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!

We have a fun ‘fishy’ song we like to teach the children. It’s one of our favourite action songs to teach early in the year and it is called “Slippery Fish”.

Placing our hands together we swim them in front of our bodies and sing …

Slippery fish, slippery fish,

swimming in the water, swimming in the water,

slippery fish, slippery fish.

Putting our hands up to our face we look astonished! … Haaaah!

He just got eaten by a …

Slicing hands in a sweeping clap we sing …

tuna fish, tuna fish,

splashing in the water, splashing in the water,

tuna fish, tuna fish.

Look astonished again! … Haaah!

He just got eaten by a …

With our hand like a fin on top of our heads we sing …

great white shark, great white shark,

lurking in the water, lurking in the water,

great white shark, great white shark.

More astonishment! … Haaah!

He just got eaten by a …

Arms extended from our bodies, rocking from foot to foot…

humungus whale, humungus whale,

wallowing in the water, wallowing in the water,

humungus whale, humungus whale.

At the end of the song the children like to dive down into the water which is a fun way to get them to sit in a circle ready for our next round of fun.

Musical instruments are fairly expensive and sometimes we want plenty of the same sort so that everyone has one. When we wanted a set of drums, we asked our mums who used formula to feed their babies if we could have the empty tins with lids.

It didn’t take long before we had enough for a group of children and any adults who were with us for the session.

All we did was cover them with bright paper and they are fine for little hands. We have a few favourite pieces we play them with such as Little Drum (Feel the Beat – Kids Music Company), All of a sudden (Teddy Jumps – Kids Music Company) and before we pop them back into their storage box, we usually like to play Pass the drum (Echo Fred – Kids Music Company).

We have to beat the drum to different tempos and speeds, then pass the drums around the circle. The music gets faster and faster and the children just love it!

It took a while to have the passing of the drums happening smoothly – we started off with a few drums, then every second person had one, until finally the whole group managed to pass them on with some sort of consistency. It was well worth persisting with.

At this early stage of the year, we seem to have a bit of a focus on colours, such as our colour matching game in one of our recent posts. A great large group game the children enjoy playing is called “This my spot”.

Each child sits behind a spot of their choice. We used four colours: red, blue green and yellow.

Together we hit our spots chanting,

“This is my spot, my spot, my spot.

This is my spot, my spot, my spot.”

Then repeat.

Simple, but fun and even our reluctant boys do this with gusto!

The teacher chooses a colour and the children with that spot stand up and do an action: green spots clapped hands three times .

Those children sit back down and we all chant the rhyme again. The next colour is chosen and the children with that spot stand up for their turn: yellow spots patted their head three times .

In between each colour we sit down and repeat the song: blue spots turned around three times .

This is repeated until all colours have been selected to do a different action: red spots did three star jumps!

We round it off by chanting one last time, then all colours are selected to stand up and put all actions together.

At the end of the game we sing the colours to be returned to the basket. Great colour recognition, counting, and turn taking.

::: make it irresistible

The children really enjoy repeating new songs and games, so as a follow up the next day when we played ‘this is my spot,’ as we selected colours to stand up, we invited one child from each colour group to choose the action their colour would do, as well as how many times they would do it. The children came up with some terrific actions – red spots did 4 star jumps, blue spots did 5 wiggles, green spots did 6 hand claps and yellow spots did 5 hand rolls.

The children take great pride in making simple decisions like choosing an action to perform and as we’ve often said before, they usually come up with the best ideas … after all … 5 wiggles … how devine is that!

We love music – listening, moving and dancing to it, singing along with it, relaxing by it, playing instruments to accompany it, and in particular we love to make our own music.

An instrument we made with the children last year has been in constant use in our music corner and the children never tire of playing with it.

It began as a science experiment when we were talking to the children about the way sound travels through air.  We filled four identical bottle with different levels of water.

The result being, the more water the bottle contained, the less air it held and the deeper the sound it resonated, less water in the bottle means more air, resulting in a higher pitch being produced. We use a wooden drumstick to tap out the different sounds.

The children commented on how similar the sounds of the musical bottles are to the sounds made by our very popular  marimba, a wonderful instrument Sherry’s Uncle Bill made for his grandchildren some years ago and has (fortunately) made its way to us at kinder!

Some children found it quite difficult to determine which bottles created the higher and deeper pitches but older children might be better able to distinguish the difference and line them up from deepest pitch to highest.

Due to its constant use we have had to replace the liquid in the bottles over time and using different coloured water simply adds a new dimension to a favourite instrument.

We like to provide the children with a selection of bottles, glasses or jars, a tub of water and a funnel, and allow them to make their own music by filling the containers with as much or as little water as they want. The more containers they have the greater the variety of pitch they can create.

Simple science is music to the ears!

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!

For many years now our pre-kinder children have enjoyed a delightful puppet show by Puppeteer Jeanette Drummond of Dove Puppets.

Jeanette is a wonderful story teller who captures the children’s imaginations the moment she ventures behind her screen and raises the curtain to begin the show.

A very popular show we look forward to enjoying with the children at this time of year is Jeanette’s Christmas story  …

… which celebrates Santa Claus  …

…as well as the story of the birth of Jesus.

Jeanette’s enthusiasm and amazing ability to entertain along with her beautiful puppets, theatre, and props, keeps the children’s attention and interest throughout the entire show.

Wisely, Jeanette has a short break during the show where she connects with the children in a hands on session which includes inviting the children to feed her cow…

… and reindeer puppets …

… with miniature hand stitched fruits and vegetables.

She also sings familiar action songs with the children …

… and gets them up for a boogie, in order to get the wriggles out before the second part of the show commences.

With Christmas and the end of the kinder year so close we find that Jeanette’s Christmas story a wonderful way to introduce the children to the Christmas season.

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.

When our children were creating hats with their grandparents just before Melbourne Cup Day, some made headpieces with antennaes and they said they were aliens.

The children loved it so after a discussion about what an alien looks like, we put out materials for more children to make alien head gear.

The only catch was we asked them to follow some simple instructions.  At this later stage of the year most children recognise their numbers up to 10 so they didn’t need verbal instruction.

We left the creative side up to them and the results were as different as each child! It was interesting to see how the children interpreted the instructions. Some read it as; 1 feather, 2 straws, 3 pop sticks, 4 patty pans and 5 sticker dots, while other interpreted it as 5 single objects.

We staged a fashion parade, then popped on a song;

“Little Purple Alien” by Scott Browne …

… and away they went, dancing and bopping to the the great music!

The next time we played the song (we have found the children love to hear, sing and move to the same music time and time again), we gave them some different props which gave it a new angle.

They had to figure out the left hand gloves from the right hand gloves but once that was sorted they could hold the props and move them to the music how ever they liked.

They made very cute one eyed purple aliens!

As the children continue to be interested in purple aliens we pulled out the salt ceramics (see our post on salt ceramic chickens post on October 16th for the recipe) …

…  and again, the resulting models were widely varied.

A few days later the children collected some styrofoam balls and coloured pom-poms from the invention table …

… and created different alien creature …

… sooooooo cute!

One inexpensive and easily obtainable, or made prop that we use is the good old scarf.

We find it has many uses during dancing and play including as a music prop, such as in Boa Constrictor (see post on parachute fun on October 6th), or Calypso by Susie Davies and Phil Splitter from their Razzamajazz CD.

When one of our boys fell awkwardly and broke his arm recently we popped a sling on him (we were very thankful for our regular first aid training), then he was whisked off to hospital by his mum.

When he left about half of the group of children went out in sympathy and asked to have a sling on too. As we didn’t have enough proper slings for them all, out came the scarves!

The bright colours looked fabulous and it certainly helped everyone cope with the trauma.

The children thought it was fun for a while.

But once reality kicked in and they realized how hard it is to play using one arm…

…they soon ditched their slings!

Coincidentally, another one of our children had broken his arm, falling off his bike at home just two days earlier. Both boys have now returned to kinder and are coping really well … fortunately they are able to play without using slings!