'About Me' and 'Exploring Yellow'

Our first UDA project this year was ‘About Me’. The children brought in photos of their families and made a special ‘Family Poster’. We talked about our bodies, healthy eating and made yummy fruit smoothies for morning snack. Children brought in their toothbrushes for ‘Show-and-tell’ and brush their teeth daily after lunch.

We also talked about our favourite things (toys, colours, foods) and children chose a favourite book from home for our weekly ‘Show-and-tell’. We looked at our faces in the mirror and through guided drawing, the children drew their own faces adding eyes, nose, mouth, ears and hair. Using playdough, they added facial features to laminated face mats and enjoyed a table game where they had to complete a body puzzle using 3 pieces (head, body, feet). After having read the classical story ‘The Gingerbread Man’ we made our own miniature biscuits adding chocolate drops for the eyes, nose, mouth and buttons.

For our creative craft, children made mini versions of themselves adding facial features, hair and clothing of their choice. They also made wooden frames which they decorated with pasta, buttons and beads. We then drew a body outline (of Filippo) and Samy drew the eyes, nose, mouth, ears and hair. We sang lots of songs to reinforce the names of various body parts such as ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes’, ‘2 little eyes to look around’, ‘Here we go round the Mulberry bush’ and ‘If you’re happy, clap your hands’. We had lots of fun during gym lesson with Mr. Alberto and worked our gross motor skills to complete obstacle courses and showed our strength in the ‘Indian Village’ by lifting and transporting logs which we then lined up in ten rows and jumped over. We also made a height chart in class which we will update throughout the year to see how much the children grow.

Links for some songs:

Head, Shoulders, knees and toes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZanHgPprl-0&ab_channel=SuperSimpleSongs-KidsSongs

If you’re happy clap your hands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4WNrvVjiTw&ab_channel=SuperSimpleSongs-KidsSongs

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During the first week of October we have explored the colour ‘Yellow’. We looked at books about colours and had fun with the mystery box which contained yellow objects found in class. The children also selected lots of yellow toys in class to play with and brought in some yellow toys from home for ‘Show-and-tell’.

We added yellow tissue paper to water and the children were excited about the transformation. They enjoyed water play emptying and filling with beakers, funnels and pipettes and washed the small world play animals. They explored corn flour in the sensorial trays and then added water which gave it a different texture. During our weekly cooking lab, they made some yummy mini omelettes which they took home. They sorted toys in class such as pompoms, bottle tops and pegs, painted yellow and made collages. In music they had fun exploring all the instruments inside Mr. Davide’s ‘yellow school bus’ and sang songs linked to the colour yellow.