from ISOCS Early Years Class

Hello Miss Brooke!!

2012-02-23T16:44:00.004+01:00

EY was so excited to have Miss Brooke spend the whole day with us today!! We decided to revisit our "All About Me" unit, with particular focus on getting to know Miss Brooke and each other better. What fun!!

Miss Kirstin asked us what we already know about Miss Brooke, and we had some great ideas. It was wonderful to hear each other speaking clearly and using whole sentences to share our thoughts. Some of our knowledge about Miss Brooke included, "Miss Brooke speaks Australian", "Miss Brooke is a lady", and "Miss Brooke has blue and white eyes".

As we shared our ideas, Miss Kirstin typed them and stuck them on the Learning Journey wall. The next stop on our journey will be to establish what we still want to know.

Next, Miss Kirstin presented us with a jigsaw each. She did not tell us what the picture was, so it was pretty tricky to make it!

Imagine our surprise when we realised it was a picture of Miss Brooke!!

Bye Bye, Miss Kitty!!

2012-02-23T16:31:00.005+01:00

On Tuesday EY said a fond farewell to the fantastic Miss Kitty who has been volunteering in our class since the start of the academic year. We have had so much fun playing and learning with Miss Kitty, that we decided to have a great day celebrating the good times together!!

We had some surprises in store for Miss Kitty, and we were really excited about giving her these, but imagine our shock when Miss Kitty told us she had a surprise for us too!! When we came back in from playtime, we were so excited to see the tables decorated with napkins, cutlery, pots of goodies and balloons! Miss Kitty had made cupcakes for everybody, and we were allowed to decorate and eat them! Oooh it all looked so yummy! There were lots of different things to decorate the cakes with, raisins, chocolate sprinkles and even fruit sprinkles! Wow!!

Once we had eaten our delicious cupcakes, we burned off some steam playing with the balloons, before we presented Miss Kitty with her surprises from us. We had made a card with a beautiful bunch of flowers on the front for her. We had written our names in the card all by ourselves!! Then with great care, we presented her with a special bag containing a special bottle of special bubbles especially for grown ups! Miss Kitty was so grateful for all the surprises, but not nearly as grateful as we all were for having had the opportunity to get to know her and spend time with her!

We will miss you, Miss Kitty!!

EY pyjama party!!

2012-02-03T14:17:00.009+01:00

When it is cold and snowy outside, what could be better than cosying up under a blanket, drinking a hot chocolate and listening to a bedtime story, all the while wearing your favourite pyjamas? But surely that kind of thing is best reserved for the weekends? Not in EY!!

LS suggested wearing pyjamas to school on Friday, and we were quite taken with the idea! The more we spoke about what we could do, the more excited we became!! We decided to take our pyjamas to school and get changed here because the sub-zero temperatures outside wouldn't be so good for wearing our pyjamas outside!

As soon as we arrived at school we all proudly showed off our pyjamas to each other! We decided to get all our hard work done first, so that we could really enjoy a pyjama party together afterwards! Everbody got their writing books and we drew pictures of ourselves in our pyjamas, and then labeled the picture using our best writing. Miss Kirstin and Miss Mara were very proud! Next we went to the library and chose our stories to take home for the week. None of us noticed Miss Kirstin taking two books back for herself..

After play time we all got ready to play "The Pyjama Game". Miss Kirstin told us about this game that she used to play with her brother and sister. Everbody had to race to see who could put their pyjamas on first!! What a great game! Everybody got into their starting positions, and Miss Kirstin called out, "ready.. steady.. GO!!" What a race we had!! Miss Kirstin and Miss Mara said they had never seen us get changed so quickly before! Of course, Miss Kirstin and Miss Mara had to put on their pyjamas too!!

We decided to have our hot chocolates straight away, so we headed to the kitchen and prepared them. We had intended to slurp them under the blankets, but they looked so tasty that we drank them all up in the kitchen!! Yum yum!

But the fun did not stop there! Miss Kirstin and Miss Mara had brought their hot water bottles to school, and they filled them up carefully for us, and we all headed back to the classroom. We all snuggled up under the blankets and duvets, shared around the hot water bottles and had a delicious biscuit that Miss Mara had brought in for us! We were just having the best fun!

Miss Kirstin then read a bed-time story for us that she had found in the library! It was a fantastic story called "How many feet in the bed?" by Diane Johnston Hamm and Kate Salley Palmer. What a great find! We counted how many feet we had in our bed too!!

After another bed-time story, a wee snooze and a snore, and a little lullaby, you would have thought we would have been quite sleepy.. But we had barrels of energy and thank goodness, we needed it to get ourselves changed for lunch!! What a fun day!!

Poor Miss Trudi!!

2012-02-03T14:03:00.002+01:00

Unfortunately, Miss Trudi was sick and we were unable to have our German lesson with her as normal. We felt so sorry for her that we decided to send her an email to cheer her up.

Luckily for us, Miss Mara and Miss Kirstin decided this was a great opportunity for us to learn some new German words! We thought it would be really special for Miss Trudi if we wrote her a get well soon email in German! Have a look at what we wrote:

leebu miss troodee

veer hofun deer gayts balt besr. veer fermisun deech.

leebu groosu

ee wI

(Liebe Miss Trudi, Wir hoffen Dir geht es balt besser. Wir vermissen Dich. Liebe Grüsse, EY.)

We hope you will be better soon. We miss you. Love from EY.

Imagine how delighted we were to get a reply from Miss Trudi today!!

Liebe EY-Kinder und Kirstin

Ich habe mich riesig über eure Post gefreut!

Es geht mir schon etwas besser! Nächste Woche bin ich wieder bei euch!

Ganz liebe Grüsse an alle

Miss Trudi

What time is it?!

2012-01-27T10:59:00.005+01:00

We have had lots of fun this week learning how to tell the time!!

Imagine our shock when Miss Kirstin started drawing on our carpet! OH NO! She drew a big circle and then wrote numbers 1-12 around the outside. We had a 'great time' (pardon the pun!) using our bodies to be the big hand and the little hand. Have a look at these photos to see how good we are at telling the time!!

Miss Kirstin's House!! Part 1..

2012-01-20T16:35:00.003+01:00

Every morning we take a register in our class. Miss Kirstin always asks us individually how we are, and if we are absent or present. It has caused us great amusement to say we are absent. When asked where we are, we always reply, "in your bed"!

This fascination with Miss Kirstin's house prompted us to change our vet clinic to a small version of her home. We looked at photos of all the different rooms and discussed what was in each of them. Next, we worked hard to create features of her home that we particularly like, and are now the proud owners of a mini Miss Kirstin's house!

The next logical step was to make our dreams come true and visit her actual home. WOW!

What a fun day we had! We took public transport, popped into the shops, made lunch, did the laundry, played in the garden and even watched a little bit of a film on the big cinema screen in her lounge! But our favourite part of the whole visit was... jumping on Miss Kirstin's bed!!

Next week we will be making a book to tell the story of our visit.

Vu snayl storeee (the snail story)

2012-01-12T09:05:00.002+01:00

wun day mmmis kiiiiirstin woz yoning and llllllllllllloookdddddddd uppppp annnnnnnnd ssssssso......

the miiiiiiissssssssssssiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing sssssssssssnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnayllllllllllllll!!

(One day, Miss Kirstin was yawning and looked up and saw... the missing snail!!)

LS decided "to get gloves so if the snail was alive we didn't get slime on our hands".

LS: "we got the gloves from the kitchen in the bit where the doctor bit is".

MG: "Miss Kirstin put LS on a stool to get the snail."

MM: "Miss Kirstin lifted LS."

AO: "I'm seeing the snail and it looked sad."

VD: "The snail was sleeping."

LS: "The snail was dead because it didn't have anything to eat or drink."

MG: "The snail was away a long time."

MM: "MG put water in the snail."

MG: "LS get a leaf and put it on a plastic plate."

AO: "We want him to be alive again."

VD: "I think the snail is going to go away again."

LS: "I think it will stay dead because it can't come alive again."

Finding the missing snail has been a very interesting learning experience for the children. We revisited our previous learning about what living things need to survive and discussed whether these necessities were available to the snail after he had gone missing. Despite the unhappy ending for our snail, it has been a great learning journey for the Early Years students.

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-16T13:36:00.001+01:00

The boys and girls, Miss Mara and I wish you all very happy holidays! See you in 2012 for more EY fun!

Gingerbread Man Celebration of Learning Song

2011-12-14T15:04:00.010+01:00

Today we had a special Celebration of Learning... our parents were invited to come! We were so excited about them coming!!

Miss Kirstin asked us what we would like to share with our Mummies and Daddies when they came in, and we decided we wanted to do something special about the Gingerbread Man. We love singing in our class, especially when we have made the songs up ourselves, so we made up our very own song!! Using the words we knew from the story, our lyrics were:

Run, run, run,

As fast as you can,

You can't catch me,

I'm the Gingerbread Man! HEY!

Run, run, run,

As fast as you can,

You can't catch me,

I'm the Gingerbread Man! WOO!

Run, run, run,

As fast as you can,

You can't catch me,

I'm the Gingerbread Man! WOOHOO!

Miss Mara found some brilliant hand bells in the music room that we used to try and keep the beat! We designed our own costumes so that we looked just like gingerbread men and girls, and could make the audience believe that we really are tasty cookies!!

We thought it was important to practice our performance on the stage, and had a couple of little rehearsals before the big show!

We decided we wanted to greet everyone by saying, "hello Mummies and Daddies"!

Next, LS said, "we are learning about the Gingerbread Man". MG followed with "the fox did eat him", before MM said "we made a song about the Gingerbread Man"! We sang the song so clearly, confidently and loudly. We got a really big round of applause and we were so proud of ourselves!

VD then said, "now it's your turn", and Miss Kirstin told the audience that we wanted to sing the song together. We were very impressed with how beautifully everyone sang our song!

I am a very, very proud teacher after watching the EY children performing for such a big audience. For many of them, it was their first time ever to stand on a stage and sing for other people. What a brilliant demonstration of how far the children have come in their learning this term. Well done boys and girls, I am very proud of you!!

The Gingerbread Girl!

2011-12-14T14:30:00.009+01:00

One morning the EY children found a brilliant book in the classroom, "The Gingerbread Girl" by Lisa Campbell Ernst. We studied the front cover and discussed lots of different book language (front/back cover, author, illustrator and, our favourite, 'blurb') before predicting what we thought would happen in the story. We knew of the Gingerbread Man's sad demise, and all predicted that the Gingerbread Girl would have the same snappy ending.

Next, Miss Kirstin showed us some of the pictures from the story and we made up our own story based on what we saw. We were all very proud of ourselves and each other for speaking clearly in sentences! What amazing progress we have all made this term!!

Finally, Miss Kirstin read us the story and we found out that the Gingerbread Girl outfoxed the fox! The Gingerbread Girl is a very smart little cookie! Although she runs away like her brother did, and she is chased by the same characters in the story, the Gingerbread Girl has a different fate.. When she meets the fox she climbs on his tail and his back just like the Gingerbread Man did. We were all so worried when she climbed up onto his head next, but just before the fox can take a big bite, the Gingerbread Girl pulls out one of her hairs and ties it round the fox's mouth! The story even has a happy ending. We were delighted!!

Of course, we had to make our own gingerbread girls now to see if our ones would run away..

We were really quick at rolling out the dough and cutting the shapes. We even made a few extra gingerbread men with the left over dough! The gingerbread girls and men went into the oven and we went out for play time. There was a delicious smell coming from the kitchen when we came back inside after a good run around. We opened the oven door only to discover that..

...they had run away! Oh dear! Luckily, Miss Kathy was at hand to tell us whether she had seen or heard anything. Lots of questions were asked;

did they run away?
did someone take them out the oven?
are they hiding in the same place as where the gingerbread men were hiding?
will we ever see them again?

We decided to go and ask the other classes, and popped upstairs to the Middies. They were very helpful! N and DZ had letters to read to us!

They were letters from the gingerbread girls and men! Just like the Gingerbread Man said, "run, run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!". The next letter said, "I'll run and I'll run, with a leap and a twirl, you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Girl!". Just like in the story! (Campbell Ernst, 2006) A third and final letter warned us that they were hiding somewhere different to last week's naughty cookies!

We went straight into the upstairs library, and there they were, having a wee snooze on the sofa! How funny!

We took them straight downstairs and decorated them beautifully, giving them hair and beautiful dresses and fancy outfits. Miss Martina, our wonderful music teacher was delighted when we presented her with one as a thank you for our fun lessons every week!

We were thrilled when it was home time and we could gobble them all up!!

ee oo, cheese fondue..!

2011-12-14T14:00:00.006+01:00

We are making such brilliant progress in our sounds that we are now learning really tricky sounds from the English language, called digraphs. We call them "two letters, one sound" sounds!

Miss Kirstin told us a story about when she went for a walk with Miss Mara and Miss Kitty by the Zugersee, and suddenly Miss Kitty shouted "ee!". Miss Kirstin asked Miss Kitty what she was looking at, "ee, what can you see?". You'll never guess what Miss Kitty could see... She said, "I see a green sheep!". Oh my goodness!!

The following day Miss Kirstin had an even more astonishing story to tell us! She had come home from school to find a monkey cooking in her kitchen! When she asked him what he was doing, he replied, "oo oo!". What fun! Our little phonics group has been really keen to do a bit of cooking, so as a special treat we decided to practise our two new sounds, ee and oo, by cooking cheese fondue! It was lots of ooey, gooey, cheesy fun!

The Gingerbread Man!! Part 2..

2011-12-02T14:10:00.014+01:00

We couldn't possibly read the story of the Gingerbread Man without making our very own ones to eat!

So we rolled out the dough:

Used special gingerbread man shaped cookie cutters to make the gingerbread men:

Until there was no dough left!

Then we popped them in the oven and went off for our music lesson.

After play time we went to get the gingerbread men out of the oven. We were SO excited! Imagine our complete despair when we opened the oven door only to discover that they were not there!

We were so shocked!! What could possibly have happened to them?

Luckily, Miss Kathy was in the kitchen so we asked her if she had seen our gingerbread men.

Miss Kathy was very helpful and told us that she had heard a slam that sounded like an oven door being shut in a hurry, and very fast little footsteps. Oh my goodness! Had our gingerbread men run away, just like the one in the story? Miss Kathy suggested we look in the reception to see if they had run under the desk.

But they were not there! So we asked Marvin if he had seen them. He said he thought he had seen something run upstairs! Oh my goodness! On our way up LS spotted something that looked suspiciously like a gingerbread man. Upon closer inspection though, she discovered it was actually Norman the Doorman, our trusty doorstop!!

We headed straight for Miss Judy, Mr. V and the Middies. They were so helpful! Miss Judy told us she had heard the pitter patter of teeny wee gingerbread man feet, and thought they were dashing up and down the corridor! M asked if they were very thin because they would be able to slide under doors and into little places. What a great tip!

Our next place to check was in the upstairs library. In there we found 3 very willing Mummies who suggested we check on the bookshelves, in the sink and in the cupboard.

STILL no gingerbread men! Where on earth could they be? They thought perhaps we should look inside the Seniors' classroom. So we nipped inside only to discover they were not there! We peeked inside pencil cases, opened up glasses cases and even checked Mr. Phil's chair for crumbs! But still no gingerbread men! When Mr. Phil came back in, we asked him if he had seen anything and he suggested we look in the library downstairs.

In the library LS found a note! It said "just give up, you will never find us!" The gingerbread men really were sneaky!

We were beginning to feel really quite desperate. Where could they possibly have got to? LS suggested we return to the classroom to write a letter to ask everyone for help. What a great idea. We had begun to formulate a plan on our way back down the hall when all of a sudden MM, who was leading our line, bellowed from the classroom, "THEY'RE HERE!!" They were cuddled up on a plate just waiting to be gobbled up by the ever-hungry EY children!

The Gingerbread Man!!

2011-11-29T12:50:00.007+01:00

"Run, run, as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"

We have been looking at this wonderful old story and predicting what we think will happen. Predicting is quite tricky, but lots of fun because you can let your imagination run wild! Miss Kirstin read us the story of the Gingerbread Man (http://www.topmarks.co.uk/stories/gingerbread.htm), but then she stopped at the point where he gets to the river. How will he cross it? We discussed various different options, and then drew what we thought the Gingerbread Man would do. There were some fabulous ideas, ranging from sailing on a boat to flying over the water in an aeroplane to hanging off the end of a kite string! What wonderful problem solvers we are!!

It was terrific to show our predictive pictures to the rest of the class. We are beginning to give each other positive feedback on our work now too! Very grown up!! When Miss Kirstin read us the end of the story we were quite surprised none of our ideas featured!

The Gingerbread Man story has become a firm favourite, so were so excited when we realised we would be doing a whole day's work based on the story!

We practised our fine motor skills by trying to cut a gingerbread man out of bread using a cookie cutter! It was really tricky, but the reward was that we were allowed to eat it! We put the scraps aside so we could feed them to the birds outside afterwards, linking nicely to our unit about what animals need to keep them healthy and happy!

We worked on ordering our numbers 0-20 by completing a dot-to-dot of a gingerbread man! That was really tricky so we helped each other when we got stuck!

Our computer skills got tested by a game on Miss Kirstin's laptop where we had to count cherries to stick on the Gingerbread Man's tummy! If we completed the task correctly, the Gingerbread Man cheered!! Yeeeeeeeaaaahhh!!!

We painted and decorated a Gingerbread Man of our own using lots of different collage materials. Our favourite thing to use was the sparkly sequins!

One of our favourite things was when Miss Kirstin gave us some masks. We used our knowledge of the story and our new vocabulary related to it to roleplay The Gingerbread Man! What fun! This linked in nicely to when Miss Kirstin gave us our own Gingerbread Man with moveable arms and legs! We used a small world backdrop to recreate the story! Lots of fun!!

Green Anaconda, Green Anaconda!

2011-11-25T16:04:00.005+01:00

The boys and girls in EY have been enjoying learning a new song, "The Green Anaconda". It has become such a favourite that there are regular chants of "green anaconda, green anaconda" throughout the school day!

We decided to share the song with our friends in the Juniors this morning. It was an instant success!!

One of the lyrics tells us that an anaconda can be 20 foot long. We looked at how big a 'foot' is in measurement terms. It was as big as a giant's foot! So an anaconda must be very long indeed!! We spoke about how different people measure using different means, and confirmed that we are most likely to measure in the metric system - meters and centimeters! A 20 foot anaconda is 6 meters and 10 centimeters. It is quite difficult to visualise how long that really is, so we decided to measure it using ourselves! We needed 4 children to lie top to tail on the ground before we were the same length as the anaconda! Wow!

Watching our classmates stretched out onto the ground made us question how far we could reach if we ALL lay top to toe.. With all of the EY and Juniors, we were able to reach all the way from Miss Kirstin's classroom to the music room! Can you imagine if an anaconda was that long?!!

zzzzz..!!

2011-11-23T13:59:00.004+01:00

After a busy morning in EY, a hearty lunch and a long walk back to school, we can sometimes be quite sleepy by the time we get back to school. Our favourite thing to do is to have a little lie down where we either listen to some classical music (our current favourite is Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker), look at a story book, listen to a fairytale meditation, or watch a short clip related to our learning. Sometimes we like to have a little bit of silence too, but what we like best of all is to have a little cuddle!! Look at these lovely sleeping beauties...

Then just as Miss Kirstin tiptoes off to let us sleep we leap up shouting "TRICKED YOU!", signalling the end of Quiet Time!!

Sound Hunt!

2011-11-23T13:45:00.003+01:00

Today Miss Kirstin hid lots of little sticky notes with all the sounds we know in the classroom. We were challenged to find them as quickly as we could and then stick them to the board. It was so much fun rushing around trying to see who could find the most!

Once we had found them all we read all the sounds! Did you know we now know more than 25 sounds in the English language? Wow! We each had to read a sound and if we got it right we were allowed to keep the card. Once all the cards had been shared out, we all took it in turns to hide them! We found some brilliant hiding places, in the sand pit, inside a big cardboard box and in between the pages in a story book!

The game was such a success that it became an ongoing activity throughout the day. Perhaps next time Miss Kirstin will try hiding numbers!!

A new throne!

2011-11-21T14:42:00.004+01:00

Today Miss Kirstin's dreams came true when she finally had a throne to sit on in the classroom!

The boys and girls have been working so hard on their sounds that they have now moved on to learning sounds made up of two letters! Wow!

Miss Kirstin told us a story about when she went for a walk with her friend at the weekend. As they were passing a tall tower, they heard a loud cry.. "Help! Help! HELP!!" Miss Kirstin and her friend looked up to see a girl stuck at the top of the tower! They tried to get in through the door, but the door was locked. Thankfully, just when Miss Kirstin and her friend were beginning to despair, a horse came trotting by! The two ladies quickly clambered on top of the horse and were able to reach the girl and help her down. She was so grateful to be rescued that she immediately said, "thank you!". A big picture on the board accompanied Miss Kirstin's story, and showed a horse standing beside a tower.

The children were fascinated by the story and came up with all sorts of exciting ideas about how the girl got stuck at the top of the tower in the first place!

We thought long and hard trying to come up with words with the 'th' sound in it, and decided we rather liked the word 'throne'. After practising writing 'th', we decorated a chair to turn it into the most beautiful throne you ever did see!! It is covered in sparkles, silver and flowers.

VD even labelled it so that people who haven't seen a throne before would know what it is called! Brilliant!!

EY update!!

2011-11-16T13:48:00.010+01:00

We have been really busy in EY recently! From painting, drawing and decorating new animals for in the vet clinic, to making a human jack in the box and working on our numbers, we have been very excited to be in school!

Last week we were thrilled when the Juniors came to visit us on a very special day. It was the 11th day of the 11th month of the 11th year! We found a digital clock online and sat very quietly watching the seconds tick by until the time said the 11th second of the 11th minute of the 11th

hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the 11th year! What a wonderful moment when we all roared ELEVEN at the top of our lungs! And would you believe it, Miss Katie was able to capture this special moment on camera!! Great photography skills!!

We have been working really hard on our sounds and are particularly good at 'j'... Miss Kirstin told us all about what a Jack in the Box is, and we were so excited when we were presented with an enormous box! Surely a real life Jack in the Box is more fun than a toy one?! Everybody took it in turns to hide in the box and leap out! We learned a new song and it has caused us all great amusement to sing this sporadically throughout the day!! We have even tried squeezing a couple of us in there at the same time! Today we presented this song at the school's Celebration of Learning, and everybody was very impressed!!

"X (substitute child's name) lives in a wooden box,

Head tucked down between his/her socks,

Push the button and up he/she pops,

My X in a box!"

We are still busy learning all about different animals and how to care for them, and love spotting animals in books and outside. Imagine our delight when Miss Kirstin told us she had a whole bag full of little bears that we could count! We worked together to count them carefully, and then we shared the bears out between us all, carefully counting them as we went. These bears were especially exciting because WE COULD EAT THEM!! Grrr! So we ate one at a time, counting and showing how many we had left with our fingers. The next day Miss Kirstin had a bag full of jumping kangaroos!! This time we had to put the kangaroos in groups to match numbers on little cards. That was quite tricky, but we all worked together to solve the problems!

Every Friday we all go to the school library together to read a story and to choose a book to take home for the week. It very quickly became apparent that a new interest was emerging - DINOSAURS!! We have read lots of stories about dinosaurs, heard some new songs about dinos and also built houses for them in the sand. We have been discussing where dinosaurs might live and have looked very carefully outside and at Teuflibach but haven't spotted any yet. General consensus is that they live in the woods and they hide behind trees during the day, but at night time they all come out to play! We are going to be investigating this a little bit further, and will be talking about how we will find out where all the dinosaurs are! Check back soon to see what we discover!!

EY Vets!

2011-11-04T14:19:00.003+01:00

Now that the cows have all come down from the mountains, the children in EY decided there was no longer a need for their "Mountain Cow Cafe". After some deliberation, it was decided that a vet clinic would be a suitable replacement.

The children have been working very hard to build up a well-stocked clinic, and are now using a large X-ray machine to check for broken bones. Upon diagnosis of injuries and illnesses, the children are also able to administer some home home made medicines. Thankfully, we remembered to label all of the bottles so we know which medicine we use for which ailment.

Animals arrive every day from far and wide for treatment, and the EY vets are being challenged on their knowledge of wild animals as well as domestic ones. For example, a tiger with a sore foot was closely followed by a duck with a broken wing and a bear who had turned purple after eating too many blueberries. The EY vets were able to treat all of these injuries and conditions with their home made medicines. Wonderful!

We are now investigating the many different things animals need to keep healthy and happy, and are discovering that a vet clinic is just as important for animals as a doctor surgery is for humans.

The EY vets are desperately seeking some white shirts they could wear as lab coats. We would be thrilled with any donations!

Check back soon for an update on how we get on making our very own stethoscopes!

Pumpkin Soup by EY!

2011-10-05T08:43:00.009+02:00

Today the boys and girls in EY decided to write some of our blog themselves!

yestrdey wee mayd pmpkn soop.

To make pumpkin soup you need:

ppppptayto
unyun
gggggggggggrlic
pmpkn
stok kyoob
wotr....

What to do:

"cut the onions"

"chop the garlic into little bits"

"mix them and make them hot"

"put the potato in the pot"

"put the pumpkin in the pan"

"mix them"

"put water in the pot"

"put two stock cubes in the pan"

"ask Miss Kirstin to do the mixer"

"make nice and soft soup"

"eat it"

"give some to Miss Kirstin, Mummy, Nanny, Daddy, sisters and brothers"

Some reactions upon tasting the soup:

"It tastes like pumpkin soup"

"I didn't think this would be so tasty"

"I like the soup because it is yummy"

"I want to eat more"

"I like the smell but I do not want to eat it"

"I like to eat it"

"Mmm this is delicious"

Counting Spots!

2011-10-03T16:00:00.007+02:00

We have been doing lots of counting practice recently, and today we decided to put some of our new confidence into action by playing a number game together! The game of Ladybirds was a great hit with the children, as they had to communicate, share and play together.

The instructions were straight forward enough to encourage the children to play without adult support; roll the dice, count the spots and find a corresponding card and finally, count the ladybirds hiding on the leaves. Whoever had the most ladybirds at the end of the game was the winner.

Observing the children playing this game it was evident how their language and social skills have improved enormously during the term. We were patiently taking turns, encouraging each other to do well by cheering and congratulating the winner at the end. We were all very proud of ourselves and each other!

Even though we were able to play the game without her help, Miss Kirstin couldn't help but join in! It was just too much fun!!

Pass the Parcel!

2011-10-03T15:50:00.004+02:00

Last week was Miss Sharon’s birthday and the EY children just happened to be on hand to help her unwrap her present! We were so good at tearing the paper that it gave Miss Kirstin a great idea!!

We had been getting a bit concerned about our dog Spot and how his friend, Octopus, was perhaps a little too big for him to play with..

..One morning we were presented with a big parcel. We passed it round the circle and squished it, shook it and tapped it! Miss Kirstin played some music and we passed

the parcel round the circle. When the music stopped, whoever was holding the parcel was allowed to unwrap one layer. This was so much fun! Hidden in every layer was a little toadstool that we were allowed to eat too!

Finally, AO got to open the last layer of paper. She found inside a … COW!

We discussed where to put the cow, and what he would need to keep him happy. Just like every other animal we have learned about, we decided he would need a home, somewhere to sleep, a friend and food. The children very quickly came to the conclusion that he should live together with Spot the Dog!

We now have two very happy animals to care for, and we are making sure we wash them, walk them and feed them every day. It is a real responsibility, but we are taking it very seriously!

Five Little Speckled Frogs

2011-10-03T15:33:00.004+02:00

After our trip to the Wildlife Park we spoke about some of the animals we saw and liked. One favourite that kept cropping up was FROGS! Right next to the entry of the park there were some little model frogs. They clearly made quite an impression on the class! To link this new interest in to our maths last week we learned a new song about five little speckled frogs. It is quite a tricky song with lots of new words for us, but we tried our best! We watched a little clip of the five frogs sitting on a log and jumping into the water, before recreating it ourselves. We were really good at leaping super high!

Next we decided to make our own little pool complete with log and frogs! We decided a big lolly stick would make an ideal log if we coloured it brown with a marker, and propped this on the side of a plastic plate covered with lots of little pieces of blue tissue paper. Our pool was beginning to take shape! Next we made a lily pad by carefully colouring a paper leaf and adding the obligatory little dash of glitter! We do like to make things sparkle in EY! After carefully choosing a couple of little life-size plastic bugs our pools were ready to house our own five little speckled frogs!

We now had a place for the frogs to live, somewhere for the frogs to sleep and some food for the frogs to eat.

Miss Kirstin had brought in frogs especially for each of us! She showed us the bag and we could see it bopping up and down and from side to side as the frogs tried to escape! We were not too sure if we should really let them out..

..However, we soon discovered that Miss Kirstin had tricked us! They were not REAL frogs after all, but frog shaped sweeties! It was so funny!! Each of us counted 5 frogs and balanced them on the log. Together we sang the song a couple of times, moving the frogs from the log into the pool.

The best bit came when we changed the lyrics and the frogs didn’t jump into the pool, but into our MOUTHS! It was such a success that we decided to show off our singing at the Celebration of Learning. Everyone was very impressed with our little project!

Animals, animals and more animals!

2011-10-03T14:21:00.008+02:00

We have been so busy in EY during the last week! Our focus has been mainly on animals, inquiring about how to care for them, learning new words and using animals as the focus during maths activities! It has been a lot of fun!

The highlight of last week was undoubtedly our trip to Tierpark Goldau (the Wildlife Park in Goldau). We were so excited about going on a journey to learn about caring for animals in a new location! Miss Jax and Miss Kitty joined us on our trip, and we felt really proud to show them how well behaved we could be on the bus! We sang our favourite song, Autumn Leaves, and pointed out all the things we could see out of the windows on the way. It was wonderful to observe the increased vocabulary related to the changing season as the children pointed out the various colours of leaves and other features of the environment. Well done, EY!

At the wildlife park we bought food for the deer and the goats. We looked at their environment and noticed that they had lots of space to move around in. How wonderful! On the way to the deer, we walked past raccoons, marmots, chickens and some other wonderful birds. We were so thrilled to spot the chickens that were roaming free, and spent a lot of time "chatting" to them in our best chicken voices!

The deer were very gentle and we had a lovely time feeding them from the palms of our hands. As soon as the goats arrived for a bit of a feed we decided it was time to leave because they were very pushy! We all sat together to have our snack, and made sure we tidied away every last little scrap of rubbish. As we had left the table completely spotless we were allowed a special treat and had a go on the carousel before hurtling down the long slide a couple of times! VD discovered that if you sat on your jacket and lay down that you could go REALLY fast!

After another trip to the feed the animals, we had a lovely walk round the lake to look at the ducks and geese. We now not only speak fluent 'chicken', but also 'goose'!! There was just enough time for a quick peek in the aquarium under the lake to spot some enormous and tiny fish before we had to head back to school. The bus journey on the way back to school was a lot quieter than on the way to the park! Some of us had a little nap, whilst the rest of us had a quiet conversation. We were exhausted!!

Back at school we spoke about the animals we had seen and the environment they were living in. We decided that all animals need space to live in, food to eat and somewhere to sleep. If they can get a little care and extra love thrown in too then they will be especially happy and healthy!

EY's Autumn Song

2011-09-27T16:55:00.004+02:00

To celebrate the change in season we have been learning a new song about Autumn! It is very simple, but fun to sing, especially when you use some props during your performance! All you need is a red, a yellow and a brown leaf (we made ones from paper because it meant we could practise our cutting skills too!).

Sing to the tune of "London Bridge is falling down":

Autumn leaves are falling down,

Falling down,

Autumn leaves are falling down,

Red,

Yellow,

Brown!

As you sing each colour, drop the leaf from as high as you can reach. It will flutter to the ground! We have been singing the song a lot at school, and we even performed it for the Juniors one afternoon who were very impressed! They loved our song so much that we taught them the words and we all sang it together! What fun!

Autumn leaves are falling down!

2011-09-23T17:37:00.000+02:00

The boys and girls in EY have been noticing some changes in the weather recently! The first thing we noticed was that it is a lot chillier in the mornings when we come to school. We have to make sure we are dressed for the weather, so we are wearing lots of layers that we can peel off during the day as it heats up. During our morning snack break, we like to look out of the windows and see if we can spot the mountains in the distance. Lately, we have not been able to see them! This has provided us with lots of interesting discussion about why. Some suggestions include a naughty magician using his wand to make the mountains disappear, the cows eating all the grass so that there was nothing left or perhaps it had something to do with the weather?! What is that grey mist that seems to hang in the sky? FOG!

We decided to make some more clouds for our big scenic display. We covered the sky with lots of clouds made from cotton wool, polystyrene and glitter. Today we were so excited when LS brought in a large sheet of packing foam that you can just about see through. We decided this would make the perfect mist cover for our display! The really exciting moment came at the end of the day when MG noticed that the fog had gone! So we pulled the cover back off! Will we need it again tomorrow?

The EY children have also noticed many other changes outside. The leaves on the trees are beginning to change colour and we are spotting many exciting new things on the ground. The boys and girls have been very busy creating a large Autumn display in the corridor. It was great fun hunting for leaves, twigs and bark outside during a nature walk around the school. We collected so many that we were able to decorate paper leaf templates, use the little leaves as spikes on a hedgehog and scrunch the really dry ones to create a crispy 3D Autumn leaf!

We looked at lots of stories about Autumn and saw pictures of toadstools, foxes, owls and snails. We decided to make some of these too! It has been a great challenge using different medium to create all these wonderful seasonal features of the environment. Can you spot any of our animals in the picture?

Our next step is to label all the features of our display. Check back soon for an update on how we got on!

Miss Kirstin slithers back into the EY classroom!

2011-09-21T08:10:00.004+02:00

We have been busy trying to solve the EY Mystery for over a week now.. When Miss Kirstin the Snail disappeared we could not believe that she had really left us! We emptied the Snail Tank, sorted through all the leaves, berries and stones and could not find her. So we looked around the classroom, checked inside the cupboards, under the tables and we STILL could not find her! We had almost given up all hope of ever finding Miss Kirstin again when..

.. a friend from the Seniors came hurtling towards us at Teuflibach bringing with him MISS KIRSTIN THE SNAIL!! We could not believe it! He had found her playing with the conkers in the forest! My goodness, were we happy to see her! She had been missing for over a week, and despite LS's 'missing' poster, we had not even found a trail of her anywhere!

Upon returning to the classroom, our friend from the Seniors put Miss Kirstin back with the other snails and gave us some handy tips on how not to lose her again! We must remember to give her fresh leaves every day, water her regularly, clean her shell and make sure there are not too many small pebbles on the ground. We will make sure we follow this advice and hopefully we will be able to enjoy Miss Kirstin's company for a long time yet!

It was decided that our missing snail poster could now come down, and we would make a new poster announcing that Miss Kirstin had been found. This is now proudly displayed at the front door so that everyone can see our happy news! Thank you very much TS from the Seniors! What a caring, considerate act to help solve the EY Mystery!

p p pirates, p p popsicles and p p puppies!

2011-09-19T15:09:00.012+02:00

Today we have been p-p-practising the 'p' sound in EY. There are lots of words that begin with the 'p' sound, but p-p-perhaps the most fun of all is P-P-PIRATE! Oo-ar what a great time we had p-p-pretending to be p-p-pirates!!

To help us remember how to write the 'p' sound, Miss Kirstin drew a picture of a pirate's face, his long ponytail and a parrot on his shoulder. As we form the sound, we say, "down the pirate's ponytail, back up to the parrot and around the pirate's face". Once we had practised writing the sound in the air with our 'magic pencils' (our index finger), we wrote over the picture on the whiteboard, saying the story as we formed the 'p'. We then wrote a 'p' on our very own pirate hats. We were so proud of them that we even kept them on at play time, during lunch at Teuflibach and to the gym for our dancing lesson with Miss Helen!

After p-p-playtime, we opened up The Mountain Cow Cafe to make p-p-popsicles from a p-p-

pitcher full of p-p-pop! We discussed how to make them icy cold and decided some time in the freezer was our only option! We are excited to taste them tomorrow!

The highlight of the day was looking after our new p-p-puppy, a small stuffed toy. When we arrived in school this morning, we immediately spotted the new hutch in the classroom. We

quickly discovered there was nothing inside it. How odd!! Surely it must be there for a reason?!

Miss Kirstin showed us the little puppy and we discussed all the things we could provide for him to make sure he was happy and healthy. The first thing he needed was a name. Everyone wanted to name him after themselves, but we decided that would make his name far too long, so in the end we chose the simple name of 'Dog'! There were some wonderfully creative suggestions of things Dog would need, so we decided to write them down in a 'spider chart'. LS wrote 'Dog' inside a circle, and then Miss Kirstin drew on eight legs to make it look like a spider. At the end of every leg we wrote one idea down. We had so many suggestions that we had to add one extra leg onto our spider!

We set to work immediately, filling the hutch (Dog's new house) with all sorts of necessities. Dog now has a bed, some water, food, a chair, a motorbike and even some money in case he needs to p-p-pop to the shops to buy some more doggy biscuits. I was very impressed with the care the children took over Dog, taking him for walks and washing his dirty paws afterwards, making sure he had enough water, giving him lots of cuddles and stroking his head, and keeping really quiet so he could sleep!

Whilst Dog was having a snooze, we visited the school library to find lots of books about dogs. We found fiction and non-fiction books and spent a long time looking at the pictures and spotting similarities and differences between the dogs! We even tried to sound out some of the words we

found in the books!

Dog also needed some exercise so we made him a leash and took him out for a walk. The children took great care walking quietly and carefully through the corridor at school, before taking him outside for a bit of fresh air. It was so exciting, but the children made sure to let everyone have a turn at holding the leash.

I wonder what we will do with Dog tomorrow? Will he have finished his water? Does he need more food? Is his bed still clean? Do we need to buy him some treats? What will we buy the treats with? We will need a little money for that! Thank goodness the bills for the teachers' lunches last week are now ready to be distributed. P-p-perhaps we can use our p-p-profits to buy Dog a friend to p-p-play with!

The Mountain Cow Cafe BIG project..

2011-09-15T11:57:00.007+02:00

Yesterday was the BIG project for the Mountain Cow Cafe staff members.. Could they prepare lunches for 12 hungry teachers and interns? Would they all be ready on time? Did we have enough potatoes to bake? Did the bread rolls stay fresh enough to eat? Will the Cafe remain open or will it be forced to shut down?..

The EY children were so excited to be preparing lunches for the teachers today! What a great opportunity to show the rest of the school what we are capable of! The children unpacked all the ingredients needed to make our individual lunches. It was wonderful to see how many of the items we were able to identify using English words we did not know before buying them at the supermarket yesterday!

We checked through our orders one last time before setting to work. It was great fun piercing holes in the potatoes and then wrapping them up like little presents for everyone! They had to go straight into a hot oven so that they would be ready on time. The potatoes were really hard so we had to really exercise the muscles in our fingers to push the fork through the skin.

Next we started on the salad! We washed everything thoroughly and even chopped the vegetables and tomatoes very carefully! It was great fun using the salad spinner to make sure we got all the excess water off the lettuce leaves. We learned how to toss the salad using the

salad servers too. This was to make sure that everything was fairly distributed in the bowl, and that the teachers would each get to try all of the different ingredients.

Then we started on the sandwiches. We had four to make, two cheese sandwiches and two ham sandwiches. The children did a great job spreading butter on the rolls, even though it was still a little hard from being in the fridge. The ham and the cheese looked so tempting that we had to taste a little bit (to make sure it was good enough for our teachers, of course!) before we shared it evenly across the sandwiches. These were wrapped up like little parcels too!

Finally, we set the table and LS put out the beautiful flowers and vase she had prepared at home. They really brightened up the table! Our sign wishing everyone a good meal was stuck up for all to see. Now the only thing that we had to do was cross our fingers and toes that everyone would enjoy their lunch..

A special message (with clues!)

2011-09-14T20:17:00.004+02:00

Dear EY chefs and superstars

My place-mat was lovely,
My potato was yummy,
Thank you all form my heart...
And also my tummy!

Anonymous ..
Hmmm....but I bet you can find the clues?!

The Mountain Cow Cafe has a BIG project!

2011-09-13T17:38:00.005+02:00

The Mountain Cow Cafe has now been operational for a number of weeks, and the EY children decided that they needed a BIG project! What bigger challenge could there be than to prepare lunch for 12 hungry ISOCS staff members?

The children first decided to put together a lunch menu for the teachers to choose from. We thought about which day we would like to serve lunch to the teachers and picked Wednesday because there are no Teuflibach lunches then. The children thought about all the things teachers would like to eat and drink, and made suggestions for the cafe menu, which looks as follows:

Mountain Cow Café

Ham sandwich
Cheese sandwich
Baked potato with baked beans and cheese
Salad
Orange
Apple
Banana
Grapes
Wine
Water
Juice

The next challenge was to ask every teacher and intern in the school if they would like to place an order for lunch on Wednesday 14th September. This was exciting as it meant we were able to visit all the other classrooms, even the ones upstairs! We were thrilled to find out that everybody was keen for lunch from our cafe.

The children worked together to check all the orders were complete, and we decided we would need a shopping list to make sure we had all the ingredients. We had to count carefully to make sure we would buy enough of everything!

Shopping List

Grapes
4 bread rolls
Ham
Butter
Tomatoes
Cucumber
Lettuce
Wine
6 potatoes
Baked beans
Cheese
Apple juice
2 bananas
2 apples
1 orange

Going to the supermarket was very exciting! We packed up our shopping baskets and took public transport down to the centre of town. While we waited for the bus, we went through our shopping list one more time and decided we would go to the fruit and vegetable section first.

We worked our way systematically through the list, taking care to choose fruit that wasn't bruised, potatoes that would be big enough for hungry grown ups, and even making the executive decision to buy grape juice instead of wine! The EY children are pretty confident that the teachers won't even notice the difference!

It was wonderful to receive positive comments from members of the community who praised us on our impeccable behaviour and quiet voices. Well done!

We were all tired and hungry after our trip, so were delighted to be back at school just in time to head down to Teuflibach for lunch to refuel! After lunch, play and quiet time, we got straight back to work designing place mats for the teachers to stop them making a mess! The children worked together using the sounds they knew to write all the names on the place mats. They decided that this would also help us decide where to seat them at the table!

We discussed other ideas of how to make the staffroom look exciting, and decided a poster wishing everyone a good meal would be a lovely addition. Given that we are in German-speaking Switzerland, a suggestion was made to write the poster in German rather than in English! Wunderbar!

Tomorrow will be a busy cooking day as we prepare 12 different lunches.. Check back to find out how successful the Mountain Cow Cafe is at big projects.. perhaps we could do some catering for YOUR next function?!

The very spoilt teacher!

2011-09-13T17:01:00.006+02:00

What a lucky teacher I was on Monday 12th September to be able to celebrate my birthday with the boys and girls in EY! We had so much fun, and I was very spoilt indeed!

The day started off with all our friends in the Happy Hub where we danced, pranced and laughed together to music. We then discovered there was another birthday girl in the Juniors and we were so excited to be sung to in English and even a bit of Dutch!

Back in the classroom Miss Jax and Miss Lili came to visit, bringing with them a HUGE surprise! A 'Wundertute': a great big cone containing lots of surprises. Thank goodness the EY children were there to help unpack it because there were so many exciting things inside it! We found a medical kit, a colouring book with felt tip pens, a rattle, a spinning top and, perhaps most excitingly of all, LOTS of sparkly jewellery! I was very proud to wear my new jewels all day long!

A birthday is a perfect day for some treats. We were so lucky to be given a little cake from the birthday girl in the Juniors. She shared them out during snack time and we gobbled them up in our cafe as soon as we had thanked her and congratulated her on her birthday. But there were still MORE treats! Miss Kirstin brought in some little biscuits that she had decorated to turn into flowers. They were very colourful. We counted how many petals were on each biscuit, and identified all the different colours!

All these treats gave us plenty of energy to do a little writing, so we got the cafe chalkboard ready to write up what food was being served up! We also had to choose the day, date and month to stick at the top of the chalkboard, and we had a peek out the window to see how the weather was too!

The children demonstrated so many of the PYP Learner Profile attributes in their caring, sharing and excited response to celebrating my birthday with me. I felt very spoilt, but mostly, incredibly proud of them all! What a wonderful day!

A trip to the Farm School

2011-09-11T15:53:00.004+02:00

The students in EY have become increasingly curious about animals and what they get up to, following research into cows for the Mountain Cow Cafe and the Mystery of the Missing Snail.

ISOCS is very fortunate to be a few short minutes away from the Schluechthof farmers school which is open to the public year round, and a trip up the hill to the farm on our school bus seemed like an excellent idea for such a beautiful day!

We discovered lots of cows of different colours and particularly liked the new born calves.
It took a little while, but we all got brave enough to stroke their heads after a little encouragement.

We found the hens and got very good at "talking to them"!

We met the pigs but didn't stay long!

Then we had a good look around the shop and found lots of things that were made by the animals or the farmers (or both). We had a special interest in the raspberries and ice-cream after our recent ice cream making experiences.

Afterwards we had just enough time to have a lovely play at the playground before we had to go back to school for lunch.

Although I was only invited along as a bus driver, it was such fun that Lili and I asked if we could stay and join the fun. We are glad that Ms. Kirstin and the EY students said yes!
I think we will go back soon and see what changes we can notice.

Ms. Jax

The EY Mystery

2011-09-08T16:23:00.006+02:00

We have been detectives in EY today..

Our two snails, fondly named Miss Jax and Miss Kirstin, were given one last spray of water yesterday afternoon before we all headed home. This morning we arrived at school to find that Miss Kirstin had disappeared! We searched high and low but could not find her ANYWHERE!

Mysteriously, we then discovered that there was a baby snail in the tank! This made us question even further what could have happened? Had Miss Kirstin shrunk overnight?! Had she had enough of the baby snail's crying and slithered off?! Had Miss Jax eaten her?!

We decided there was nothing else for it: We had to make a 'missing' poster. In order for everyone to understand what had happened, LS wrote a wonderful description. "Missing a snail. Miss Kirstin crawled away. Please help us find her." A wonderful picture of Miss Kirstin, Miss Jax and the baby snail with a trail of snail slime accompanied the writing.

We all walked round the school to find the best place to stick the poster. Would Mummies and Daddies see it if we stuck it in the Creation Station? Would children see it if we stuck it in the Staff Room? Finally we decided right beside the front door would be the best spot. Who knows what we will find in the tank tomorrow morning? Will Miss Kirstin have slithered back? Will there be something new inside it? Who knows..!

I sssscream, you ssssscream, we all sssssscream for ICE CREAM!!

2011-09-05T14:19:00.007+02:00

Who wouldn't want to start their week with a little bit of raspberry ice cream?! The EY children were so excited to find out whether their hard work on Friday had paid off and there would be some tasty ice cream for them to taste...

We counted how many children were in the room, and how many bowls and spoons we would need. I was very proud of how they shared and distributed everything. It tasted really good, and because we are practising sharing, we even brought Miss Jax a little bit to try!

The ice cream was really COLD! We spoke about hot and cold things, and showed what we do when we are cold (shiver!) and when we are hot (sweat!). The children then went to the feely trays where they could touch different things to see if they could spot the things that felt cold. They quickly identified the ice packs as being very, very COLD! Brrr!!

Something else that feels really cold is.. SNOW! What's the first sound in 'snow'? S! We practised writing it in the air, identifying it amongst other sounds, and even trying to write it ourselves on the whiteboard. This was great fun, and the children are developing their confidence at 'sliding

down the snake' as they form the letter. In our big dome we found lots of polystyrene pieces that were shaped exactly like the 's' we were learning about. There were sssssqueals of excitement as we ssssstamped them with paint on the paper! Come and admire our efforts in the classssssroom!!

The EY Cafe takes shape

2011-09-04T17:27:00.008+02:00

We have had such a fun and busy week in EY!

Our main objective has been to make a cafe in our classroom where we serve real home-made food, drinks and even provide a bit of entertainment! Before putting together a cafe, it is important to do market research, so we headed off to a local cafe down at the lake. What a great time we had! It was a beautiful sunny day, so it was decided that we would have ice creams!! The children chose the one they wanted from the menu and tried their best to order it in German by pointing and saying "bitte"! Upon receipt of their ice cream the children handed over the money and accepted the change with a confident "danke schoen"! I was very proud of their confidence!

We all sat together enjoying our ice creams in the shade and discussing the features of the cafe that we could see. We spotted umbrellas to create shade, a waiter, bins, chairs and tables and a beautiful view. These are all things we will need in our cafe too.

Once we had finished our ice creams, we had a play in the adventure playground!

Our research continued by looking online at pictures of cafes. We spotted some other important features such as tablecloths, menus and somewhere to park your car. These things were added to our list of cafe essentials, and work was started straight away. Our class cafe now has a beautifully decorated table cloth that the children painted with brightly coloured spots.

We have been practising our early literacy skills by looking at menus and writing our own. There is a chalkboard in our cafe where we will be displaying the daily menu. Do come and have a look!

Running a cafe with real food and drink provides wonderful options for developing monetary understanding. We served our homemade fruit salad to Miss Jax for 5CHF, and proudly put the money in the till! Of course, it is important to have adequate stock in the cafe kitchen, so we decided to take a trip to the local supermarket. The children selected two favourite recipes, picked up their shopping baskets and headed to the bus stop. We waited for a little while but no bus came! So we checked the time and looked at the time table and discovered we still had a long wait ahead of us. Thank goodness for the school bus! We still remembered to pay the driver before getting on though!

It was so exciting looking for all of the ingredients we needed, and popping them in our baskets. The children counted how many objects they each carried and made sure everyone had an equal amount of things. Sharing is caring! We paid the lady at the check out and headed back to school to store the ingredients before heading off to Teuflibach for a much needed lunch.

Our raspberry ice cream making was lots of fun! We used lots of exciting new words to describe what we were doing; mashing, mixing, stirring, crumbling and tasting! The busy activity in the kitchen meant we had some more visitors keen to see what was happening, and together we all had a little taste of the ice cream mix before it went in the freezer to make it cold! We are so excited about tasting it once it is frozen!!

Setting up a cafe in the classroom provides an excellent role play experience for the class. It not only stimulates imagination, but also helps social development whilst incorporating early literacy and numeracy skills. I am looking forward to another exciting week in the EY classroom cafe!!

A busy day in EY

2011-08-29T16:08:00.006+02:00

We had a great start to the day with some crazy energetic dancing! It was so much fun!! We came back to the classroom raring to go, and the children immediately began drawing round me to turn me into an octopus! A quick look on Google Images helped us identify characteristics of an octopus, and we selected our favourite one to turn Miss Kirstin into. We counted the tentacles to make sure there were 8, and used lots of different colours. The finished work of art will be displayed along with the rest of our life size models in the corridor. If you look carefully you might even spot the glittery red heart which shows that "Miss Kirstin is kind"!

EY love getting visitors, so we were really excited when Miss Jax came to see us.. she had PRESENTS! We unpacked everything quickly to discover an abacus, some dolls, a baking kit and soft toys.

One of the toys even came with instructions of how to put it together!! These were studied carefully before we started at step 1 in order to assemble the farmyard.

We had lots of fun playing with everything from the ice cream parlour to the fruit and vegetable baskets!

Our delicious hearty lunch at Teuflibach gave us plenty of energy to see us through the afternoon. We always enjoy a bit of quiet time on the beanbags in class after the walk back to school, either looking at books, listening to music or making jigsaws. Before long it was time to meet our PE teacher, Miss Helen. For the first time this year we all bundled into the bus to go to the gym hall with the Juniors. We were so excited!

The mirrored dance hall makes a great space for the children to move to music. Watching ourselves move in the mirror was very exciting, and we are looking forward to next week's lesson already!

I am looking forward to another busy and exciting day tomorrow!

Miss Kirstin

Week 1 in ISOCS Early Years

2011-08-29T13:49:00.013+02:00

We have had a great start to the school year in ISOCS Early Years! There has been a lot to take in; new names, new faces and new routines. The children are settling in well and achieving great success already. I am very proud of them!

Our week got off to a flying start by making playdough. It was great, messy fun! We mixed together the salt and the flour first, later adding the wet ingredients. The dough had to be kneaded for a little while to get the right consistency. By adding cinnamon to the playdough, it smelled lovely! The children then decided to add some food colouring to make it a light green colour, before sprinkling it with lots of glitter to make it sparkle! The playdough was out all week with a huge selection of rollers and cutters. Rolling and manipulating playdough is great for strengthening hand and finger muscles and developing coordination. We had great fun further developing our fine motor skills by completing jigsaws, building towers with duplo, painting and practising our cutting skills.

The EY children have been outside a lot, exploring the local surroundings. There was great excitement when we found a small snail in the forest! We decided to bring the snail into the classroom on the condition that we would do our best to be caring and look after it. The children spoke about the things a snail would need to keep it happy, and so we went on a hunt for leaves, grass, acorns and sticks. We found many exciting things on our walks back from Teuflibach for lunch. Our little snail now lives in lush surroundings in a big tank in the classroom. Our next step is to find it some more snail friends to keep it company!

We have met some other teachers this week too. We had a lovely music and movement lesson with Miss Martina and her little toy kitten! It was great fun playing with shakers, and hand bells. We explored quiet and loud sounds, and even tried to sing along with a short song in German!

This was good practice for our German lesson with Miss Trudi. She brought along "Hans Hase", a little rabbit puppet who helped us learn what 'du' and 'ich' mean. The children soon got the hang of 'danke schoen' as well, and practised thanking each other for the rest of the afternoon!

We are excited to meet our other specialist teacher, Miss Helen, on Monday for PE too! Our Unit of Inquiry, All About Me, has been the focus of further activities. The children shared some facts about themselves with each other. I have been very impressed with their increased confidence as the week has progressed. We decided that our learning journey would begin by making some life size models of ourselves. The children drew round each other on large pieces of card and then we stuck photos of our faces on the bodies! They looked really funny! We looked out lots of different collage materials and fabrics and spent a long time decorating our cardboard cut outs. There was a real buzz in the classroom as the children worked together, sharing resources and admiring each other's work. The completed cut outs are now proudly displayed next to the classroom!

During our morning snack, we spoke about other people we know in school who we could make a model of. The children remembered lots of names of other children and teachers they had met during the week, but decided that Miss Jax would be our first target! This led us into further discussion of resources we would need, and once we had gathered everything together we asked Miss Jax to come and be drawn round!

We concentrated really hard as we drew round her, and then discussed what sort of outfit we would make for her. We looked on google images for some inspiration and settled on a picture of a fairy! We gave Miss Jax beautiful sparkling gold wings, a frilly dress and fancy shoes. Everyone has been very impressed with the transformation! This week the children want to continue this project and have decided it is my turn to be turned into... an octopus! "Miss Kirstin needs lots of arms like an octopus to look after all of the EY children!" Watch this space! Our learning journey continues this week with further discussion of what we already know about ourselves. This information is displayed in the classroom on our 'learning journey' frieze. Do pop in and have a look!