Students make a big splash at the BSB Summer Fair splash at the ...

Class pages
44
Under the Sea
Shells and sand take center stage in the
Gafencu Crèche Class
The Crèche children in Gafencu discovered that
there is ‘a serious commotion at the bottom
of the ocean’; this is how our Under the Sea
Learning Journey all began with what is now our
favourite book: Commotion in the Ocean, by
Giles Andreae and David Wojtowycz.
Jason, Amelie, Ana, Anna, Sofia, and Agata
are enjoying having lunch in the garden after
participating in our beach ball relay
These past few weeks we have examined the
differences in texture and colour between the
sands of various beaches, discovered what
happens when you run a magnet through sand,
put a shell up to our ear and rediscovered the
simple pleasure of playing in sand and pouring it
through a sieve to reveal its secrets.
Amelie, Jakub, Greta, Anna Sofia, Jason and Ana
having ice-cream and enjoying a day at the beach in
our role play area
We had a wonderful time sand painting and
creating ‘under the sea’ art. Arts and crafts give
children a method of expressing themselves
creatively, as well as allowing them to develop
Creche
Pipera
It is hard to believe that the school year is almost
over; the time has gone by very fast! So much
has been achieved throughout the year in Crèche
and there have been many highlights. All of the
children are now communicating in English and
do so very confidently, considering at the start of
the year very few spoke English. Well done! They
have all tried so hard.
fine motor skills such as cutting, pasting, and
drawing. Certain themes, such as the ocean and
the creatures that live in it, lend themselves
perfectly to art projects. Ocean life is full of fun
shapes and colours which are replicated in
these activities.
In the classroom we set up our role play area
with umbrellas, beach balls, inflatable beach
toys, shovels, pails, towels, and a paddle pool
filled with fish and seashells and enjoyed having
a pretend day at the beach. In our Mathematics
Centre we had a shell counting and matching
game children chose a card and counted out the
same number of shells as the number listed on
the card. When they had counted out the correct
number of shells they then placed the shells on
the number card.
Jakub, Anna Sofia and Greta searching for sea shells
During circle time we used our touch and feel
bag, where we placed various objects that are
found in or near the ocean such as a star fish, a
sea sponge, seashells, and a seahorse, which
was a big hit. We also had an ‘under the sea’
wall where we glued pictures of sea creatures
to a piece of poster board during circle time and
practiced naming the animals on the poster.
Mrs Varban,
Gafencu Creche Class Teacher
One of our big projects was our garden. All of the
children got involved in planting seeds and bulbs,
watering them and helping out with the weeding.
There was a great sense of accomplishment when
everything started to grow.
Dana, Dana (we have 2 TAs called Dana), and I
would like to wish everybody a great holiday, and
to say that we will miss the children so much next
year, but I know they are all very excited about
starting their new school year in Preschool. We
wish them well.
Mrs Claire O’Brien,
Class teacher
Visit the BSB website at www.britishschool.ro
Outside
with preschool
The Foundation classes follow the Early Years
Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum. As part
of the provision of the EYFS, the children at
BSB have access to both the outdoors and
indoors as a learning environment, which is
wonderful as we are lucky enough to have
two excellent gardens: one at the front and
one at the back of the building, which can
be accessed from the preschool rooms. The
outside space has allowed us to add old tyres,
tree logs and tree stumps. We have four tree
stumps which the children use as stepping
stones. It has been very interesting to watch
how each child has tackled these obstacles
and to see the huge sense of achievement
as they develop the skills necessary to
complete the circuit. These outdoor play
objects encourage the children to develop
their physical skills while experiencing a little
adventure. The children learn how to play
safely while developing a variety of skills like
climbing objects and balancing. The fantastic
sunshine that we have had has meant that
we have had opportunity to develop lots of
different activities.
Scrambling and balancing on logs.
In the EYFS curriculum Physical Development
is considered to be the second most
important Area of Learning, and it has so
much to do with building self esteem and
confidence which of course then influences
the rest of a child’s learning and achievement.
For this reason access to the outside is a
free flow process, so, if for example a child is
building a house with the small construction
sets inside, they might decide that they
require real grass for the garden and so can
go to cut some grass and place it around their
model. A very important aspect of free flow
indoor/outdoor policy is that the children can
decide to be indoors or outside.
Ms Kath Homer,
Preschool H Teacher
Matthew, Mariam, Ioana and Ayesha
have Green fingers!