Seasons and Weather

We are beginning this term by looking at the four seasons and weather. We briefly introduced the changing seasons through the story "The Tiny Seed" by Eric Carle and for the next two weeks we will talk a bit more about what happens in each season and different types of weather...

 We started with spring, the season of growth and new life, something we talked about over Easter. After our recent topic of  plants and growth the class were aware that things need rain and sunshine to grow so they quickly made the connection between the warm and rainy spring weather and an abundance of plants, animals and insects! 

  The class liked the story "Ed's Egg" and were able to act out some of the animal actions. They are also getting good at predicting what will happen from looking at the pictures. You can help your child develop these critical thinking skills at home by flicking through the story before reading and asking questions such as  "what do you think this story is about?" "what do you think will happen next?" questions like "How do you think he/she feels?"  or "what would you do next? " can help your child engage more deeply with characters in a story.

                                      
We talked about how the shell protects the egg inside and discovered it was very easy to break. We enjoyed exploring the texture of the shell and the cracking sounds it made as we broke it up to collage our own eggs, 

  We used our hands to make a giant rainbow for our spring board 

  We introduced the dice to work on our counting skills. Everyone enjoyed rolling it and counting the dots to hop the frogs back to their logs.  We are getting more and more confident the more we practise. Playing any kind of board game at home such as ludo or frustration can really boost your childs confidence in math and improve sharing and turn taking.

Welcome Back!

Hello and welcome back!!

 I hope everyone had a wonderful Songkran break. The class are all bright eyed and ready to see their friends again...It's going to be a great term!

 Sadly our lovely MinMin has moved to Chiang Mai...We will miss her very much :(

 But we have a new student joining us and we are looking forward to making Pailin our new friend!

Last term we were all so excited about our tadpoles changing into frogs. The class spent a lot of time just observing them and counting how many had made the transition to having legs. It was great for the class to see the lifecycle happening right in front of them and most of them adored the little froglets.... we had to return them to the klong over the holidays so perhaps we'll go frog spotting a little later in the term!

We've been practising our number recognition and counting skills with the song Five Little Speckled Frogs. 

Nursery are are making good progress and can use their fingers to count as well as  "hop" to the correct numeral 

 We made some froggy footprint patterns and had fun chasing each other across the pond.

                                          

                         Arthur made a playdough frog!!

Nursery's social skills are really improving and we are able to share, take turns and play collaboratively.

We talked about things that frogs might eat, other than flies.The class realized that frogs might like to eat lots of different types of insects and were able to name some of them....

 We used jumping origami frogs to catch some yummy bugs!

We spent some time talking about which other animals came from eggs and made a collection of any ones we found in the sensory tray....by far the most popular were the dinosaurs!!

 The class really enjoyed watching the Easter silly symphony cartoon Easter Bunny.

 We decorated some Easter eggs just like the bunnies and used cotton balls and clothes pegs to work on our fine motor skills. This activity is easy to do and home and really helps improve dexterity and pre-writing skills.

 We read and sang along to Five Little ducks and brainstormed other creatures that might live in a pond

 And got busy collaging our own giant pondscape masterpiece!

                           

There was some egg stamping happening

  And we were so excited to hear that the Easter Bunny had paid us a visit and the playground was full of  chocolate surprises for us to discover in our Easter Egg hunt!

Nursery got really involved with the story of Tyrannosaurus Reg and had fun finding his hiding places on each page.  

 And practising their most ferocious  ROAARRRR!!!!

But perhaps the most fun we had last week was water activity day on the last day of term. Everyone had a great time running around oustside and exploring all the different games, activities and opportunities to play and experiment with water.  We had a blast splashing, making bubbles, washing clothes and fruit, ice painting, making boats and rescuing dinosaurs from their icy lairs! Most of all we enjoyed being independent and having the freedom to make our own choices. I was so impressed buy the level of engagement and confidence my class displayed when mixing and interacting with the other year groups. It was a great opportunity to practice their social skills with children less familiar to them and they co-operated and shared resources brilliantly!  

Here are some more pictures of our classroom activities last week...