The past months have been active and full of learning opportunities for the Hawks, almost daily they have been engaging in tasks and projects that prepare them for preschool. Starting with our much-anticipated International Week.
They had the opportunity to explore cultures through games, food and creative activities. First came the USA, with Kari, where they experienced classic yard games from her childhood and enjoyed “american style” hot dogs with many toppings. In Finnish lessons with Tanja, they learned about local traditions, foods and even Finnish literature; they read a fragment of the well-known Seven Brothers.
Ireland came to life with Brian through a traditional dance and a fun puppet show about St. Patrick’s day, which the Hawks spent days talking about afterwards. The journey continued to Canada with Olivia, tasting delicious maple syrup, and to England and Wales with Douglas, where they explored postcards, coins and traditional home-made snacks. To finish the week, África introduced Spain, answering the Hawks questions and trying churros for snack.
Somewhere in between countries, they started their basketball segment. For the first session, the Hawks were introduced to dribbling, passing and to “Pickle in the Middle”. This quickly progressed to learning more complex techniques in the following sessions since they demonstrated to be extremely confident about it. These included learning offence and defence, shooting and even playing small matches. Our new basketball hoop right outside our classroom has been a fantastic addition, giving the children even more opportunities to practice and organize their own games during free play.
For their spring project, the Hawks are working on their own puppet show. Everyone has an assigned farm animal character and they are almost done making their own sock puppet. They also painted over an old canvas to create their background for the show; they decided to paint a night scene of an island with a small farm and that is exactly what they did, they even added a beautiful northern lights detail. Alongside this, they have been working together to write their script which is all about recycling and how to sort different types of waste correctly. We are hoping that by the end of May we will be able to perform for the Puffins!
Not long after International weeks came Easter, which is one of the “craftiest” celebrations. For their Easter grass, the Hawks’ first plan was to make “grass caterpillars”; by using old tights filled with the soil and seeds. Unfortunately the grass did not grow as expected, which worked as an example of why plants need specific conditions in order to grow. And it was not a big issue since the Hawks were quickly able to reuse the soil to create a mini front garden for their own mini house craft. This time it worked! Everyone was able to take their grown easter grass along with their hand made colorful Easter branches right in time for the holidays. And of course, we had a visit from the Easter bunny, who hid eggs all over our yard along with some colorful name tags and the Hawks had to match them to complete the hunt. In Finnish lessons, they also learned about local traditions and tasted Mämmi, which almost everyone loved!
After the short holiday, there have been some special activities such as the visit from Pets on Wheels, the beginning of cycling season and Awesome Space Adventure with Douglas and Ellie which is still ongoing. For this, the Hawks are revisiting their space knowledge to complete weekly challenges! Soon we will also have the Vappu party, our end of the year trip to the Zoo and Mothers Day coffee.
Throughout these months the Hawks have demonstrated to be an enthusiastic, caring and active group, it is clear that they will have an amazing time in Preschool, which is just around the corner!