A new game from Sweden

Our Yoga lesson included one new pose this morning. We started off with “Do nothing Doll” and ended off with the “Butterfly”. In between we did peacock which was the new pose; candle; dog; bridge; table; cobra and shark. We really love doing Yoga and Darren has a good way of teaching us. We know how to breathe in deeply through our noses and hold our breath before we exhale through our mouths. Shelley says she can hear us breathing when we do Yoga. In these photos you can see Nico doing the table pose and Ren doing the dog pose. You can see from Nico’s face that he is using all of the strength in his arms to keep his body off the ground. Ren looks like he is having fun.

We spent part of the morning playing with Lego and Ren had a great time building a house and a fire station. He had all the people laid out on the floor as they were sleeping and he had the trucks parked inside the fire station, all ready for action. We will add a cute photo of him with all the things that he had built. Nico spent time playing with the shape puzzle that we used yesterday when we were doing our morning circle.

Today’s morning circle was a little different as we played with a new game. We started off singing, “I’m looking to see who is………” and then “Good morning everyone, the day has just begun” and we have to show different feelings on our faces. Today we did happy, sad, scared and sleepy. Then we sang our “Hello” song and we adjusted the wooden calendar. Ren guessed that it “T” and placed it in the correct spot and Nico looked for the “9” to make the date the 19th.

Then we set about playing the new game. It is a brilliant game from Sweden and you have to match a number with an object on one side and then you turn the board  over and see if your pattern matches the one in the book. It sounds complicated but it is not, well, maybe a little! First we turned over the discs that have a colour and a shape on one side and a number on the other side. We had to see the numbers. Then Shelley chose a page in the book that she thought we would be able to do and she placed the plastic transparent side of the board on top of pictures. We then had to do the matching part.

We played the game two times. The first time we did colours and then we did objects. The game also teaches you vocabulary besides being a visual perceptual exercise. Our story today had beautiful illustrations and it was about a farm and school and growth but the story was not such an interesting one. In the story there is a theme around the country areas becoming developed and houses replacing farmland; a little like the story about the little red house.

We had a really creative morning at the activity table. We did brown paintings last week and today we worked on them a little more and added collage to them. We used tissue paper and origami paper and the little dots that come out of a punch when you punch holes in paper. We used pinks and browns today and Shelley is now teaching us the concepts “above and below”. She attached a green piece of paper to our paintings and they will be the above part while the brown will be the below part. This connects with nature and growth and plants. The plant itself is partly above the ground and partly below the ground. These pictures are abstract works of art. Tomorrow we will work on the above part while Sui works on her above part. We will all have the opportunity to work on both parts and learn the concepts “above and below” through our paintings.

We had a busy morning and didn’t really notice that we had not gone to the park; and it was so cold and wet earlier in the day. Now it is sunny.

Wishing you all a good afternoon and see you tomorrow.

Love Shelley and Darren