The Brilliant Pandas children had their very first chess lesson. They flew to the Chess Palace on the chess rug and looked around the palace. They met with chess characters, such as Queen Quenessa, King Kaspian, Speedy Bishop, Sturdy Rook, and the Tiny Little Pawns. The children played games with the chess characters. They moved on the giant chessboard according to the chess pieces’ wishes, such as jumping on black or white squares, jumping on two feet, and walking on tiptoes. They listened to the story of the Chess Palace, played some circle games with the chess-themed giant dice and laughed a lot with the residents of the Chess Palace. The Brilliant Pandas children already know: ‘If I play chess all the time, superpower will be mine.’

Pretend play strengthens learning by involving many areas of development at the same time physical, social, emotional, math, music, language and literacy. Through pretend play with others the Brilliant Pandas learn how to take concrete physical experiences and move toward more abstract symbolic thinking, which includes creating mental images. Their literacy skills are developing, too, as they begin to use symbolic thinking and language to organize simple actions into more complicated sequences and pretend situations. This lesson highlights pretend play activities that engage many parts of children’s brains at the same time, offering opportunities for the Brilliant Pandas to learn and practice both concrete and abstract skills.

‘Make a mark and see where it takes you.’ – said our art teacher to the Brilliant Pandas children who got inspired by the International Dot Day that happens every year on 15 September. First, the children read ‘The Dot’ book written by Peter H. Reynolds and extended their knowledge of Vashti’s amazing art journey. Then, they challenged themselves and painted small dots, big dots, dots by not painting dots, layered dots, colourful dots, and patterned dots.

We have had a great start to the academic year in the Brilliant Pandas. The children have settled into their new classroom and are forming some new friendships in their Tribes Groups. The first project the children did was inspired by the story ‘The Little White Owl’ by Tracey Corderoy. The task was to make an owl on a template by using sponge paint. The class talked about patterns and tried to follow their own patterns and designs during the craft. The children also started on the Jolly Phonics programme, and have been working through the first set of sounds. Finally, the children had the opportunity to participate in some fine motor skills fun by using tweezers to select and match the pom poms to the correct colour.