Looking at shapes

Today we were happy to see Noah again and we spent a busy morning playing and learning. Renshi and Noah sat at the puzzle table and together they completed the 100 piece puzzle with the picture of an airport. It had a lot of detail so it was quite challenging to work out which pieces went where. The skill that we develop in this situation is called Figure Ground Perception. We have to see what we are looking for; through all the detail. It can sometimes be confusing when you see so many things all at once. We managed really well. When Nico arrived at school he went to draw on the white board and just when Shelley was going to take a photo of his drawing, he started to erase it. He had drawn a face all by himself. Shelley says that she can still see it in her mind but she is sorry that she couldn’t take a photo of it. Nico names the eyes, nose and mouth and right on top of the head, he had made a small tuft of hair. He used a blue marker to draw his face. At one of our activity tables, we had shapes traced on a piece of coloured paper. We could cut them out, colour them in or draw around them. While we are continuing to learn about shapes and how they are part of many things that we see or use each day, this activity was one where we could do what we wanted to. At the other activity table we had stamps and different materials for writing. Once again we could use the materials provided in whichever way we wanted to. We will put these pictures inside our portfolios for the end of the year. Our morning circle time centred around shapes and the names of shapes. Shelley took one of the coloured pieces of paper with the shapes on them and showed it to us. She asked each of us to show her a certain shape and we were all able to recognize them; some of us even remember the shape called “oval”. She then handed us cards with different shapes objects on them. There was a triangle shaped plastic thing that people use when they are learning math; there was a board game that was a square; there was a vinyl record that was a circle; there was a kite that was a diamond shape; there was a picture frame that was rectangular and eggs that were an oval shape. There are many cards in the set however we took a few, named them and placed them near to the shapes that were on the coloured paper.

In these photos Renshi is using the stamps and making a picture and in the second photo, Noah is playing with bowling pins in a small “bowling alley’. During free play time, Darren helped them build a “bowling alley” so that they could use the Lego bowling pins in the way that they are usually used. They found a small ball in the Lego container and they practiced their bowling. During our morning circle we sang some action songs which included “Everybody clapping”, “Sunday, Monday……” and “There are seven days in a week”. Once we corrected our “Today is” chart we stood up and did some exercises. We all held hands and tried to pull our teachers and our friends. We pulled with all our might and it seemed that our teachers were really strong. They were pulling on both sides of our bodies. We also pushed against the wall as hard as we could, and of course the wall did not move.

Today there were two families who came to visit the school. The little boy called Jou will start on Monday and only spend 2 hours with us. When he is more settled, his mum may leave him longer as he has never been without his mum before. There was another little girl and she also came to the park and played with our toys. It was a busy day at Ohana and we hope that our mums and dads will be proud of us after they hear all about our progress during the past year.

There is no school for children tomorrow! See you on Monday and have a great weekend

Love Shelley and Darren