project, we learnt about

·        Life cycle of a lady bird

·        Lady bird larvae feed on aphids.

·        How aphids secret a sweet substance that ants are fond of and in turn ants protect the aphids from predators.

This was an amazing opportunity for the children to learn about the animal world that surrounds us and extended his curiosity about the nature (well-being 2:3).

Volcanoes and dinosaurs

Volcanoes are fascinating to kids and adults alike. Our four year old children wanted tolearn more about the Volcanoes when Jamie brought a book about Volcanoes and two
Volcano rocks from a beach. The whole week we’ve learnt about

*How volcanoes are formed?
*Why do Volcanoes erupt?
* What is lava?
*How many Volcanoes are there in New Zealand?

We also had conversations about the dinosaurs that lived around the “Jurassic Period” when Volcanoes were main part of the landscape. We’ve read the story, “Dazzle,the dinosaur” and interesting conversations emerged about the dinosaurs. We will be extending the children’s interest in dinosaurs and volcanoes by providing interesting child initiated first hand experiences.

Rugby World Cup 2011
We extended the children’s interest in Rugby World Cup Project by making the flags of countries participating in the event. When we brainstormed, all the children expressed their desire to make a “Rugby Stadium” using the Clay (Contribution). Clay helps to explore “Shape” in three dimensions (Exploration).
The children made the clay flags using the clay. While making these flags, the children enhanced their fine motor skills and their concept of shape. They were excited to paint on these clay flags. Previous practice over three sessions of drawing the flags helped the children to add lots of detail while painting on the clay flags (Communication).
The children then made the rugby balls using the clay and painted them. They couldn’t wait to put the flags and the balls together to make the miniature Rugby stadium. This project was awesome for our children to enhance their
- Fine motor skills.
- Creativity and imagination.
- Team Building.
We are also working on learning New Zealand Anthem in Maori and English (Belonging). Without a doubt, our littlies were New Zealanders (Well-Being) after the All Blacks winning the Rugby world Cup for 2011.
Awesome Job!

Our Father's Day Presents

Rubber stamps are not just for ink and paper. For a different experience, we decided to use the letter stamps on the clay. During this process, the children are exposed to different tools for pattern making around the clay tile in addition to d, a, d alphabet stamps. This developed an understanding of the properties and the character of the clay.
At first, the children made a rectangle clay tile and then used the alphabet stamps to make up the word “dad”. They used different patterns to make designs around the letters. After drying, they painted with their choice of the colours and their work was outstanding which impressed the dads on the Father’s day morning at preschool. Great touching and thought provoking presents for our dads!

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).

Kana, Our visiting Japanese Student

Today, Kana our visiting student from Japan did an awesome performance with the four year olds. During this week, she has introduced Japanese music instruments that makes sound called Naruko and bamboo sticks ( Tala No Bachi) to do the amazing dance. All the children were very enthusiastic and participated thoroughly. She also read a Japanese story book and surprisingly the children enjoyed every word of it. She also made Origami medals for all the children and we really miss her heaps!


All the very best Kana!

Yummy Dumplings

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

Today, Our children made yummy dumplings and also learnt about the "Chinese New Year" festival. Cindy, our chinese teacher talked about the significance of this festival during the mat time .

Play Ball Mania!

No words to describe the children's excitement when the Play Ball visited us yesterday. They had great fun and demonstrated incredible concentration and gross motor skills.

bubbles!bubbles!

Bubble Scientists

Children love the magic of bubbles on a summers day. This week the preschools challenge was about who could blow the biggest bubbles and who could catch the most bubbles. Amongst all this, one big question in their curious minds was, ‘ How does the bubble form?’
I ( Rachel) explained to the children that the bubble is a thin film of soapy water and most of the bubbles are filled with air.
Then we made different bubble solutions using different detergents, water and glycerin. The children experimented blowing the bubbles with different mixtures.
We succeeded in making the big sized bubbles, but learnt following facts about making better bubble mixtures through experiments and looking for the information in the internet.
· Using distilled water is best for making bubbles as the tap water contains heavy metals that hinder the forming of stable bubbles.
· We also learnt that humidity is the key for the best bubbles. Wet, sticky and muggy days are the best conditions for making good bubbles.
· Also we figured out that at dusk as the sun sets or at dawn when the sun rising is the best time for the bubbles.
· We also learnt that direct sunlight, dusty air, strong breezes ruin the bubbles.

In future, we are going to make the bubble mixtures using the distilled water. We are going to do other experiments like freezing the bubbles using the dry ice, coloured bubbles, bubble paintings – to name a few based on the resources available to extend the childrens interest in bubbles. This coincides with the exploration goal as the children are experimenting with different materials to enhance their learning.

Dress up day in Preschool

The children arrived at preschool all decked out in their finest costumes as Pirates, Spider men, Princesses, Fairies, Pixies etc.

There were loads of experiences to be enjoyed on this day – bubbles, bouncy castle, music and dancing, water play -just to name a few.

It was an absolutely fantastic turn out and all the children were very interested to check out each other’s outfits. The ‘Dress Up day’ was definitely a big hit with the children. Together, they had fun and get involved in a day out of ordinary.