Kornmehl
Terry Aizen – Director of Kornmehl
Coral Reef Project and Competition
The Pre-school has been involved for the past two weeks in learning about coral reefs, preserving them and understanding their intricate eco-systems. They have been exploring this topic through many languages and mediums. Our little eco-warriors have expressed their ideas and thoughts about saving the coral reefs and what we can do to remove plastic from our oceans and make a difference. The intent of this project was brought about by a parent sending us information about the Happy HabitART Competition, where children can create the coral reef of their dreams. The competition is being run by Be the Future – a social enterprise on a mission to unleash the power of families and educators to rewrite our climate story.
The competition is a rich learning opportunity for children aged 4-8 years to:
- Build a love of nature through playful, creative learning and expression.
- Have the chance for iconic children’s book illustrators, including Kate Pankhurst, Rebecca Cobb, Sally Morgan, Diane Ewen, Jeannie Baker and Stephen Stone to see their artwork.
- To have the chance to win excellent eco-friendly prizes, such as virtual ocean drawing with our illustrator in residence and eco news boxes – plus winning artworks features in eco media.
- To remove a bottle’s worth of plastic from the ocean for every artwork entered.
Working on the coral reef is a great example of the many language’s children can use to make their thinking visible. We have used materials that have enabled the children to work in 2D. This involved looking carefully at what they had created and then graphically representing it. Working on the coral reef has allowed for collaboration as well as individual work. It’s allowed us to practice cutting skills, drawing, planning, and using fun tools such as rollers at the easel. The children have created their artworks by hand, using different mediums (pencil, paint, crayon, nature items, craft items, play dough, recycled materials and paper).
Talking about the coral reef has helped us think about the environment and our impact on it as well as looking at global warming and other environmental issues. We also discussed coral bleaching and looked at some images of the healthy reef and the reef after coral bleaching had occurred. We talked about how to position people swimming in the reef and that they would have to be horizontal, being very careful of their flippers, so as not to not harm the reef. This was challenging for some, as it meant they were required to draw in a way that was different to usual.
We have been astounded at their engagement and their creative artworks, some done individually and some as a group. We have entered 40 artworks into the competition, which means we have been responsible for removing 40 bottles worth of plastic from our oceans.
We invite all Pre-school and Emanuel School families to vote for your favourite artworks on Instagram or via the website. Voting will open on Wednesday 17 May 2023 and close on Wednesday 31 May 2023.
Children’s comments:
Hudson: Coral comes from deep down in the ocean.
Ziggy: I’m doing a futuristic ocean. That’s a robot crab and it’s cleaning up the ocean. I’m putting some mist in the ocean. I wanted some to be white because I wanted a teeny weenie bit of coral bleaching. There’s a person inside that controls the robot crab. He’s getting all of the trash. He’s stopping the coral bleaching and giving them more water and he’s changing the water temperature to room temperature.
Freddy: The coral is dead. The water is too hot and it’s dying.
Ethan: I went snorkelling in Fiji and I saw coral bleaching.
Hudson: I saw thousands of corals during my holiday to the Great Barrier Reef. The fish need food to eat not rubbish.
Josh: Be careful with the ocean. So, when you’re swimming in the sea, you be gentle with it. You can’t touch the coral.
Lexi: Plastic in the ocean is not healthy. Fish get sick and die if they eat plastic.
Winnie: You can only look at coral and don’t touch. It can break!
Alma: I know how to make it happy, be nice to it.
We represented the reef through movement by watching a YouTube video of the Barrier Reef. We followed this up with a short discussion and a creative movement experience using coloured scarves.
We wondered what makes the water in the sea continually move:
Ziggy: The moon
Oscar: The sun
Freddy: The wind
Hudson: Hashem
Ziggy: The moon controls the tides. If the moon is straight, it could make a king tide
Ethan: Nature is making the water move
What beautiful learning has taken place. Our planet is in good hands.
Lag B’Omer
How special it was to start our Lag B’Omer celebration with Gary Purchase, our Aboriginal artist in residence for the next week giving an Acknowledgement to Country. Gary is a proud Aboriginal man of Dharawal, Bidjigal and Dunghutti descent.
Lag B’Omer is a Jewish holiday that occurs on the 33rd day of the Omer, the 49 day period between Passover and Shavuot. A break from the semi-mourning of the Omer, key aspects of Lag B’omer include holding Jewish weddings (it’s the one day during the Omer when Jewish law permits them), lighting bonfires, and getting haircuts. We did a role play about Rabbi Akiva and how he led the Jewish students to learn and study the Torah, keeping the Jewish religion alive and pretending to hunt with their bows and arrows when the Roman soldiers came to look for them. We sang songs and ate baked potatoes as we sat around the fire.
Car Park Mural
Our car park mural has been going the whole week and there has been a lot of excitement amongst the children, families, and educators as we have watched the artist, Garry Purchase, bring these to life. The children have been curious and fascinated and enjoyed making their mark on the wall on Friday. We are thrilled with the end product and thank Garry for working collaboratively with us and for being so open with us about his Aboriginal background, sharing stories, comparing similarities and differences between our two cultures and chatting to the children so patiently.
We also thank Jim Kornmehl, and family for his generous donation to the Pre-school, to ensure we have been able to bring this project to fruition. We appreciate your generosity enormously.
During the week, we spent time looking at the designs for the wall with the children:
Alma: I can see the Magen David and I love the coloured dots and these look like upside-down love hearts and the circles are getting smaller and smaller. I think the Magen David shares the magic of loveness. It means that sometimes magic shares around the school and the people who are sitting around the Magen David. I think the dots are the magic, sharing all around the entire world.
Raphael: I can see one star with six points. I have only seen it on the Israeli flag. I can also see people gathering and colourful dots. Maybe they’re doing a meeting around it (star). Maybe they want to sit next to each other.
Drew: I can see little dots and I can see the Star of David. It means gathering. I’m going to start on the outside and work my way into the Star of David. That shows we’re Jewish.
Family Day
We wish all our wonderful Kornmehl mums and grandma’s a very special and happy Mother’s Day. We hope you all get spoilt on Sunday and have a lovely time celebrating with your families. We look forward to sharing time with all our Kornmehl Families on Monday 15 May from 8.00 am – 9.15 am in the Pre-school at our Family Day breakfast.
We have been focusing on inclusion, acceptance, tolerance, diversity, and love.
We asked the children a few open-ended questions to gain an idea of their understanding and knowledge of what a family is:
Abbie: A family is when you have a mum and a dad, they hug you.
Ella: When you have a little sister, a mum, a dad, and a little doggie.
Freddy: Some families are Jewish, some are not.
Hudson: Monkeys, bush monkeys, humans. And before that there was Jurassic Park. Some people have two mums or two dads, and some have a mum and a dad. Because you have different mums and dads, different language, and different places where you are born.
Ziggy: Because everyone’s families are not the same. Some speak a different language. Family Day is better than Mum’s Day.
Noam: Some people have three parents, two mums and a dad.
Juliette: Everyone has a different family. Families have different names.
Milo: Families have different homes and neighbours. Different hair too.
Gabi: I have two dads.
Care Packs
Our Care Packs have begun to come in and we are extremely grateful for the support from the entire Emanuel School Community for this worthwhile cause. Our goal is to collect 500 Care Packs. Please drop your Care Pack either at the Emanuel School Reception area or down at Kornmehl Pre-school by Monday 29 May 2023.
Happy Birthday
We wish a very happy birthday to Tamar Stuhler (4), Freddy Ezekiel (5), Neave Lukins (4) and Gabrielle Marshall-Weinberg (4). We hope you all had a beautiful day.
