Festive Season colours, Santa collage and numeracy in patterns

With the possibility of rain today, we decided to stay inside our classroom and also our teachers had prepared a number of different activities for us to do, so there was a lot for us to do and learn. At the activity tables, we had one activity which involved us decorating our cards for our families which we then attached to their gifts that we made. We decorated cards in the shape of a Christmas tree and added stickers and other decorations to them. The second activity took a really long time, and many of us just wanted to stay there and keep on working and being creative. Our class often uses colours to represent certain times of the year. This time of year is represented by red, green, gold and silver. So today we had markers and other drawing equipment in red, green, gold and silver which we used to draw on a white piece of paper. After we had drawn something, we could decorate the page with the beautiful collage materials that our teachers had placed on the table. There were green, red, gold and silver cupcake holders; green and red shiny ribbons; sparkles, shiny shaped decorations, matchsticks, origami paper, feathers, foam shapes and material. We chatted to our teachers about what we were going to draw and when they sit down with us and draw something themselves, it often inspires us to draw. Shelley drew Santa Claus and a Xmas tree with presents. Lucinda then wanted to make a tree and presents and Mika also. Mika even drew Santa and so did

William L. Our teachers also like us to explain and chat about what we have drawn. When our pictures are dry and are pasted in our workbooks/portfolios, our teachers will add some text for us.

While some of our friends were doing their activities at the tables this morning, a few of us were on the mat together with Liezel. We were building a Christmas tree using Lego pieces. In fact, there is a giant Christmas tree in Sydney, Australia that is made out of half a million Lego pieces. You can see it in this photo here. At another table, we had our office and we still have our light table with coloured transparencies and plastic people. Giorgia really likes playing with the people and all of us tried to make them stand as they seem to fall over easily. Just before lunch time, they kept on falling over so we put them all lying down just like we do when we are resting at school.

We made an origami Santa this morning and are all enjoying doing things that strengthen our fine motor skills. We folded red paper into triangles and listened carefully to Hisami’s instructions. We used our completed origami Santa’s in a picture together with snow. We drew facial features onto Santa and pasted some beautiful sparkly things onto his clothes.

Before we went to sit at the table and make Santa, we played a game. We all held hands in a circle and did some new movements. We walked sideways and then we stopped. We walked anti-clockwise and then we stopped. We took one step forward and then Koh told us to stop. We then did a counting exercise where we counted how many children were at school today. Each of us said one number in order until we had counted everyone. Today we counted ten children at school. Then we counted the girls in the same way and then the boys. William L told us that there were five boys and there would also be five girls, even before we had counted the girls. He was correct. We then learnt about half. We held hands in a circle and Shelley took a pretend knife and cut the circle in half….and there were five children in each half. We then sat down with a pizza and used a knife to cut the pizza in half. We saw that there were equal numbers in each half of the pizza, in the same way that there were equal numbers when we cut our circle in half. Each half of a circle is called a semi-circle. Hisami took five children to her table and the other five went to the carpet to play a numeracy game with counting, patterning and shapes, with Shelley.

Part of the game was to match the shapes with the right colour container; then we named the shapes…..hexagon, square, triangle, rhombus, trapezoid, diamond. We then spun a wheel and wherever the arrow landed, this was the shape that we needed to look for. When we had collected all of the shapes we created something with them. You can see on our faces, what fun we had while playing the game and then completing our unique shape.

Some of us pulled silly faces for the photo. At the very end of the day, just before we went to have lunch, we played a game using our cushions. There was a crocodile in the middle of the pool and we had to balance on the cushions and then jump over the crocodile. The second game was going up and down and up and down until we were on the last cushion; and then we jumped off. The reason why we had to go up and down was because there was one cushion, and the two cushions on top of each other and then one cushion and then two cushions on top of each other etc. In the last game we had to stand on one cushion, jump off it and then stand on another. We could also jump from one onto the floor and then jump onto the next one. We loved this one as well. At the very end we ran and jumped over the crocodile and stood in the line to wash our hands.

Today we took home our Xmas presents for our families. We hope that they like them and we think that they will share them us.

Love always Shelley, Hisami and Liezel