Rosh HaShanah explorations

We have been learning about the joyous festival of Rosh HaShanah over the past week. We have focused particularly on drawing and learning about bees and where honey comes from. We realise that young children learn best through interactive and hands-on experiences, where they can use all their senses and a variety of mediums. With this in mind we expose the children to learning in many different ways. A number of experiences were provided enabling the children to use different languages to represent their knowledge and understanding about bees.

A still life experience was set up which included different apples and honey. The children were invited to look closely at the apples and draw their observations. There was also some honey tasting.

The overhead projector was an invitation to explore BIG bees. Transparency paper was provided for the children to draw on. This was placed on the overhead projector which then projected the image onto the wall. Coloured transparent shapes were provided along with other loose parts to add colour to their drawings.

We explored making a huge beehive using recycled materials and paper mache. This is a sensory delight for pre-schoolers, giving them the opportunity to squish, mix, squeeze and feel the wet paper mache in their hands – using all their senses.

Pine cones collected at Bush School, were used to make cute bees with wings and feelers. The children created a beehive for the pinecone bees to live in.

A sorting, counting and fine-motor experience was set up in the shape of a beehive. The children used tweezers to place balls of nectar in the hive.

At another table an assortment of materials was provided to make bee puppets……cellophane, sticks, paper, pipe cleaners etc.

Later in the day the puppets were used to sing a little rhyme……

Here is the beehive, but where are the bees, hiding away where nobody sees

Watch them come creeping, out of the hive, one, two, three, four and five

At our morning meeting, we learnt the Sing-along Song for Rosh HaShanah.

We thought about one of the verses and what it means to act in the best way: 

Rosh HaShanah starts the year

We hear the shofar blow

Telling us that we should act

In the best way that we know.

Levi: Making new friends

Sierra: Share your toys with other friends

Ben: Be kind to people

Levi: When teachers tell you to pack away, you listen.

Another verse went like this and we wondered about the world’s birthday.

Rosh HaShanah celebrates the birthday of the world

Apples dipped in honey to sweeten the year

For all the boys and girls.

Kobe: When you see plants and the earth has lots of water. The plants were all babies.

Stevie: When we’re thinking of the birthday of the world, we’re thinking of when the world was a tiny baby…just like us!

Ben: The world gets bigger and bigger.

Stevie: The people who made the world, so the world could survive other people to live on the world.

Tom: It starts off little and little and then growed and growed and growed.

Leo: People helped with making the earth.  

At rest time the children did a mindfulness experience using apples and honey. The children were given the time to engage their senses of touch, smell, taste, feel etc to enable them to slow down and be present in the moment. It was a challenge at times not to bite straight into the apple, but they all rose to it. There were also other learning opportunities along the way, for example maths concepts such as fractions were being explored as the whole apple was cut in half. How many halves make a whole? Cut again and you have quarters. It was a magic moment to discover the star shape inside the apple. How did this happen? Was it the way the apple was cut? Overall this was a very tasty, mindful and festive experience…..Apples dipped in honey for Rosh HaShanah…..A sweet new year, a good new year….Apples dipped in honey for Rosh HaShanah.

Beekeeper visit

Extending on our learning for Rosh Hashanah, we invited a beekeeper to come to Kornmehl last week Thursday. Gavin Smith is clearly passionate about bees but more than that he was able to share his passion and knowledge with us in a way that was fun and interactive.

Gavin came in his beekeeper suit and explained to us the differences between European bees and native bees. Gavin taught us so much about how bees operate: the way that they gather the nectar, how they make wax and form it into cells into which they lay their eggs. We learnt about how he uses a smoker to distract the bees when he gathers the honey from the hive. He explained how you can tell the difference between a male and female bee; the male has huge eyes which he uses to search for the queen bee.  

We learnt about the medicinal properties of propolis for healing the stings and some other ailments too. We also learnt that bees hate the smell of bananas and that the best way to remove a sting is to scratch it off with your nails. He spoke about putting ice, vinegar, garlic, onion, orange, lemons on the sting to neutralise the poison as well. Gavin shared the way that bees gather nectar, how they make wax and form it into cells where they lay their eggs.

The information was diverse and interesting, and each segment was interspersed with an activity for the children to engage in; smelling the wax, handling the smoker, dancing a bee dance and finally tasting some of the delicious honey and honey comb.

Kirra: I liked the honey

Allegra: I liked it when we smelled the honey.

Cian: I didn’t know that there was a bee called a zebra bee.

Rafi: I heard that bees can sting and that you need to put honey on the bee sting. I loved when he told us about the honey.

Finn: I know that bees can sting, and they will really hurt you. You need to go to the hospital.

Talia: I liked the bee dancing.

Oliver: I liked the honey.

Neveau: The bee stings the people, you say ouch!

Mikki: I learnt about the antennae, they use it to hear the flowers and then they eat the flowers.

Dolphin questions for the Bee Keeper:

Leo: How do they get the bees out of the hive to get the honey?

Ben: When will the bees be born?

Zach: Do they wear a special suit to get the honey out?

Levi: How do the men get into the hive coz it’s tiny?

Kobe: Is the bee born in another bee?

Post box visits

This week, Seashell, Starfish and Dolphin groups walked to the post box on Clovelly Road to post their special Rosh HaShanah cards to their families to wish them a Shanah Tovah. The children were very excited to pop their cards in the post box.

We discussed what we put on the envelope, and how the post person knows which house to deliver the card to. We also had a look at a You Tube clip which explained the journey of our mail and how it gets from one place to another. On the clip we saw all the different machines that are used to sort through the mail. The children all put their address label and stamp on their cards. They are very excited to see when it gets to their homes.

Our stick insects

Nature is wonderful… how lucky are we to share our world with so many other creatures.

We have been so privileged to closely take part and observe the LIFE CYLCE of our stick insect. We got her when she was only three months old and got to see her eat, sleep, drink, explore, dance and grow. She then began to get a really large abdomen and we realised her belly was full of eggs. She slowly laid these two or three each day and then she began to slow down, as her eating and movements became slower and we arrived at Pre-school one day at the beginning of this year to find she had died.

We buried her in the garden alongside the car park and we continued to research and treasure the eggs and look after them by keeping them moist and ensuring no fungus or mould grew on them. 

During the July holidays, the eggs burst, and we were lucky enough to notice these and begin to feed our new baby stick insects, as they were being born.

These have been incredible to watch and tend to each day as we ensure their leaves are fresh and that they are moist to allow for the insects to drink and hydrate themselves. 

The Shilbury family very kindly offered to buy the stick insects a larger and more visible enclosure. They bought it and put it together for us. We thoughtfully created a new living and much larger habitat for the stick insects and then moved them into their new home. Some of the babies have already shed their skin a few times and are growing really fast.   
If you look closely with a magnifying glass, you can see their prehistoric looking faces and really interesting features. We are loving looking after our growing family of stick insects. To date we have 20 babies!