Witam Preschool Families,
Welcome to our week 9 Learning Reflection.
Learning Intention 2:
To support children’s engagement, development and self-regulation through strengthening their sensory processing capabilities.
Various Natural and processed materials were offered this week that enticed all of our sense and offered open-ended opportunities for engagement. Offering an element of sensory exploration with a numeracy provocation proved to widen the engagement of our learners, with many children accepting the invitation to draw numbers in the sand.
The offering of flour continues to be a ritual in preschool as it is a clear favourite within our community. Not only does it simply provide a sensory rich experience, but it also holds endless benefits and opportunities for children. As children investigate this medium, theY will often be applying numeracy skills such as measurement as they pour or scoop the flour into various containers, estimating the size of each. Also very evident in this experience, is children’s desire to embark on dramatic play scenarios where they take on the role of chefs.
Learning Intention 1:
To encourage children’s expression of ideas and identity through collaborative visual art/making experiences and mark making.
The addition of ‘googley eyes’ and buttons lead to some very imaginative creations in our making sessions this week and there was a common theme of family members, super heroes, animals, monsters and aliens. We have noticed an increasing capacity for cutting and dispensing sticky tape, requiring some very impressive fine-motor skills and autonomy.
Another ritual of ours (as strongly requested by our learners) is mark making. We have experimented with various tools in our markmaking this week, such as oil pastels, water paints, acrylic paint, chalk, white board markers, textas and led pencils.
There has been a particular interest/skill in phonological awareness recently, with many children actively seeking out letters within the environment and eagerly writing or identifying their own names.
An invitation to experiment with water paint and paper towel was happily accepted by many and lots of new discoveries were made. Through our investigations we discovered that paper towel allows the colour to spread, creating interesting and unique patterns.
Inquiry
A simple question was posed to our preschoolers this week…. ‘what would survive in the billabongs’?
Respecting the various communication styles within our community children were invited to share their ideas both verbally and visually (through drawings).
We couldn’t resist a trip to the MUDLA to see a variety of mammals and reptiles in their own habitats. While we there, we made a very special discovery that Mr McCarthy is an Author and were thrilled to learn about spotted dungeons though his book ‘Gus the Southern Purple Gugeon’
It was wonderful to see some of our children take in upon themselves to rescue some mini beasts in our environment. With very evident prior knowledge now held by children, they were able to respectfully and thoughtfully develop habitats.
Writers Workshop (Bookmaking)
There was a shift in our book study with this week, as we brought our attention to information text. Children were invited to compare the narrative ‘Pig the Pug’ to the information text ‘Pup to Shark’. there was a particular focus on the purpose of each text, one being to entertain and one being to give information.
Elle: What is the purpose of this book?
Owen: to teach you things
Elle: what do you notice on this page?
Ewan: there’s arrows
Maddi: there’s some pictures
Harry: I can see numbers
Elle: what about this writing? (headings)
Leo: it’s big
After building up some new knowledge about information text, we have begun developing our own. We look forward to sharing It all with you next week!
Trajectories
-Finalising our information text
-Introducing a new learning intention around agency: serving on food, caring for our own belongings etc
-Following interests: re-imagining dramatic play materials
-introducing a visual schedule to support all children to participate
-visit to the Holy Family playground, in response to many children’s desire for physical challenge
-Lent Mindfulness
-Easter making
-phonetics
