Prep | Pre-Kindergarten News

Mother’s Day

Last Friday we had a delightful afternoon celebrating the Pre-Kindergarten Mums. We were joined by lots of wonderful mums, grandmothers and special adults for a lovely picnic in our playground. The mums were treated to a delightful musical number that Mrs Campbell had prepared which was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

After enjoying the sunshine and a picnic, the Pre-Kindergarten boys took care of their mum by visiting a range of engagements in the learning space. The mums were treated to a hand spa and manicure, a custom decorated cupcake, a shared still life painting experience, a visit to the Library to share a story together and other special experiences.

It was a wonderful opportunity for the Pre-Kindergarten students to show their special visitors around our learning environment and take on a leadership role as they played host. The growth of our students was evident as they excitedly shared their learning and favourite learning engagements with their mums and gave them an update on their learning this term.

Days like Mother’s Day are very important to our school community and fundamental to building an understanding of identity, creating a sense of belonging, and establishing an environment of trust where the identity of each learner is valued and respected (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2004).

How the World Works

We have started our new Unit of Inquiry with the central idea: Curiosity helps us to understand the world around us. Throughout the school holidays, the Pre-Kindergarten students collected items in nature that were curious such as interesting seed pods, shells or leaves. This started the students looking at the world around them through a lens of curiosity. The boys were very excited to share their curious items with the class, allowing the curiosity to spread throughout their peers as we joined together to ask questions and to investigate different items. To extend on their thinking, we looked around our School to find more curious items to add to our collection. The boys have drawn pictures noticing the form of the items and been encouraged to ask questions to find out more information.

In the first week of school this term, we had a special visitor. Mitch from Kaleidoscope Science provided an immersive provocation into all things science for the boys to explore. This incursion sparked the boy’s curiosity and provided the perfect platform for the beginning of our unit.

We encouraged the boys to reflect on their experience.

“My favourite thing was the ball. It went big and small. It was super big and I went inside. It was science because we were doing experiments” – Joseph

“I love the science man because he is so cool because he makes chomp things and makes something big and makes stuff” – Isaac

“the telescope, I looked with it and it helps play hide and seek” – Colin

“The music box. It’s funny. Spin it and it can make noisy. It played ‘Happy Birthday.’ It has a handle to ring ding ding it.” – Rex

“The changing colour ball because it so fun. It changes colour when you put it on the other hand.” – Christopher

“The fire rocket. The fire and everyone went ‘Boom!’ It went up because there is a fire and it melted and it flew away.” – Josiah

“The fire rocket – it went so high up with the fire. He put fire on the end of a long tea bag and it went up to the ceiling.” – Jaren

“My favourite activity was the rocket ship made of powder and balloons, vinegar and colouring. We put the soda in and it blowed the bubble up.” – Andy

“There was a magnet and two marbles, and you put them together. If you put the marble on top of the table and you spin it underneath it spins as well!” – Ashton

This Unit of Inquiry has highlighted the boy’s interests and natural curiosity and allowed us to explore the role of science in the world around us. At the moment, we are investigating palaeontology and the solar system.

Literacy

This week the boys are exploring the letter sound /t/ and consolidating their knowledge of the sounds  /m/, /s/. They are matching the beginning sounds of different words using picture cues, for example, tap starts with the beginning sound /t/.

We have been focusing on rhyming words and identifying rhyming pairs with picture cards. You can practice rhyming words at home and help your son develop his knowledge of rhyming words by singing nursery rhymes and reading lots of stories together.

Our focus story this week is: A Surprise for Dingo by Rina A Foti and How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers.

Maths

In maths we have been learning about patterns. We have looked at the overarching questions:

• What is a pattern?
• Where have we seen a pattern before?

When exploring patterns, the students are encouraged to recognise, describe and continue repeating patterns.

Music

In Classroom Music the Pre-kindergarten boys are participating in a Collaborative Unit of Inquiry How The World Works.  They have been participating in simple speech, singing and moving activities to further develop their understanding of the Concepts of Causation, Function and Change in relation to trains. Through movement they are developing their ability to demonstrate the Music Elements of Beat, Rhythm, Tempo and Dynamics. Boomwhackers and Solfa hand signs are enabling them to understand the Music Element of Pitch.

Christian Studies

Our world is full of wonders. Those we can see, touch, smell, feel and taste. One of the most amazing wonders are relationships – those with our family, friends and people we haven’t met yet. This term, we are starting at the beginning of Genesis and exploring what relationships looked like when our world began. We will be reflecting on our responsibilities in our world and what a relationship with God looks like. The boys will be joining us for Chapel. This is where we meet together as year groups, sing songs, and have fun together learning about our awesome and loving God on Friday afternoons in the gym.

National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. 2004. “Young Children Develop in an Environment of Relationships”. Working Paper 1. https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/wp1/.