Into the EY2 Classroom

In our Adventures in Nature this week we were very happy to see the first real signs of spring appearing – the trees were flowering! The children were very excited to explore the different flowers and smell the beautiful perfume they produce deeply.

This week in English we’ve been exploring globes and different countries. But first we need to know, what is a country? On the globe we could see lots of different shapes with different colours – these are all different countries! We asked the children – how many countries do you think there are? Milo said “One hundred!”, while Lexi jokingly guessed “Two!” At the beginning of the week, the children were presented with a globe and tasked with finding different countries. Milo was asked to find the biggest country and quickly found and pointed to Russia. Lexi was asked to find a small country and rolled the globe back and forth until she found New Zealand. Audrey was asked to find a pink country and found Zimbabwe. 

The children were all very interested in the globe and found that certain countries were circled. Ms. Kathryn pointed to one of the circles – what country is this? Milo said “China!”

If this is China, who lives in the circle? The children then quickly realised that we ALL live in this circle! But what about the other circles?

We spun the globe around to Europe, where two areas were circled. Ms. Kathryn pointed to the first one – who is from here? The children tried to think but weren’t sure. So, we asked them “Who do we say ‘hola!’ to?”. They realised this is where Mrs. Marta is from! She was born in Spain! The other circled area was still a mystery we needed to solve. First Ms. Kathryn asked the class, “Am I from China?” some said yes, and others thought no. Then we asked “Where is Audrey’s mummy from?” The children realised both Ms. Kathryn and Audrey’s mummy came from this group of countries – The United Kingdom!

As we talked about countries, Ms. Kathryn introduced the goal for this week – we are going to learn about her home country of Scotland!After our introduction to countries, it was time to explore Scottish culture some more. First, Ms. Kathryn showed the children a video of a woman weaving material. There were lots of different colours in it. Rachel said she said “Red, and blue, and green, and white, and yellow”! This, Ms. Kathryn explained, is called tartan. It’s worn on special outfits and used on some instruments, and today we are going to weave our own! Ms. January and Ms. Kathryn helped the children begin with the movements, weaving the wool over and under the strings on their looms. Rachel enjoyed it so much, she and Ms. January built an even bigger loom so she could make her creation bigger!

 

 

Through last week's activity, we noticed the children's perception of instrumental sound and rhythm, as well as the regular patterns they drew. This inspired us to guide our children to explore wave creation!

The waves the children create are a pattern or line can create with the rhythm of the music. In other words, it's music in children's heads, music that only they can interpret!

Using a ball, children were asked to listen to the drum and follow along with the rhythm, “walking” the ball in time to the beat.

Of course, we need to get to know the ball before we start our tour! When they saw the ball, the children were excited and said, "We know it. I have played with it!" The kids couldn't wait to show us how they interact with the ball. There's bouncing, tossing, passing, and kicking!

Now that everyone is so familiar with the ball, it's time for the "big guy" -- the Chinese drum! The ball introduces the children to its good friend, the Chinese drum, and the game of finding their way by listening to the drum. Through demonstration and personal experience, the children gradually realized the pattern:

Dot: The sound of a drumstick hitting the head of a drum.

Straight line: The sound of a drumstick sliding across the face of a drum.

Curve: The rub of the stick in circles around the edge of the drum.

As the children mastered the first rules, the challenge naturally increases! We purposefully turn our children's backs to the drum. When the drum is not playing, the children need to pay more attention to their listening! They need to find their way just by relying on sound cues.

In this challenge, we also discovered the different stages children are at and the types of sounds that are more sensitive to the individual. Some children respond very quickly to rhythmic hops, while others confuse the constant sound of a circle with the sound of the beating. This suggests that in the following activities, we need to present more distinct sounds, and gradually enlighten the understanding of rhythm.

 

 

Catchy nursery rhymes are a great choice to experience a sense of rhythm!

The picture book "Little Mouse on the Lampstand Again" is adapted from a traditional children's song. As the content of picture books continues to expand, we also encourage children to use their imagination to fill in the content of picture books. For example, in a picture book, the mouse squeaks three times and the children fill in a three-word sentence according to the plot.

When the mouse met the cat, the children said, "I'm afraid," and "Run away."The children unknowingly adapted a new children's song "Little Mouse on the lampstand".

Finally, the children also choose a variety of open materials to create percussion instruments. And use them to beat out the rhythm of a nursery rhyme, singing the rhyme as they beat. This is the process of experiencing the rhythm and controlling the rhythm!

 

Intentional teaching and new learning

On Friday, our plan was to continue the exploration of Scottish culture by cooking traditional bread over a fire outside, but unfortunately the pollution levels had a different plan. Considering how interested the children had been in the globe, the plan was shifted to meet this. Our Nursery is a wonderfully diverse place, with people from all over the world. Ms. Lucy is from the United Kingdom, Ms. Juliana is from Brazil, Mrs. Marta is from Spain, and Ms. May is from China. Using the globe, we wanted to find where they lived. The children worked together to match the countries with their names, using clues from Ms. Kathryn like “Ms. Juliana comes from a big country on the bottom of the globe”, and “Ms. Marta is from a country very near Ms. Lucy’s home!” 

As the children found the different countries, we watched a video about each place. For China, we watched a drone shot of Shanghai. Ms. Judy used to live in Shanghai so she told us a bit about it and how busy it was! Rachel told us that her daddy works in Shanghai and travels there a lot. Milo noticed the boats and guessed that maybe they carry food, or garbage, or even passengers!

When they found Brazil, we watched a video of the beautiful rainforests found in Brazil. Lexi excitedly shouted out “monkey!” when the small squirrel monkey appeared on screen. When a sloth showed up, Rachel said “It’s a sloth!” in Chinese. The huge and wild waterfalls amazed the children as they watched them flow quickly. 

When they found the United Kingdom, the children watched videos of the Highland Games held in different places around Scotland. They watched men in kilts “toss cabers” - a sport where they throw a bare tree in a straight line. Milo said he can do it! The children noticed the tartan the men were wearing was similar to what they’ve seen before. 

When they found Spain, we watched a video of the La Tomatina event in Bunol. It’s a wild event where thousands of people gather to throw tomatoes at each other! The children considered if they’d want to go. Rachel and Lexi both said “No!” as did Ms. January. Ms. Kathryn and Milo decided that they definitely want to go one day.

Environmental talk

As the weather warms up, water becomes an essential activity resource. When water is mixed with different materials, different forms of matter can be explored; when water meets different containers, it may develop into a mathematical game of weight and volume...

Taking inspiration from Tan Dun's The Soul of Water and borrowing some elements from Orff, we set up a provocation about "the Sound of Water".

We put all kinds of containers, open materials together with water. Observe how the child explores the water and whether he or she notices different sounds. The children's main way of exploring is to use containers to "transport" water repeatedly, using different tools to stir the water in the pool to create a splash. Therefore, we chose to intervene in time and guide the children to pay attention to the different sounds of the water through common play.

After that, the children discovered that straws could be used not only to stir water, but also to blow bubbles in it. And different containers can make different bubble sounds. Different hand movements also make the water sound different, stirring, slapping, grabbing, etc. Squeezing a wet sponge can make the sound of water trickling... We videotaped the sounds the children made and saw if they could identify how to make them. We were pleasantly surprised to find that some children could clearly recognize different sounds and present them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In fact, in this activity, the children experienced not only the difference in the sound of water, the different ways of transporting water, but also the sense of achievement brought by solving problems independently! Children have their own modes of exploration and naturally encounter different problems in them. Lexi prefers to transport water in a container, trying to catch water that leaks from a bucket. As the volume of water builds up and overflows the cup, she searches for a larger, more suitable vessel.

As we added ice cubes to the water, both Milo and Rachel realized how cold their fingers were when they grasped the ice. So, they started looking for the right tools. Rachel uses a water cup to scoop ice, while Milo uses a spoon! When Rachel noticed that the ice was melting, she quickly poured the bowl of ice into the water to speed up the delivery.