Kindy News

The Kindergarten children have settled well into routines and are enjoying making new friends. They are learning to be social and are having fun playing and working together.

This term, our ReligiousEducation focus is “I am Special”. We have been exploring who we are, what we like, our special gifts and why God has made us all unique. We have done a wonderful job creating collages about ourselves. As the term has progressed, we have been exploring “Growing and Changing” and “New Life”. As part of our “New Life” topic, we have enjoyed observing chickens hatching in an incubator. The process was filmed using time-lapse photography on an iPad for the children to observe the process even while they were away from school so they didn’t miss anything. This experience has enhanced the children’s curiosity and their wonder and awe helping them focus on new beginnings and new life.

This will lead us to learn about Jesus and ‘New Life’ at Easter in the coming weeks. We look forward to hearing the Easter Story and learning about the Last Supper.

Our English focus this term is to develop the children’s oral language skills and their confidence to share their experiences, feelings and ideas with each other. Our focus has extended to hearing and recognising letter sounds in speaking and writing. During shared reading and shared writing, we emphasise the title, author and illustrator of the book, and focus on book and print concepts including left to right print direction.

In the area of Mathematics, we have been focussing on number recognition, 1:1 correspondence, counting and measurement. We have introduced different forms of measurement by measuring the height of the children and the length of their footprint by using standard and non-standard units (eg. blocks or string).

Starting Kindergarten has been a new experience for the children which has brought about many emotions. We have been exploring these different emotions and how we can show these emotions in appropriate ways. For example, if we are happy we can smile at others, if we are tired we can have a rest, if we are angry we can move away from others and have time to calm down. The next unit of work will identify how we can care for our bodies so we are healthy and feel good. Eating the right food, getting enough sleep, keeping ourselves clean and having regular exercise will help us feel happy and energised.