The Junior Kindergarten children have been introduce to ‘Show and Tell’ in this term to help them build more confidence when speaking in a large group.  Over the week, each child brings in a item from home that they would like to share with class. They each get a turn to stand in front of the class to talk about their item.   A short song is sung to introduce each child.  After talking about their item, the rest of the class is encouraged to ask questions or make comments.  They each put up their hand and wait their turn.

‘Show and Tell’ encourages the children to:

• speak clearly (when describing the item they talking about) keeping to the subject;
• use more descriptive words, helping to widen their use of vocabulary;
• increase confidence while speaking, and to be more attentive while listening;
• make eye contact with who is talking and the audience;
• learn how to be an audience, raising hands to ask questions or make a comment;
• ask different kinds of questions (why, when, where, how etc.);
• to respond appropriately, using simple complete sentence;
• to say thank you at the end of their presentation.

And as all this learn is taking place, the children are truly enjoying sharing and talking about their items that they have brought in.  ‘Show and Tell’ is a valuable and rewarding teaching time!

In Junior Kindergarten we have spent most of the first three weeks of term getting acquainted with our peers and exploring our classroom.  We love all the centres, in particularly the block and home corners.   We have been encouraged to play in large groups to continue building our social skills, sharing skills, and using appropriate manners etc. where necessary.  We have been working hard on quickly learning and remembering the class rules and routines in such a short time.  Click on read more below and take a look at some of the hands-on activities we have enjoyed, making our learning more fun.

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The Junior Kindergarten were delighted to learn about the celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

The children enjoyed a wonderful story about the life of Queen Elizabeth II.  After the story, the children got on board the Royal Coach (which they created during group artwork) and walked off dressed in royal attire to enjoy some of the queen’s favourite food in Royal garden.  Read on to see some photos and to read more about our celebration activities.


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This term, the JK children have learned how important it is to help save our Planet Earth. During the first week, we focused on recycling and the children shared their knowledge about what they already knew about the topic, such as turning off taps while brushing teeth or turning off lights when no one is in the room.

The JKs love getting their parents involved in their learning so their home activity was to make something using recycled materials. At a special show and tell, each child brought in their project and explained what it was and how it was used.  Click on ‘Read more…’ to see lots of photos.

We also held an Earth Open House. We invited other classes into our room and the JKs talked about their recycling projects.

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This month, the Junior Kindergarten class have been learning about community helpers.  They started by shared what they already knew about  people who help us and the words ‘community helpers’ were introduced.  The children enjoyed dressing up were given an opportunity to dressed as the person they would like to be when they grow up.  Click on ‘read more…’ to see the photos.  The medical and construction fields were the most popular so for the last three weeks we have focused on these following the children’s lead.

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The Junior Kindergarten were surprised to find mysterious golden footprints all around the school on St Patrick’s Day.  They had been left by a Leprechaun who had hidden golden nuggets, coins and shamrock leaves for them to find.  Following the trail, they each searched for four golden nuggets, five coins and shamrocks with the letters of their names on them.  After the treasure hunt, the children sorted out their treasures making sure that they had the right amount of gold, coins and shamrocks. They were encouraged to create their names using the shamrocks leaves to see if the leprechaun had left them good luck wishes. [Read more…]

The Junior Kindergarten have been busy transforming their classroom into a fairy tale / nursery rhymes wonderland.  Creating a variety of role-play areas together, the children have enjoyed visiting these, dressing up in costumes and wearing masks to re-enacted different fairy tales and nursery rhymes with their friends.  The children used old cardboard boxes to create the houses belonging to the three little pigs, decorating them with cut out paper bricks and straw and sticks from the environment.  The house play area has become the house of the three bears and a tent area has been set up for the kittens with mittens.  Everyone also worked together to make a giant castle with the waffle blocks.  Read on to see lots of photos of the children learning as they play during this wonderful cross-curricular topic.

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In JK this week we donned our chef hats to cook up some playdough!

We followed a simple pictorial recipe, carefully measuring out the flour, salt and cream of tartar in cups.  It was fun to each have a turn.  Ms Myrna added the hot water and stirred it up, and once it had cooled it was ready for us to use.

It was fun to make and equally as fun to play with.  Click on to see photos of us making and playing with playdough.


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