Term 1 Update - and a couple cute FREEBIES!

Well we have reached (actually surpassed) the half-way point of Term 1 here in Oz, and I thought I would share with you a little of what we have been up to in Prep C.

English Crafts

This Term we have been reading a story a week. Each week we read, discuss different themes, read a sentence and write, but my favourite by far is our craft time! Have a look at the crafts we have completed so far. While we have been completing our crafts we have also been discussing colours, which has been made rather easy by my choice of texts - Hattie and the Fox (orange), The Pout-Pout Fish (blue) and The Very Hungry Caterpillar (green and red).

When we complete our crafts I try to make them as simple as possible. This year I have a very tough class who take FOREVER to do anything. Most pieces are pre-cut and ready to stick together. Last year I had my kids do much more cutting on their own. This term I have just had to make a few changes to this so that things can be completed within a day.

Hattie and the Fox - Paper plate faces, orange crepe paper squares, black white and orange paper for the eyes, ears and nose.

The Rainbow Fish - Template from Google images, and coloured patty pans cut into thirds with one silver piece per child.

The Pout-Pout Fish - Painted paper plates, fins and tails cut from blue paper (free hand), black and white paper for eyes, and purple crepe paper squares for spots.

Stellaluna  - Black paper/card, paper stars (pre-punched), yellow paper circle, bat picture (from Krista Wallden's Creative Clips.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Sequencing activity with scrapbook paper circles, red circle, green paper grass, yellow circle sun, gllgle eyes and matchsticks, black and white fruits to sequence.

Maths 

Over the first few weeks I have learned that my darling Cubs (who yes are a challenge), are going to need a little - well, a LOT - more work on the basics than I had hoped. So this term I have taken everything back to basics. Colours, shapes, numbers to 6, directions - everything we will need BEFORE we can progress to learn further maths skills.

Last week I shared this adorable colour sort in a quick post. We used it in class to verbalise colours. Each child was given a card (and reminded politely to not to bend them, put them in their mouths or tear them) and had to identify the colour shown and then match it up to the cards on the carpet.

This week we moved onto talking about 2D shapes as well. We reviewed 2D shapes, talked about what makes a 2D shape, named, built and drew shapes. We made adorable 2D shape monsters and talked about what shapes we used. I also make up a similar sort for 2D shapes which I have also uploaded.

Along with taking things back to basics, we have been spending the last few weeks focusing on numbers 0 to 6. So the question I hear you asking is "How do you keep it fresh and engaging when you are doing the same thing for 6 weeks?" Well the answer is with stories, rhymes, songs and games!

The last 2 weeks of number work have involved reading and singing "Five Little Ducks"and "Five Cheeky Monkeys."

For "Five Little Ducks" I cut and laminated some sets of ducks to act out the song. See the picture on the right? Those are my collections hidden behind my whiteboard. As we sing, the little ducks wander over hills and behind the board, where they are swapped out for the next set - MAGIC! (or so my kiddies think) My Cubs were so engaged for this!!!

These are some follow-up activities we completed throughout the week to consolidate our learning. We ordered our duck collections and practised writing numbers to 5; we used snap cubes to act out the song, removing one cube each time a duck disappears; We used laminated ducks to build collection, and matched numbers to collections.

If you would like a copy of the cute duck collections you can grab a copy for FREE by clicking on either picture.

When we read 'Five Cheeky Monkeys' we read the story I put together and acted it out with our hands. Next we used these cute bed cards and snap cubes to act it out as well, then sequenced our monkey cards from 5 down to 0. Again, If you would like a copy of these materials (story, cards and monkey beds) you can click on the picture below.

As follow-up activities we also played these monkey games with our cute monkey mascot, Styrofoam bananas, sports markers and our animal number posters. For our first game I placed collections of bananas in 6 different buckets. The kids helped me sequence our numbers on the markers and then I invited a couple of kids up to count the bananas in each bucket and match them to the numerals. Our second game was for number recognition. I hid a banana underneath a number cone and had my Cubs try and find where it was hidden by calling out numbers. Fun and simple.

So other than our story games and maths, we have been playing all sorts of games and activities to work on numbers to 6. We have played our tower and dice games, matching cards games, and our new favourite warm-up - Apple Toss. We sequence the numbers to 10, then one student at a time comes up and stands on an 'x' and throws 10 apples (scrunched up red paper) into a hoop. They then count the number of apples which actually landed in the hoop and stand by the numeral.

Science

Man this is a long post!! If you are still reading - thank's so much for hanging in there! I promise I am nearly done.

So this term in science we have been learning about plants and Australian Animals. We have learned all about life-cycles, plant and animal needs, what living things are and animal habitats. Each week for the past 3 weeks we have talked about a different Australian habitat - rivers, rainforests, and the bush. As we learned about each habitat we created a display (Well the kiddies looked at pictures and told me everything they could see to be a feature of each place, and I painted our windows overnight). They they coloured in or collaged different animals who call that place home and we added them to the display. We discussed how the animals needs are met in each place, and learned about butterfly life-cycles, platypus needs and how to draw and label a koala.

We also did these super cute crafts for our 5 senses and plant parts which turned out pretty well. At the end of our unit, the kiddies all created their own habitat collage on A3 card for an animal (I am still yet to finish this off with some kids - that is Monday's job!). Yesterday we were lucky enough to meet an Australian animal too! One of my parents have a Southern Bearded Dragon at home and waws kind enough to offered to bring her in for 10 minutes to show the kiddies (NO TOUCHING ALLOWED - My kids have very rough hands!). I was absolutely amazed at how much they learned in this time! After 'Phoebe' left we brainstormed everything we had learned on my board and my goodness, they filled the whole board with ideas!! Amazing how something so small can help them remember a thing or two, isn't it?

Anyway, I think that is about it from me for today. Next week we will be moving on to History and learning about families - sure to be interesting with my class! I hope you have had a great week with your kiddies and are enjoying a lovely relaxing weekend :)

Until next time my friends...