Busy Bugs Blog | Eco-Kids Preschool

My School, My Class, My Teachers

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THEME

My School, My Class, My Teachers

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COLOUR

Red

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SHAPE

Circle

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NUMBER

1

j

LETTER

Aa

Welcome to our Busy Bugs class, January 2022! We look forward to spending this year getting to know our new little Bugs and their lovely parents. It has been crazy seeing how much all of the Playful Pups from last year have grown and so much fun meeting our new Bugs. We would also like to introduce us teachers, Teacher Gemma and Teacher Thandi. If you ever have any questions or need to talk, please don’t hesitate to either message us or catch us in the morning or afternoon for a quick chat.

During the Busy Bugs year, your children start being exposed to tougher activities and tasks, and the things they learn will amaze you! One of the exciting new things we do this year is Show and Tell, which will start after midterm break (just to give our Bugs enough time to settle and be more comfortable around each other). Every Friday (or Thursday depending if there is a long weekend) we ask two children to bring a theme related item for show and tell. We start with the top name and bottom name of our class list and work our way to the middle. We will put who the next two children are at the end of every blog, as well as send a message out each week reminding you. If your child is absent on their day, please don’t worry. Just send it the next available day and we will do it then! (Show and Tell is the only exception to the “no toys” rule!)

We would also like to take this opportunity to advise you of a few of our classroom rules:

Please don’t forget to label ALL items sent to school. Items such as hats and water bottles are so common and there can be at least three other bottles/hats that are exactly the same throughout the other classrooms on any given day!
Please NO TOYS are to be sent to school.
Please NO juice allowed in water bottles. This opens them up to sharing and “borrowing” of bottles because juice obviously tastes better than water does!
At collection time, please refrain from coming to the classroom door to fetch your child. Please could we ask that you wait on the grass in front of the classroom and we will bring your Bugs out to you.
Please try and keep the WhatsApp group clear of “unnecessary” messages. Our WhatsApp group is primarily for us teachers to communicate with parents. If you have any concerns to address, please do so privately to a teacher and not over the WhatsApp group. Please note that during the day we may not be able to reply to messages immediately as we are obviously busy in class.

We hope you have a lovely restful weekend and we will see you all next week!

Tough Love!

We have had the best first week back and look forward to the many more we get to spend with our Bugs! The hard part is almost over folks! Pretty soon your little boy or girl will be waving goodbye without even looking back and you’ll find yourselves being the ones crying happy tears instead of them!

Dates to Diarise:

Haircut Day – 19 January

Bonfire Picnic – 28 January

(weather permitting)

Lots of love

Teacher Gemma and the Busy Bugs Assistants

First Week Vibes!

Cooking and Food

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THEME

Cooking & Food

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COLOUR

Purple

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SHAPE

Recap

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NUMBER

Recap

j

LETTER

Ff – food

What a week we have had! The Busy Bugs absolutely loved the hands on (and delicious) approach to the theme this week!

We discussed all of the exciting aspects of the kitchen from the utensils we use, to the equipment that make cooking possible, the food that we cook and the extra little bits we add for flavour! We learnt about a few basic kitchen rules like:

Never play with or use a knife without adult supervision
Do not touch a hot stove, oven or kettle
Don’t touch pots or pans that are being used on the stove
Always wash your hands before touching the food you are cooking with

This week we made 3 delicious goodies for the Bugs to eat.

On Tuesday, we made the most scrumptious mini muffin omelets. We cracked the eggs into a big bowl and each Bug got a chance to whisk them together. They got to cut a small piece of ham, tomatoes and even grated some cheese. We then scooped the egg into our muffin pans, sprinkled whatever topping we wanted on our omelets and put them in the oven to bake. We ate these for snack, paired up nicely with a half of a toasted cheese.

On Thursday, Chef Nombuso did our cooking lesson with us. We made the most delicious marmite and cheese pinwheels. The Bugs got to flour and roll the puff pastry, spread marmite all over it and then sprinkle cheese (A LOT of cheese!) and stick them in the oven to take home. We hope you all enjoyed these!

Our last cooking fun was on Friday where we put a different spin on standard cookies. We made standard cookie mix, but then added jelly powder in for flavour and texture. The Bugs loved these!

Can you believe we only have one week left of school! It’s hard to believe how quickly this year has gone! We have loved every second spent with these Bugs and are going to miss them dearly next year!

We hope you are all ready for the exciting, fun, craziness that will be next week! We have so many amazing Christmas activities lined up!

Adventures in the kitchen!

We heard lots of fun stories about the adventures the Bugs have had in the kitchen at home and of all the delicious goodies they have cooked and baked.

Cooking is such an important skill for children to have as it teaches them responsibility, safety awareness, quality family bonding time… even basic Maths. And we are so happy to hear that so many of our Bugs get the opportunity to spend this time with their families in the kitchen.

Please remember:

Christmas boxes for your child’s art

Flash sticks for reports

Last few items for our 12 Days of Christmas Charity Drive

Lots of love

The Busy Bugs Teachers and Assistants

Spicing up our week with super fun activities!

Travel and Holidays

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THEME

Travel & Holidays

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COLOUR

Yellow

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SHAPE

Recap

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NUMBER

9

j

LETTER

Hh – Hot

“Cos’ we are flying in an aeroplane, looking out the window, watching the clouds go by. Flying in an aeroplane, looking out the window, up so very high!”

Last week we learnt all about the places you can go to for a holiday, and how we get there. We spoke about bush holidays, beach holidays and overseas holidays, what we can see when we go to these places and the different ways we can get there. There are local places you can go to that are nice and close, like Harties, Sun City, the Kruger or the Vaal … these are place that we can drive to. Then there are places that are a little bit further away but can still be reached by car (or airplane) like Durban and Cape Town, and then there are the places that you have to take an airplane to, these places are very far and are mostly in other countries like Disney World, Paris and so many more!

We asked our Bugs if any of them have ever been on an airplane before. Most of them answered yes, but of course we weren’t 100% sure… hee hee! We spoke about the man or lady who flies the airplane and learnt that they are called the Pilot and the people who help us find our seats, bring us food and keep us safe are called flight attendants.

We also discussed what items we take on holiday. A suitcase filled with clothes, our toothbrush and toothpaste and of course, a camera to take lots of awesome pictures to show everyone.

Which brings us to our art this week. Our Bugs got to colour in cameras and then go on a nature walk to “take photos” of everything they could see. We then “printed” these photos by asking the Bugs to cut out pics of their favourite holiday from a magazine, and to then stick them under their cameras. The Bugs absolutely had so much fun doing this activity and it was also an amazing fine motor skill builder for them.

Thank you to everyone who sent items for show and tell, we loved seeing all of the exciting things your Bugs brought to share.

We hope you all had a lovely, relaxed weekend!

We were so impressed!

We asked all of the Bugs if they knew which type of car their Mommies and Daddies drive and we were very impressed to hear that most of them not only new if it was a “big car” or a “small car” but also what make and model they are!

We asked them who usually drove the car when they went on holiday and most of them answered “Daddy.”

There are two things children should get from there parents:

Roots

and

Wings!

Please remember:

Christmas boxes for your child’s art

Flash sticks for reports

To complete the Holiday Club Google form

Lots of love

The Busy Bug Teachers and Assistants

Pack your bags and take a trip through our week!

Space

Theme: Space

Colour: Orange

Shape: Diamond

Number 1-10

Letter: Nn- Night

Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are… This was one of many space themed songs that were sung this week and boy did we have fun singing them!

Our Busy Bugs absolutely loved learning about space and all of the aspects involved. We spoke about the planets, meteors, stars, the Milky Way, astronauts and rockets. We watched lots of videos teaching us about all of these things and looked at loads of awesome pictures taken by satellites. We learnt that we live on planet Earth, and this is the only planet that is known to have enough surface water to be inhabited by humans. We learnt that Saturn has a giant ring of floating ice and rock chunks and that Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system.

We spoke about astronauts and their space gear. They have to wear special suits and helmets while up in space because humans cannot breathe that far up. We spoke about gravity and how it makes objects, including people, float. We also spoke about the special food that astronauts have to eat.

For art this week, we made beautiful, negative space transfer paintings. We made these by letting Teacher Gemma etch space pictures into a polystyrene tray, pouring paint over it and then pressing our piece of paper down onto the painted tray. These came out absolutely stunning!

Our 2^nd piece of art is rocket ship puppets. The Busy Bugs painted toilet rolls, helped their teachers make “lids” for their rockets out of circle pieces of paper, stuck silver chip packets circles on as windows, and added streamers to the bottom to make it look like the rocket is taking off. All of this was then stuck onto an ice cream stick ready to fly around the house with your Bugs!

Friday was a super fun day! We had some awesome show and tell goodies, pajama day AND we got to eat our delicious astronaut pudding that we made for cooking class the day before.

We hope you all have a lovely weekend and we will see you all next week!

Lots of love

The Busy Bugs teachers and Assistants

Adriel building a space rocket

Adriel doing her negative art painting

Adriel painting her rocket

Aimee doing her negative art painting

Alessio doing his negative art painting

Alessio painting his rocket

Alyssa painting her rocket

Amelia building a space rocket

Amelia doing her negative art painting

Amelia painting her rocket

Ava building a space rocket

Ava doing her negative art painting

Ava K building a space rocket

Ava K doing her negative art painting

Ava painting her rocket

Ayva building a space rocket

Ayva doing her negative art painting

Ayva painting her rocket

Busy bugs catching bubbles

Caelyn building a space rocket

Caelyn doing her negative art painting

Caelyn painting her rocket

Christy-Lee building a space rocket

Christy-Lee doing her negative art painting

Christy-Lee painting her rocket

Emily building a space rocket

Emily doing her negative art painting

Emily painting her rocket

Erin A painting her rocket

Erin W building a space rocket

Erin W doing her negative art painting

Erin W painting her rocket

Evelyn building a space rocket

Evelyn doing her negative art painting

Evelyn painting her rocket

Garry building a space rocket

Garry doing his negative art painting

Garry painting his rocket

Karisa building a space rocket

Karisa doing her negative art painting

Karisa painting her rocket

Keeva building a space rocket

Keeva doing her negative art painting

Keeva painting her rocket

Kinsey doing her negative art painting

Kinsey painting her rocket

Mason doing his negative art painting

Mason painting his rocket

Michaela building a space rocket

Michaela doing her negative art painting

Michaela painting her rocket

Natan painting his rocket

Nathan building a rocket ship

Nathan doing his negative art painting

Nathan painting his rocket

Nolwandle building a space rocket

Nolwandle doing her negative art painting

Nolwandle painting her rocket

Snack on the deck

Tai-Neema building a space rocket

Tai-Neema doing her negative art painting

Tai-Neema painting her rocket

William building a space rocket

William doing his negative art painting

William painting his rocket

Zane building a space rocket

Zane doing his negative art painting

Dinosaurs

Theme: Dinosaurs

Colour: Green and Silver

Shape: Circle and Triangle

Number: 1-10

What an exciting 2 weeks we have had, with a super awesome theme to get everyone even more excited!! Because who doesn’t love Dinosaurs!?! These Busy Bugs have non-stop stomped and roared their way through the classrooms and we have loved every second of it!

It is so incredible to hear how much these little people know about dinosaurs and it’s even more incredible to hear them perfectly pronounce some of the incredibly challenging dinosaur names! We have spoken about Herbivores and Carnivores, as well as all of the “basic” dinosaurs like T-Rex, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Velociraptors, Pterodactyl and Brontosaurus. We have also delved a little deeper into the lesser known dinosaurs such as the Mosasaurus (who looks like a very big whale with huge teeth!), the Ankylosaurs (this dino had a spiky, almost turtle like shell on his back and spikes on his tail) and even the Pachycephalosaurus (packy-sefa-lo-saurus)- just in case you were wondering how to say that giant word! (who had a giant “egg” shaped bubble on his head that was thought to be used to ram into things such and trees and bigger dinosaurs. We have loved watching the Bugs reactions to these incredible, extinct creatures and how they absorb everything that is said to them. We also learnt all about fossils, how they are formed and who the people who dig them up and study them are, another very big word, Paleontologist.

We did a Dino dig expedition by taking a trip to the sandpit and everyone had a chance to dig and uncover buried dinosaurs. How exciting!? We also had a super fun time digging up actual fossils that Christy-Lee brought us for her show and tell. Each Bug got a turn to use the hammer and chisel to chip away at pieces of stone, brush the dust off with a fossil brush and uncover what was buried in the sand. So much fun!

For our art activities over these 2 weeks, the Bugs made Dinosaurs stamped footprints where they had to walk the dinos through a tray of paint, and then walk them onto their piece of paper in different colours. They also made their “D is for Dinosaur” pictures, where we coloured the letter D and then stuck cut out shapes (triangles and circles) as spikes and a head on to create our very cute letter D is for dinosaurs. We also put our Bugs skills to the test, by giving them each a piece of paper and a dinosaur toy, and asked them to trace the shadow that the toy cast. They absolutely loved this activity! Last but not least, we made an AMAZING Dinosaur box construction piece. Each Bug got a turn to paint the part of the dinosaur then the teachers stacked it all together to make a huge dinosaur sculpture. His name is Terence!

We danced around to Dinosaur Stomp, Baby T-Rex and Walk The Dinosaur, as well as watched a few clips from the Jurassic Park/World movies (don’t worry, all the clips were age appropriate!)

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you next week for another exciting theme and the last week of Term 2!

Lots of love

The Busy Bugs Teachers and Assistants

Next week’s theme: Space

Next week’s show and tell: Everyone