Butterfly News
September Review 2010
Dear parents,
We have had a really nice month of getting to know each other, and for your little
ones to get used to their new group and their new big friends, carers ( us ) :-)
We did welcoming circles, we talked to your children how they were caterpillars
and one by one flew over to the ' Butterfly' group, using the ' Hetch a Sketch,' we
drew one butterfly after the other and they were the children e.g.: First Anika was a
butterfly then Quentin and Logan flew over, then their friends said ' me too ! ' and
the other children flew over, Lara, Mia, Linus, Benjamin, Julia, Leonie, Julienne,
Rebecca and Constanze, they really enjoyed this and were smiling and laughing as
we drew each butterfly and gave it their names.
We sadly say goodbye to Logan, who is now going to Kindergarden and welcome
Simon who has been doing his settling in time recently, many of your children have
probably mentioned his name, they are really sweet to him and ask where he is
when he gets picked up earlier, or hasn't arrived yet. Simon is settling in very well
and enjoys being in our group.
Your little darlings are more confident as when they first came to the Butterfly
group and will say their names at circle time, also with the help of Bo Bo our bear,
who the children said their names to when he asked , and not us at first, sweet *
now they have no problem saying their names and ours, even Mirelle which is
difficult for children to say :-) Bo Bo also sang ' Teddy bear,' with your children
and they loved it and wanted him to do it again and again. We often use our cuddly
toys and baby dolls at circle time, to do with themes or other activities and topics.
We had three birthday children this month Mia, Julienne and Benjamin, they
brought in really yummy scrumptious cake, which we and the other children said
thank you for , and each had a birthday crown, we sang ' Happy Birthday,' ' Heute
kann es regnen,' and each child chose the song at mealtimes and circle time.
They also enjoyed blowing out candles and watching a sparkler (from a very safe
distance) and singing ' Twinkle star.'
This month we have also done a small theme about rain and lots of activities to do
with rain, and for October we will be doing Autumn.
What have we been up to ?
Topics - ' Getting to know each other ' and ' Rain '
Art and Craftwork
• Rain paintings – The children painted rain paintings with blue paint.
• Snip, Snip - Each child had the opportunity to try out scissors and snipped
paper a bit with them with our help. Most children did a snip then ripped the
rest of the paper. :-)
• Rain worms – Using pink paint each child painted a rain worm how they
wanted to, before painting we talked about rain-worms and drew one on the '
Hetch a sketch, we asked the children if they could guess what we had drawn
and a few called out worm in English and German. We also sang a song about
a coughing rain-worm in German.
• In the garden – The children drew pictures sitting at our bench with crayons
and colour pencils, and on another day drew on the floor using chalk.
Maths
• Counting – We did and activity which Nikki also does with your children,
where on claps how many syllables a name has e.g. : La ra – 2 and the children
clap twice or Ben ja min and the children clap 3 times, we went round in a
circle and clapped all the children’s' names and ours.
• Matching – We played a game match the teddy bears we had 2 pink, 2 yellow,
2 blue, 2 green and two red teddy bears. We first named the colours with your
children, then we held up a green teddy and asked where his friend is, with
the same colour ? Each child had a turn and did very well. We also did the game
where you ask the children where is the green teddy and they guess which one it is.
• Pairs – We put lots of rain boots in pile and showed the children, 2 that go
together saying ' oooh a pair, and they are the same colour.'Then each child
got a boot and tried to find the matching one.
Science
• We talked about rain, how one can see grey clouds in the sky on a rainy day,
we also looked out of our big window and pointed some out in the sky.
• We looked at our weather chart with your children naming blue sky, grey sky
white clouds, grey clouds, snow and sunshine. Which we use at circle time
asking the children to look out of the window and see what the weather is
like.
• Using a feather, a hand fan and a stone we did a fun experiment to learn about
wind, light and heavy. First we used the hand fan, moving it gently in front of
each child, making wind and they were giggling a lot. Then we all blew with our
lips making wind. We then showed the children the feather, tickling their chins
with it, and let each child pass the feather along so that they feel it. We put the
feather on our hands and showed the children that we can blow it off and all the
children had a go at this too. We then passed the stone around and tried blowing
this off our hands too and saw that it didn't blow off as it was heavy. We said the
words light and heavy with the children.
• On our way to the playground one day a child noticed the moon in the sky,
and all the children pointed to it excitedly.
Nature and environment
• We went to playgrounds in the area, and took some sand toys with us, your
little ones did really well holding hands and walking there.
• On one playground visit we collected leaves with your children, they put them
in a bag we had brought and we enjoyed looking at the different colours and
sizes.
• We also went in the garden and played ball and with the other toys and sang
' Ring a roses.'
Movement and sport
• We sang and moved to action songs.
• The children made a bus with us from chairs and we sang ' wheels on the
bus.'
• The children had fun in the sport room on the trampoline, slide, climbing
frame, using the soft blocks to climb on using them as a horse and as drums
and playing with the balls and other objects.
• In the garden your children had fun whizzing around on the bobby cars and
pushing wheel barrows around, putting twigs, leaves and stones in them.
• Each child had a chiffon cloth and we danced to music, waving the cloths
around.
• We focused on balancing and jumping to promote and observe these gross
motorik skills, using the gym bench the children walked along the bench with
or without a hand and jumped off at the end, we also did this in the garden a
long the sand pit. We also made an obstacle course to promote gross motoric
skills.
• The children also did bead threading to promote fine motoric skills, with and
without assistance.
• As we did rain-worms we showed the children how they can slide along the
gym bench likes worms, and the had fun doing this.
• We ran around in circles in the sport room and said ' chooo, chooo !'
pretending we were a train, then we said stop, and everyone stands still ,we
then named an animal and we and the children moved and made sounds like
the animal.
• We also played chase in the garden and playground.#
Circletime fun
• We sang songs your children know and they chose which ones they wanted
from the song cards and we sang new songs.
• The children sang ' teddy bear,' with Bo Bo in German and English and told
him their names.* It was so cute *
• We used cars as our birthday chart and each child has their picture in the
window of the car, and their date of birth, it really looks like they are driving
the car. At circle time we brought out a car one by one and it drove around the
circle it was so sweet, as each child recognized themselves and called out
their name as their car drove by. We made suggestions as to where each child was
driving to and named the colour of their car.
• As our mini theme was rain we did an activity with your children, first we said
' oh dear, it's raining and I am getting wet, mmmm what can I wear when it is
raining ? How can I keep dry ? Then from a bag we took out a rain coat, rain
boots and an umbrella and named them with the children in German and
English, some of the children already knew what they were and called out
excitedly. We were also fortunate as it was raining outside and we all pointed
to the rain and the cars outside getting wet. Then we dressed Fred our toy bear
with the rain coat, rain boots and the children were really amused, Fred sang ' Its
raining it's pouring,' with us.
Music
• With Nikki the children sang the greeting song, they shook egg shakers to
the song 'Si Mamaka,' and sang „Kuck,Kuck, da ist sie/ er wieder“ using
chiffon cloths to hide themselves and Sali bonani dancing with the chiffon
cloths.
• Nikki also did two wonderful stories followed by songs, one was about a
sunflower and a bird coming to eat the seeds, which she had props for, and at
the end of the song the children pretended they were birds and ate real
sunflower seeds, which Nikki had brought. She also did a story about dancing
leaves and the children moved around like leaves. They also sang ' Es regnet,
es regnet.'
We sang :
• Where is your nose? mouth ? …. here is my nose, mouth.... (in German and
English ).
• How much is that doggy in the window?
• Row, row, row your boat.
• If you're happy and you know it.
• Yummy, Yummy, Yummy in my tummy.
• Peep, peep mouse.
• Meine Hände sind verschwunden.
• Teddy bear, in English and German.
• Groß ist die Sonne.
• Happy dance( Bo bo, the cat and the rabbit danced together too :-) )
• This is the way you brush your teeth.
• Ring a roses.
• Its raining it's pouring.
• Twinkle star.
• Hickory, Dickory dock.
• Hallo, hallo schön, dass du da bist – our German greeting song.
• Good morning, good morning – our English greeting song we can sing the
greeting songs together at the parent evening :-))
• The wheels on the bus.
• Hörst du die Regenwürmer husten?
And lots more.
Books
• What is Maisy doing?
• Teddy's Flugzeug.
• Dear zoo..
• Chica, Chica 1,2,3.
• Animals on the farm.
• English for infants.
• Die Baustelle.
• Dig, dig, digging.
• The big floor book.
• If you are happy and you know it.
• Playtime rhymes.
And more.
Hope you have enjoyed the review,
all the best the ' Butterfly group.'