Gorton House
Toddlers
Story by Educator Russell
Greetings and salutations to one and all. The toddlers in Gorton House have been exploring the concept of re-purposing and recycling of late. We’ve also had an ardent interest in music and movement. Soooo… how could we follow up on both interests effectively? Well, I thought I’d bring in some cardboard canisters from home that my essential oils get delivered in and we’d make some shakers. Using some coloured corn kernels that we’d created a few weeks back (I had a feeling they’d come in handy if we didn’t throw them out), we discussed how we could fill the canisters and make our own shakers. This also gave us the opportunity to discuss recycling and how we can use everyday resources in different and new fashions. It was a concept that a few of the kids were obviously familiar with, as the talk then turned to how they recycle different goods at home too. We also discussed how filling the canisters with different amounts of corn kernels created different tones. We’re looking forward to where these initial explorations will take us. Stay tuned!
Johnson House
Toddlers
Story by Educator Sreedevi
Threading experiences have been enjoyed by the children at Johnson House toddlers recently. Some of the children were able to confidently name all the wooden fruits while they were threading, and this also encouraged the children who were still learning to both name the fruits and master the skills for carefully threading them. This activity supported the children with skill development in the areas of colour recognition, identifying and labelling items, hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
Robinson House
Story by Educator May
Today in Robinson House Emilia expressed her interest in picking flowers with her friends. I invited her to choose three girls and three boys for an adventure around The Infants’ Home grounds. When we departed our centre’s backyard, the children walked in boy and girl pairs to the flagpole. There, Emilia explained the purpose of the outing, saying that we were going to make flower vase arrangements with all the flowers we would collect. Before setting off from the flagpole, we played a few rounds of ‘Simon Says’.
We were able to find many beautiful flowers around the grounds. “Let’s get a sunflower,” suggested Remi. However, when we found these, it was clear that they had died, and we settled for more marigolds instead. “I love these,” said Ayat while touching the rosemary bush that has lots of small blue flowers. Henrique was more interested in exploring the veggie patch, racing ahead of everyone else. We found a big bird-of-paradise flower near the veggie garden, and we collected it and put it in our basket.
Suddenly the rain caught up to us, and we made a quick exit back to the studio. Finally, it was time to create our floral masterpieces. We poured the flowers out onto the table and filled our vases with water. At this point several other children joined us and placed many coloured flowers into the vases. They are up on the walls in the front studio, if you would like to check them out.
