Parents as Partners
10/27/2018
Experts agree that parent involvement in educating their child is one of the biggest contributors to a learners success. So where can parents begin? This week EKC parents got a first hand insight into some of the typical learning experiences that happen in our on going provision. Parents are particularly important as co-educators to our young learners as they begin their first steps in social interaction and learning early literacy and numeracy skills. By sharing some of these activities, parents who were new to our purposeful play style of learning could see the value in these hands on experiences.
This family breakfast morning, along with this week's parent consultations have gone a long way to forming an early bond between the staff and families of these little learners, so that we can work together to move them forward to meet their individual needs. Here are some further interesting reads taken from Edutopia. Why Parent Involvement Is Essential
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Teaching "Trees" through Trips
10/19/2018
It is well known that field trips help bridge the gap between classroom education and hands-on experience... To our EK students this week the highlights of "hands on" meant handling moose fur, finding and tasting wild cranberries and exploring a beaver home. Our trip to the Campbell Creek Science Centre gave us the chance to deepen and enhance our classroom study "Trees". Among the many potential outcomes, research has shown that field trips:
Our book interests this week...With a focus on "What lives in trees?" the children had picked out these two books from the shelf as favourites. We talked about activities we could do to enhance our areas of provision in the classroom. Here is what they came up with... The class are becoming much more independent in their learning choices, enabling us to focus on their particular interests.
Flavours of Fruits
10/12/2018
The tropical fruits in Handa's basket were very intriguing to the children. They enjoyed touching them, smelling them and studying their shape and colour for art sketching and paintings. It then came time to predict how they would taste and which they thought they would enjoy the most. We also discussed if the fruits would look the same on the inside as the outside. Some children's comments stood out, "We can't eat the pineapple, it's not real". Discovering more about this idea we learnt that this particular child did not think there would be juicy pineapple inside, since the outside was so hard and "wooden". It was fun to see the delight on their faces when they saw and smelt the juiciness of the different fruits. After hearing the passion fruit shake and rattle, some were a little put off by it's appearance inside. Some were brave in trying something new though and enjoyed the smell and texture. (Again, our vocabulary from the nature hunt came in handy.) Then came time for some more science vocabulary and a chance for us to say if our predictions were correct. Some of us were surprised and did enjoy a new fruit. Some even came up with reasonings for why. "I thought I would like the mango. I was correct. It was yummy because it was juicy. I thought it would be juicy because it looked like a giant plum." We worked on our fine motor skills, to complete some chopping and slicing to create a yummy fruit salad for snack time. Also this week...We used our new reading skills to understand a recipe and measure out the ingredients to make some apple and banana bread... luckily the monkey did not take our bananas! Finally, we LOVE our new playground!Textures of Trees
10/5/2018
Who wants to go on a scavenger hunt?This week we welcomed two more friends to our class. Their first day began with a discovery task, hunting through the trees and fields for special items... This introduced us to some new vocabulary and definitely required us to use our senses. The children were very keen and eager to discover the next challenge. It lead to lots of discussions, such as whether there is a difference between rough and bumpy, or fluffy and soft. Autumn ArtworkThe following day we used some of our special finds in our creative activities. With many children interested in using these nature items as “brushes” for their painting. They discovered which materials were the most effective and which made their favourite patterns. Many techniques were explored, such as stamping, scraping, scratching, and swiping, all of which improving our fine motor skills ready for writing. Talk for WritingAs part of our language and literacy development, this week we focused on ordering and retelling the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. The children loved using Pie Corbett’s “Talk for Writing” actions to help us remember the story. Check out some of our actions below and the captions for their meaning. Be sure to check next week's blog for a video of the full story. Beans and SeedsA few more snaps from this week... Painting with water colours with Ms Jaeger, exploring number bonds, studying symmetry of leaves, constructing tree houses and tracks. |
Melissa SmithMs. Smith has a degree in Early Childhood Education and has taught kindergarten for many years. Alaska has been home to Ms. Smith for 28 years, and she can't imagine living anywhere else! She has four children, a dog and two cats. She loves reading, camping, gardening, and genealogy! Archives
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