The eight-year-old child still lives in a vivid world of pictorial imagination, but with an alertness and keenness for challenge and adventure. With this comes an ability to remember greater amounts and in sequential order. This is the time for extending the amount of writing, reading and mathematical work through artistic and experiential opportunities.
We have begun the year with animal fables, as the fox striving for the juicy grapes and the bear not heeding the warning from the little bee in the log. We have felt for the miller and his son as they carried their donkey into town, and the tortoise that tried to fly with the swallows.
The children’s thinking has awoken as they explore number patterns and delve into the rhythms and patterns of the times tables, following a range of animal tracks, which are pressed neatly into the earth in perfect sets – snake is one, emu two, wallaby three and dingo four. Clapping, stamping, chanting, drawing and weaving patterns within number, as we search for creatures and learn from their ways.
Our weekly visit to the library has reached a new level of excitement as the children borrowed their first books. We spent an afternoon poring over each other’s selections and earmarking some for next time with pleas of “can I borrow that after you?” – their enthusiasm a pleasure to see.
The hot and humid days provided the perfect setting to enjoy our swimming intensive at Mullumbimby Pool. Smooth strokes formed as the children learnt and practiced swimming technique and moved their lengthening limbs with increasing grace.
Add to this eurythmy, recorder and singing practice, gardening, painting, plenty of play and a weekly visit to Crystal Creek and these young souls are fully immersed in a living education. Oh to be eight again!
Dallas Hewett
Class 2 Teacher
We have begun the year with animal fables, as the fox striving for the juicy grapes and the bear not heeding the warning from the little bee in the log. We have felt for the miller and his son as they carried their donkey into town, and the tortoise that tried to fly with the swallows.
The children’s thinking has awoken as they explore number patterns and delve into the rhythms and patterns of the times tables, following a range of animal tracks, which are pressed neatly into the earth in perfect sets – snake is one, emu two, wallaby three and dingo four. Clapping, stamping, chanting, drawing and weaving patterns within number, as we search for creatures and learn from their ways.
Our weekly visit to the library has reached a new level of excitement as the children borrowed their first books. We spent an afternoon poring over each other’s selections and earmarking some for next time with pleas of “can I borrow that after you?” – their enthusiasm a pleasure to see.
The hot and humid days provided the perfect setting to enjoy our swimming intensive at Mullumbimby Pool. Smooth strokes formed as the children learnt and practiced swimming technique and moved their lengthening limbs with increasing grace.
Add to this eurythmy, recorder and singing practice, gardening, painting, plenty of play and a weekly visit to Crystal Creek and these young souls are fully immersed in a living education. Oh to be eight again!
Dallas Hewett
Class 2 Teacher
