October 20-23, 2014

Autumn in Balikpapan

Hi, everyone! It has been quite a tough week for some of the kids and myself to go back to our daily routines after a week of Fall break. No more itinerary to check, only the lesson plan :) But hey, we survived! Hopefully, all of you had a great week off, either here in Balikpapan or somewhere else.

Drought that we have had in Balikpapan for several weeks matched perfectly with our last week lesson unit which was season-fall. There are tons and tons of dry leaves to keep the gardeners busy for the whole month. We walked around the compound to gather some dry leaves and sticks. In the classroom, we discussed the importance of a tree and also the tree parts. We sorted the leaves that we collected from our nature walk based on their sizes: big, medium, and small. The fun part of this activity was the tape-part. They enjoyed every step that they did using the tape. They pulled the tape from the tape dispenser, cut it, and pasted it to the paper. Some tape cuttings were a bit too small, perfect length, or even long enough to cover the paper from one side to the other. We used the rest of the leaves to create our very own leaf crown and also a beautiful Fall wreath, which the first out of four-season wreaths that we plan to make.

We also did some leaf rubbings and used our fingers to to print leaves on our trees. Using a needle with a wooden handle, we trained our fine motor skill and poked holes around a paper leaf. Doing this, the kids were introduced to other way to cut paper without using scissors. From all the activities mentioned previously, 'Fall Leaves Fall' activity was the hit of the week. On Thursday, we spent about 20 minutes at the playground raking, piling, tossing, throwing, stepping on, and finally jumping into pile of dry leaves. It was so fun!

Anticipating 'Letter of the Week' activities that we plan to have starting from next week, the kids were introduced to Wet Dry Try app. It is a great app not only to introduce letters to kids, but also to train their fine motor skills by tracing each letter correctly at least three times to earn a star. Starting from next week, in alphabetical order, we plan to earn three stars a week for each letter. We will spend about 10-15 minutes a day as part of our circle time to do this.