busybugs | Eco-Kids Preschool

Travel and Holidays

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THEME

Travel & Holidays

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COLOUR

Yellow

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SHAPE

Square

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NUMBER

Recap

j

LETTER

Hh – Hot

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

This week we learned all about the places you can go 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 that are nice and close like Haarties, Sun City, the Kruger or the Vaal, these are place that we 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 all of the Bugs if they knew which type of car their Mommy’s and Daddy’s drove and were very impressed to hear that most of them not only new if it was “a big car or 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.” We then spoke about airplanes and if any of our Bugs have ever been on an airplane before. Most of them answered yes, but of course we weren’t 100% sure. We spoke about the man or lady who flies the airplane and learned 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 coloured in cameras and then went on a nature walk to “take photos” of everything they could see. We then “printed” these photos by asking them what type of holiday is their favourite and used magazines to find pictures of those types of holidays and cut them out to stick under their camera. The Bugs 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 have a lovely, relaxed weekend and we look forward to seeing all of our Bugs at school next week.   

Please remember to send your Christmas boxes!

Next Week’s Theme: Christmas 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Dates to Diarise:

27 Nov: Carols By Candlelight

3 Dec: Magic Show (during school)

4 Dec: Christmas Party (during school0

5 Dec: Break Up Day

Lots of love

Teacher Gemma and the Busy Bugs Assistants

Our Bugs!

Shops and Shopping

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THEME

Shops & Shopping

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COLOUR

White

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SHAPE

Oval/Triangular Prism

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NUMBER

Recap

j

LETTER

Qq – Queue

What do you buy when you go to the shops?  Milk, sweeties, honey, chippies, clothes, toys and much, much more! These were just a few of the answers we got from our Bugs when we asked them that question, they were very happy to share their entire shopping lists with us and which shops Mommy and Daddy like to shop at.

We spoke about different types of shops and what items you can buy in each of them. Grocery shops sell food and everything we need for the house. Clothes shops sell clothes for the whole family. Furniture shops sell beds, couches, and tables for the house and so many more. 

We showed the Bugs the different logos from our more common shops in Benoni, and we are proud to say that they knew what every shop was! 

For this week’s art, our Bugs made their own Eco wallets and purses, so that they could put their pretend money in, which they used for our EcoShopping activity to buy all their items with. We also colored in play-play money.

Thank you to all of our Busy Bugs parents for supporting this activity by bringing items for our Ecokids shop. Our Bugs had so much fun doing their shopping and whatever they could get their hands on, they put in their trolleys and baskets.

We hope they enjoy all their little goodies. 

Have a wonderful weekend.    

Next Week’s Theme: Travel and Holidays 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Dates to Diarise:

18 Nov: HH Outing

20 Nov: SS Graduation (tbc)

22 Nov: CC & SS Outing

27 Nov: Carols By Candlelight

3 Dec: Magic Show (during school)

4 Dec: Christmas Party (during school0

5 Dec: Break Up Day

Lots of love

Teacher Gemma and the Busy Bugs Assistants

Our Bugs!

Cooking and Food

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THEME

Cooking & Food

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COLOUR

Purple

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SHAPE

Rectangle/Rectangular Prism

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NUMBER

1-5

j

LETTER

Cc – Cooking / Ff – Food

This is one of the teachers’ best weeks (because it gives us all an excuse to break the diet- hehe!). We have had such a blast this week with all the fun cooking, eating and experimenting that we have done! It is so much fun and so rewarding to see the children enjoy themselves so much!  

We spent the week discussing all things food, cooking and the kitchen! We chatted about cooking utensils and what we use them for, as well as all the interesting things we can find in a kitchen! The children loved sharing their stories of how they have helped you in the kitchen to prepare meals and we loved hearing what their favourite and least favourite foods are! There were quite a few interesting answers! We loved learning about what gets hot in the kitchen and what to be careful around. We agreed that the stove, oven, toaster and kettle should be treated with caution, knives and scissors can also be dangerous and they should always ask for help.

Our song of the week was “The Soup Song” which also serves as a memory game and the children have to take turns to add ingredients to the pot to make a soup! Some of the soups we made sounded delicious, but the ones that ended up with potatoes, candyfloss, chocolate and chicken… we think we’d rather give those a skip! Haha!  

Everyone’s favourite part of the week was of course the days when we got to make our own delicious snacks all by ourselves! On Tuesday, we made our own snack, which was delicious chicken vienna and cheese pizza bread. On Wednesday, we made delicious fruit smoothies for snack. And on Thursday, we helped Chef Thembi make the delicious muffins that were enjoyed at our Mommy/Daddy and Me yoga day!

Every day Chef Thembi or Chef Sonia came to our classroom to get a headcount for the day’s meals and we explained to the children how special these ladies are to us.  We made sure that the Bugs said please and thank you for all of their meals this week.  

*A few quick notes* 

Reminder to send in/purchase your report USB from Amy.

Please trim nails on a regular basis. Accidents happens so fast, and shorter nails help minimize the effects.

Please remember to send us a hat, even if we have to send it home again every day. It is so hot, and the rule is: no hat – no play! We would hate for the children to miss out on playtime and have to sit in the shade on the deck because they don’t have a hat.

Please, please, please… EVERYTHING sent to school must be labelled! Jackets, tops, pants, shoes, socks, bottles and even underwear. A lot of our children throughout the whole school have the same, or very similar items of clothes. Labelling everything just makes it easier for all of us teachers to know what belongs to who.

Have a stunning weekend everyone!

Does pineapple belong on pizza? We wanna know what you think!

Dates to Diarise:

13 Nov: Shopping Activity (during school)

15 Nov: CC Entrepreneur Market

18 Nov: HH Outing

20 Nov: SS Graduation (tbc)

22 Nov: CC & SS Outing

27 Nov: Carols By Candlelight

3 Dec: Magic Show (during school)

4 Dec: Christmas Party (during school0

5 Dec: Break Up Day

Lots of love

Teacher Gemma and the Busy Bugs Assistants

Our Bugs!

Under The Sea

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THEME

Under The Sea

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COLOUR

Dark Blue

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SHAPE

Circle/Cylinder

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NUMBER

Recap

j

LETTER

Uu – Under

This is definitely one of our favorite themes of the year!  

We spoke about the different animals that live “under the sea”, as well as on the shore and were pleasantly surprised to learn just how much our Bugs know about sea creatures. We covered everything from the teeniest tiniest little organism all the way up to the largest mammal on earth! We spoke about sharks and covered quite a few of the different species of sharks including the Great White Shark, the Hammerhead Shark, the Whale Shark and the Tiger Shark, that they are cold blooded and eat other sea creatures. We spoke about whales, like the Blue Whale and the Killer Whale, we spoke about the blowhole and what they use it for, as well as what they eat. We learned that turtles come to the shore to lay their eggs and bury them in the sand, and that they have a hard shell on the back to protect them from predators such as sharks and killer whales. We learned that the proper names for “Nemo” and “Dory” are a clown fish and a blue tang. We learned that Seahorses wrap their tails around seaweed to hold on and that the daddy seahorse carries the babies in his tummy rather than the mommy seahorse! We learned about Crabs and what they use their shell and pincers for, Sea Anemone’s that have poisonous spikes to protect them and Starfish that can regrow their limbs if they happen to lose one.  

We discussed the importance of marine conservation and why plastic is so dangerous for marine animals. We also got to play with our Ocean Sensory Table, which had blue fabric “water”, sand, shells, sands and plastic sea creatures in. The Bugs absolutely loved this activity and where so excited to go “hunting” for things on the table. 

For art for this theme, we made the most scary and adorable sharks. We did this by painting scrap paper blue, cutting a half-oval shape out of newspaper, 4 options of mouth shapes and lots of little paper triangles. The Bugs got to stick everything on exactly where they wanted it to go and create their awesome sharks.

We also made a collaborative art piece for our amazing student teacher, Teboho’s, assignments. The Bugs each got a turn to paint a giant sheet of paper blue, they leafed through magazines to find pictures of sea creatures and cut them out, coloured in little sea creature pictures, sponge painted white for the clouds and dipped pieces of tissue paper into green paint to make seaweed. This piece was absolutely stunning!

We hope you all have a lovely weekend, rest well and we will see you back next week for another exciting theme!    

Next Week’s Theme: Cooking and Food (there will be no art next week).

Next Week’s Show and Tell: Please send something theme related.

Weekend ... SHELL YEAH!

Dates to Diarise:

6 Nov: Haircut Day

7 Nov: Mommy/Daddy & Me Yoga

8 Nov: Mommy/Daddy & Me Yoga

13 Nov: Shopping Activity (during school)

15 Nov: CC Entrepreneur Market

18 Nov: HH Outing

20 Nov: SS Graduation (tbc)

22 Nov: CC & SS Outing

27 Nov: Carols By Candlelight

3 Dec: Magic Show (during school)

4 Dec: Christmas Party (during school0

5 Dec: Break Up Day

Lots of love

Teacher Gemma and the Busy Bugs Assistants

Our Bugs!

Fantasy

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THEME

Fantasy

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COLOUR

Rainbow, Black & Dark Grey

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SHAPE

Recap, Star, Crescent

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NUMBER

Recap

j

LETTER

Mm – Mystical

What a magical week! We had the most amazing time discussing all things fantasy and fairy-tale!  

The topics of our discussions this week were Fairies, Unicorns, Dragons, Pirates and Mermaids. We also discussed traditional fairy-tales and learned that almost all fairy-tales start with the words “Once upon a time…” and end with “and they all lived happily ever after.” 

We are so impressed with how much our Busy Bugs actually know about fairy-tales and fantasy creatures and loved hearing their own thoughts and stories about everything we were learning about.  

For art this week, we focused fully on getting things ready and beautiful for Art Expo next week.

We also made a stunning dragon using paper plates, and carboard cutouts from a different art piece. 

Art Expo is exactly a week away folks! Make sure you get your tickets; it really is a night you will never forget! 

And with all of that being said, remember to always let your conscience be your guide, Hakuna Matata, happily ever afters’ do exist, just keep swimming and all it takes to fly is faith, trust… and just a little pixie dust. 

Next Week’s Theme: Art Expo prep- Tomahawks and Teepee’s, Boots and Bling. 

No Show and Tell next week 

Let us know on your class WhatsApp groups folks ... Are you part of the Indian TRIBE ... or do you with the Cowboys RIDE?

Dates to Diarise:

18 Oct: Art Expo

24 Oct: Break Up Day

25-28 Oct: Mid Term Break

29 Oct: Back to School

Lots of love

Teacher Gemma, Teacher Ash and the Busy Bugs Assistants

Our Bugs!

Insects and Bees; Frogs and Ponds, Rivers and Dams

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THEME

Insects & Bees; Frogs & Ponds, Rivers & Dams

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COLOUR

Yellow; Light Blue/Turquoise

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SHAPE

Hexagon; Oval/Tear Drop

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NUMBER

4; 5

j

LETTER

Ii; Mm

“Once I saw a caterpillar climb up in the tree… He wrinkled long, he wrinkled short, he wrinkled right to me! I put him in a little box… “don’t go away” I said… but when I looked again it was a butterfly instead!” 

We have a had buzzing good time learning about insects and bees this week! Our Busy Bugs (a very appropriate name if you ask us…) have absolutely loved seeing and hearing about all the different types of bugs we find in our garden! And we were so proud to see how many of them know so many cool facts about bugs!  

Just a few of the bugs we discussed were; grasshoppers and how high they can jump, spiders (which technically aren’t considered to be Insects, but in our opinion, still count) with their 8 legs and webs, lady bugs with their red shells and black spots, butterflies who go from an egg to a caterpillar to a chrysalis to a beautiful butterfly that flies around, bees who make honey and have a very sharp stinger, worms that live underground, ants that are super strong and love sweet stuff, dragonflies that hover over water, praying mantis that can actually box and look like they are praying and even mosquitoes that suck our blood and leave behind itchy bites!  

We sang lots of songs about all of these bugs and watched a video showing us how they move around, what they eat and where they live. 

For art this week, we made; 

The most adorable little Bees. These will be on display at Art Expo!

We snuck in some other Art Expo pieces that are looking amazing!

Thank you to everyone who brought show and tell this week!  

Reminder: Don’t forget to book your Art Expo tickets! It really is an incredible night that you don’t want to miss! 

We hope you all have a lovely weekend and we will see all next week for another exciting theme! 

Next Week’s Theme: Frogs and Ponds 

Next Week’s Show and Tell: Everyone to please bring something theme related! 

Ribbit, ribbit!

Croak, croak!

Hop, hop, hop!

We had a hopping good time this week learning all about frogs, their lifecycle, what colours they can be, what they eat and where they live… which brings us to ponds. We learned about all the different animals that live in or around ponds and the type of plants/flowers that grow there.

We spoke about the life cycle of a frog, how and where they lay their eggs, which then hatch into teeny tiny little tadpoles. These tadpoles eat lots of food a quickly grow from a tadpole into a froglet (which is the “teenage” stage of the frog, before it loses its tail), and then eventually grows into a frog. We spoke about how some frogs can be poisonous, and you can usually tell which frogs are poisonous because they are very brightly coloured. We spoke about how a frog uses its tongue to catch insects flying past and about how important they are to a wetland and/or pond ecosystem.

We sang lots of different songs about frogs and spent many days hopping our way around the classroom and playground. It was so much fun!

The highlight of the week was Friday, when we got to take a walk across the plot into Uncle Georges house and visit his amazing pond. We got to see first-hand all of the plants we were learning about in class, the giant Koi fish that we also got to feed. We took our snack down with us and enjoyed this pond-side, picnic style! We also got a have a turn on the merry-go-round and absolutely LOVED this!

For art this week, we made the cutest little tadpoles by painting egg cartons green, cutting them out and adding eyes and little tails to them. We will be keeping these to display at Art Expo.

We hope you have a lovely weekend, rest well and we will see you next week for some more Busy Bugs fun!

Next Week’s Theme: Fantasy

Next Week’s Show and Tell: Everyone to please bring something theme related

Let us know on your class WhatsApp groups folks ... Are you part of the Indian TRIBE ... or do you with the Cowboys RIDE?

Dates to Diarise:

18 Oct: Art Expo

24 Oct: Break Up Day

25-28 Oct: Mid Term Break

29 Oct: Back to School

Lots of love

Teacher Gemma. Teacher Ash and the Busy Bugs Assistants

Our Bugs!

Countries and Cultures

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THEME

Countries & Cultures

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COLOUR

Flag Colours

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SHAPE

Rectangle/Rectangular Prism

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NUMBER

3

j

LETTER

Pp – Pride

What an interesting week this was!

It is always so important and valuable to learn about different cultures from around the world as you never know when you might get to meet someone from a different culture. South Africa is filled to the brim with so many of its own cultures, as well as cultures from all over the world, and we loved hearing about the different cultures of all of our Bugs.

Our main countries and cultures were: Italy, France, Australia, Germany, The UK and America. We spoke about what food each place is most commonly known for, famous landmarks from these countries and how to say “hello” in all of these places and languages. The Bugs learned, “G’day Mate!”, “Bonjour”, “Ciao”, “Boungiornu”, “Guten Tag”, “Cheers” and “Hi!”.

We also briefly discussed Portuguese, Irish, Afrikaans, Zulu, Muslim, Welsh and many, many more!

We took a different approach this week with regards to creative learning, and instead of doing art pieces, we decided to do cooking instead. We made traditional Fairy Bread from Australia, and “Magwinya” (which are similar to vetkoek) with chicken mayo from Teacher Thandi., and we helped Chef Thembi mke our lunch on Thursday; Alfredo Pasta rom Italy. The kiddies loved exploring the different tastes.

We did however, do some art. We continued to finalize pieces for our Art Expo, as well as start some very cool new ones!

Of course Friday was a special day, as it was HAT PARADE! We were so impressed and proud of the stunning hats that our Bugs made! Well done everyone! We were also so impressed with how brave and confident our Bugs were, walking around the drive way in front of so many people! Well done Bugs!

Wishing a wonderful weekend!

Next Week’s Theme: Insects and Bees

Next Week’s Show and Tell: Everyone to please bring something theme related!

Have a wonderful LONG WEEKEND!

Dates to Diarise:

23 Sept: School Holiday

24 Sept: Public Holiday (Heritage Day)

3 Oct: Haircut Day

18 Oct: Art Expo

24 Oct: Break Up Day

25-28 Oct: Mid Term Break

29 Oct: Back to School

Lots of love

Teacher Gemma, Teacher Ash and the Busy Bugs Assistants

Our Bugs!

Spring, Flowers & Planting; Trees, Plants, Wood & Paper

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THEME

Spring, Flowers & Planting; Trees, Plants, Wood & Paper

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COLOUR

Green & Brown

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SHAPE

Circle & Triangle

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NUMBER

1 & 2

j

LETTER

Vv -Vase; Tt -Tree

Spring and Flowers

Welcome Spring… Finally!  

We had so much fun learning about Spring last week. We spoke about what happens during spring time; flowers blooming, the grass starts to go green again, leaves start showing on the trees and most importantly, the weather starts to get warmer! Yay!  

We also spoke about having respect for plants, flowers and trees. We learned that we are not allowed to break or damaged a tree, and that we can only pick flowers if we are going to use them for something.   

“Spring, a lovely reminder of how beautiful change can be.” Spring is all about new beginnings and changes. Spring brings new growth, weed out the bad and make room for something beautiful. Let’s all make it our Spring time goals, after such a challenging year, to make some changes, get rid of the bad in our lives to make space for beautiful things! 

Trees, Plants, Wood and Paper

WOW!!! What a week we have had! We are so proud of all of our Bugs for doing so well with photographs! Uncle Tiago and Teacher Gemma (who was assisting with the photos) were blown away at how brave you all were, and how well you smiled!  

We had a great week learning about trees plants, wood and paper and all the amazing things that can be done with them. We learned that trees are wood, and that wood is then used to make the paper that we create all of our beautiful art work on. We reinforced last week’s lesson about respecting nature and the beautiful world we have been given!  

For art this week and last, we made the most beautiful blossom trees using our fingerprints. We made awesome recycled flowers using the bottom of a bottle dipped in paint for the petals, straws for the stems and beads for the center.

We also made a collaborative piece, “Busy Bugs friendship tree”. Each Bugs got their hand painted, told us who their best friends are and made their mark for their friends.

We hope you are all super excited and getting in touch with your creative sides for our amazing hat parade! We can’t wait to see the incredible creations! 

Just a reminder to please send in cereal boxes!    

This week’s theme: Countries and Cultures 

Happy Monday!

Dates to Diarise:

20 Sept: Hat Parade Day

23 Sept: School Holiday

24 Sept: Public Holiday (Heritage Day)

3 Oct: Haircut Day

18 Oct: Art Expo

24 Oct: Break Up Day

25-28 Oct: Mid Term Break

29 Oct: Back to School

Lots of love

Teacher Gemma, Teacher Ash and the Busy Bugs Assistants

Our Bugs!

Dinosaurs – Under the Soil

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THEME

Dinosaurs

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COLOUR

Green

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SHAPE

Triangle/Cone/Sphere

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NUMBER

Recap

j

LETTER

Dd – Day

What an exciting two 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 as 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 learned all about fossils, how they are formed and who the people who dig them up and study them are, another very big word, Palaeontologist.  

We did a Dino dig expedition by taking a trip to the sandpit and everyone had a chance to dig and uncover buried dinosaur bones. How exciting!?  

The Bugs took our Dinosaur toys outside to “explore” our playground. The Dinosaur (and the Bugs) had so much sliding, munching on the trees, visit the Happy Hoppers classroom and jumping off of the tyres.  

For our art activities over these 2 weeks, the Bugs used our Dinosaur toys, dipped their feet in paint and let them “walk” all over their page.  

We used lego block to stamp “scales” onto dino outlines.

We also made another exciting Dino art piece, but we are keeping those safe for art expo! 

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). 

We can’t believe Term 2 is over! We have loved every minute with these Bugs and can’t wait for the holidays to be over so we can get back to having fun!  

Have a wonderful holiday folks!

Dates to Diarise:

9 August: Public Holiday (National Women’s Day)

12 August: Holiday Club Starts

2 Sept: Holiday Club Ends

3 Sept: Staff Return To School

4 Sept: First Day of Term 3!

6 Sept: Haircut Day

9 Sept: School Photographs

10 Sept: School Photographs

11 Sept: School Photographs

20 Sept: Hat Parade Day

23 Sept: School Holiday

24 Sept: Public Holiday (Heritage Day)

Lots of love

Teacher Gemma, Teacher Ash and the Busy Bugs Assistants

Our Bugs!

Space



THEME

Space



COLOUR

Orange



SHAPE

Diamond



NUMBER

10 Recap

j

LETTER

Nn- Night

We are so excited for our concert tomorrow! We can’t wait for you to see all of the hard work that the Bugs have put in!

Twinkle-twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are… This was one of many Space themed songs that were sung over the past 2 weeks 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 learned 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 learned 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 must 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, stay on the ground. If there was no gravity, we would float away- the Bugs thought this was very funny! We also spoke about the special food that astronauts eat. 

For art, we made 2 beautiful Space pieces, but we loved them so much, we have decided to keep the for Art Expo! 

We also made a collaborative art piece, where each Bugs got to make a different part of the solar system.

We hope that you all have a lovely weekend, and we will see you next week for another exciting theme! 

This week’s question:

In your view, is Pluto still a planet?

Next week’s theme: Dinosaurs and Under the Soil

ONE MORE SLEEP UNTIL CONCERT!

Dates to Diarise:

27 July: EcoKids Concert

8 August: Pyjama Dress Up Day & Break Up Day

9 August: Public Holiday (National Women’s Day)

12 August: Holiday Club Starts

Lots of love

Teacher Gemma, Teacher Ash and the Busy Bugs Assistants

Our Precious Stars!

Reptiles



THEME

Reptiles



COLOUR

White



SHAPE

Hexagon



NUMBER

1-9

j

LETTER

Ll – Lizard

This is such an exciting week – the children love it so much! They know a whole lot about sssssslithery snakes and tortoises, lizards and crocodiles, chameleons and turtles and we have loved having the opportunity to expand their knowledge this week! We have managed to have very long and involved ring time discussions, picking a different animal each day, and discussing it in depth! Reptiles are Teacher Gemma’s favorite thing so she knows more than the average Joe about them! The children learned a lot of new vocabulary like “cold blooded”, “vertebrates” and “camouflage” and had an absolute blast exploring our theme. 

For art this week we made an awesome art piece, but unfortunately, you won’t be able to see it yet as they were just so cute, we decided to keep them for Art Expo!  

Wednesday was by far our most exciting day of the week, as Julian, the snake-man, brought his lovely animas for us to see. There were snakes, lizards, geckos, spiders, gogo’s, frogs and even a chinchilla. Some of the Bugs were “all hands on deck”, and petted every single animal. Others were a little bit weary and chose to rather view from afar. 

We have also been hard at work preparing and practicing for our concert. Our Bugs have made us so proud! We hope you enjoy the show as much as we have enjoyed getting ready for it! 

Thank you for a lovely and exciting week! We are looking forward to another jam packed one next week ….   

Our question of the week.

Are you a snake person?? A) Absolutely! B) Hell NOPE! We look forward to your answers…  

Next Week’s Theme: Space (and lots of concert prep!) 

See you on Monday!

Dates to Diarise

18 July: Nelson Mandela Day

27 July: EcoKids Concert

8 August: Pyjama Dress Up Day & Break Up Day

9 August: Public Holiday (National Women’s Day)

12 August: Holiday Club Starts

Lots of love

Teacher Gemma, Teacher Ash and the Busy Bugs Assistants

Our Bugs!

Winter, Temperatures, Fire and Ice



THEME

Winter, Temperatures, Fire & Ice



COLOUR

Grey



SHAPE

Rectangle & Rectangular Prism



NUMBER

8

j

LETTER

Ww – Winter

Winter is well and truly upon us, which gives us so many opportunities to explore this awesome theme. This week we explored Winter, Temperatures, Fire and Ice! A theme of extremes.

We played with a lot of ice and examined what happened when we put the ice into water, placed it in the sunshine, put salt on it… It was so interesting! Obviously our Bugs were not going to pass up an opportunity to put the ice in their mouths, either! Haha!

We had lots of conversations about fire and fire safety, what it is used for and how it’s actually quite dangerous, even though it is so beautiful, and we must always stay far away from fires and anything that can make a fire – like a heater, or matches and lighters!

In winter, our children told us that the weather gets very cold, and that we have to wear long tops and pants, and put on jackets and beanies to keep warm! We use gloves and extra blankets and scarves so that we can keep the cold away! It is fun to drink hot chocolate with marshmallows and eat yummy warm soups! We are all very lucky to have enough warm clothing and a nice warm bed to sleep in at night!

We spoke about how, in Benoni, it really hardly ever snows, although it does happen sometimes. We do get frost on the ground – which according to our Bugs, is because of Jack Frost, hehe! – in the mornings and sometimes, there is fog and mist that we can’t see though! Frost is fun to walk on and goes “crunch crunch crunch!” under our feet!

Friday book character dress-up day was so much fun! These kiddies all looked amazing dressed as their favorite book characters!

Reports have gone out, and we hope you enjoying reading about your kiddos adventures at school. If you have any questions regarding reports, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Have a wonderful, relaxing, mid-term break, and we can’t wait to see all of our Bugs back at school for the second half of the term!

Please remember to send beanies AND sun hats back to school, and label jackets please, as jackets always almost come off after playtime. Have a happy and safe weekend everyone!

The Next Theme Is: Reptiles

Up next for Show and Tell: Deandre and Lalyn