Term 3 Week 9 Day 5

Kindergarten

English: Independent Reading
☑ Sue Graves and Belinda Worsley, Harry's Hat (2007)
- Waratah read the whole book aloud to us, with just a little assistance.

Personal Development, Health and Physical Education: My Body
☑ Study of nutrition - discussed and put posters on the fridge for "Eat a Rainbow" and "1 Great Plate"

Science & Technology: Project
Topic: Looking around you - Town and Country
☑ Comparing the Town and the Country

Town: The town is smoky and you can't see the stars.

Country: The country is great. You can see lots of stars. There are ducks and wattle trees.

English: Handwriting Practice
☑ Writing about "the town" for science - see above.

Creative Arts: Craft
☑ Making a bird feeder from paper cups.

Mathematics: Weights and Measures
☑ Introduction to the balance scale

☑ Estimating - how many grams?
☑ Adding two column numbers
☑ Spin and compare weights game [Link]

Cultural Studies: Investigating Diversity
☑ Looking at pictures of towns in different countries - India, Greece, Russia and Italy. Comparing features and talking about what it would be like to live in each one.

Human Society & Environment: Mystery Activity
Topic: Families Past and Present - What is an artifact?
☑ Exploring some artifacts from my family heirloom treasure box. Waratah's favourite item (and mine as well) is this very old American Indian seed necklace. We also looked at a photo of an oil painting of our ancestor wearing the same necklace. I told Waratah about seeing the painting  hanging over my Grandma's piano, when I was about his age, and also showed him photos of and items inherited from my Grandma - his great grandmother. We agreed that sometime in the future we would like to conduct further research to learn more about our Indian ancestor. All we know is that she is a Cree from Canada who married a Scotsman.

Preschool

☑ trampoline
☑ marbles
☑ tree climbing
☑ story telling - Mulga has not stopped telling everyone all his favourite details about our visit to the swimming pool yesterday.
☑ iPad - Mulga spent some time on 3D ABC, and then played Create a Car.

Infant Activities

☑ Peek a boo
☑ lots of singing
☑ introduction to a shaker (maraca)

Term 3 Week 9 Day 4

☑ Excursion: Pre-K Playgroup at Wallacia.

Mulga's chalk drawing

Waratah's chalk drawing

☑ Excursion: Swimming at Springwood.


Waratah and Mulga investigate their new pool



Boronia ready for her first ever swim

Kindergarten
 

Religion: God's Gifts

☑ Counting our blessings - discussion.

English: Independent Reading

☑ Reading signs along the road and at the swimming pool

Mathematics: Maths Games

☑ Navigation - naming corners left and right

☑ Distance estimation - counting down to corners

Creative Arts: Drawing / Painting / Colouring

☑ Chalk drawing

Human Society & Environment: Brainstorming

☑ What are the differences between the town and the country?

☑ I Spy an artifact

Science & Technology: Experiment

☑ Experimenting with the turbo pool at the swimming centre

Personal Development, Health and Physical Education: Skills Practice

☑ Swimming

Cultural Studies: Music

☑ Listening to Australian folk music (Slim Dusty etc)

Term 3 Week 9 Day 3

Kindergarten

Religion: The Best We Can Be
☑ Excursion to local cemetery; discussion about respect; practising appropriate behaviour.

Cultural Studies: Investigating Diversity
☑ Noticing the different kinds of headstones, and how styles have changed over time.

Human Society & Environment: Discussion / Debate (Clarifying Values)
Topic: Families Past and Present - What is an artifact?
☑ Discussion of cemeteries: what are they for? who are they for? how are they protected? 
☑ Introducing the idea of sacred ground.

Mathematics: Weights and Measures
☑ Size comparisons.

English: Independent Reading
☑ Excursion to library; independent browsing and choosing books for borrowing (including early readers).

Creative Arts: Art Study
☑ Looking closely at a local artist's interpretation of Van Gogh's painting on display in the local library. Identifying local landmarks, and identifying similarities with Van Gogh's work. Also identifying the different media used (pastels instead of oil paint).

Camden - A Starry Night? by Mark Svenson

Human Society & Environment: Investigation
Topic: Families Past and Present - What is an artifact?
☑ Excursion around local town looking for artifacts; noting what is a natural object and what is a man-made object; identifying artifacts with historical significance.

Personal Development, Health and Physical Education: Free Choice Activity
☑ Bush walk

Science & Technology: Observation and Report
Topic: Looking around you - Town and Country.
☑ Comparing and contrasting the town walk and the bush walk.

Preschool

☑ Participating in above activities.

Infant Activities

☑ Looking at new places, new faces and new things.

Term 3 Week 9 Day 2

Kindergarten

Cultural Studies: Video & Worksheet
☑ Sounds of the bush - bird song, dawn chorus [Link] [Link]

Forty-spotted Pardalote colouring.

Religion: The Best We Can Be
☑ Karen Santorum, Everyday Graces: A Child's Book of Good Manners (2003) pp 81-89 'Telling the Truth'

English: Reading Eggs
☑ Map 5 Lesson 46 (finished)

Creative Arts: Art Study
☑ Julie Merberg and Susan Bober, In the Garden with Van Gogh (2002)

Personal Development, Health and Physical Education: My Body
☑ The Respiratory System [Link] [Link] + discussion

Science & Technology: Experiment
☑ How far will it go when we blow? We took a feather, a ball of tissue paper, a marble and a toy car and attempted to blow them along a race track, first with a straw and then without it, measuring how far each object travelled when powered by our breath.

Blowing a marble with a straw

Blowing a marble with just breath

Mathematics: Graphs
☑ Using Waratah's measurements for each object, he graphed the result and we discussed which object went furthest using each technique and why.

 

Waratah's graph

Human Society & Environment: Show & Tell
Topic: Families Past and Present - What is an Artifact?
☑ Waratah chose an object from his treasure box to talk about. He chose a natural object (minerals) and after his presentation we discussed the difference between a natural object and an artifact ("something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest" [Link])

 

Other Activities
☑ Picnic at the park with Papa (from Melbourne) and A (from Canada).

Preschool

☑ Participation in watching videos and science experiment (above) and picnic.

Infant Activities

☑ Meeting new people

Term 3 Week 9 Day 1

Kindergarten

Science & Technology: Experiment
Topic: Looking around you - Town and Country
☑ Investigating bouyancy (trapping air under water)

Creative Arts: Craft
☑ Decorating a treasure box


English: Reading Eggs
☑ Map 5 Lesson 46 (partially completed)

Cultural Studies: Music
☑ Australian bush bands
- Bushwackers Botany Bay [Link]
- Aussie Bush Band I still call Australia home [Link]
- Hop Around Australia, you Bush Kangaroo [Link]
amongst others

Personal Development, Health and Physical Education: Video & Worksheet
☑ Crawford the Cat: Crawford is a Sneezer Pleaser [Link]


Mathematics: Manipulatives
☑ Introduction to fractions using blocks

Mathematics: IXL / iPad
☑ Pizza fractions: Beginning with simple fractions [Link]

Human Society & Environment: Mystery Activity
Topic: Families Past and Present - Artifacts.
☑ Looking at paintings by my Nana (an artist, now deceased), discussing their relevance as artifacts, and painting our own future artifacts (small paintings on canvas to be given as gifts).


Science & Technology: Why Is It So?
☑ Why are there so many different types of clover? Discussion of diversity and monocultures; investigation of diversity in our lawn ecology. We have a very diverse lawn - Waratah identified 7 different species in the small area frame.


Preschool

☑ Reading Eggs

☑ iPad

☑ Painting


☑ Music

Infant Activities

☑ Play Gym

☑ Fun Start:

☑ Gross Muscle Activities: scooting across bed

☑ Self Awareness: Potty time; mirror play

Weekend Activities

Saturday:
☑ Quiet day at home recovering from the flu

Sunday:
☑ End of Soccer-season celebration

Week 9 planning

Phonics / Grammar Apps I would like to get for Waratah

1. Rainbow sentences [Link]
2. Story Builder [Link]
3. Montessori Crosswords [Link]

Virtual Book Club for Kids [Link]

- joined with the intention of participating.

• September 17th - Lois Ehlert
• October 15th - Amy Krouse Rosenthal
• November 19th - Tomie de Paola
• December 17th - Jan Brett
• January 21st - David McPhail
• February 18th - Dr. Seuss
• March 18th - Julia Donaldson
• April 15th - David Shannon
• May 20th - Leo Lionni
• June 17th - Gail Gibbons
• July 15th - Jez Alborough
• August 19th - Donald Crews

How to participate:

1. Pick your favorite book by that month's author (or a new one you want to check out) and read it with your child or class.
2. Create an activity, project, craft, cooking project, etc. related to the book and do it.
3. Come back and share it with us as part of a big blog hop on the third Monday of the month.

The first author is Lois Ehlert. We do not have any of her books and the local libraries collections are very limited, so I have purchased:

• Leaf Man [Link]
• Cuckoo/cucu: A Mexican Folktale [Link]
• Eating the Alphabet [Link]

Science & Technology Topic: Looking around you - country and town

HS&E Topic: Families Past & Present - What is an artifact?

Term 3 Week 8 Day 5

Kindergarten

Human Society & Environment: Mystery Activity
Topic: Families Past and Present - Then and Now.
☑ Waratah continued using the Our Story App - recording explanations to go with the photos and typing captions (he decides what words he wants to write, and asks me to spell unfamiliar words while he types)


Mathematics: iPad
☑ Rocket Maths - addition and subtraction

Personal Development, Health and Physical Education: Video & Worksheet
☑ Crawford Cat Puts His Toys Away [Link]


Science & Technology: Experiment
Topic: Looking around you - The Playground and Garden
☑ Sprouting Potato experiment
Day 1 observations: little tiny stems sprouting; cotton wool is wet
Hypothesis: stems will grow leaves; roots will come from the bottom of the potato slice and grow down into the cotton wool


Cultural Studies: Music
☑ Irish music and dancing (Spring festival) [Link]
☑ Chinese Spring Festival 2012 - Jiangzhou drum music - The Drum rhyme of Dragon [Link]
- Waratah loved both the above videos and watched them multiple times, discussing the different rhythms and movements of the performers. We also discussed the level of practice, cooperation and coordination necessary to create the successful performance and how all the parts were important for the whole show.

Cultural Studies: Languages
☑ The above discussion led into a question about the irish accent, so we investigated the different ways people spoke English in the United Kingdom and Australia, and how the way you speak can give clues about where you live:
- Irish [Link]
- Scottish [Link]
- British [Link]
- Australian [Link]

Creative Arts: Poetry
☑ Shel Silverstein, Hug O' War (Where the Sidewalk Ends, 1974)

I will not play at tug o' war.
I'd rather play at hug o' war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.

- We repeated this poem several times. Mulga particularly loved it and started to learn it. We will continue repeating it and see if we can learn it by the end of September.

English: Story Time
☑ Dorothy Wall, Blinky Bill and Nutsy (1937) chapter 2 'The Tree Warming'

Creative Arts: Craft
☑ Dinosaur Feet [Link]


Creative Arts: Drawing / Painting / Colouring
☑ Crayon resist painting


Mathematics: Weights and Measures
☑ Making Pumpkin Scones


Other Activities
☑ Create a Car App [Link]
(included spelling as Waratah had to name his car and write a description of it)

Preschool

- Mulga is still unwell. However, he participated in many of the above activities, including Story Time, Poetry, Music and the Create a Car App.

☑ Scissor Skills: Dinosaur Feet Craft


☑ Drawing / Colouring / Painting:


Infant Activities

☑ Tummy Time
☑ Gross Motor Activities: roly poly
☑ Games: Peek-a-boo
☑ Baby Sign Language: "toilet", "all done", "hungry"

Term 3 Week 8 Day 4

Kindergarten

Creative Arts: Craft
☑ Independent creation - a home and a friend for Waratah's monster.


English: iPad
☑ Eggy Words (sight words recognition) [Link]

Mathematics: Weights and Measures
☑ Measuring and weighing rocks


Personal Development, Health and Physical Education: Role Play Safety
☑ Practice giving full name and address to emergency services, and describing the nature of the emergency

Creative Arts: Poetry
☑ Reading poems by Shel Silverstein
☑ Waratah particularly enjoyed Recipe for a Hippopotamus Sandwich [Link]
☑ Waratah composed his own version of Silverstein's poem


Human Society & Environment: Mystery Activity
Topic: Families Past and Present - Then and Now.
☑ Waratah began using the Our Story App to create a book about himself and his favourite things, using photos from his life [Link]

Science & Technology: Why Is It So?
Topic: Looking around you - The Park and Garden
☑ Waratah asked: "Have humans ever travelled beyond the solar system?"
☑ Our investigation led us to learn about Voyager 1 and 2. We discovered that yesterday was the 35th anniversary of their launch [Link] and that it is a particularly exciting time as the probes are now on the verge of breaking through the heliosphere and entering interstellar space [Link].

Cultural Studies: Languages
☑ We looked at how the words "Spring season" are written in different languages [Link]

Religion: Lives of the Saints
☑ We continued learning about St Jerome, reading the first half of Lenore Lang The Saint with the Lion (1912) [Link]

Personal Development, Health and Physical Education: Free Choice Activity
☑ Bush walk

Preschool

Mulga was feeling unwell again today.

☑ iPad: Bugs and Bubbles [Link]

☑ Bush walk

Infant Activities

☑ Tummy Time

☑ Baby Sign Language: "toilet", "hungry" and "all done"

☑ Self Awareness: sitting on the potty

Term 3 Week 8 Day 3

Kindergarten

Creative Arts: Craft
☑ Independent creation


Creative Arts: Music
☑ Playing along with music on Funky Kids Radio using bells and maracas

Mathematics: IXL / iPad
☑ Rocket Maths
- addition (using pencils for manipulatives; working on counting up from first number, rather than laying out manipulatives for whole sum and then counting them all.)
- recognition of even numbers.

English: Reading Eggs
☑ Map 5 Lesson 45

Human Society & Environment: Investigation
Topic: Families Past and Present - Then and Now.
☑ How people change over time - viewing Youtube videos of photo-transitions from baby to adult [Link] [Link]

Personal Development, Health and Physical Education: Role Play Safety
☑ Practice giving full name and address to emergency services, and describing the nature of the emergency

Cultural Studies: Festivals and Celebration
☑ Celebrations of Spring around the world - photographs from Vernal Equinox (First Day of Spring) festivals by National Geographic [Link]

Science & Technology: Observation and Report
Topic: Looking around you - The Park and The Garden
☑ Close observation of blossoms. First we collected and identified the blossom available in our garden. We found plum, apricot, almond and pear. We discussed their similarities and ways of differentiating between them. Waratah counted their petals, and noted other characteristics including blossom size, petal colour and growth pattern (how the blossoms were arranged on the stem - in bunches, singly etc).


Religion: Lives of the Saints
☑ Lawton Evans, Old Time Tales: Jerome and the Lion (1922) [Link]

Religion: Craft
☑ St Jerome's Lion
- We glued paper to a recycled plastic container and painted it. Waratah chose an AABB pattern for his lion's mane. He then chose and glued on the lion's features.


Other Activities: Maily [Link]
☑ Read email reply sent by Papa (in response to the Father's Day email sent by Waratah)
☑ Created and sent emails to Mum and to Dad

Preschool

☑ Reading Eggs

☑ Scissor Skills; Drawing: Lion craft
- Mulga cut out the circle for the mane and drew the lion's features.



☑ Painting; Pattern making: Lion craft
- Mulga chose an ABAB pattern for his lion's mane.


iPad:
- My First Tanagrams [Link]
- Dr Panda Teach Me [Link]
- Awesome Eats [Link]
- Jake's Never Land Pirate School [Link]
- Find Them All - Looking for Animals [Link]

Infant Activities

☑ Tummy Time

☑ Gross Motor Activities: Roly Poly Baby

☑ Baby Sign Language: "Toilet" and "All done"

☑ Exploring:
- Lots of air bathing on a warm spring day;
- short trial of sitting on potty

☑ Self Awareness: these are my hands!

Term 3 Week 8 Day 2

Kindergarten

English: Independent Reading
☑ Steve Light, Christmas Giant (2010)

English: Story Time
☑ Janeen Brian and Helen Leitch, Nature's Way A - Z (2005)

Mathematics: Weights and Measures
☑ Measuring and weighing toy dinosaurs


Human Society & Environment: Investigation
Topic: Families Past and Present - Then and Now.
☑ Sydney Streets: Then and Now. Investigating how streetscapes change over time. What is different? What remains the same? [Link]

Creative Arts: Art Study
☑ Looking at paintings by Pablo Picasso. Noticing the different styles used by the artist at different times in his life.

Religion: The Best We Can Be
☑ Retelling the Parable of the Talents & relating it to our lives.

Creative Arts: Drawing / Painting / Colouring
☑ Creating a picture in the style of Picasso - bold lines and bright colours.


Cultural Studies: Festivals and Celebration
☑ Cherry Blossom Festivals in Japan [Link]
☑ Japan Matsuri [Part one] [Part two] [Part three] [Part four]
☑ Our own Hanami (picnic under the flowers - although it was too sunny directly under the plum trees, which can be seen in the background.)


Science & Technology: Observation and Report
Topic: Looking around you - The Park and Garden
☑ Close study of plum blossom
☑ Scientific drawing and labelling parts of the flower


Preschool

Mulga was unwell today, although he attempted to participate.

Infant Activities

☑ Tummy Time
☑ Exploring: Plum blossom

Term 3 Week 8 Day 1

Kindergarten

Religion: Lives of the Saints
☑ Waratah has chosen St Jerome as our Special Saint for this month.

• Patron saint of librarians, students and angry tempers
• Feast day September 30
• Symbols - pet lion (he pulled thorns out of its paw); skull and hourglass (the transience of life); trumpet (the Last Judgment)

☑ Ruth Sanderson, Saints: Lives and Illuminations (2009)

English: Reading Eggs
☑ Map 5 Lesson 44

Human Society & Environment: Investigation
Topic: Families Past and Present - Then and Now.
☑ The History of Soccer:
- Beginnings in Ancient Greece [Link]
- from Aztec and Mayan games through mob soccer to the development of modern rules [Link]
- the Chinese played Cujo (watched excerpt from Red Cliff [Link] in Chinese)

Cultural Studies: Languages
☑ Viewing Chinese language movie (see above)

Mathematics: Weights and Measures
☑ Measuring and weighing toy animals
(Waratah measured the penguin at 5 1/2 cm and asked the correct way to write it, but read it as 55cm when answering the questions, hence the choice of penguin as the tallest animal.)


English: Handwriting Practice
☑ Using the blue / green / brown (sky / bush / earth) reminders for letter placement (see Maths work above).

Creative Arts: Music
☑ Listening to Australian Folk songs on CD.

Personal Development, Health and Physical Education: Role Play Safety
☑ Calling emergency services (giving name and address); Animal Rescue game with Mulga.

Cultural Studies: Festivals and Celebration
☑ Celebrations of Spring - Dancing around the Maypole (watched numerous videos on Youtube and discussed).

Personal Development, Health and Physical Education: Free Choice Activity
☑ Ribbon Dancing to celebrate Spring


Science & Technology: Observation and Report
Topic: Looking around you - The Playground
☑ A close look at Earthworms

(Report not completed; further research to follow).

Preschool

Colours: Rainbow hunt


Active lifestyle: Ribbon Dance (see photo above)

Music: Nursery Rhymes

Imaginative Play: Emergency Services - Animal Rescue

Infant Activities

Gross Motor Activities: Boronia rolled over for the first time.

Exploration: Several air baths on a lovely day; also lying on a mat on the grass.


Self-awareness: Boronia used the potty.

Baby Sign Language: Introduced "Toilet" and "All done".

Ideas for Week 8

As the daily choice cards have been so successful, I have modified them once more, adding extra activities (to make 6 choices for each subject area) and added choice cards for Preschool and Baby Play.

A PDF of our cards is available: [Link]

Summary of last week's activities

Religion
*Chosen every day - broad mix of activities enjoyed

English
*Note: Reading Eggs = most chosen activity last week

Mathematics
*Note: Maths Games = most chosen activity last week

Science & Technology
*Note: Craft = most chosen activity last week

Human Society and Environment
*Note: Mystery Activity = most chosen activity last week - Waratah wants more opportunities for Show and Tell

Health & Development
*Note: Video & Worksheet = most chosen activity last week

Creative Arts
*Note: Art Surprise = most chosen activity last week - Waratah wants to continue making Father's Day gifts but needs inspiration

To do
- Prepare a chart for recording which options are chosen each day, so I can see at a glance what options are most popular and which are not being chosen.

- Prepare a Day Sheet which will allow me to record the options as they are chosen, map out specific activities to match the options, and assign a number order to them to plan out our day.

Weekend activities

Saturday
☑ Quiet day at home.

Sunday
☑ Attend Mass. Both boys participated in Children's Liturgy.



☑ Father's Day Celebration