During our ‘Seas of Discovery’ theme in Kindergarten and Grade 1 we began by thinking about the ships that long ago seafarers would have used. The children quickly picked up the vocabulary associated with different parts of the ship, such as crow’s nest, rigging and decks. They also came up with many jobs that would need doing like cooking, steering and cleaning. On one of our trips to the forest, the children created the outline of a boat with sticks and each chose their own task to carry out on board. One of the highlights of the term was ‘Speak like a pirate day’ when children were able to dress up and used some of the old English phrases they have learnt such as ‘Shiver me timbers!’ and ‘Land ahoy!’ Children looked at maps and learnt the features of an island, the main compass points and they also learnt more about the continents and oceans.
In the pre-school the children did a treasure hunt and had to follow directions; the older children had to find specific amounts of treasure and they were happy and proud to help the younger ones. They poured and measured sand, water and some glittering treasure into bottles and talked about what would float and what would sink.
Creating compasses
Seascape created by the kindergarten and grade 1 using a variety of handicraft methods including sawing, pin-pricking, cutting, decorating and gluing. Check it out on display in the reading room!
