Mrs Wishy-Washy visits Kindergarten!

We love reading books to help us learn the connection between letters and sounds.  To help us learn the /w/ sound we read the book Mrs Wishy-Washy and to our surprise she visited our classroom.  We had a Mrs Wishy-Washy fun day and took part in many learning experiences.  These included a real life experience of walking through mud and Mrs Wishy-Washy washing our feet.  We designed a new title page, made puppets and sequenced the character from the shortest to the tallest.  

The children took their puppets home and they would love to tell you the story using their puppets. 

We had such a fun learning day!

Little Scientists

Last week was very busy in Kindergarten as we begun to learn how to be scientists! We have been investigating through the scientific process of question, guess and test. We explored this process through an experiment with a teabag rocket.

If you would like to try the tea bag rocket at home you can find instructions and a short video here:

http://www.questacon.edu.au/outreach/programs/science-circus/videos/teabag-rocket

In the classroom we have been learning about 5 senses and using them to explore the world around us. We cooked microwave popcorn and used our senses to record what we saw, heard, smelt and felt.

"Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge." - Carl Sagan

Letters and Sounds

Over the last fortnight we have started learning our letters and sounds. Each week we will be learning three new letter shapes and their sounds. Week 5 we explored on /s/, /a/ and /t/. During week 6 we were busy learning /p/, /i/, /n/.  We focus on seeing, hearing, saying and writing these letter shapes. We expose the children to the letter name however, our emphasis is on recalling and identifying the sounds associated with each letter name. We encourage all children to share this learning with you as they explore the sounds around them, particularly when reading stories together.  

We look forward to helping you support your child with their learning journey in English in our upcoming evening information session on Friday 29 March.  A note has gone home, if you have not received it, please see the classroom teacher.

'Tell me and I forget.  Teach me and I remember.  Involve me and I learn.'

Benjamin Franklin

Beautiful Oops!

In Kindergarten we have been inspired by the book, 'Beautiful Oops!' by Barney Saltzberg.  Barney's book is a very important reminder that it's OK to make a mistake.  In fact, hooray for mistakes!  As Barney explains in his book, a perceived mistake is an adventure in creativity.  We took the opportunity to teach the students about the importance of trying their personal best and we are not striving for perfection-we are striving to do better.  Using a range of recycled materials the students created their very own masterpiece.  Please come into our learning environment and check out our 'Beautiful Oops' creations. 

Please remind your child, that trying their personal best, is always worth celebrating!

We can all dance when we find the music we love - Giles Andreae