Woo-hoo! First cycle down, new plans!

So, all done with my first 3-week-cycle! Let's see if I met the goals of my 4 learning areas...

My Home

Unfortunately, I only got started on the project this week. Which means that I'll be following this little activity on through the next 2 weeks. But that's okay! The thing with the My Home project is that I needed photographs from each kid, so that took a little while to gather. But fair enough! It's a busy time for parents, September, and I understood that and didn't get all pushy and "OH MY GOD, I'm TRYING to educate your children here, just print off a load of photgraphs, will you?!" as I have seen in other places...
I'll post some pictures and a whole lesson plan for the project next time.

Physical Activities

I covered this in my last post, so as you know, this was a complete success! I mentioned that this activity was carried on into circle time, so let's cover that bit now!

Circle Time

After P.E. in the Hall, we came back to our room and sat in a circle. As I said before, the kids thought of their favourite things during meditation time. In our circle, we got out crayons, paint and paper and made pictures of our favourite things. Here are a few!

"Painting with her friends"

"Playing a Thomas the Tank Engine Game"

"Peppa Pig"

They really dug this, and had fun sharing with the group what their favourite things were. Aside from the 'favourite things' activity, we also did a little bit of 'hibernation', autumn songs, counting as a group at roll time, and our Name Song, which goes like this:

Look at ________, sitting in her chair,

Doesn't she look happy there?

Everybody give a cheer ("Yahoo!")

Just for _______, sitting in her chair.

It's sung to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle. At first the kids were really shy about this song, especially when it came to their turn to put in their name, but now they all ask to sing it in the mornings. 

The My Home project is also completed with a circle time activity, but I'll go into that in detail in the lesson plan.

Autumn

We did our Autumn handprint trees (which are now hanging outside the door of our room, so parents have been admiring them!), which I posted pictures of. One of the other teachers did free-painting using Autumn colours, which turned out really nice.
My boss is also covering hibernation with the kids, which we've been doing at circle time/roll call at the start of the day. Here's a picture of our hedgehog who comes out to visit from the nature table, and tell us what he eats and where he goes at winter.

We also went on a little nature walk this week! We just went out to a nearby chestnut tree, to gather conkers and leaves and have a look at all the Autumn colours. The kids loved it. I wish I could post pictures, but obviously, due to privacy and child protection issues, I won't be posting pictures of (or naming) any of the great kids I work with. Here's our collection anyway, which we sorted out when we got back.

And now I'm all ready for my next 3-week-cycle!
I'm going to continue work on the My Home project, and I'm starting our Bird project! I'm really excited about this one! I have activities planned in arts & crafts, circle time and P.E. If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them! It would be great to have a poem or song about birds, or maybe another little nature walk... Any ideas, I'd love to hear them!
Bye for now!

How it's going- autumn crafts and P.E.

Hello!
Just a quick post on how the three-week plan is going. With my first group last week, I covered nearly everything I was hoping to, so that was FAB. I'll just briefly go through two of my learning areas I discussed last week, let you know how things are progressing.

Autumn

This went well! As you saw in the last post, the handprint trees came out great. We also worked a little on the colour orange- identifying it in the environment and working on orange card to give our paintings an Autumn theme (more on our paintings later).
In the large group, at roll time, we also started on hibernation. One of the other pre-school teachers is covering this in more depth, with projects and crafts, but it was nice to all start it together. She brought in a garden ornament of a hedgehog which is now living on the nature table. When the leaves start really falling, the kids are going to make him a cosy little hibernation home!

P.E.

This went really really well! The kids were so interested in doing all their stretches and warm-ups before letting loose. I just did some simple ones; waking-up, reach for the sun, roll your head, windmill arms; all the simple ones.
Then we played a quick game called Lions and Chickens. (I divided the kids into two groups and said "This group will be lions! And what do lions eat?" and the unanimous verdict was 'chickens', so we ran with that. Reason being- given the chance, I'm sure lions would love a juicy chicken). So the kids are in two groups, one of lions and one of chickens (after the first game I let the kids choose what group they'd like to be in).
The lions say "I'm a lion in the jungle and I'm looking for my tea!" and the chickens reply "Please Mr. Lion, don't eat me!", then the chickens run off, and after a few seconds I 'release' the lions! It's basically a game of chase, but it helps the kids with patience and they work in groups too :)
At the end of P.E, after they've had lots of time to release their energy, we do a wind-down, or meditation. It's very simple, but I think I'll evolve it as the year goes on. First we all gather on a mat, get comfortable and close our eyes. Then we do some deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Then I start telling a story:

Imagine you have your very own hot air balloon. You climb into the basket and set off into the air. You fly high, high, high above the countryside. You can feel the cool breeze on your face, and it's very quiet and peaceful up in the sky. What can you see?

The kids answer, and meditation becomes a quiet discussion. I ask the kids to think about their favourite thing they've done today/ this week/ ever!

This is carried on into circle time, which I'll talk about in the next post! I'll also update you on the My Home project. Until then, I have just one more tip that I've found to work a treat!
When all the kids are being really noisy or chatty, and it's time to be quiet (such as at meditation or story-time), I say "Hear hear, show me your rabbit ears!" and the kids cup their hands behind their ears and are ready to listen! I Love this one, and the kids are all smiles and giggles, and ready to hear what you have to say!
Bye for now :)

Plans, poems and Autumn leaves.

Week one is done and dusted! The difference between the kids on Day One and this Monday is amazing. They are much more confident, and it's far easier to hold their attention for longer period of time (such as through a Whole Rhyme).

And so, the plans have begun. To start with, we (being myself and the two other pre-school teachers) came up with some broad learning areas to cover this Autumn:

• Practical Life
• The Environment
• All About Me
• Autumn Time
• Shape
• Colours
• Pre-Writing
• Number
• Animals

Then we each came up with a bunch of stuff under these headings; from structured activities (e.g. Matching Mommas to Babies in learning about Animals) to gentle reminders (e.g. Hanging your coat on your own peg, for Practical Life).

And so I've begun gathering ideas to match these themes. I've made up my three week plan and I am already getting stuck in! (If you remember, each of us teachers has a group of 10 kids each week, and we rotate and repeat our plans until all the children have had a go).

My three week plan is quite simple this time, being that it's still early days. I've divided it into 4 basic areas:

• My Home
• Physical Activities
• Circle Time
• Autumn

Some of these will overlap too, extending the learning into all areas of their day. For example, the My Home project involves both an art project and a follow-on at circle time.

Today, I got started on an Autumn craft project. Here's how it went.

1. I used Shirley Hughes' great book, Out and About, to show the kids gorgeous water-colour paintings of a day in the park in Autumn. We discussed how the trees were all different colours, how the children were wrapped up warm, and how the leaves had fallen to the ground. Then I read them a poem from the book; 'Misty'.

Mist in the morning, raw and nippy

Leaves on the pavement, wet and slippy.

Sun on fire behind the trees

Muddy boots, muddy knees.

Shop windows lighted early,

Soaking grass; dewy, pearly.

Red, lemon

Orange and brown

Silently, softly

The leaves float down.

 

The last four lines are my favourite!

2. We each took a brown crayon and a sheet of paper and traced an outline of our hands. Then we shaded these in. These were our tree branches!

3. The next step is the best bit. I put out trays of paint in yellow, brown, orange, red and green. (We had to mix paints to make orange and brown, a whole lesson in itself!). We stuck our thumbs into the paint and then onto our trees- and made leaves from the thumbprints! I have to say, it looked pretty great. Everyone was wearing aprons, so we were all clean, but I was surprised at how much the kids wanted to stay clean! Washing their hands afterwards was very important, they informed me.

Here are our creations!

 

What I love about it is that each child's tree is totally different from the others. Some of the kids really enjoyed mixing the colours, and so their leaves are less defined and more of a blur! One little girl showed me how some of the leaves weren't on the tree because they were 'floating down'.

A simple autumn craft to start off with, but so effective!

Welcomes and Wobblers

Well, today was the Big Day. According to my boss, today is the toughest day of the year. It certainly had it's moments!

Oh God, the homesickness. One little girl couldn't speak she was crying so hard. Another little boy was shaking all over and crying. It would break your heart. </3


But, I was prepared for this sort of thing! Here's how I dealt with it:

1. Emotion labeling. 

I tried to recognise the kids' need to feel these emotions, and not immediately redirect them. So I'd sit/ crouch down beside them and say "I can see you're feeling very sad. The first day of pre-school can be hard, can't it? It can make you feel a bit sad, but that's okay. But this is a really fun place, and you'll be feeling happy soon; what would you like to do?"

2. Redirecting. 

Usually kids in that state won't suddenly stand up and say "Lego", so I found myself making suggestions and drawing their attention to other children and activities in the room. In some cases, this was all that needed to be done, and there were no more tears all day! Yahoo!

3. Ignoring.  

That was a tough one. Sometimes, when there was no getting through to them, I had to step away (just a little bit away) and engage with another child close-by. This would catch the attention of the first child and often they'd wander over and join in. This strategy doesn't always work, and you can tell pretty early on when it's not working and you need to try something else.

4. Helpers. 

Asking the kids to be your 'helpers' can allow them to adapt the role of confident, competent little people who don't feel scared anymore, but who can do Awesome Things, like sweeping and finding the lost toy (hidden in quite an obvious place, natch).

5. Choice. 

This one doesn't usually work if the child has worked themselves up into a state of tears and shivers, but if they're just apprehensive and shy, offering a choice can be perfect. It can give a feeling of "This is a place for me, and I can do what I like to do". If they're Very shy, you could say "How about this?" and give a suggestion, because giving a choice of anything in the room can feel a little overwhelming for some.

Of course, sometimes a kid needs that special person and nothing else will do. No, not Spiderman, but a parent/sibling/favourite carer... And so, once or twice today I had to admit that I was just not cutting it, and ask my boss (who also works in the pre-school room) if she could step in. A lot of the kids already know her (small community) and were comforted pretty quick.

But, I'm proud to say that I became the SAVIOUR (I'm exaggerating) of many children today, and I was able to help them get their groove back and have the craic.

I expect mostly the same reactions from the kids tomorrow. And for the next week. Pre-school is hard when you're new!