Pre-KG 2022 / 23 Blog 30 On the Move!

Pre-KG 2022 / 23 Blog 30

On the Move!

The many conversations last week about the activities that the Pre-Kindergarten children do with their families provided a great opportunity to focus on movement and the body this week.

The children understand that they need their legs for walking, climbing and riding a bicycle or tricycle as well as their hands to hold onto things, but we wondered if they really knew a lot of the vocabulary and the right position of their body parts?

We started with a popular song called “Head, shoulders, knees and toes” and it was no surprise to see that most children knew this song and enjoyed moving their hands to the rhythm, but a slow version of the song revealed that the children actually point quite randomly to their body parts. 

Head, shoulders, knees and toes

After some repetition, everyone managed quite well and we moved on to a hands-on game, namely rolling a ball in a sitting position to a friend of a choice. 

This is a multi task activity: sitting, choosing, focussing, speaking, gripping a ball, rolling it and then listening to the cheers of the friend receiving it. Yes, a lot of senses involved in the good old ball rolling game. 

Tuesday was the perfect day for more “Hands-on” activities. With all of the EY teams we went to the nearby Rokko Island field to plant sweet potatoes. Even though I had talked about potatoes and shown some in the morning, the plants looked very different, just a green stem and leaves and no roots, so the children put them in the earth and then “harvested” them again and again.

After the third planting (lol), we said goodbye to our K1 and K2 friends and Ms.Kameda and the other nice ladies from the Rokko Island Beautification team and went to the Green Field. On the way we took time to smell the beautiful flowers.

Once on the field we used our bodies and lots of energy to practice running laps for our Sponsor's Run on Friday. The children showed great enthusiasm and did a good job running. Plenty of water ( yes, we brought the water bottles along) and hats kept us fairly cool. 

Still, after lunch everyone got an ice cream treat which was well deserved considering all the activity that had happened in just one morning.

To learn about their body in a creative way, this week the Pre-Kindergarten children also started a new art project with Ms.Anita who is very fond of recycling those beautiful leaflets of the Fashion Museum exhibitions. 

The children coloured one side of a gingerbread man shape cutout in original colours and then put a collage on the other side. 

This school year my idea of using photographs either for the classroom displays or for many of the children’s art work, proved extremely popular. The little paper dolls are very cute and show a lot of the owner’s character:

“I have black hair, so I need black wool. Ich möchte einen Hut mit Blumen, I want to put a butterfly ribbon, I like pink shorts and a sparkle on my T-shirt, I have short hair, but I want long hair” are just some of the comments the children made and show their ability to express themselves verbally and with creativity.

When all of these charming look alike dolls are finished, we will put them on display and later make a mobile version. Stay tuned for updates !

On Thursday we went shopping for a future unit activity which will involve making an easy treat. Before that we will learn a bit more about the body and also the face !

As it was raining on Friday, the Sponsor Run was postponed to the next week, which enabled the children to enjoy another long awaited Sports lesson with Ms.Miho and practice a little more for the Sponsor Run as well as the movements for the song Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.They also had fun on the parcours climbing equipment using all of their body,  their sense of balance and a little help from Ms.Chinatsu and Mr.Lubin.

What a great week with lots of movement and moving along with our subjects !

Yours, 

Anita Ursula Mönch

Pre-Kindergarten homeroom teacher

Playgroup / EY GFL