Date: 05/-09 – 09/09/2016

Monday

AM: Angela – Lunch boxes

Linking to current planning- our world- within preschool. Children recognise own lunch boxes and drink bottles. What is in our lunch boxes? What is treat food and what is growing food?  What do we do at fundies- shared fruit morning tea.

Lesson Planned
Own lunch boxes, lunch box outline on paper, scissors, pictures to cut of food to glue. Board story –

Description of Learning – What did the children show interest in?
The children showed interest in their lunch boxes today and what things that in theirs. They were able to recognise growing food and treat food and all took an interest in the lunch box activity at the table. We used different food pictures where we pasted these onto our lunch box paper.

PM: Zinzi – It’s Spring

What is spring? How do we know when it’s spring time? What happens during Spring and what do the children love about spring time

Lesson Planned
Book About spring. Flower templates. Paper and pencils.

Description of Learning – What did the children show interest in?
The children were able to identify and tell me what the different seasons are. So we know that now we are in Spring. I asked them What do they see around them, some children called out; “it rains a lot”, “There is sun”, “lots of flowers”, “daffodils”, and “Leaves”. They were all right. I was able to show them what else happens in spring, we get lambs come out as well as baby calves. There are also lots of flowers around us. We also went outside to see how many trees we could see with flowers on them. Later on we went to the table, drew and coloured in our own spring tree.

Tuesday

AM: Bobbie – Caring for my friends

Link to “Our World” topic: Our world within preschool requires many social interactions. What is a good friend? How do we look after one another? Discussions around turn taking, conversation, sharing ideas, and showing we care.

Lesson Planned
Book on friendships and caring for one another. Generate a discussion about being a good friend – how am I good friend?

Description of Learning – What did the children show interest in?
Older group very focused and interested, had plenty of great ideas and really seemed to enjoy story (Jungle Bullies), including repeating some of the words. Younger group also enjoyed story but were less able to contribute ideas so activity was complete sooner, opted to then get up for music and movement.

PM: Christine – Living and Non- Living Things

Link to current planning . What are living and non-living things? Characteristics of living and non living. Identify living and non living things in their outdoor environment.

Lesson Planned
I have knowledge about this topic. Images of why they called living and and non living. We will also have a sorting activity to test children’s knowledge and what they’ve learnt. Weather dependent: we could go outside to find these things.

Description of Learning – What did the children show interest in?
The children showed interest by participating in the discussion today. I introduced why we called things living and non living. What there characteristics were and where could we find them. The activity went really well, children showed what they had learned by cutting, sorting and gluing.

Wednesday

AM: Christine – What Country am I from?

Current planning. We will talk about the different traditional costume’s of some countries. Why are they significant and why is it important to their culture. What is New Zealand’s traditional costume?

Lesson Planned
I have an idea of some traditional costume’s in Asia. Borrowed costumes from parents. Activity- paper dolls costume matching.

Description of Learning – What did the children show interest in?
I used the book to show them images of traditional costumes around the world. Some children were fascinated about the different clothes that children wear around the world.

PM: Zinzi – Life cycle of a butterfly

Some children have been showing interest in the monarch butterflies as they saw one fly around the garden the other day. It will be awesome to revisit the life cycle of the butterfly while they keep an eye out on the butterflies who will come and lay some eggs on our swan plant. We will afterwards go to the table and do some butterfly printing with paints.

Lesson Planned
Activity sheet, book, and the life cycle video.

Description of Learning – What did the children show interest in?
Children really enjoyed doing this activity. The older group were more interested in learning about the butterfly cycle of life. They were able to tell me what the egg looks like on the picture, how do they hatch and how caterpillar starts to grow. “They eat lots of and lots and grow fat”. Then when I pointed at the caterpillar hanging I asked what shape is it hanging like? One of the children said; “J”! Then another child said; ” The caterpillar is going to get into his cocoon”. Very clever. And then we turned the page and noticed it the cocoon chances colour and it hatches into a butterfly! And the butterfly flies away. Then the new butterfly lay eggs on the swan plant. The younger group of children really enjoyed painting their butterfly print. The painted their paper and folded in half to reveal their butterfly print.

Thursday

AM: Sarah – Worms – NOTE: change of plan due to children’s interest in the weather/storm overnight and that morning

Link to current topic:  Our world.  The children showed an interest in the worms found in the Fundies garden when they were exploring alongside Hannah last week.  Let’s learn and explore more about them…what do they eat, how do they live under the dirt, what do they do… I know that the children will have different questions and ideas to contribute to the conversation too!

Lesson Planned
Have a print out and pictures from the internet with some fun worm facts.  Then the children will have the opportunity to make worms out of play-dough.  Including big, small and how many can they make out of their amount of play-dough that they are given!

Description of Learning – What did the children show interest in?
Change of plan:  THE WEATHER TODAY…. There was a bit of a storm yesterday, overnight and this morning and I could tell the minute I walked in the door that the children were very excited to share about what they had experienced at home and coming to preschool that morning.  So not time to learn about worms, it was all about the what the children and to offer about the weather they had/were experiencing.  Each child got a chance to tell me their story or say some words to do with the weather and I wrote these on the whiteboard.  About 5 minutes into group time, it began to hail outside, a couple of the children said look Sarah, hail!  I saw this as a great opportunity to go out and experience the weather rather than just talk about it!  We stood on the deck under the cover, some of the children put their hands out to catch the hail and talked about what it felt like, what it looked like, what is hail?  This lead to more discussions once we went back inside.  Zinzi had found a time lapse video from a storm in Christchurch 2012 and we watched this.  The children were super interested and wanted to talk about the lightning, dark clouds and hearing the thunder.  The really fun part for the children and I, was to run out the door every time it began to hail, it was such crazy weather!  Rain, hail, wind, sunshine…rain, hail, wind, sunshine…just like that for the entire hour of group time!

PM: Sarah –Contribution – turn taking and sharing

Link to Current Topic: Our World.  On Tuesday, the children generated what it is to be a caring friend during Bobbies group time.  One important part of being a friend especially with children making a contribution within the social environment at Fundies is – turn taking and sharing.

Lesson Planned
The children and I will investigate when this can happen within the routine/play times and how children can demonstrate what it looks like to turn take/share with others.  I will use puppets to show what sharing/turn taking doesn’t look like and then get the children to come up with ideas and demonstrate what it should look like.  I will be looking to the children to come up with ideas of what to play with and how we can practice our communication, turn taking and sharing during this experiences and being able to extend/develop these skills throughout the time when the children are at preschool.  This will then be reaffirmed when they are able to show/practice these skills at home and within their world alongside others.

Description of Learning – What did the children show interest in?
I selected the magnet/wooden cars, trains, crane and boat from the extension room, these are pretty cool and don’t come out into the main room very much.  This was a special occasion and the children were super keen to have a turn of the wooden vehicles etc.  It was a small group which was great as there was a limited amount of toys, but it worked out that there was one for each child.  Then I gave the children verbal cues of how to share, take turns and being patient.  It was great to hear and see the children using these words and responding appropriately.  I was also able to initiate by using my words to find out what toy each child wanted to have a turn with next and then empower them to ask their friend.  The children and I agreed that we can all have fun and it’s even better to share with our friends, good things happen….

Friday

AM: Kim – What do I want to be when I grow up?

Linked to current planning ” Our World”. Children are often saying that Mum/Dad are ” at work” while they are at Fundies. I’d like to explore what ” at work” means and further, what the children might like to do in the future when they are ” at work”

Lesson Planned
Discussion around parents jobs and children’s aspirations and art work. I’d like to go to the library and see if I can find any books on careers that are suitable for this age group. We could make a poster of what we want to do,and then illustrate it together

Description of Learning – What did the children show interest in?
Both groups really enjoyed the story “What does my Daddy do”, it had fun illustrations and jobs that were out of the ordinary…practicing saying “palaeontologist” was certainly a highlight! When we came to talking about what our parents did at work and what we wanted to do the older group were spot on with what their parents did, and it was nice to see imagination around different careers..although there were 5 firemen there was also a lot of other ideas too.

PM: Kim – What am I going to do in the weekend?

Link to current planning ” Our world”, but also to the curriculum Te Whariki, where in Belonging we talk about establishing connecting links between home and the centre. I’d like the children to be able to share what they enjoy doing at home, and being Friday what they would like to do over the coming weekend

Lesson Planned
I’ll use the whiteboard as a prop to make notes, so the children can connect literacy with the spoken word. I’m hoping to have the children come up in a ” news” style format, like at primary school to tell the group their ideas. If we have time we could draw pictures of what we’d like to do.

Description of Learning – What did the children show interest in?
Wow… how great this was. Every child wanted a turn, and I was delighted for the most part that there was children listening to what each other had to say.  Ange and Sarah had a turn first so the children could understand what we were doing and from then away it went. I loved hearing what they thought they were going to do, and when one child said there were going to Bunnings, that started a chain reaction for other children to say about their Bunnings experiences ! I liked that there was a variation too in what they said, the children really did grasp the concept of there are days we don’t come to preschool and there are days we do. We sang the days of the week song as well , and the children really liked calling out that ” Today is Friday !”