Fun with Phonics

Activities: 

The children practiced their Jolly Phonics sounds and ability to blend and segment this week by participating in many fun games and activities.  They went on a sound scavenger hunt in which they located objects that began with a specific sound target and drew a picture of that object in their sound book. They played a game in which they rolled three dice with different sounds to create words (real and nonsense).  They also built words while playing "word search", an activity in which word endings such as: ig, an, it, etc. were placed on the floor.  Each child was given an initial sound and asked to find an ending that created a word.  

Purpose:

* to develop the children's ability to recognize initial phonemes in words

* to develop the children's ability to identify the individual sounds in CVC words

* to develop the children's ability to combine individual sounds to create words

Connection to the Lpfö-98:  the preschool should strive to ensure that each child....

* develop an interest in written language and an understanding of symbols, and their communicative functions

Penguins Making cucumber juice

Making cucumber juice

Today we had science, we talked about the growth of cucumbers and what we can make/cook,eat and bake out of cucumbers.

We decided on making a cucumber juice, out of cucumber of course and water. All the children helped out to chop it up in smaller pieces and put it in the mixer.

All the children tasted the juice,it had an interesting flavor, we agreed that we like the vegetable whole/chopped or sliced and not as a juice.

Purpose

Develop their understanding in science.

Develop their motor skills.

Lpfö Revised 2010

• Develop their understanding of science and relationships to nature, as well as knowledge of plants,vegetables and also simple chemical processes.
• Develop their understanding of location and direction as well as change.

Cockatoos-Outings and training for the vasaloppet

We cockatoos have been training hard for the Swedish tradition of vasaloppet which we will have soon in February. The children have been going on three outings this week alone outisde the school. We feel that we will be ready when Vasaloppet comes our way! We been through parks, forest, pavement and more!

Purpose: Vasaloppet

To enjoy the winter weathee

Lpfö: to celebrate traditions

To develop their gross motor skills

Kiwis - How water helps the plants to grow

Kiwis learned how water travels up the roots of a plant in a walking water activity. We also learned what the absorption is by performing the same experiment. We filled one glass with water and added food coloring. We folded a paper towel in half multiple times to make a long skinny strip. We dipped one end of the paper towel strip into the glass with colored water and other end into the glass that was empty.

Children's interest: All the children were captured by the experiment.They helped Ritu to prepare the materials and observed continusely how colored water travels from a glass to another through the tissue paper.

Purpose: To give the children a basic idea about absorption and learn about physical changes.

Connection to Lpfö: 

“Develop their understanding of science and relationship to nature, as well as knowledge of physical phenomena.”

“develop their curiosity and enjoyment, as well as their ability to play and learn.”

Flamingoes: Snow Experiment

In the science room, we thought it would be a wonderful idea to do an experiment with the icy snow . We took a few children out to gather some snowy ice.The snow was then put into five different clear plastic containers,out of which one was a control container. Each one of containers was added with the following : salt, sugar, baking soda and baking powder.The children had to predict  which added material will make ice melt fastest. After some time, they could see the results and they were fascinated to see that they had made very accurate predictions.They loved to make the predictions and observe the piles of melting snow !!!

Purpose:

To build critical thinking skills 

To investigate, make predictions and observations

 To be inquisitive about the world around them and find solutions to problems.

Connection to Lpfö:

Develop their ability to distinguish , explore, document, put questions about and talk about science

Develop understanding of science, chemical processes and physical phenomena 

Flamingoes: Fish Mosaic Art

In the Art Room the flamingoes painted recycling material and cardboard cut in the shape of a fish .They added some orange lentils  to give the finishing touches to the fish mosaic art !!! 

To add to the ocean creatures scenery , the children also made jelly fishes by

coloring on the paper plates and finishing it off with different colored crepe paper.             

They decorated paper plates fish with pom poms, beads and straws and made amazing designs and patterns on them!!! They really enjoyed decorating the paper plates fish and creating the fish mosaic art!!!

 Purpose:

To learn about the different habitats.

To develop awareness about the environment

To build vocabulary and learn new words.

To develop fine motor skills

Connection to the Lpfö:

Develop their knowledge of plants and animals

Develop their creative abilities and the ability to convey impressions in many different forms such as play, pictures,song , drama and music

Ducklings Carrots Senses Play

When we were introducing the vegetables, the children got chance to see different kinds or real vegetables by seeing, touching, feeling and tasting them. Last Wednesday the children were divided into two groups: one group were reading in the library while the other group were in the water room doing carrots sensory play, then the two groups exchanged activities. The children were developing their different senses through touching and squeezing the carrots in different forms: a whole carrot, carrot in slices, mashed carrot as well as carrots in different shapes (circle, square and triangle), and they enjoyed the sensory play very much!

We have been working on the following Lpfö goals:

To develop their cognitive skills.

To develop their ability to listen, reflect and express their own views and try to understand the perspectives of others.

To develop their sensory skills.

Cockatoos

We used the hairdryer with supervision to melt snow that we collected from the outside. 

The children saw how snow becomes water and melt. They all had fun seeing the end result!

Purpose:

To explore the properties of water and snow.

Lpfö98:

Develop their ability to explore. 

Penguins Carrot sensory activity

Carrot sensory activity

Today we were in the 5 senses room, and we talked about the different things you can do with the vegetable carrot. We had different plates with chopped,sliced and cut out pieces of carrots, some of the children had the finely chopped carrots in their hands and squeezed out the juice of the carrot and tasted it, it tasted a bit different from the whole pieces of carrots.

All the children touched and tried to taste everything, it was a fun and new experience for them.

Purpose

Develop their senses.

Lpfö Revised 2010

• Develop their creative abilities and the ability to convey impression, thoughts and experiences in many different forms.
• Develop their curiosity and enjoyment, as well as their ability to play and learn.
• Develop their ability to try listen and understand the spoken language,put questions and communicate with others.

Kiwis - Snow activities

We took the snow inside the building and learned how difficult it is to drive in the snow. We used our toy cars for this activity. 

We made various shapes like tower, snow man in the snow and color those with food coloring. 

We left the snow in the cup for half an hour and observed what happens to the snow inside. Some of the kiwis were really good in telling  us about melting.

Children's interest in the activity: All the children learned in a fun way about snow and took part in the activity with joy and serious involvement..

Purpose: To give the children a basic idea about snow and learn about weather and physical changes.

Connection to Lpfö: 

“Develop their curiosity and enjoyment, as well as their ability to play and learn.”

“ Develop their motor skills. Ability to co-ordinate, awareness of their own body…”

Flamingoes: Ocean Animals

For our theme  houses and homes the Flamingoes started to learn about animal habitats. This week we have been learning about ocean animals. We read the book "Commotion In The Ocean" by Giles Andreae and the children loved listening to the story. We also acted out the whole story using face masks from the story. The children enjoyed role playing and learning the song of the story. 

Purpose:

To learn about the different habitats.

To develop awareness about the environment

To build vocabulary and learn new words.

Connection to the Lpfö:

Develop their knowledge of plants and animals

Develop their creative abilities and the ability to convey impressions in many different forms such as play, song and drama

Cockatoos- firetruck activity

Cockatoos have been talking about fire safety and firefighters this week for our ipc theme: sand and water.  Currently we have been talking about jobs that work with water. What better way then to do one of our favorite cockatoo activities: paint. We made firetrucks with our faces on it, two wheels, and we even added a ladder.  They had fun putting the pieces together.

Purpose: to create a firetruck and personalize it with our pictures.

Lpfö: to develop their creativity

To develop their listening skills

Kiwis - Pretend play "Clean the ocean"

We set up a polluted ocean in the Drama room with plastic fish caught in fishing net, trash cans, plastic bottles and boxes. The kids helped us to clean the ocean and free the fish from their nets.We explained to them then how important is to take care of our planet Earth by putting our daily trash in the bin and not to throw it on the  ground or in the rivers, seas or oceans.

The whole group was very active in pretend play by involving themselves in cleaning all the garbage from the ocean.

Purpose: To learn being aware about cleaning and taking care about the environment.

LPFÖ:“Develop their curiosity and enjoyment, as well as their ability to play and learn.”