This week, the children continued to explore the rich culture of Australasia, its natural habitat, and the animals we can find there.
Our creative focus was on the amazing tradition of Aboriginal Art, iconography, and symbols. The children also learned about the value of the month – consideration - and helped us to take food to the local shop for the foodbank.
Just on the doorstep of our beautiful nursery, the Old Pumphouse, there is the Lavender Pond Nature Reserve.
The children explored the wild woodland surrounding the pond where we saw many beautiful flowers and plants, bushes, and tall trees.
Wandering through the nature reserve was an amazing adventure!
Later in the week, our children learned about consideration - the value of the month - and they learned what it means to be considerate, have empathy and think of others.
Some of our preschoolers went to local shop to donate food that goes to a food bank.
As we are learning about Australasia, the children explored the natural habitats of Australia and the beautiful brightly coloured Australian national floral emblem ‘Waratah’.
We also learned about the Indigenous Aboriginal Art and Symbols and looked into how aboriginal people used symbols to give meaning to their artwork or to narrate stories or events.
Our children tried their own version of aboriginal art through mark making activities and a collaborative art project that we’ve started and plan on continuing throughout the whole August.
For this week, we focused with our preschoolers on phonics.
During phonics activities, children focused on sounding the letters and matching sound to the letter.
The children’s phonics learning was also promoted during our music session when they learned the sounds of different instruments, experimenting with the volume of our voices and the rhythm.
Since we are learning about Aboriginal Art, our mark making activity included the fascinating aboriginal iconography and symbols that represent stories and narrative.
This is generally about hunting, social gathering, or mealtimes.
Children also wrote their own stories using marks representing aboriginal symbols.
On Wednesday, we reflected on the importance of play in the early years - playing helps us to learn, develop and is a vital part of any child’s life, to their happiness and wellbeing.
The children took part in a variety of play activities, both indoor and outdoor. Children played together, built relationships, learned how to cooperate, and negotiate during play.
Our babies and toddlers had lots of fun during their socio-dramatic play, role playing ambulance ride.
With a little help from their dramatically skilled teacher, the children tried different roles and characters and drove our pretend ambulance.
We might have some future movie stars in Hatching Dragons!
Next week, the children are going to explore the Great Barrier reef, looking at the most wonderful colours and the lives of millions of creatures and also considering the importance of preserving the world’s largest coral reef.
Stay tuned for our next adventures here at Hatching Dragons!