By participating in singing games, children develop social skills that prepare them for adulthood including: Taking turns and waiting for turns, working cooperatively, observing and accepting others’ ideas, gaining skills and confidence in being a leader and a follower, and watching, listening to, and speaking to one another.

Children have learned that they can express their feelings through movement as well as identifying the feelings music inspires in them. In the activities that we do in this unit, we can explore together how major and minor tonalities can elicit different feelings and different ways to express those feelings through movement. This multi-sensory way of learning deepens your child’s understanding of their expanding music vocabulary.

The Brilliant Pandas experienced silhouette painting, they painted an African sunset with African animals. They painted the background first, after that they used stencils to paint the animals. They also prepared some mushrooms and scarecrows for our Harvest Festival. Great job Pandas!

Autumn is fully underway and the cooler weather has set in. The Pandas class was busy with practicing for their Harvest Assembly songs. The children coloured in and drew some fruits and vegetables to display in the gym. The morning of the Harvest Festival, the children made some sandwiches to have as a snack later. They buttered bread, placed ham and cheese on it and helped arrange the sandwiches on the plate. After the assembly and morning snack, the whole class came to the gym to watch a puppet show on a little caterpillar that turns into a butterfly. The caterpillar meets friends and enemies through his journey to turn into a butterfly. The next day, as a conclusion for the Harvest Festival, the children tried some freshly pressed grape juice.

Exposing  the Brilliant Pandas to different genres in music, such as opera, provided a telescopic view into history, as well as a spark for imagination, creativity, and emotion. Stories told with singing, elaborate costumes, orchestra, props, and historically wealthy patrons were, at one time, the most popular form of entertainment.

These past two weeks, the Brilliant Pandas have been discovering new things about their classmates. We played several TRIBES games such as tossing a ball to each other and saying our names and one interesting fact about us and a game called “Spider Web” which included a ball of yarn which the children tossed to each other and saying a fact about themselves or something they like to do. The end of the game resulted in a spider web pattern with the yarn. Once the children did some activities together as a whole community, they split into their TRIBES groups and played an “I like…” sorting game. This game involved team participation as the group worked to figure out what food, toys and other activities they liked together as a group. Finally the children worked individually to complete an All About Me sheet that represented facts about themselves.

The last stream of warm summer wind knocked on all of our teacher’s door and whispered into their ears that it is time to go back to Happy Kids to start the new school year. Our new Visual Arts teacher, Ms. Ildikó was very excited to meet with all the children and do some arts and crafts with them.

The Brilliant Pandas made a picture from autumn leaves and experienced blow painting with a straw. They also made portraits of themselves and of their friends. It was a lot of fun!

The children have been steadily improving their letter recognition and fine motor skills. We practice Jolly Phonics through the Smart Board programme every day and we can see a real improvement in how the children are learning and their literacy skills.

With the programme on the Smart Board, the children get the chance to listen to the Jolly songs and stories; they practice the correct directionality of the letters through a rhyme taught to the class. They get to interact with the different activities by moving around the components on the smart board to spelling out words and play games. Using this resource also means that the children have to learn how to take turns and to give everyone the opportunity to participate in the activities. We further reinforce what they have learnt by using wipe off boards and markers to practice writing the letters and spelling out words.

From the first day, we started with our routine to relax at the end of the class. Children enjoyed the light show and slow, relaxing music. 

The Brilliant Pandas started the new school year with some teamwork project. The children formed into 4 groups and they made Giant and Red Pandas together. Our Visual Arts Teacher saw amazing teamwork efforts and was very delighted to see how engaged the children were with this project. Well done Pandas!

Our first week was about getting to know one another and building a community in the class. The children sit with their TRIBES group at lunch and have free choice and outdoor play time with their classmates. This develops a connection between each and every one of us.