A Group Reflection 20

Group A Reflections - week 20th -23rd August.

Another busy week -

Our chickens have grown so much, we noticed that they had started to grow wing feathers and little tails. They are flapping their wings and trying to fly. The children were able to sit quietly and hold the chickens, and were all very gentle and responsible - we discussed how to hold them gently and correctly so they felt safe and secure and therefore sat quietly. We have taken photos of this so they can remember how much fun it was, and these will go into their art books which they take home at the end of the year. The children drew the chickens from real life models, and created a pasting showing the sequence of how the chickens hatched out of the egg - which required the children to think carefully, remember what they had observed, cut the shapes carefully, and place them in the correct sequence.

We decided that the broccoli in our vegetable garden had grown big enough to eat - so on Wednesday we all went to the garden and decided which ones to pick, then these florets were cooked and the children ate them (plus some lettece also from our vegetable garden) for afternoon tea. Most children had a try - some weren't sure, others loved it. Even the parents tasted some at pick up time. A hands on awareness of where our food comes from, and how we can grow healthy food.

Also in the context of being environmentally aware, starting this week, three different children have a turn each day to be our Environmental Monitors. There is a chart which shows 3 different things we need to be aware of, and that days helpers' names are shown on the chart. We have; 

• an Electricity Helper whose job is to make sure we turn the lights off when we are outside or do not need them anymore 
  
• a Water Helper who needs to check that the taps are all turned off and we are not wasting water, and 
  
• a Compost Helper who puts the fruit scraps from morning tea into our compost bin. 
  

Each child will have a turn, and wears a badge to show which job they are doing that day. They are very proud of their jobs and are very responsible and conscientious.

We packed away our shop area this week and set up a plane / airport corner - with a desk to purchase tickets, a kitchen area with trays to serve food to the passengers, and the interior of a plane with a cabin for the pilot. It has been fun and we will discuss planes and airports to learn more. We are following our friend Lale's trip around the world, and check where she has flown to this time - we then find this place on our Globe of the world.

We are continuing to talk about other languages - and had our favourite story - Mrs. Honeys Hat translated for us into Hindi and Japanese this week - the children know the story off by heart and listen carefully to see if any of the words they know so well sound the same or similar. More translations in more languages next week. Thank you to the parents who are helping us to do this.

We are very busy preparing for Fathers Day, the children are very excited about it.

What will happen next week?

Group A Educators.
Margot, Ann and Lisa.