The focus of the Arctic room is physical - the development of both gross motor and fine motor skills. On Monday the children discovered a spider web and they had to try and throw food up to feed the spider! By the end of the day, lots of food had been caught in the sticky web and children's throwing ability had improved immensely :)
On another table, children developed their fine motor skills cutting along a spiral to make a curly snake!
The snakes were then decorated with spots and stripes....
Outside some children had made leaf soup - yum- tasty!
It's a challenge to climb to the top of a tricky obstacle!
But when you get to the top - it's fun to jump off!
We often use our imagination to go to different places - here are some children in a spaceship!
The wrecking ball was a great hit! Tall buildings were assembled for the purpose of being knocked over again - hours of entertainment, and a lesson in judging distance, trajectory and force!
Ms. Kate brought her violin in to school and she visited each class to play loud and soft music. Afterwards the children had a chance to sit and sing along to some fun songs like - "5 cheeky monkeys!"
Pity you can't hear - but the tunes coming out of these 'spade guitars' are amazing!
More fine motor activity - using tongs, the children have to pick up pom poms and drop them in the tube
Some mornings we practice writing our names - we are getting really good!
More fine motor activity - threading beads onto sticks - and we made patterns too!
Children often find different things to do other than the intended activity... here some children are counting the spider food and are checking to see if they have an odd or an even number of pom poms.
And this is a train for cars in a mini city!
The children spend days on construction. They place their name on top and come back over and over again to add more to their designs.
The children love explaining what they have made.
Some children see a blank page or a board as an opportunity to write! No prompts or encouragement necessary - they just do it because they can.
These boys are working on tricky 3D shapes - pyramids and cubes.
They worked out that you needed 8 balls to make a cube and set to work.
What better way to play in the rain - a den!!! Cool!!!!
The rocks were slippy in the rain - but a great challenge nonetheless!
These children made a map - it had labels with North, South, East and West - clever!
In class we've been doing a Volcano dance. The movements are great preparation for pre-writing skills. We listened to the music and made the actions with our arms.
And then we had a go on the floor...
