In the Junior Kindergarten class, we observe that the children are eager to begin writing. Developing fine motor control including hand strength and a strong pincer grip, are all essential foundation skills that will help lead to success when it comes to holding a pencil and forming letters and numbers.

Fine motor movements involve the coordination of small muscles in the hands and fingers. Along with helping with writing, strong fine motor skills are essential to complete tasks such as cutting, using a fork or spoon, threading beads, moving puzzle pieces, zipping, buttoning and tying shoe laces.

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We kicked off our J.K. Science topic this term with colour mixing! The children were mesmerized and enjoyed predicting what colour the paper towel might turn. We mixed red with blue, yellow with blue and yellow with red.

While waiting for the towels to absorb the coloured water, the children were keen to record what they saw by drawing the experiment. The next day, everyone was excited to see how the colours had mixed and reflected on their predictions from the day before.  Well done JK!

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Plasticine is a wonderful model making material is firmer and incredibly dense compared to play-doh. The children had great fun exploring it and chatting and naming what they were making. As well as being fun manipulating Plasticine strengthens the children’s fingers, hands, wrists and forearms. Have a look at our photos for a snap shot of our activity.

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In J.K. we have been reading Pete the Cat! The children have enjoyed re-telling the stories ‘I Love My White Shoes’ and ‘Four Groovy Buttons’. They have been threading buttons, counting buttons and matching buttons! The children were very thoughtful in adding a few extra foods for Pete to ‘step’ in and considered carefully what colour Pete’s shoes would become. They have also discovered that quite a few of them own real cats and they talked how they care for them.  Of course, pretending to be a cat was great fun, too!

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PVA glue is an amazing medium. It’s charged with the qualities of viscosity, flow, speed, cause and effect.

Please take a look at this fascinating video and observe the children as they wonder, explore and investigate this incredible substance called glue!  It’s wonderful to see how focused and relaxed they are and how they are seemingly unaware of  noise around them.

So now you know that when your child presents you with a plain piece of paper, with a shiny blob in the middle that, although it may not look much to you, for the child, the art and creative and sensory experience was in the process rather than the end product. [Read more…]

Please take a look at this snapshot of some of the activities in JK over the past 7 days.

Spring has sprung and decorating eggs brought out an abundance of creativity! The topic of ‘how will we survive when the Earth dies?’ came up as the children were busy decorating… you will be pleased to know that plans are being made for a possible move to another planet or to live underground like monsters! Other topics included ‘what farm animal are you?’,  ‘what colour are you?  and ‘what ocean animal are you?

The children have spotted the older children junk modelling and decided they needed to create too – everyone brought in a box and it’s been amazing! The children have built a house, a tower, a ship and a cooker to cook eggs. There has been lots of laughter, and learning to let go of one idea to create a new one.  There’s been great team work too!

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This week in J.K. we concluded our 5 Senses topic by doing some cooking and baking. This was a wonderful hands-on activity that used every sense. The children delighted in measuring, mixing, smelling and tasting all of the raw and cooked vegetables in the noodle soup and had a brilliant time kneading their bread rolls.

This activity tied in well with our core focus in Early Years this term, which is STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. Look out on the school blog for more STEM related photos from our upcoming Open House next week!

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The JK class have been very enthusiastic about exploring shapes, numbers, sequencing and counting out quantities. Please have a look at our pictures where you can see the children independently carrying out various maths activities.

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Thank you for taking the time to check out JK! The past few weeks we have spent a portion of our morning choosing a new friend to work or play. This assists the children in getting to know their peers more closely and helps with learning from each other as everyone has different strengths and ideas.  Please take a look at the slideshow and enjoy seeing how well the children have bonded. We love to sing the following song – ‘The more we get together’. Have a great day and see you again soon on the JK blog.

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After we did our Poppy Day time of silence today in Junior Kindergarten, two children independently chose to go to the drawing area to make poppies.  They carefully drew their poppies, cut them out and asked for tape to stick it to their shirts.  They also made poppies for their friends and then made a card for Mrs. Betty to thank her for making special poppies for all the children.

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Please take a look at our photographs of the children enjoying different aspects of literacy, writing and physical development. These early activities are fun ways of strengthening the child’s hands, fingers and arms in preparation for writing. Our classroom encourages independent reading, drawing and writing. As a group we often read a story and then create our own expression of the story inventing strange, entertaining and exciting scenarios that make us laugh. Please feel welcome to come in and enjoy hearing one of our tales!

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