This week we are learning all about The Koala Way, and how we use our hands, feet and ears to follow it.

1. Walking Feet

2. Gentle Hands

3. Listening Ears

4. Be Polite

5. Be Kind

Let’s count our rules and learn the Makaton signs for each of them.

Makaton - Caring Koala

We can practice using our gentle hands by making LOUD sounds and then SOFT sounds with our rhythm sticks.

Loud, Soft music

Let's learn about Caring Koala.

This week our Pre-Nursery Koala Way Challenge is to see if we can Makaton sign and say "Thank-you" to our friends and teachers.

Using the water tray, the children will come one by one and use GENTLE hands to touch the water, counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 

Next we will hit the water with NOT GENTLE hands counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…

What's happened to the water? 

It’s splashing everywhere! 

Can we remember our Koala Ways?

1. Walking Feet

2. Gentle Hands

3. Listening Ears

4. Be Polite

5. Be Kind

Let’s watch the VIDEO and practice the Makaton signs 

We are going to sing a song to warm up our Gentle Hands

Open Shut Them

Now let’s get some dough and practice using our hands to move the dough with this fun dough disco song!

Dough Disco 

Today we’re using our Gentle Hands in our activity

Using a pump, we will help the children pump up the spray and place their hand onto the paper. 

What will happen when we spray your hands? Let’s have a go…..now remove your hand...wow...let’s look at our hand that is left behind...amazing!

Can we remember our Koala Ways?

1. Walking Feet

2. Gentle Hands

3. Listening Ears

4. Be Polite

5. Be Kind

Now we have a fun active song that we can sing together:

I Can Run As Fast As You

Let’s have a think. What do we use to run with? What do we use to jump with? What do we use to kick with? Our FEET! Today we are learning all about ‘Walking Feet’. Let’s practice some walking feet of our own with this song:

Walking Walking

Walking in the Jungle Video 

Walking in the Jungle Song 

Walk Around the Circle

What can we see over here in our classroom? The floor looks different! It has bubble wrap stuck down. Let’s discover what happens when we walk across the bubble wrap. Did it make a popping sound? I wonder what would happen if we jumped on the bubble wrap?

Can we remember our Koala Ways?

1. Walking Feet

2. Gentle Hands

3. Listening Ears

4. Be Polite

5. Be Kind

Ohhh look we have a box, let’s see what is hiding inside, we can look at them one by one: a bell, a drum & a jingle bell

Now we can put them back in the box. Everyone needs to turn on their listening ears and ‘click’ to get ready to listen to the instrument. Which instrument did you hear? If you do not know the words then you can come and point to the picture!

Instrument Pictures

Now we can all choose a musical instrument and play it along to our songs:

Intstrument Songslide

Let’s go and explore our tough tray and see what we can find. Wow lots of musical instruments! Let’s see if we can play them along to the music that we have set up on the speaker.

Gustav Holst-The Planets

Can we remember our Koala Ways?

1. Walking Feet

2. Gentle Hands

3. Listening Ears

4. Be Polite

5. Be Kind

We’ve learned about Gentle Hands, Walking Feet and Listening Ears this week, but today we’re thinking about Being Kind.

What’s our class animal? That’s right - a Fish/Rabbit. 

How could we be kind to our class Fish/Rabbit? A gentle hug?, stroking it? Let’s see if we can pass the Fish/Rabbit around the circle, being kind as we pass it. 

Soothing, gentle, kind music

This week we will follow each child's individual interests within the classroom.

This week's Makaton signs are:

The Koala Way