Hedbanz Gingerbread Man!

Thanksgiving at Uxbridge

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time for families to come together for food, good company, and good cheer before all the hustle and bustle of Christmas preparations begin. Although we often describe Thanksgiving as a time to show gratitude, it's important to teach our children the history of the holiday as well.  

Here at Kindy we have been thinking of all the things we are thankful for, and it has been displayed on a beautiful turkey.  We also have learnt a special song called "5 little turkey's ", This was really fun at mat time, we all got a chance to participate and roleplay the sound that a turkey made. 

We also enjoyed turkey painting, crayon and dye pictures and making paper plate turkey.

Here are a few of the things we are thankful for............

Sebastian - My dad because he earns the money

Charlotte - Ostriches and Panda's

Ashton - Puzzles

Ralph - Sheep and Horses

Ivy - Animals and Sea monsters 

Chloe R - Flowers

Penelope - Biscuits

Lastly we enjoyed preparing a special dinner plate of food .  We had to think about what food was special to our families and we learnt that at Thanksgiving we have new and interesting foods to try called pumpkin pie . We all got so hungry looking at this food during this activity , but had so much fun. 

I wonder what we will get up to next Thanksgiving and if any of your friends and family members celebrate Thanksgiving here in New Zealand or abroad.  

Captivating carpentry

Carpentry is an enjoyable way to spend time on a rainy day.

You get to be creative, learn how to use new tools,

We learn what size nails we need to complete a job

We have lost the end to our hand drill however it is still an interesting tool to fiddle with

The magnet makes picking up the nails a simple and fun job

We look after our hearing with our earmuffs

After we built our projects some of us painted them

Our Carpentry area requires shoes, using tools safely and supervision

Dance upon a time - The gingerbread man!

 

Our herb shop

Spring is here, and with it, we have a lot of fresh herbs, so what better time to combine these with coloured water to make our very own magic potions and herbal drinks. We cut some of the Rosemary from our own garden, and how lucky we are to get some parsley, coriander, and mint from the community garden next door. Herbs are so aromatic. Some tamariki even try a sniff test to see if they can identify a familiar herb by its scent alone! Our tamariki loved pounding and mashing the herbs adding water, mixing, stirring, pouring, and working away for a long time. What a fantastic sensory exploration. It helps them to develop hand-eye coordination, working theories,  fine motor skills and an understanding of volume and measurement.     

The Sunflower Song

 The tamariki enjoyed pretending they were sunflowers at mat time. 

They started out as seeds buried in the ground.

Then, they knew to grow they needed to be watered. Lucky Anu the super gardener had her watering can ready!

Next Tamanui te raa worked his magic and his sunrays helped our seedlings shoot right up into sunflower plants. Just like sunflowers, the children followed the sun as it moved through the sky.

Action songs like this help and repetition help tamariki to develop their ideas, in this case of our natural world. 

Here is the waiata they enjoyed to the tune of I'm a little teapot:

"I'm a little sunflower seed small and round.

Bury me deep into the soft ground.

Sprinkle me with water, sunshine too,

Watch me grow as tall as you."

Willbee the Bumble Bee

 After listening to the Willbe story and CD at Mat time the children initiated acting out the story. They had found some butterfly wings on the dress up rack that looked just like Monica the Butterfly's and 3 children started to be the characters - I found a spider and bee costume out the back for them to complete their looks. 

Everyone took turns to be the different characters and practiced their acting skill s-0 listening to the story to know what to do. Everyone was very good at being the character they wee and even some children helped to be the musicians and sing - we have done this many many times now and are all getting more confident and familiar with the story.