Irresistible Ideas for play based learning

One of our boys bounced into kinder and told everyone that he was going on a holiday to “Pirate Bay”, which got the whole group talking about pirates and what they do.

The children decided they wanted to make pirate hats. Fortunately we have plenty of newspaper available, so we set up a table.

We showed the children how to fold an old favourite, simple style, triangular pirate hat …

and off they went.

They managed extremely well to follow the instructions and we were very impressed!

They folded, stuck and decorated their hats.

They did a wonderful job and they looked fantastic!

Pirates of course hunt for treasure, so many of the children went off and made their own maps.

This was very exciting!

One child even made the “X to mark the spot”!

Then they headed outside armed with their maps.

They hid treasure!

They searched for treasure  …

and they dug for treasure!

Large groups of children spent the whole morning in the sandpit digging up a large assortment of treasures.

Uncovering all sorts of things from cars, boats and spades to old shells and stones. Some children even uncovered what must have been … dinosaur bones!

While others preferred to collected ‘clean treasure’ from around the kinder.

We finished off the day with the whole group creating a map of our playground …

… all drawn by the children!

Then we went en masse, following the instructions on the map, through the playground until …

we found the treasure hidden in the ‘pirate boat’!

Naturally all the children were very excited to be able to take a piece of the precious treasure home!

Considering the early stage of the year, the children were amazingly cooperative and worked extremely well together as a group.

By the way, we changed a well known song, “A sailor went to sea, sea, sea” to “A pirate went to sea, sea, sea”! The children loved it!

As part of our chatting about the sea, we read the story of “The Rainbow Fish” by Marcus Pfister. Most of the children are familiar with this series and really love  it. We pulled out a memory game which the children could enjoy playing in a small group.

There are many cards in the game, but as this is the first time we have done it together, we chose a small selection so it wouldn’t be too overwhelming. The children turn two cards over when it is their turn and try to make a pair. This is a great opportunity for many of them to become aware of the concept of taking it in turns in a particular order ie clockwise around the table.

They placed their pairs gleefully in front of themselves. We try avoid the “winning” thing and just feel pleased when someone finds a pair.

We let the children reset the game, encouraging them to spread the pairs around rather than next to each other.

After a couple of sessions of the children playing this in small groups, we have a go in the large group with a game called ”Tic tac toe”.

About 10 cards are spread out in the middle of the circle and one child uses a pointer, touching each card until the following song finishes.

Tic-tac-toe,

here I go,

where I land I do not know.

They turn that card over and try to remember where the matching pair is then pass the pointer onto another child. It’s a great game for small OR large groups.

One of our boys was playing with some construction and decided he wanted to make some ‘Transformers’ out of the same equipment. He felt it was best to make a plan first, so he sat down with Donna and slowly drew.

He wanted to make a “good one” (Bumble Bee) and a “bad one” .

Not only did he clearly draw each character – the good one in yellow with a smile and the bad one in black with a snarl – he was able to write GOOD and BAD as well.

Then he got out the construction materials and followed his plan very successfully.

He asked Donna to help him sort some pieces first

and then he was off!

He was so focused

constantly referring back to the shapes on the plan.

Spectacular!

What wonderful literacy from a five year old!

We decided a number of years ago that it would be nice to have the children create group projects we could display for everybody to enjoy.

Once, after we had read the delightful story of elmer by David McKee the children began creating beautiful patchwork pictures by cutting up squares of brightly coloured paper and pasting them to pictures they had drawn themselves.  This gave us the idea of having the children create a group mosaic picture for display, so we introduce them to the basics of mosaic art.

We have lots of bits and pieces in tubs we have collected over the years so the children set out to gather up objects to use for our project. Sorting through everything was great for their fine motor skills as they found items like corks, bottle tops, tiles and glass stones as well as some very tiny beads, buttons and sequins.

We had two pieces of ‘mdf’ given to us by one of our crafty mums which was perfect for the project. We used PVA glue to stick the decorations onto the timber as it is strong and dries colourless.  Some children preferred to use a small brush or cotton bud for the glue while others enjoyed the sensation of using their fingers, and what fun they had in peeling the dried glue off their hands and fingers afterwards.

We explained to the children the idea was to position the objects close to each other, covering as much of the board as they could and boy they did a fantastic job!

Every body got involved and the result was absolutely beautiful. The children really enjoyed being part of a team and took great pride in what they had achieved together as a group. The mosaics are now on permanent display in our room.

Following the success of our mosaic project we invited to children to create a series of mosaic pavers.

You can see how we used the pavers in our ‘make it irresistible – with a hush garden‘ post on January 11th.

We are an Anglican kindergarten and are able to celebrate Christmas in a fairly traditional religious sense.

A very special part of the Christmas experience for the children is a family Carols’ night in the church, at which the kinder and pre-kinder children star.

To prepare the children for this, Father Tim takes us down to the church, where we paractice the carols we will be singing.

The children love visiting the church, and Father Tim tells them about the story of Christmas using his very old and beautiful nativity statues.

Not only do we visit the church but we also venture down stairs to see the chapel …

… where the children find another nativity scene.

As a result of these visits we like to have heaps of dramatic and imaginative play with the church visit as the basis.

We set up a stable in our bush box with all the dress ups for Mary and Joseph, sheep, donkeys, wise men, angels and of course there’s a baby Jesus.

We have a variety of nativity figures in different sizes, so we pop them around the room in various settings.

And of course we can’t forget the beautiful nativity stories available for the children to experience like;

The Story of Christmas by Vivian French and Jane Chapman …

Mary’s Baby by Jane Chapman, The Christmas book by Dick Bruna …

… and our all time favourite, Wombat Divine delightfully written by Mem Fox and beautifully illustrated by Kerry Argent.

At the end of the year we have a mini concert for our parents. We like it to be a reflection of our year – no big deal!!! We sit down with the children and discuss with them what songs they would like to perform for their families. When we come up with a list, we go over them a couple of times over a few weeks and do one run through in our positions. We do tend to teach them a couple of new songs - Australian Christmas songs to finish off the grand finale.

All the children know “Jingle Bells” so “Aussie Jingle Bells” is easy to teach, particularly with our faithful song cards to help us.

Dashing through the bush

In a rusty Holden ute, kicking up the dust, Esky in the boot.

Kelpie by my side, singing Christmas songs,

It’s Summer time and I am in my singlet, shorts and thongs!

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.

Christmas in Australia on a scorching Summer’s day, hey!

Jingle bells, jingle bells Christmas time is beaut,

Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden ute, hey!

And of course we can’t forget another favourite Christmas song – We wish you a merry Christmas, only once again we like to put an Aussie spin on it by singing,

We wish you a ripper Christmas,

We wish you a ripper Christmas,

We wish you a ripper Christmas,

and a snappy New Year.

May the kids have a hoot.

May the pressies be beaut.

We wish you a ripper Christmas…….and a snappy New Year!

We have discovered three collective nouns for frogs;

a knot of frogs - an army of frogs – a colony of frogs

The language that is collective nouns is so interesting and you don’t need to be a child to enjoy learning new language !  And you don’t need to be a child to enjoying learning about tadpoles either.

They have created a real buzz around kinder leading to a multitude of questions and creating great excitement, not only from our students but their parents and carers as well. So in order to better understand exactly what is going on we have been exploring a lovely book with the children called “GrowingFrogs” by Vivian French.

It is a great story about metamorphosis which follows the life cycle of a frog right through from frog spawn to frog.

The lovely illustrations have captured the children’s imaginations and they burst into kinder each day to check to see if the taddies in our tank are changing like those in the book.

Ours is a giant sized book with giant sized pictures …

… and  it’s an exciting way for them to see what will soon be happening to our tadpoles, (fingers crossed!)

The opening page reads; “Once, when I was little, my mum read me a story about a frog that drank and drank, and grew bigger and bigger and bigger“.

Several of the children got very excited by this.

“It’s Tiddalick!  She must have read the story of Tiddalick“.

‘TIDDALICK The frog who caused a flood’ written by Robert Roennfeldt is another great frog story the children have enjoyed hearing.

We have a good selection of frog books which the children can access from our library shelves and many of the children are enjoying pulling them out to look at.

Some of our other favourites include; ‘Green Air‘ by  Jill Morris, ‘The Wide-Mouthed Frog‘ by Keith Faulkner, ’The most colourful frog in the world‘ by Julie Morris and  ’Picasso, the green tree frog by Amanda Graham.

As the children are really enjoying our ant farm, we thought it would be a good time to introduce some ant stories onto their library shelves. One playful story they are enjoying is ….

I Saw an Ant on the Railroad Track by Joshua Prince

When switchman Jack, while eating his lunch by his shack, spies an ant walking along the railroad track he gets worried and knows he has to do something to help …

… before the little guy gets run over by the approaching train.

It’s a nice story with delightful language and illustrations and a happy ending!

Once we discoverd the collective nouns for ants were;

an army of ants – a colony of ants – a swarm of ants

It made us think of that great song, ‘The ants went (go) marching‘. So here are the words as we sing them -

The ants went marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching one by one,

the little one stopped to suck his thumb.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching two by two,

the little one stopped to do up his shoe.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching three by three, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching three by three, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching three by three,

the little one stopped to climb up a tree.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching four by four, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching four by four, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching four by four,

the little one stopped to shut the door.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching five by five, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching five by five, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching five by five,

the little one cheered HOORAY I’M ALIVE!

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching six by six, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching six by six, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching six by six,

the little one stopped to pick up some sticks.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching seven by seven, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching seven by seven, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching seven by seven,

the little one stopped to look up to heaven.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching eight by eight. Hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching eight by eight. Hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching eight by eight,

the little one stopped to shut the gate.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching nine by nine, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching nine by nine, hurrah, hurrah!

he ants went marching nine by nine,

the little one stopped to check the time.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching ten by ten, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching ten by ten, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching ten by ten,

the little one stopped to say “THE END”.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

Following our Wild Action incursion, we enlarged some photos of the animals we saw.

We then laminated them and put a velcro dot on the back so we could use them on a felt board.

By adding Australian bush props, the children could make up their own scenarios.

The children then made their own animals …

… popped the dots on the back and used mini felt boards which we had obtained from Reverse Art.

We also used these animals for a “Who am I?” game.

One at a time the children would choose an animal and pop it on the felt board out of sight of the others. They then described the creatures features, such as, “I am cold blooded, I have scoot scales on my tail, I have 66 teeth etc … Who am I?”

The children were so great at this game. They clearly took in a lot of information during our Wild Action visit!

When our Pre-kinder children arrived …

… they replaced the Aussie animals with a bucketload of felt characters and farm animals …

… and had a great time creating their own stories and play scenarios.

Quite a few of our families are heading off for holidays at the moment, mostly to sunny spots such as Fiji or Queensland. As the children’s interest in snails hasn’t waned, we asked them what sort of holiday a snail would have considering they move so slowly. The sorts of ideas the children came up with were “The next plant” or “The next door neighbours”.

We asked them to think about what sort of holiday they would like to go on if they were snails and they came up with some great destination ideas like; the moon, the supermarket, Queensland, Fairyland, the beach, the footy and the city!

They drew their snails, …

… some drew their holiday destination too.

Then an adult wrote the holiday story out for them …

… if they couldn’t do it themselves.

One child who wrote his own said, “I wanted my snail to go to the circus, but I didn’t know the word. Then I thought he could go to church, but I didn’t know the word, so he is going to the farm because I DID know that word!“

At the end of each session the children read out their own stories to the others.

Then we made their stories into books …

…  for everyone to enjoy.