Prep | Pre-Kindergarten News

Our Pre-Kindergarten Essential Agreement

Throughout the term we have been exploring kindness and respect to assist in establishing our Essential Agreement.  In a PYP school, an Essential Agreement sets the tone for collaboration and teamwork. They are a set of norms that we develop as a group and they become a shared agreement for what learning will look like in the Pre-Kindergarten environment.

We thought about what kindness and respect looks like in Pre-Kindergarten…

Christopher: “Sharing toys and showing kindness to everyone. You pack away.”

Aiden: “Sharing the toys and sharing drawing and making stuff with friends.”

Christian: “Helping people up when they are hurt.”

Declan: “Not hurting the bugs.”

Andy: “Being kind and respectful to teachers.”

Isaac: “Working as a team.”

Andreas: “Sharing the things.”

Saying Goodbye in the afternoon

It has been lovely to have parents onsite for pick up and drop off. We love seeing the boys continuing with their self management skills as they independently carry their school bags and manage their belongings.

It has also provided time for us to focus on the communication skill of saying goodbye to our friends and teacher in the afternoon. As each boy is picked up, he is encouraged to make eye contact with his teacher and say ‘good afternoon’ before farewelling his peers. This routine allows us to practice greetings, social skills and eye contact each day.

We encourage families to build these important communication skills into your daily routines as well.

Our New Playground

We have been enjoying our new playground and the various opportunities for play and learning that it brings.

We particularly like the new ‘river bed’ area in the playground. It is one of our favourite places for learning! In the ‘river bed’ we are encouraged to be risk-takers as we explore movement, strength and balance in different ways. We enjoy rolling the logs around, lifting the rocks, climbing the trees, creating our own new worlds to play in and testing our bodies in different ways. This is a really important part of learning and helps us to develop our gross motor skills, our spatial awareness, our ability to problem solve and our social skills.

Inquiry into Snails

Over the last few weeks of extended rainfall, we have discovered some new friends in our exploration of the outdoor learning environment. With our new playground completed, the Pre-Kindergarten boys have been exploring the space and the natural environment, discovering many snails around the space. They have been inquisitive, caring and communicators as they examined the leaves on the trees and shared their discoveries with one another. We have engaged in discussion with our teachers and peers about the snails and their needs, recalling our Essential Agreement when handling them, to show kindness and respect.

Music

Through the Collaborative Unit of Inquiry Who We Are the Pre-Kindergarten students have continued to explore different sound sources by their experimentation with a variety of tuned (Boomwhackers) and untuned percussion instruments and have been able to identify the structure and materials used and connect this to describe the sound and pitch. They have been developing their listening and responding to music skills by repeating simple speech rhymes and creating actions to assist with memorisation. Through the movement activities which develop fine and gross motor skills they have experienced the music elements of Tempo, Duration, Dynamics and Structure. They have also been introduced to the different instruments of the orchestra and successfully imitated the actions for certain instruments.

Christian Studies

With Easter approaching, we have a wonderful example of God’s plan of salvation through His son Jesus. In week 10, we are privileged to have the visit of “Quiz Worx” – a biblical puppet / interactive show explaining the importance of Jesus’s death and resurrection. This week, the boys are experiencing a visit from the Years 10 to 12 Summer Hill group “Berea”. Berea is a Christian leadership group that helps the students equip and share the good news of Jesus. These older students will be teaching every Christian Studies class this week, visiting CIA (Christians in Action) groups and running Chapel. There are very few opportunities for our boys to share in high school events and this mission will serve as a wonderful opportunity to build relationships and share in the wonders of Easter.