The Nature Investigators

Look at the children’s own interpretation of the rhinoceros beetles life cycle. They have transferred their knowledge between contexts using art to express this knowledge and have taken ownership of their learning by adding their name to their art. This provocation allowed children to represent their knowledge in a way that was meaningful to them. The educators have acknowledged the time, effort and thought gone into these creations by displaying the children’s artwork and learning in an aesthetically pleasing way that demonstrates respect for each child and their contributions to their own learning, fostering a strong sense of accomplishment and positive self identity.

Our bush kindy environment has changed since last week.
“The puddles have dried up” - one friend said.
“The sun dried the puddles up”” - another friend said.
Miss Sharni explained that the sun’s heat did in fact dry the puddles up by evaporating the water.

As we walked beside the gully looking at the drying mud we noticed foot prints all through the mud. These foot prints and tracks were all different shapes and sizes and the children were so excited to discover that these were all through the mud for the whole length of the gully. They were hypothesising on what animals could of made the tracks such dinosaurs, birds, bears, kangaroos and dogs just to name a few. We pulled out our animal tracks sheet and started to draw on our knowledge of what animals live in the area. We could only find one track that looked similar in the mud and that was the track of the possum. Miss Sharni took photos of all the tracks that the children found so we could research them when we returned to kindy in the afternoon.
And we think we may have identified a few more.
The last foot print photo the kindy children believe is a bird and these are the 3 birds we believe it could be the Bush stone Curlew, the Ibis or the Plover. The children come up with those guesses themselves by using the their knowledge that those species live around our bush kindy site because they have seen them.

After finding a few curl grubs over the last couple of weeks, researching them, investigating their life cycle and discovering that they grow into rhinoceros beetles, this play provocation was a perfect way for the children to explore their knowledge of this amazing insect.

The magic of rainy days and muddy puddles, our little explorers were excited by the large puddles we found today in the gully on the way to bush kindy.

Bush Kindy returns for 2022
🌳 Tree climbing allows for children to manage risk themselves, by listening to their bodies by only climbing as high as they feel safe, learning how to manoeuvre their bodies between branches safely.
🐞 Insect hunting - lots of peer scaffolding occurred as the children used their language and communication skills to share their knowledge of the insects they were finding, they even used their insect field guides to help with their insect id.
🪢 Knot tying - the children were using their fine motor skills to tie knots for the tree swings the were making.
🪨 the children got creative using loose parts by creating pictures out of natural and processed materials that they found at our summer bush kindy site.

Exploring numbers through measurement- 📏
Measuring, recording and comparing measurements of various snake skins using a measuring tape, measuring root growth of the plant cuttings we are growing as well as measuring the weekly growth of seedlings using rulers. The children have access to rulers of various sizes and tape measures so they can independently explore their own understandings of numeracy by applying it to a context that is relevant to and interest them.

We did it we collected 5 hampers of gifts for 5 families for Christmas in just under 3 weeks. Well done The Nature Kids Place Children and their families 😃 Thank you Miss Tracey, Miss Teagan and Miss Donna and all their children and families for their help, these hampers would not be this full with out you. 🎄
Tracey, Donna, Myself and all our daycare children met with the families at Wesley Mission today to hand them over to the families.

♥️🌳

🙌🏻
Quote from Wilder Child

Some of June’s Play 🚀 🌓 ☀️ 💫
We have continued our space interest and have been learning all about the planets, stars, moon and sun, rockets and astronaut.
🌏 We made our own space suits for our dolls and dinosaurs and created our own galaxy as we explored each planet.
👩‍🚀 We went for a visit to the planetarium where we got to see model rockets and a life sized model astronaut.

Some of May’s Play....
*Sensory foam play
*Creating our Mother’s Day gifts
🍁 Leaf print art
💐 Pressing flowers
📷 calendar photos
*risky play climbing trees
*investigating nature with the light box
Just to name a few...

Wow April what a month!! Some of April’s Play
🎨painting on a unconventional canvas- the multiple textures of each recycled material used in the canvas creates a different sensory experience whilst painting.
🐦 caring for our baby guinea fowls
🌳 The obstacle coarse is getting lots of use this month as we added a fallen branch providing the children with further climbing, swinging and balancing opportunities.
🐴 we vistited Beckys Place to visit the ponies the children learned how to stay safe around the miniature horses and participated in many care routines such as grooming and and handling the ponies.
🌲 Sheet forte building outside the schoolies were super collaborative and creative in their efforts when building their fort and practised their knot tying and communication skills.
🏅jewellery making
🏠 home building for animals and so much more.....