Term 3 is racing on – the weather is becoming warmer, the holidays inch closer and Foundation children are busy learning more about reading, writing and numeracy every day.

Puppet Show and Puppet Making Workshops

We started the term with a puppet show. Children were enchanted by the program presented by John from Don’t Move Puppet Theatre, enjoying three stories and then having the opportunity to interact with some of the puppets. John even showed the children the workings of his puppet theatre, including how he works the puppets, makes the voices and adds special effects.

The next day everyone attended a puppet making workshop. Starting with just a cube of foam, every child made an individual puppet to take home, choosing from a wonderful array of resources to personalise their puppet. We were very fortunate to have an enormous number of parents, grandparents and even cousins volunteer their time to help out with the workshop.

• The puppets were funny because they were doing silly things. ~ Kira Stahlbock, PB
• I was thinking about making and trying to make spikes for my puppet. ~ Llewellyn McIsaac, PC

Some of the fabulous puppets have been posted to Don’t Move Puppet Theatre’s online gallery—take a look!

Of course, the puppet making and shows have continued on during Exploration, with children drawing on the ideas and themes from the Don’t Move show and workshops to extend their ideas about making puppets and presenting shows.

Swimming

The swimming program also started early in the term. Children attending swimming have shown enormous development in their personal organisation skills, and are now requiring far less help from adults to manage their belongings.

The water safety program has included safe entry skills, what to do in the event of an emergency and basic survival skills. Many thanks to the parents who have been able to come along and help out with dressing children.

Making Lamingtons

As a part of Book Week celebrations, Foundation children enjoyed reading ‘Lamington Man’. Then of course, we had to make lamingtons! Once again we were lucky to have parent volunteers to make the task a little easier and keep most of the sticky chocolate and coconut in the Foundation area.

• It was nice to lick our fingers and eat the lamingtons. ~ Audrey Loxton-Banks, PC

This experience gives children a terrific entry point into reading and then writing procedural texts.

Book Character Parade

Many parents of Foundation students witnessed their child’s first Book Week parade last week. On such a cold morning we were lucky to have the gym available, with parents squeezing in to all available nooks and crannies. The children really enjoyed looking at the outfits that other students had created, and then parading their own outfits in front of the whole school. We have had lots of fun reading the texts children brought to school, listening to and thinking about all different kinds of stories.