Group A Reflection 23

GROUP A REFLECTION - WEEK 10TH - 13TH SEPTEMBER 2013.

Some very exciting things happened this week!

On Wednesday the Mobile Farm visited us at Kindergarten, with "Farmer Sue" arriving with her big trailer - the children watched with much excitement as she set up an enclosure in our playground, then unloaded her animals. She had brought a beautiful calf,a mother goat and 3 baby kids only a few days old, a lamb, a piglet, 2 rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, a turtle, a duckling, a turkey, a goose and many hens.She then talked with the children about how they needed to be quiet and gentle around the animals, and gave each child a cup of food to feed the animals with - then we went and joined the animals in the enclosure. The children were able to hold and pat all the animals , we took lots of photos to look at later. One of the hens actually laid an egg in front of the children much to their surprise.We also fed some of the animals with a bottle of milk later. Farmer Sue showed the children a number of eggs - ranging from a hen egg, a duck egg, a goose egg, a turkey egg and huge emu and ostrich eggs..She then showed the children a Butter Churn, and poured some cream inside it. All the children had a turn to wind the handle, then discovered we had made some butter and buttermilk. On Friday we used this butter to make Fairy Bread for morning tea, the children buttered their own bread and put on the100's & 1000's then enjoyed eating it. Yum! The whole farm day was a wonderful hands on experience for the children giving us the opportunity to discuss farm animals further, and they are remembering what they saw by drawing a picture about in their art books - the skill of recalling and being able to transfer their thoughts onto paper.

On Thursday we were playing outside when it started to rain - the rain became heavier and heavier and louder and louder on our roof - then it was very exciting because it started to hail - so much hail that it covered our playground, the sand pit cover was totally covered, and it even covered part of the area under the end of our verandah. When it had stopped hailing the children went out and collected lots of the hailstones in a big tray - we talked about what hail was and what would happen to it and why - it would melt , we touched it, we tasted it, and we put some in our freezer so we could see what would happen - we will check it next week - a wonderful naturally occuring science experience.

Our interest in the world continues, with some dolls in different national costumes, including a beautiful African doll complete with the rings around her neck and legs, also we have a Brazilian flag to hang beside our Canadian flag, we have a flag book to find and identify the different flags.

What will happen next week ?

Group A Educators
Margot, Ann and Lisa.