Welcome back!
September has been the start of a new school year for Tommaso, Edoardo, Giulio, Alice, Ginevra and Filippo, and after coming along with parents for some settling in sessions we set about exploring the new classroom. We tried out all the new toys and resources through a range of activities. We made playdoh monsters, solved puzzles, made pictures using shapes and glue, saved frozen animals, and painted using natural objects we found in the garden.
We also spent lots of time outside in the different areas of the school grounds, climbing, playing in sand, cooking in the mud kitchen, working together to push each other on the swing, collecting flowers and leaves, and “painting” with water.
After settling into school life, our first topic has been “All About Me”. This involved activities about our bodies, personalities and families, which has helped us to get to know ourselves and each other. One of the things the children really enjoyed was making family photo albums. First they painted the pages, and then glued on their photos. They shared their pictures with me and each other, and talked about their family members and what they were doing in the photos.
We also explored our bodies through activities like making a friendship tree from our handprints, drawing around our hands, making face collages and making dolls. The children were free to express their creativity as we talked about whether their dolls were girls or boys, what colour eyes and hair they had, and what they wore. We measured and compared our heights, which we will come back to later to see how we have grown. We all agreed that Ms. Rebecca is the tallest!
Another aspect of “All About Me” is health and self care. The children have learnt how to sing a hand washing song in English: ♫ We wash our dirty hands, we wash our dirty hands, rub and scrub and rub and scrub, we wash our dirty hands ♫. They also brought in tooth brushes and did some practice brushing with paint and toothbrushes. This week’s rainy weather has been the perfect opportunity to talk about clothes and learning how to dress ourselves, too!
It’s been a busy first few weeks for Preschool Yellow! Our next topic will be exploring the colour yellow, and after that we will begin our first project on “Fairytales”.
Have a great week!