At the beginning of our circle time each morning we like to discuss what is going to happen in our day. It helps young children gain a better grasp on their day and feel comfortable about what is happening next. It could be a number of activities like celebrating a classmates birthday; movement class; show & tell and/or going to the library. One more thing that we love to do together when we gather on the mat is to sing!
So, it was to Ms. Catherine’s surprise that after a long summer holiday that the children kept requesting an all time Australian favourite, “The Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree.” Since we “follow the child” in both Early Years and Montessori Eduction, this was our leap off point to explore some of the many unique animals from Australia. Of course the “kookarburra” just had to be our first native Australian animal to learn about.
Ms.Catherine has a kookaburra that visits her backyard in Australia. He has been affectionally named, “Kenny the kookburra.” We learnt that kookaburras will mate for life, so sadly this kookaburra seems to be going solo without Mrs. Kookaburra.
Stick puppets are an all time favourite with young children and we just loved making our very own!
Using our fine-motor skills (small hand muscles) to cut on the outline to form our own kookaburra.
After creating our 19 kookaburras we just had to have a sing-song together!
What Australian animal will we enjoy learning about next?