Gooey, Brewy Wombat Stew

Today my kids asked to me to read Wombat Stew- a story featuring well known Australian animals. There are some great repetitive chunks of text in this story and the children love to join in the chant 'Wombat stew, wombat stew, gooey, brewy, yummy chewy wombat stew'. 

Recalling some of the fantastic concoctions that have been mixed up and featured on Let the Children Play recently, I invited the children to mix up their own stew. I asked them "If you were one of the animals, what would you tell Dingo to put into the stew?". We brainstormed our ideas and the children went outside to collect up the items they would need.

Once the stew had been brewed, the children started acting out the story, taking on the roles of Wombat, Echidna, Platypus, Koala and of course Dingo. They stirred the stew with a stick whilst dancing around singing Wombat Stew! I'm sure the parents who were gathering around for pick up time thought some strange ritual was being performed but hey we were having fun and through re-enacting the story were developing important comprehension skills - story structure and sequencing of events.

You can find teaching notes for a wide range of literacy activities based around the book Wombat Stew here.

Something A Little Bit Magical

It all started when a small group of girls were dancing and fluttering about the playground, spinning around in graceful circles and flapping their 'wings'. They were playing fairies. I jumped upon the chance to extend their play and later gathered the girls together to find out all about fairies. After much discussion we concluded that we would make two fairy gardens (because fairies love beautiful gardens) - one for the real fairies on our deck outside and one for themselves in home corner so that they might play fairies.

The girls had lots of ideas about what a fairy garden should look like so I asked them to draw their ideas:

Once we had finished we looked at our drawings and I asked "What do all your drawings have in common?" We noted that everyone had drawn flowers, mushrooms and fairy ponds and so we made sure our fairy garden had these three things.

We started with the outdoor garden:

We then read a range of fairy stories that the girls had bought from home and used the illustrations for inspiration when decorating our home corner. We made flowers, butterflies and a fairy pond filled with blue and green glass pebbles - a beautiful garden in which the children could role play and imagine themselves as fairies.

Throughout this project the children were engaged in collaborative decision making and problem solving. They had the opportunity to practice the skills of negotiation, speaking and listening in a group situation and valuing the ideas of others all the while, stimulating their imagination and having a great deal of fun!

"Creative play is likea spring that bubbles up from deep within a child. It is refreshing and enlivening. It is a natural part of the make-up of every healthy child. The child’s love of learning is intimately linked with a zest for play. Whether children are working on new physical skills, social relations, or cognitive content, they approach life with a playful spirit."

- Joan Almon