Obstacle Course
Obstacle courses are like carnivals of movement to children. They invite, they challenge and they satisfy while always leaving children begging, “Can we do it again? Can we do it again?” Children learn best when they are actively engaged in activities that reinforce skills. Young children especially need opportunities to move their bodies while learning and are not capable of sitting still for hours at a time. One way to get our babies moving their bodies as well as reinforce important skills is by getting them to create an obstacle course that involves proving their mastery of certain skills before being able to move to the next station. We saw children using their listening skills, following, watching their peers, teaching their peers. The students changed the original experience from an obstacle course to a motor track, as they engaged and used their imagination to extend their play.
Dramatic Play
And just like that…… a piece of material becomes a veil and a simple costume changes you from a toddler to a super chef! Our Children have had so much fun engaging in Dramatic play, and our educators have had so many different events to go to! We’ve attended a Wedding, we’ve eaten the most amazing (pretend) pasta, our plants have been watered by a horticulturist and we’ve been healed by the most amazing caring Doctors and Nurses. So much happens in dramatic play. It encourages children to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. Such role-playing helps them to improve their ability to do this in real life. They learn important social skills, sharing, taking turns, compassion, giving and empathy. It also encourages expressive language. Children are motivated to convey their wishes to others and speak from the perspective of their pretend roles. In fact, it is often through dramatic play that shies or withdrawn children first begin to express themselves through language.
Splish Splash
Splish, splash, bubble, bubble, pop! Water play is an experienced loved by all. It is a unique activity for children because it’s always available, open-ended, and provides opportunities for extended learning. So much happens when watching the children play with water. Our little scientists and mathematician brains go to work as they use their hands to manipulate water and the soaps suds and start to understand why things happen. It is an open-ended learning experience that has endless social and physical development opportunities.
Scavenger Madness
Our preschoolers learn through play, observation, and exploration. While thoughtful and intentional worksheets have their place in a young learner’s education, children gain so much through guided and free exploration of the world around them. Our Educators made the Scavenger hunts easy, adaptable, and fun. The children absolutely loved it! It was a great way to promote teamwork as well as helping our children to make discoveries of their own. This experience exercised both the body, mind and spirit and is a fantastic way to help children develop their creative abilities.
Kindy Fun!!
Our Kindy children have been kept very busy with their program, here is just a few of the learning experiences they have been doing.
Diana Rigg: Syllables (flip book) Children guess the word when educator breaks it into syllables, Children say the beats in the word when shown different pictures.
Alphabet/ Name Recognition: Name guessing, Educator writes a name on the whiteboard and the children need to guess the name.
Letter Formation: Pre-writing patterns body movement, Educator demonstrates the pre-writing patterns using colourful ribbon sticks and the children copy the movements.
Vocabulary: Children will be learning about the words involved in the real Easter story. Each day we will look at what happened on the Easter week. Starting with Palm Sunday and finishing with Easter Sunday. This will be a class project and will be displayed on the wall. We will also read parts of the beginner’s bible relating to Easter and read an Easter story.
Science: Bones experiment, we can test the effect that different liquids have on our bones by putting chicken bones in liquids like coke, vinegar, water, salt water, orange juice etc. the children can predict what they think will happen. The children have been listening and learning the “Dry bones” song and looking at books to see what our bones look like and how they fit together.
