ANIMALS IN OUR NATURE

Our oldest group, after getting acquainted with animals that live in our forests and surroundings, has decided to travel across the world, stop at each continent and discover  what animals live there. They travelled across land and through oceans and sees to find it out. Their new knowledge and impressions they have depicted in their artworks.

 ANIMALS IN OUR NATURE

To teach children about animals we have used different games. Like this Big Nature game where children can be active and work themselves - observe, find out, search, compare, name, find relevant, make up the lines of folk-songs, guess riddles or invent their own, and many more.

Animals also come to help children to discover and learn different skills and knowledge:

*about letters

*about counting

*about colours, shapes and first counting skills.

While playing and helping the animals children acquire various skills and indirectly discover about their chracteristic look and behaviour.

 ANIMALS IN OUR NATURE

There are lots of movement activities in Latvian about animals which we use in our sport lessons to reveal to children the characteristic behaviour of animals ad their relations with other animals. Here we offer only a tiny amount which we have used in our sport activities.

For 1.5-3 years old.

"Hare's house"

Whilse there is a song playing about a hare (teacher can also sing it), children-hares are playing and jumping in the wood (sport hall). When the music stops (or  the drums beat) children-hares must find one house (hoola hoop or air pillow) to hide themselves from wolf or just to stay for the night.

For 3-4 years old.

"Diligent squirrels"

Children (squirrels) are divided into 4 teams. Each team is standing near their hollow (hoola hop) in which there are placed equal number of nuts, chestnuts or acorns in each. After a signal squirrels go to other hollows and, taking only one nut (acorn, chestnut) at a time, bring them to their own hollow. The teacher is counting to 10 and says STOP. After that no nut can be taken. Now squirrels count how many nuts there are in their hollow. The team which has the biggest number of nuts has won.

For 4-5-6 year old

"Cat and mice"

One cat is selected the other children are mice. Mice put one end of a twine in their sport trousers to make mice tale. The cat tells two lines of the rhyme and starts catching the mice. Cat must pull out the twine - then the mice is caught. The caught mice go to rest.

For 4-5-6 year old

"Hare and fox"

Children stand in hoola-hoops in pairs. There is also one fox and one children is hare - holding one in hands. The fox chases the hare. It runs away, it runs up to one pair gives a hair to one child and then this child must run away from the fox. Then this child who has the toy hare now, tries to give it away to another child, then this child runs away from the fox.

"Birds in nests"

Children stand in pairs in hoola-hoops that are placed in circle. One child is a tree (arms are put in the waist), the other child is the bird - he puts his arms on the "tree's shoulders". There is one bird without a tree (without nest).  The teacher says "All birds are flying" and all birds fly in the middle of the circle. The teacher says "All birds in nests" - each bird tries to find his tree and place hands on the shoulders of the "tree". One bird stays without nest.

After a while trees and birds chnge their roles.

 ANIMALS IN OUR NATURE

One of the ways how we can teach children about animals and their look ina an attractive way is to show them some performance.

It was a special day for our children because each group - one by one - went to the theatre performance. Unfortunately, it was a virtual performance, because due to Covid noone could go to a real thatre. So, it was decided to bring theater to our kindergarten. Everything was set as for real theatre visit.

Older children came with their outwaer. They stood in a queue and gave their clothes to the wardrobe assistant and got instead a pendant with a number.

After that they stood in line for the tickets, which they bought for "play money". They received the ticket and had to find their seat in the hall according to the number indicated on the ticket.

The three bells rang, lights went down and the performance started. It told about one lazy Piglet entraped by wolf. But Piglet had very good friends that helped it to escape from the furious wolf.

After the performance teacher and children talked over the storyline and analysed the behaviour of characters.

Having done it, children left the hall, stood in line for their outwear. It also happened that somebody gave back the pendant to the wardrobe, but forgot to take the jacket. Nothing doing - everything after the protocol as in real theatre - many questions from the waredrobe assistant to clarify if the jacket was realy yours.

 

 ANIMALS IN OUR NATURE

 With the onset of autumn and colder days, children observed the changes in nature that autumn has brought - colourful leaves of trees or trees without leaves already, colder weather. It is now time to dicover what hapens to all living beings in the forest. So they decided to go for a bug hunt to see if they prepare for "winter sleep" or they continue crawling in winter too.

 Indeed, children did not find bugs as they usually do in summer or warm spring days. Even in their favourite anthil there is no acivity seen. So they concluded that they have hidden themselves to endure winter.

 ANIMALS IN OUR NATURE

Our Owlet group explored animals that live not only on mainland, but also watched educational movies that show animals and their life in the ocean or see. After that they made from plasticine which animals they liked the best, trying to depict their natural habitat.

 ANIMALS IN OUR NATURE

To practice memorising the names of different animals that live in our country and elsewhere in the world, every group took as a help various games. 

Little ones tried to name animals that can be found in our country and find a similar one.

Little older children tried already to tell the first letter with which starts the name of each animal.

Older ones tossed cardboard strips and got a little riddle - they had to find to which animal the given animal one is going. By following and naming the directions (to the left, to the right, up, down), they saw which animal the given one has visited. Then they had to find this animal in the pile of squares and place it on the strip of cardboard

Children also practiced to put the names of the animals from letters (either block letters, small letters, written letters) or write the word by themselves. According to their capabilities. They could use "helping sheets" if needed. 

 ANIMALS IN OUR NATURE

Sometimes the theme of the day pups up itself, like it was in our Hedgehog group.

When removing the Christmas tree in the group, what a surprise!!! it was noticed that there is a nest in it. Teacher and the children talked over what could have lived in it, what it is made of and why there is noone in it at this moment. The nest was taken as a visual material for the group, but children tried to depic that in their artworks.

  

 ANIMALS IN OUR NATURE

One of the part of nature which usually receives a special attention in our kindergarten is animals and birds in winter and taking care of them in winter, teaching them to treat with care wildlife.

The group "Little Bears" talked over about the severe winter and how we can help our friends in the forest to endure it. So, they took treats and brought them to forest.

The "Hedgehog" group talked about birds and how can we help these little creatures in winter. They came to the conclusion that bird feeder is needed. They tried to construct one from little building material and depict one with the help of strips of paper.

VIRTUAL EVENT - organized by Cyprus kindergarten Dimosio Nipiagogeio Lympion 3rd day

 The 3rd day started with Hello in each partner country language and said by Cyprus children! 

Then we had a little road trip in Cyprus to remind us that we still are virtually in Cyprus!! Even if we were sitting in our music hall:

Then we were able to see videos of activities about Animal Body Parts chart and with recording wall mat. Also the teachers introduced different games they had made for children.

For the active brake we played the Wheel of Fortune! So they rolled it and the wheel gave you a task, like "Please go and find something big! and so on...

Very interesting to everybody was a Cyprus kindergarten made educational program "A Suitcase of Fairy Tales"! It was a suitcase full of materials and everything made by them! Just wonderful!

Then Cyprus national animal mouflon Stavros travelled to Europa to visit the partners! And he wanted to know that what he will see and do there. So everybody got a little work to do to fill in the empty gaps and give some information about their country! So came along fairy tale "Once upon a time..."

Then Dr Maria Kyriakou held a seminar "Cyprus educational reform: From teacher-directed activities to child-directed pedagogy". Once again we were reminded how important is to play with children because through it they learn more easily.

Before ending our three day journey we watched short story of Heartland of Cyprus. Beautiful legend about Cyprus. 

So thank you Cyprus for welcoming us and giving us lovely three days! 

VIRTUAL EVENT - organized by Cyprus kindergarten Dimosio Nipiagogeio Lympion 2nd day

 2nd day virtual event on theme "Animals in Our Nature".

We started the event with lovely Good morning from the children!

And then Cyprus showed us how they started and got through with the theme "See - Our animals"!

Little active brake was a clapping song!

Then followed a seminar by Elena Erotokritou "The fauna of Cyprus". We always thought that Cyprus is like Egypt where is so warm and sunny that plants don't want to grow. But boy were we wrong! Cyprus has very diverse nature with lots of green! So thank you for showing it to us!

The day 2nd part consisted of yet another interesting seminar, where all partners showed the presentations what they had made on the theme "Animals in Our Nature". It is just amazing to see how diverse we can do one theme! how wonderful ideas the teachers have come up with and how perfectly they have executed them! Thank you again my dear partners!

Cyprus showed us an activity with the book "Zoe and Beans! The magic Hoop!". And they also shared the story with other partners to use in their work.

For the finishing off for our 2nd day Cyprus showed us an drama role play activity about the "Saint Helen to Cyprus". Where the children played the story how the Cyprus island came and Saint Helen ended up there.

And to finish the day we watched a little video of Cyprus kindergarten children celebration!

Lots of activities, lots of ideas! Thank you again!

VIRTUAL EVENT - organized by Cyprus kindergarten Dimosio Nipiagogeio Lympion 1st day

 On 29th of November  2021 started the 3 day virtual meeting, what was organized by Cyprus Dimosio Nipiagogeio Lympion. 

On the 1st day we traveled virtually to Cyprus! We were greeted by the children through a video. It was a lovely way to start our three day meeting on theme "Animals in Our Nature". Then fallowed a virtual trip to Cyprus! we had the opportunity to get to know the country more!

Then we were able to look around in Lympia village, get to know Cyprus national celebrations, their educational system and look around in their school.

Then dr. Maria Kontoulis held a seminar "Resilient teachers - resisting stress and burnout". We were reminded again: 

• to know yourself
• know your emotions
• be here and now
• take care of yourself
• be part of solution, not the problem.

We were sent some animal puzzles to sort out, to get to know Cyprus animals like:

Carreta Carreta Turtle

Monk Seal Monachus Monachus

Cyprus Mouflon

Leopard Butterfly

Then there was a presentation about pre-writing exercises and we were sent also the materials to do with children

And to finish off our first day we watched a video of Cyprus wildlife!

It was a very interesting first day and we are so lucky to have all our partners!

Animals In Our Nature - Forest animals and trip to the forest

 Children age: 5-7 years.

We have been exploring different animals for several days. We have put up all the information on the walls to explore and ask questions.

To day we talked about how the animals survive the cold winter. Today is -18 degrees out side and very difficult to find food.

So we decided to bring some food for the animals and made a trip to the forest:

Animals In Our Nature - Eurasian eagle-owl

Here are some worksheets about Eurasian eagle-owl.

Making feathers for the owl. Pre-writing activity. Make the letter V.

Counting similar owls.

Animals In Our Nature - Dotted Eurasian eagle-owl

 Children age: 4 years

The teacher and children explored information and pictures about Eurasian eagle-owl. They also repeated the letters in word KASSIKAKK. They had to tell witch letters they know and tried to read the word. Then the teacher showed on the blackboard how to draw the bird. 




Then the children started to draw.