First Day of School
Morning Routines
Upon arrival at school, there are several tasks that need to be accomplished that encourage self independence. It includes:
Changing from outdoor shoes to indoor shoes
Taking our pouches out and placing it inside the basket
Hanging our bag onto our bag hooks
Washing our hands before trying out the activities prepared
These tasks provide us the opportunity to strengthen our fine motor skills (changing of shoes) and gross motor skills (taking out pouches from bags & hanging it; climbing up the ladder to wash hands). With our labeled bag hooks, hanging our bags in its proper place exposes to sight read our names.
Along with encouragement and our teachers believing in us that we can accomplish these seemingly “big” tasks, we were able to smoothly do most of it with minimal guidance.
First Day Drawing
Scribbling and drawing are great avenues to strengthen our eye hand coordination. Apart from that, this activity provides our teachers a sneak peek on our current fine motor development and ability to distinguish colors, etc.
Through this activity we learned:
W’s love for trains. He drew circles that resembled wheels and chose colors that are the same as his light blue Shinkansen trousers!
E’s ability to distinguish whose First Day drawing is whose.
Physically gathering around the table was a great way to entice everyone to do their First Day Drawing. K and N were excited to do their first drawings upon seeing that most of the older members of the class were busy narrating what they were drawing.
Our teachers also took the opportunity to show us how to properly pack away the items we used by placing in the crayons we used one by one inside the container. E guided K and N in arranging the crayons.
The Love for Trains
J, Ju, L , and W , all bonded over their common interest on trains. The connection between them was automatic and they hit it off by working together to build a railroad system with wooden train toys and Lego blocks. Together with Goh San, a few of us got into arranging toy vehicles according to different categories such as height, color, and size.
Sensory Table
A sensory table filled with colored noodle bit styrofoam, feathers, and pompoms was available for us to explore. With it being an open ended activity, ideas just overflew and here’s what we did:
Throwing it up in the air like it was confetti. Our teachers pointed out that seeing the colorful items thrown up in the air reminded them of fireworks during summer.
Squeezing the noodles in between our fingers and palms made it smaller. Squeezing it too much flattens it!
A few of us thought of finding out how much of the noodle styrofoam can fit inside toy vehicles and how much the pots can hold
“Driving” vehicles inside the “colorful table” was a great experience!
Learning Routines
We gave our teachers a wonderful surprise by taking initiative in lending a helping hand by knowing how the routines in school are. Ju and N pushed stacks of chairs ready to be arranged for Snack Time. W and J provided entertainment while patiently waiting for their turn to wash their hands by tapping their hands on a table to create rhythm. E demonstrated how to stand still and pose as Erika took our First Day photos.
We also want to thank Seila for doing a great job in filling up our notebooks and making sure that all our belongings were back inside our bags.
Circle Time
We started off our Circle Time by dancing to Bee Gee’s “More Than A Woman” and Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust”. It was wonderful to see everyone let loose and move to the music. It is interesting to note that while others enjoyed grooving to the beat, others preferred to clap/tap their foot according to the beat… such a diverse way of enjoying music!
Since most of us all come from different parts of the globe, we browsed through the book, “It’s A Small World: Hello World” and tried to say “Hello!” in different languages used in Germany, Italy, India, etc.
We are off to a good start and we look forward to meeting more of our Buds Community in the coming days.
We hope everyone’s having a lovely day so far.
Love,
Buds Class Team