Principal’s Message
By Mrs Kath Boyd
“Be kind, don’t judge, and have respect for others. If we can all do this, the world would be a better place. The point is to teach this to the next generation.” (Jasmine Guinness) What a week! The majority of our children are becoming familiar with their new routines and bonding with their peers. New friendships are being formed and old friendships are strengthening. It is wonderful to witness groups of children laughing with their teachers. ‘Children want the same things we want. To laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained, and delighted.’ (Dr. Seuss) The changes in the Stage 1 children (physically and socially) have been incredible to witness. Many of these children had never been away from their parents before and the emotional confidence that they have developed over the past five weeks has been staggering. Thank you all for supporting and communicating with the teachers to ensure that your child’s transition is as smooth as possible. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have a question or concern in regards to your child. The Reddam ELS Core Values (listed below) guide our interactions with the children, as well as influence our curriculum and daily practices. It is our hope that these principles become instilled within each child during their time at our school. If you, as your child’s most important teacher, could also reinforce the importance of these values at home, the children will certainly benefit. Pictured above: 2E’s 2022 Family Photos Gallery. Respect: The children show respect for themselves, friends, teachers and our school environment. The children are respectful of their classroom and the beautiful resources they engage with. Gentle Hands: The children engage in gentle interactions with each other and learn to negotiate resources during their play. Warm Hearts: The children treat each other the way that they would like to be treated. Good Manners: The children use appropriate manners and etiquette e.g. Saying “Please” and “Thank you” and demonstrating age-appropriate table manners during meal times. Kind Words: The children use kind and positive words during their interactions and play. Within the Early Years Learning Framework there are three basic concepts that children’s lives are characterised by. They are Belonging, Being and Becoming. The provocations for each class this term all focus on the concept of developing the sense of belonging within each child: •
1R & 1E: All About Me
•
2R: I Belong
•
2E: This is Us
•
3R: How I Connect with the World
•
3E: Belonging to the World Around Me
•
4R: I Belong to My Culture
•
4E: I Call Australia Home
Principal’s Message Continued...
By Mrs Kath Boyd
2022 Parent Information Sessions A big thank you to the parents who participated in the online Parent Information Sessions on Wednesday and Thursday evening. Congratulations to the teaching teams for ensuring these sessions were relaxed, informative and entertaining. I am incredibly proud of the Educators at this school and thank them for their professionalism and dedication. More of these important information sessions will be held online next week from 6:30 – 7:30pm, and parents will be emailed a Google Meets invitation before the event: •
Tuesday 15th February: 1E
•
Wednesday 16th February: 3R, 3E & 4E
•
Thursday 17th February: 2E & 4R
Three Specialist Teachers will commence their 2022 lessons next week: Monday - Drama with Miss Xanthe, Thursday - Playball with Coach Lauren and Friday - Mandarin with Miss Chloe. The expectations in regards to the children’s participation in these lessons are age appropriate as the specialist teachers are all Early Childhood experts. I have no doubt you will enjoy an overview of these interactive lessons (including photographs) on Tapestry and in the weekly newsletter.
A few important reminders: • Ensure that your child has plenty of clean spare clothes in their bag each day, and that you apply sunscreen (and mozzie repellent if you wish) to their face, neck, arms and legs each morning before school. •
Shoes: Only sneakers or sandals with straps are allowed. Please no Crocs, thongs or slip-on sandals.
• Remember to sanitise your hands (and your child’s hands) before entering the school and check in using the school’s QR code. •
PLEASE gently and securely close both security gates behind you when you enter and leave the school.
Wishing you all a marvellous weekend.
Pictured below: Sweet Miles (1R) enjoying some outdoor fun.
2
Stage 1R
By Heather Gaskell
“Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.” (Albert Einstein) In Term 1 our provocation is ‘All About Me’ and we focused this week's learning on caring for our babies. The children were invited to bathe and care for the baby dolls which they enjoyed immensely. There was a bubble bath, nappies and a fresh change of clothes all waiting for our eager little ones’ attention. The bubble bath was a huge favourite with the children and I am certain we will be revisiting that again. But our 1R friends have not only been bathing the babies, but also they have been tucking them up in bed, and not surprisingly patting the babies to sleep, just like we do with them. What a great role modelling in action. We also took time out to celebrate the traditional Chinese Lunar New Year. Available on our provocation table were beautiful Chinese cultural themed activities. There were bamboo steamers, rolling tools, noodles, play dough dumplings and chopsticks. One creative art experience available to the children was to create their own Chinese lantern. The children decorated their pre-cut lanterns with an assortment of glitter, gold pipe cleaners, and red & gold coloured paper. Everyone had a free rein to decorate as they wished, creativity here we come. Who doesn't like glue and glitter? Gosh don’t worry about the mess! It is very pleasing to see just how well the 1R children are becoming confident and secure in the routine now. We even have some beautiful ones trying to tap out the music to the morning welcome song or try to click their fingers. When they see the trolley arrive for morning tea or lunch they prepare themselves to climb in the highchairs and enjoy their meals. Heather, Doris and Resie
3
Stage 1R: Lunar New Year & Caring for our Babies
4
Stage 1E
By Charity Acera “We are all different and that’s beautiful!” (Karen Salmansohn)
Our new provocation gravitates around the ‘All About Me’ topic. For this week, we focused on Who Am I?, which was inspired by the practice of building a sense of belonging amongst our children in their environment. Embracing one’s unique self and each other’s differences promotes a sense of self-identity and confidence in partaking in their own early learning journey. To continue building a strong sense of self, we prepared experiences that invited our children to discover more of themselves. At group time, our children reflected on their ongoing group learning experience about the days of the week, weather and most importantly their names alongside their teachers. Creatively, we used face paddle pop sticks as a prop to enhance this self-recognition activity as we playfully sang the tune of Where is Thumbkin? with them. The sense of surprise waiting for their faces and names to be called directly stimulated and encouraged prolonged participation and focus from our little friends. In our group learning activities, shadow play was a big hit with the children. They thought it was ‘cool’ when the torchlight created patterns and shapes, and they saw how visually appealing it was when it moved across surfaces. Their sensory development and eye-hand coordination was boosted whilst they chased the beams. Increasing our early literacy skills, we read and enjoyed books on unique celebrations of children around the world called Children Just Like Me. We were able to acknowledge children from different nationalities and their varying features. This was followed up by reading the books called ABC Let’s Celebrate You and Me and My Shadow. These were two delightful stories about how some look the same and some looked very different and how fascinating shadows were to young children. During creative experiences, the goal was to engage them to create their own self-portraits using these natural resources and as well as revisiting their previous experiences on textures, finger and hand manipulation and creativity development. They were also fascinated by making reflection drawings using mirrors and washable pens. Extending on this, we designed a graph with different hair colour images to be grouped and match them with children's hair colour. The activity provides children with a sense of community and togetherness and expands their knowledge of diversity and differences. Another equally important and fun activity we learnt was scaling and sizing our little people. It was as exciting for them to step on the scale as looking at their individual height measurements on the wall. All these to promote self-awareness and becoming enthusiastic participants of their own learning. Next week will be more about learning our body parts. Maybe it would be the best time to sing Head Shoulders Knees and Toes with your little ones??? Charity, Fatima and May
5
Stage 1E: Who Am I?
6
Stage 1E: Watercolour Portraits
7
Stage 2R
By Sara Haddadi
"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." (Aristotle) This week 2R had the opportunity to discover their beautiful 'self'. Self-knowledge makes us independent of the opinions of others. Independence and self-awareness are also linked to confidence. Knowing who we are and what we stand for in life can help us gain a strong sense of self-confidence. In order to be ourselves, we have to know ourselves. As children play, learn and try new things, they develop an understanding of their own identity. We invited our little ones to look at themselves in the mirror and use playdough and loose parts to create faces. This experience encouraged the children to take a closer look at their facial features and see their reflections. Teachers compared children’s facial features to their peers pointing out their similarities and differences. This experience was a way to nurture their developing self-awareness, which is a key part of their overall social-emotional development. More experiences involved the children creating faces using circular boards with mirrors and a range of loose parts. This experience allowed the children to express their creativity through the use of loose parts allowing for greater detail in their creations. 2R's little artists explored their surroundings with fingers, hands and paint and made some unique creations. This hands-on discovery involved all major senses – visual, auditory, kinaesthetic – thereby improving the sensory abilities of children and providing them unparalleled freedom of self-expression. We celebrated Lunar New Year with our little learners this week. 2R were offered a variety of sensory and cooking experiences to experience the joy of Lunar New Year. Cultural awareness and tradition play important roles in helping young children develop a positive sense of identity and build self-esteem. Learning experiences offered in 2R are self-explanatory for children to explore each of the elements. The teachers are there to observe, ask or invite children to think about or explore an idea. Play that is initiated by children (with our little instruction), encourages new ideas and expands children's ability to explore and be in control of their learning. Our Reggio Emilia approach is an innovative and inspiring approach which values the child as strong, capable and resilient; rich with wonder and knowledge which will encourage their wonderment and knowledge in their actions by provoking thinking, ideas and creativity. We hope your weekend will be very much enjoyable. Sara, Vivian, Lizzie and Indi
8
Stage 2R: Exploring Our ’Self’
9
Stage 2R: Lunar New Year, Sushi Making & Baby Bathing
10
Stage 2E
By Mia Doan “Children belong first to a family, a cultural group, a neighbourhood and a wider community.” (Early Years Learning Framework)
Welcome to Term 1 2022 provocation - This is Us. We will focus on providing a welcoming, secure and safe learning environment for all the children in 2E. This provocation provides children opportunities to develop a strong sense of belonging to the groups and recognise the diverse connections between people, nature and the wider world. They will be invited to participate in experiences that allow them to build self confidence, discover their self-identity and create a sense of belonging amongst each other. In Week 1, Our Families and the Lunar New Year Celebration focus were a great interwoven talking point between families and cultures to our young children. We explored the concept of families, what it means to be a friend and noted the differences and similarities we all share. We also moved from exploring the family in a gradually expanding scope to our culture in Australia, and respectfully shared the heritage of families with international backgrounds. Reading family-related books and sharing family photos were a great touchpoint to stimulate our children’s oral language and confidence to speak up during group-time. Our favourite books of the week were The best bit of Daddy’s day by Claire Alexander and I love my Mummy by Sebastien Braun. 2E children are great observers who started to share similar home-experience with friends or with the book’s character. 2E children have demonstrated great language skills in which they can switch between home language and English to communicate with different peers or teachers in different contexts. To promote children’s appreciation of diversity and sense of identity and pride, we explored Asian cultures through various cultural books, traditional cuisines, traditional clothing and the symbolism of colours in the festive season. 2E children strengthened their fine-motor skills, sensory skills and imagination skills by visiting Japanese and Chinese gardens, practising the use of chopsticks, making Dumplings and moulding Orange Sticky Rice from playdough, scooping and transferring rice into red envelopes, and hanging lucky charms on Apricot Blossom tree. Traditional and intergenerational cuisines are an expression of cultural identity. We took on a mini trip to Japan to make and enjoy Sushi. We flew to China and participated in a cooking session in which we made the sophisticated Dumplings and Chao Shu. Lately, we landed in Vietnam to taste Summer Rice Paper Rolls. Cooking with 2E children not only enhances their healthy eating habits and stimulates their senses and appetite but also guides them to appreciate cultural diversity. On the art table, we offered children a process art piece using calligraphy techniques. We painted on red paper using a golden colour. The texture of this special satin golden paint created a beautiful visual effect when we moved the brush with different forces. Wishing you a lovely weekend! Mia, Xanthe, Tracey and Ona
11
Stage 2E: Sharing Our Home Experiences
12
Stage 2E: Celebrating Lunar New Year
13
Stage 3R
By Grace Nolan
Welcome to Term 1’s provocation How I Connect With The World! This provocation focuses on the children and their ability to connect with and contribute to their world. Using Bronfenbrenner's ecology model, we hope to explore the children’s connection to self, to their family, to their natural environment and the wider community. Through this provocation the children will be challenged to think of their place in the world and how they can meaningfully contribute to it. Exploring these concepts will encourage children to acknowledge and celebrate themselves and others whilst also continuing to respect and care for their natural environment. This week our focus was on celebrating Lunar New Year with creative art focusing on creating tiger masks using paint, paper and pipe cleaners. Another creative art saw children using their fingers to create cherry blossom trees using different shades of pink to make the petals. This was especially fun as the children used their senses to make the flowers. Our cooking aspect for the week saw children mixing rice flour and water together to create Tang Yuan, a traditional dish to have during Chinese New Year. The children loved to measure out the ingredients and mixed them together into balls before watching their teacher boil them in an electric frying pan. This experience not only connects different cultures together, but also is a great way to incorporate numeracy skills as they measure. To extend upon our provocation, the children were invited to learn and share all about themselves! Our sensory table included play dough with loose parts that could be used to create faces. As they added bottle caps to the play dough, they were asked what colour their eyes are, how many ears they have and as a result, we saw many fun and unique interpretations. In our small groups, the children used rope to measure themselves to see how tall they are! Then, in a group, we looked to see which child was taller. This saw friends laughing as they attempted to deduce and categorise the different length ropes. Another small group had children making healthy faces out of cut vegetables and tortillas! With the variety of vegetables available to create a face, the children are also learning healthy eating habits and trying new things. Next week we will be looking at My Family. Grace, Carina, Chloe, Margaret and Shandie
14
Stage 3R: Cherry Blossoms & Tiger 'Tokens' Artworks
15
Stage 3R: Making Tang Yuan and Healthy 'Face' Tortillas
16
Stage 3E
By Deb Walsh
“Children are not things to be moulded but are people to be unfolded.” (Jess Lair) As stated in the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky, we believe that every child is unique and has his or her own temperament and learning style. The child brings this uniqueness into each learning experience and takes an active role in their own learning through their engagement in these experiences. With this in mind, the 3E educational program is designed to provide opportunities to every child to reach their potential as they interact with peers, teachers, materials and the environment and relate each new piece of information to their already existing view of the world. Week One of the term has been spent focusing on each child and who they are, their likes and dislikes, similarities and differences and who they would like to be. At this stage in life, children are becoming more adaptable to social situations and making greater independent decisions, affecting not only themselves but those around them. Discussions on ‘who we are’ have sparked a curiosity in the children about aspects that make us different and unique. Creative experiences celebrated these aspects, such as self portraits, making play dough people and picture puzzles made from each child’s face. This week we also focused on Lunar New Year, where we looked at some of the various Chinese traditions that surround this celebration. The children were invited to make Chinese lanterns and learn about the meaning of The Year of The Tiger. This celebration will continue in our program for next week as we also look at relationships and the people around us turning our focus to family. It is our belief that the construction of relationships in the child’s mind is a prerequisite to the more complex skills of reading, writing and mathematical reasoning. The relationships they have been forming over these past few weeks, and those they have with their families are paramount to their learning and development. These help shape the basis of learning and as children explore and discover more about the world, these relationships become more refined and sophisticated. We hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Deb, Nat, Connie and Kai
17
Stage 3E: Colourful Handprints & Cherry Blossom Artworks
18
Stage 3E: Making Lanterns
19
Stage 4R
By Veronika Roth
“A child’s life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark.” (Chinese proverb) At the beginning of Term 1 we ventured on our provocation learning journey, I belong to my culture - who we are by exploring the exotic Chinese culture. Chinese culture is one of the world's oldest cultures, tracing back to thousands of years ago, and aligned with the current festival of Chinese New Year celebrated this week, we have had an educational and delightful week as each day we have learnt new information. Our week began with the identification and indication of China on Earth by using a globe. Through this experience, the children were able to make sense of the world around them, gaining a meaningful understanding of the weekly topic. They were introduced to aspects of human and physical geography such as weather, landscapes, everyday life and cultural celebrations. They were amazed by just how big of a country China is, and the number of its population. In preparation for Chinese New Year celebrated on Monday night, an invitation to work in a group to make Chinese lanterns, using the traditional colour of red, signifying good luck. China has one of the oldest cuisines in the world, dating back 4000 years. In our classroom, we have explored making dumplings and noodles with vegetables. The children each cut their dumpling sheets and filled it with shredded vegetables. Cooking experiences have many benefits in children’s development, in particular enhancing language development, fine motor skills, cognition following instructions, mathematical concepts and teaching life skills. The following day, making noodles with shredded vegetables engaged the children further. We also recreated a traditional Chinese instrument called the Bolang Gu, or pellet drum. This instrument is used in Chinese ritual music and as a children’s toy. The children painted with red paint then decorated their drum with beads. The animal most closely associated with China, the giant panda, is also its official national animal. The children learnt many interesting facts about the animal, such as that pandas spend about 14 hours a day eating bamboo, eating 9-18 kilograms of it a day, which means most of its effort goes into pooping. Our week of Chinese cultural exploration concluded with learning about the astonishing Great Wall of China, which is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states. It is the longest human structure ever built, with a length of over 21,000 km. Next week, we will be travelling to Pakistan and are looking forward to our journey. Kind regards, Veronika, Rebecca and Rowel
20
Stage 4R: Creative Experiences
21
Stage 4R: Noodles Galore
22
Stage 4E
By Lauren Hall “Traveller, there are no paths. Paths are made by walking.” (Aboriginal Proverb)
This week, 4E began our Term 1 Provocation Belonging - I Call Australia Home. Throughout the term we will make our own paths around Australia as we explore indigenous cultures, Aussie traditions, the flora and fauna, and the history and geography of our beautiful country. During our morning sessions the children were excited to engage with all of the new learning experiences inspired by Australia. On our tables, the children explored The Great Barrier Reef, role-playing with sea animals and creating underwater habitats for them. Our Aussie Outback trays featured sand, quartz rocks, seed pods, faux plants and various Australian animals to identify. The children used their animal charts to identify kangaroos, koalas, wombats, an emu, lizards, quokkas and echidnas. A tray of earth-toned beans were provided, promoting the use of fine-motor skills, eye/hand coordination and dexterity as the children transferred the beans into cups via scoops and spoons. Wooden loose parts were used to create mandala designs and explore patterning and symmetry as the children arranged them on a circular tray. Indigenous puzzles featured 24 pieces and the intricate patterns challenged the children as they attempted to solve them. Pre-numeracy skills were promoted with wooden numbers and counters to practise one-to-one correspondence, number identification and basic addition and subtraction. In our construction area, the children used the process of trial and error to balance bamboo pieces to create towers and cityscapes. They added houses, stones, wooden resources and small parts to create and realise their designs. In our atelier, the children were invited to create their interpretation of the Aussie Outback. Red, orange and brown materials were provided including paints, paper bark, textured paper and pictures of native flora to create their masterpieces. At our drawing table, pre-writing skills were promoted as the children created their own maps of Australia. The children chose to trace or write the word 'AUSTRALIA' in capital letters, before cutting around the shape of our country and constructing their map. Our story of the week was called Love From Australia by Ruth Waters. This book gave us a tour of our country, taking us to each state and territory, and each major city via a postcard. The children identified the Sydney Opera House and we learnt that there are lots of crocodiles in Darwin, and many wombats along The Great Ocean Road. To extend on our story book, the class studied a map of Australia in the form of a wooden puzzle. We went back through the story book and learnt where each major city was located and the state or territory they belonged to. Our second story of the week was Advance Australia Fair by Peter Dodds McCormick. This book illustrated our National Anthem line-by-line as we learnt the meaning behind the lyrics. The children practised singing the National Anthem every day and we discussed how it is sung for special occasions such as school events, sports events and the Olympics too. The children also enjoyed learning Aussie classics including, Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree and Give Me a Home Among the Gum Trees, as they rocked back and forth in their rocking chairs on the verandah. Next week the children will start exploring the history and culture of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who have inhabited Australia for over 60,000 years. Lauren, Luan, Tas, Indi, Doris and Chloe
23
Stage 4E: Exploring the Outback and the Reef
24
Stage 4E: Aussie Outback Inspired Artworks
25
Happy Birthday! A very happy birthday to all of our children who are celebrate their special day in January. We wish you all the best!
08/02 - Katherine (4R)
09/02 - Angus (3R)
09/02 - Harry (3R)
10/02 - Sanne (4R) 26