Today the children have been celebrating Robert Burns Day. There was lots of Scottish Country Dancing going on, some writing and also poetry.
The children drew some pictures of Robert Burns and some children copy wrote his name.
In the baking area Jo and the children made some yummy shortbread.
Children also came to the family centre today in tartan attire and sang about the; “5 haggis pies in the bakers shop”
Lots of fun shenanigans!!
The children have been enjoying the book “the Bear and the Piano. “The children have been busy performing like the bear in the story book. The other children have been their audience and have been praising their performance.
The children have been retelling the story with help from flash cards with visuals from key parts within the story. Some children decided to illustrate their stories too and created some lovely drawings.
This week we are delighted to have Katie and Kay from the Phonological Awareness team working in the centre with the children.
Phonological awareness is the foundation on which phonics and spelling is built. It is a prerequisite skill children need to learn. It is the ability to hear and manipulate the individual sounds in a word. This awareness provides a powerful predictor of early learning skills and achievement.
The stages of Phonological Awareness are:
Listening , Spoken Language, Initial Sounds, Syllables, Onset & Rime, and Phonemic Awareness.
FIRST, WE LEARN TO READ AND THEN WE READ TO LEARN
Katie and Kay will be with us for another week, if you have any questions for them please let us know. In the meantime, here is a little exercise you can try out at home.
Mystery Bag ?
Hide small toys. Ball, cars, dolls, animals in a bag etc. Put your hand in the bag and say “one, two, three, what do you see?”
Take an object out of the bag and your child should tell you what it is and then put it back in the bag.
This can also be played as a guessing game. Child can feel object or you can describe the object for the child to guess.
Try it, and let us know how it goes.
The children have been exploring musicality this week. This has involved staff providing opportunities and experiences to develop their auditory skills.
The children have become familiar with “monster steps” and “fairy dance”, big steps, little steps and let’s move our head, throughout the week.
“I like the fairy dancing and monster one. I like all of the music. We need to listen to which music is coming on then dance.” Child’s quote.
The children have also been playing “guess who is calling you?” where they need to listen carefully and find the friend who calls their name.
Much to the children’s delight the musical bear has made several visits with a range of instruments. He encourages the children to take turns and recognise the names and sounds of instruments.
Adam said, “stomp stomp” during monster music and, “twirl twirl” during the fairy music. Everyone loves the music and it gets the adults as well as the children moving along to the beat.
As we walked to the Museum we heard a man singing a lovely song, Siri said his voice sounded like violins. There were lots of different smells and Florence said that it made her feel hungry.
When we arrived at the gallery we saw the man on the horse with a cone on his head – we laughed. Kaile said he had seen him before.
Inside the gallery we took a lift right up to the top. Hallie liked the painted windows, she said they looked like rainbows with all the different colours. Siri liked the painted curtains and Florence thought that the green lady in the mural looked a bit scary.
Hallie also liked the bin bag sculptures, she commented that they are funny because they should be in the bin and Siri said the wind blows the bags and it catches on the wires and twigs. Siri said “they should be in the trash.”
The children thought the black and white pictures were very old and that one of the ladies in a picture looked like Rhonda.
We had a lovely trip, we saw lots of great things, we heard beautiful music and we had a picnic lunch. Everyone arrived back at the family centre tired but very happy.
This week the children have been exploring the music and dance from all around the world. They are beginning to understand that music is important to people and that different countries enjoy different sounds.
They used the drama resources to dress up in green when dancing was on the big screen and practiced some dance moves. Mhairi and Orla talked about the different clothes the dancers wore, and the different musical sounds. Orla mentioned that she could hear fiddles in the Irish music, and Mhairi shared that Scottish music has the sound of bagpipes.
Kaile, Lily and Amber practiced their Spanish flamenco dancing. They liked to stamp their feet and clap their hands really fast.
We also listened to Spanish music and the children made pictures of Spanish guitars. It was fun when the paintbrush tickled the children’s feet.
The children have been exploring music, dance and movement. They looked at clips on the large screen of the many different types of dance. Florence, Orla and her friends really liked the idea of the “Maypole” and asked for some help to make one.
The children enjoyed dancing and skipping and wrapping the ribbons around the pole.
Others decided to make music and sing their favourite nursery songs.
The jars with various levels of colorful water in them made lovely sounds. Olivia liked the bottle with just a little water because it made a tinkle sound.
We had great fun exploring lots of different ways to express ourselves through the arts.
Today the children had the opportunity to explore their fine motor skills and to practice their writing too. They used the instruments to make a variety of soundsand then copied the names of the musical instruments. It was quite tricky.
Others decided to explore the sounds made by the interesting collection of musical instruments we have. They went on to sing their favourite songs playing the tune on the instruments.
Grace decided that she wanted to make some ribbons and dance along to her favourite musical sounds.
The children planned with their keyworkers all the lovely experiences that they wished to participate in over the next few weeks. They talked about using puppets, singing frozen, dance and drama on the stage. They shared that dress up and music for dancing would be fun.
The children practiced some rhyme too.
Some children shared with Siobhan that they would like to make pictures with sparkles. The children said it looks like the frost.
Others talked about patterns, pictures with families and celebrations.
During the literacy learning plan the children talked again about family, puppets, rhyme, stories and writing their own name. Krishnav decided to draw a picture of the children acting out his story about the three little piglets.
Today the children had time to engage in some yoga.
A very calming experience.
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