Paper Drama-Kamishibai

Kamishibai-paper drama is a  Japanese form of story telling. I did a little twist. Instead of  teachers  its the Nursery who  tell the story. Each child holds the  picture card  and one after another, they put in the so called "TV  box" and tell their part of the story. Children wait for their turn  and move ahead only  when they hear teacher beat the drum. This will be shown on the Annual Day. I chose  Nepalese version of the story...Frog's Lunch by Dee Lillegard. My daughter drew the pictures on A-4 size  papers,  colored and pasted on card boards. For contrast she colored the wide margin black.

A child saying his part

Tamu Lhosar-Year of the horse

Tamu is another name for Gurung community.  I belong to Gurung community. Today 15th of  Poush  i.e. 30th of  December  is celebrated as Tamu Lhosar and Lhosar means New Year.  I have this old post card of Gurung zodiac showing 12 animals representing a twelve year cycle. This year is year of the horse.

Happy Lhosar

Helping Children Learn by Zakiya Kurrien- A Handbook

Helping Children Learn by Zakiya Kurrien is a handbook and picture supplement which focuses on activities for intellectual stimulation in early childhood. I simply love this book. The games and activities are  practical and low cost.
I have cut pictures, pasted them on  card stock and laminated.

I made many activities from the book. Here are few 

Matching faces

Matching front to back

Pinwheels- number matching

A three years old matching animal body parts

Understanding relationship of size

Practical life exercises-2

I have few more practical life exercise  materials  which playgroup enjoy.  I rotate the exercise materials  and the place too because the playgroup  get easily bored and try hands on every exercise. Sometimes I see many  trays out from the self. They are learning  to use one exercise  at a time.  Playgroups are enrolled year round  so whenever there is a new child we  have the materials mixed up.
Most of the time they work separately but they sit and observe when I introduce a new exercise.

For rolling and unrolling
 I have two types of mat one thick and quite easy to roll and other thin for fine rolling. They  also use these  mats for different exercises. 

Thick mat

Thin mat

Basket for keeping mats

Opening and closing bottles.
Only four or five bottles were not enough to keep them busy so I made eight. They have many questions while doing this exercise like"Where did you get this bottle?" ,"What do you put in it?","Whose is it?", "Where is the lid?" One child who did not find the exact  lid said  its the ghost who took it. Listening to them is a great fun.

Dressing Frames
The dressing frame stand is a bit high for the playgroup and little inconvenient because frames fall while they try to take one out. The wooden pegs for holding the frames are not  strong so the stand is actually a show piece now.   I  keep only three frames on the shelf out of twelve. The stand is in the older children's room.

Lacing
I have extra materials for lacing,

Bead stringing
 I  have plastic and wooden  beads of  different shapes. Children prefer the plastic ones which are  easy to
string. The wooden beads are not smooth from inside so stringing requires little more force. Few trays  have  strings tied on each side so that two children can string together. Sometimes they tell us to make garland.

Wooden beads

Christmas craft-2

Our Christmas craft is over. We made few things like Christmas trees and  wreaths. Playgroup painted green using cotton but it became soggy  so the next day  I gave the Nursery  little cubes of sponge. The sponge soaked paint and children could dab on paint for long. I used cloths pin for holding sponge. The result with sponge was quite good. Sponge  can be washed and dried for next use.

Below you see the sponge in the left bowl and soggy cotton in the right.

The older group used the paper colored by their junior for making wreath.  I told that  wreath  are hung on  the front  doors as a sign of welcome. In Nepal  we use marigold  and chrysanthemum  garland to decorate our doorways and windows  wishing  for prosperity and well being.

 The only thing they knew while making wreath  was pistachio.  Although the wreaths look similar  I feel a lot of  hard has been put on this craft.

 Wreath made  by different groups.

Pistachio seed used for poinsettia wreath

Pistachio seed  colored red for berries

Angry Bird Project- Art and craft

          This years third parent teachers meeting is scheduled on coming Friday.
Lower and Upper Kindergarten are busy with  their craft work. We chose Angry Birds Project.

1. Paper Mache balloon base for Angry Birds

 

2.  Pencil holder made from toilet paper roll

3.  Book marker-Thin cardboard strips were cut and covered with construction paper. Different Angry Birds      faces were made, cut and pasted. They wrote " Please use book mark". I hope they learn to use it.

4. Piggy Bank- Six pieces of cardboard  squares were pasted on construction  paper to make a cube.

5. Ice cream cones- We can also see the yellow  crown behind the cones. 

6. Angry Birds masks on display. 

    Shapes were made from the masks inside the book. Children used different construction paper to make masks.

Practical life exercises- 1

Few practical life exercises on our shelf.

I am using seeds for few exercises. Children love these exercises but few want  the same tray which their friend is busy with. Most of them like the big white bean seeds.  I use  a sponge to wipe in case they spill water during wet pouring .

Transferring  beans  from bowl to bowl

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Transferring beans from one bowl to two unequal bowl

Dry pouring

Wet pouring

Transferring seeds using tongs

Christmas craft -1

Today  children were busy with  Christmas related  craft. Nursery group  do not have the idea of what   Christmas is  like and who  Santa Claus is. I didn't go in detail so just told them that when it is cold and snowing Santa brings gifts for children who behave well. For a moment  they sat with their legs crossed and arms folded. Usually  it is very noisy when we have art and craft work.  They need extra care during water painting.
I drew and cut  out a shape of Christmas tree from a thick cardboard  using a paper cutter. I  used  the other part as a stencil for painting. For snow cotton was glued.                                                                                          

Teacher helping a child

Christmas trees

Little more than alphabets-Teaching Nepali

I made few materials for practice. I used  construction paper and pasted on thick cardboard.  Wide cello tape was used to cover the cards except the round shaped ones. I think children found it easy to pick up than the laminated ones.

1. Two letter picture card with matching word card.
     Picture cards have name written on it so the child can see and put the corresponding word card under it.

 Two letter picture card with matching word card

2.  Loose alphabet cards to match with the corresponding objects.
     A child has to think of the right alphabets to put beside the object.

Object and loose alphabet  card

3. Word cards with loose alphabet card
   Loose alphabet cards are used to match the small sized three letter word cards.

Three letter word card with loose alphabet card

4.Three letter picture card with loose alphabet cards.
    The picture cards have name written on it so the child can find the alphabet for it.
 

Three letter picture card with loose alphabet card

5. Three letter word card with corresponding picture card
     The picture card has no name written on it. At first I give only six but later few more were added.

Three letter word card and picture card

6. Loose picture cards to match words on sheet
   Words cards are pasted on a single sheet.

Picture cards to match words

Panchu -my daughter

I was introduced to blogging through my daughter Panchu.  The idea of sharing my experiences through blog kept me excited and one day without having  a good knowledge of  it I jumped into it.  Now I wait for her to help me figure out  how to add sidebar and everything. I had removed few photos from Picasa Web Albums and it was gone from the photo gallery too. Oh! I was shocked and sad  for a moment what if somebody saw my blog and found nothing. It took me hours to figure out what happened. Although I have many things to  share about my Preschool  but  frequent changes in the layout is because I am learning by doing just like a preschooler.

Thanks to Kazenoko Hoikuen -Japan

Last November six  teachers from Kazenoko Hoikuen  visited our school. Children along with their grandparents interacted with them. They showed us  games played by Japanese children like origami, ayatori, otedama, kendama and many more.

Our guests from Japan

This November we received five pianica and many idea magazines for teachers. We are grateful to them.

Sand tray

Children enjoy writing in sand tray. They trace  sand paper number or  alphabet before writing. I  have added one more tray with rice flour. Before adding the rice flour I pasted black chart paper.

Writing in rice flour tray