Pendulum Painting

Thursday, 22nd March

We have tried pendulum painting once before on a much smaller scale; thanks to the brilliant idea shared by Teacher Tom!!! But this went to the next level! We suspended a snap lock bag from the rafters, added paint and water to make it extra runny and then snipped off the end.....

The down pour was instant and we learnt to cut the hole much smaller to extend the use of the paint!

Scotty was first over investigating the hanging of the bag and so was the first in line to have a go at swinging the pendulum. Soon we had a well organised line behind Scotty with protests of: "Im next, my turn and I want a turn dominating the conversation!

As educators we strive to mediate and assist children to negotiate their rights in relation to the rights of others. (EYLF, 2009). The excitement of pendulum painting encouraged the children to immediately employ their negotiation skills and provided us with an opportunity to observe how effective these skills are.

The delight displayed by the children as they watched the paint magically draw on the paper was contagious and spurred on the addition of more colours, we were very mindful to keep a close eye on who's turn it was!!!

We hope to guide children in their development of dispositions for learning such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity (EYLF, 2009). How we approach the act of learning and trying something new influences our experience of success and accomplishment.

Our pendulum painting certainly inspired curiosity, creativity, enthusiasm and cooperation! We experimented with motion, colour, and speed. Each variable changed the effect of the paint and added a new element to our art work!

The Wonder of Digging

Tuesday, 20th March 2012

 Today we watched as the rain drenched our playground and kept us inside for most of the morning. The children noticed a change outside and began drifting onto the veranda! The sun! It took less than 1 minute for everyone to charge out the door and stretch those muscles in a robust and vigorous fashion!

The weekends events had gone unnoticed up to this point with the newly dug creek out of view until the sun appeared! Scotty promptly investigated and inquired "who did that???" Belen and Olivia filled him in... "our mums did!!" Soon enough Scotty was at the gate keen to explore this new garden, as was Belen, Olivia, Evie, Maddis, Kai Ryley, Tegan, Mak, Ava and Riley! Ok so pretty much the whole preschool!

Olivia is becoming quite the expert at digging and uses all her strength to fill her shovel. Belen is keenly inspecting the soil quality and instructing Olivia to watch out for the rocks!

There are lots of things to discover in our new creek bed and sometimes we dont realise that we are sharing this area.... until we accidentally dig up a not so alive grub!! Kia informed us all of the state of this grub: "it's dead!" Scotty and Maddie extremly interested ask for a hold!

The discovery of a grub launched a full scale excavation mission with comments such as: "I want one" "I'm going to find a grub myself!" spurring on the digging!

Before we know it another grub like creature is pulled from its earthy home and into Maddie's grasp! "I found one, I found one!" "Can I take it home?" Suddenly Maddie is surrounded by keen onlookers reaching for a hold with this slimy creature! Tegan pipes up: "That's not a grub, it's a worm!"

 

  

Kai busily inspects a protruding tree root and attempts to pull it out. This tree root had other ideas and would not budge! Soon Kai retrieves his shovel talking as he goes: "Im going to dig it out" This speech is verbalising Kai's thinking and guiding his actions.

Soon he gives up o that stubborn tree root and searches for another easier target! And hey presto this tree root comes up with a big heave ho! Kai using his "big muscles" pulls and pulls and pulls!! It just keeps coming! With one last pull Kai has the longest tree root ever!!!

                              

"Look, Look!!!" "I did it" Kai holds up the lengthy root for everyone to see and there are a lot of "Oooo's and Ahhhh's!!!" I suggest we measure the tree root to see how long it is and our digging adventure turns into a mathematical investigation!

The measuring tape is just long enough for us to gain a rough idea of the length of the tree root: 152cm!! Almost as tall as me! Kai exclaims: "Its big!" I say: "Its huge!" Kai agrees: "Yeah, HUGE!"

The children worked together to measure this tree root, they gave each other directions and discussed their findings.

Constructing a Creek

Saturday 17th March 2012

Our New Playspace

It is approximately 10am on a Saturday morning and our Creek working bee has begun. We map out the layout of the creek and commence digging along the edges. Soon enough we hit rocks and various tree roots making the excavation slightly more challenging.

We are using a tarp to move all the excavated dirt onto a single pile for later disposal. It is quite heavy and results in dirt exploding into your mouth, shoes and clothes: a wheel barrow would have been a wonderful tool for this exercise! Yay for Sharon who arrives with a beep beep and a wheelbarrow!

Alongside our Creek we are creating a mini rainforest and today we planted our reeds in a trench along the fence and promptly added mulch to our previously planted ferns, palms and crows nest.

The combined digging effort saw our excavation complete by 11am, the brainstorming power of Mat and Sharon led us to transforming our mound of dirt into topographical representations. These will be elaborated onto later with rocks and Lomandra!

This working bee was a great example of how supportive our learning community is, with family involvement  the preschool's capacity to create an enhanced space for learning and play is increased.

Our hard work has come to an end and now its time for some photo poses - with the added humour of clowning around with pitch forks! Thanks Neridah!

Thank you to all those who participated in the initial construction of our creek bed your contribution has extended our playspace and temporarily provided us with an awesome digging area.... With the added bonus of worms and grubs!