Let's Pretend - puppets, fairy-tales, the wizard of Oz and more!

Hello everyone, what a great time we have had in upper pre- primary over the past two months! First of all a very warm welcome to Esmé Jade, Aarav, Fernando and Kasper who have joined our class.The children, Miss Nadia and I have had lots of fun with our ‘Let’s Pretend’ unit. It has been so nice to see the children using their imagination and being creative. As you saw from the photographs hanging outside our class, we had a super ‘entry point’. The children dressed as characters from their chosen book and then had to tell about their book to the rest of the group. They all did a great job and practised good listening skills while each child was talking.

Throughout the unit the children could choose to play in the puppet corner with the puppets they made and with the lovely puppets that Esmé Jade, Lenny-Jean and Vincent brought to school (thank you!). They also had fun telling the story of the Wizard of Oz with they stick puppets they made. They had so much fun playing in the ‘let’s pretend’ home area, taking on different roles-princesses, kings,queens, police, firemen, Mums, Dads and babies!

The children have heard many different fairy-tales and did some lovely follow up pieces of work- the gingerbread houses they drew were gorgeous and the witches house from the story of Hansel and Gretel they made from a box looks good enough to eat! After we read the story of the ‘magic porridge pot’ the children were excited to make and eat porridge themselves!  They all agreed it was really yummy! The children have been inspired by the stories and some children have written their own Fairy-tales, others have even felt compelled to write books! Together the children wrote their own fairy-tale with a picture book to go with it. We have also done some work on ‘Fables’ and how these stories teach us a lesson

We created a puppet gallery in our class with so many kinds and variations of puppets – sock puppets, puppets made from toilet rolls, puppets made from bags and stick puppets. It has been lovely to witness the children’s enthusiasm while they work. I am running out of space to put all the pupprts they have made! The children had a special treat when a we had a real puppeteer come to our school. The children laughed a lot and enjoyed looking at all the lovely puppets.

The children practised their lines, brought costumes to school, painted the emerald city and the yellow brick road all for the big performance of ‘The Wizard of Oz’. What a wonderful ‘exit point’ and celebration of our unit with the rest of pre-primary. Each class performed a different story. The children did wonderful, I was very proud of them.

Tomorrow we have our ‘carnival party’ at school. The children have been getting ready making fancy Brazilian carnival masks! Looking forward to seeing lots of different costumes! (let’s Pretend’ never ends!)

You may have heard from your child that the personal value we have learnt about this month is ‘Thoughtfulness’ (our Valentine month!) We are reminding each other to think of others and make sure all our friends are happy. On that note I would like to wish you all a happy week and see you after the midterm!

Miss Mia and Miss Nadia