NZ Teacher

The stones have been used for balancing, as coffee and now for placing on the holes in the letters. The foam letters have holes for pegs to be fitted into. Stones work just as well. Creativity, counting, letters, arranging, decision making.

During recess, a group of children had discovered ants in the date tree and on the ground.  While making porridge, one of the packets of oats had ants in it. I put the oats into containers for the children to watch the ants. Some of them used spoons to try to scoop the ants from one container into another. They wanted to collect ants from the playground to keep. Observation, fine motor skills, wonderings.

Porridge was made after reading "The Three Bears". T hree bowls; Papa bear, Momma bear, and Baby bear's porridge.  As the children arrived at school they saw the bowls of porridge. They were able to choose which bowl to sample some from. A couple of the children loved the porridge and wanted to keep eating it. They decided that they liked Papa bears porridge - it was the "hottest" - they said that it was "just right". Lists, sizes, language, re-enactment.

Some of the children were playing with the crockery plates when one fell onto the floor.  A large chip came off the plate. "This is what happens when they fall onto the floor," I explained as I picked up the plate and put the chip into place. "It's ok, I can glue it on." I was thinking of using some super glue to fix it later. "I'll get the glue," A. said.  "We can use sticky tape," I suggested. A. got the sticky tape and, with a friend, repaired the plate. He then took the sticky tape over to the home center when he'd decided to "fix all the plates" by putting sticky tape onto them. Problem solving, cooperation, cause and effect.

The foam shapes were used to model putting them onto a graph from 1-3. This foam shape looked like a butterfly to me. "It's not a butterfly. It's a dress," L. said. "Can we draw a person with arms and legs?" That's what she did. A few of her friends did it too. (The shape is actually a housefly.)

Cutting leaves was a focus at the literacy center.  The children cut around a leaf which had their name on it.  M. kept cutting long after the rest of the group had finished.  She got a stick from the nature area and glued it to her paper then cut the left over green paper and leaves to make this piece of art. M. then displayed her art work on the whiteboard. Creativity, innovation, freedom to use her own ideas, pride, fine motor skills, decision making, independence.

The sticks have been explored in many ways. Some of the children have used them as pointers, to point to words around the classroom. Some of the children have used them to make a camp fire. One of the girls had a stick behind her neck and told her friend that she was going to break it. She did!  Lots of learning opportunities from sticks in the classroom.