Reddam Early Learning School Newsletter - Lindfield Vol 22 Issue 5

Principal’s Message

By Mrs Kath Boyd

Dear Families, “Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). (Lewis Carroll) ‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ is a phrase that evokes the magic of Alice in Wonderland, and in the real world, a curriculum focused on developing curiosity transforms Reddam ELS classrooms into magical places for children from Stage 1 to 4. Pictured above: Aaron & Evanthe investigating dress ups (1R).

Our teachers take inspiration from the Reggio Emilia philosophy along with New Zealand’s Te Whãriki early childhood curriculum when creating beautiful learning environments. In addition, we aim to ignite passion, awe and wonder back into children’s play by converting our indoor and outdoor spaces into enlightening and aesthetically-pleasing environments that ‘let the learning shine through’ (careforkids.com.au).

Our eight teaching teams aim for their classrooms to feel like an extension of home. Cushions, cloudshaped hanging lamps, fairy lights and soft rugs help children feel a sense of belonging. The overall feel is muted yet magical and busy but uncluttered.

We have moved away from brightly coloured rooms, plastic resources and manufactured toys.

Instead, we advocate for calm, neutral spaces, with a focus on loose parts, open-ended resources and natural, recycled and ‘authentic’ materials. Each room emulates the atmosphere of a ‘wondrous children’s museum’, with natural light, plants, order and beautiful pieces.

Children are encouraged to see items as ‘objects of curiosity,’ each with their own mystery and story.

Attractive teapots, antique furniture, woven nests and intriguing vases populate the play space, along with traditional items, like picture books and wooden stacking rings.

All in all, our classrooms are designed with heart, soul and passion, and in these spaces children have their emotional, physical and developmental needs met in a wondrous way, rather than an overstimulated one. The tranquil, spacious and homely classrooms provide great opportunities and outcomes for children.

The founder of the Reggio Emilia approach, Loris Malaguzzi, identified three teachers of children – adults, other children and their physical environment – and this approach focusing on fostering curiosity reinforces this view of our classrooms and outdoor spaces as a key educator.

Principal’s Message Continued...

By Mrs Kath Boyd

These visually appealing, ‘enchanted pockets of learning’ encourage children’s natural sense of wonder and exploration. In these spaces: •

Young children’s imaginations are sparked and developed

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They discover new and meaningful ways to look at things

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They’re inspired to, ‘Have fun, be curious and make a difference’ as they learn

The final 2022 Parent Information Sessions took place on Thursday evening. Thank you to the many parents (& some grandparents) who joined us via Google Meets for one of these sessions over the last few weeks. Congratulations to the Core Teachers and their teaching teams for organising these relaxed, informative virtual events. The presentations and handouts have been emailed to all families. If you were unable to attend your child’s Parent Information Evening, please make an appointment to talk to your child’s Core Teacher about the communication that was shared.

Belonging Gallery - Luan Oliveira Creating a sense of belonging is an intrinsic part of being human. This inherent desire to connect with others stems from our needs as social beings who thrive in community. Belongingness has many benefits beyond the emotional scope, including improvement in mental and physical health, overall happiness and even a broader societal significance, nurturing a happier, kinder society.

In early childhood education, the sense of belonging has many forms - feeling comfortable within the school setting; trusting and feeling secure with the professionals who care for them; seeing their home culture being represented in the ELS; and sensing a positive, respectful relationship between their family members and educators are some of them.

With all that information and concepts in mind, we decided to collate a Belonging Gallery that will represent each family at Reddam Lindfield to further embrace and draw closer the connection between home and school. For that, we need your help. For those who have not yet done so, please email your child/ren’s Core Teacher a family photo so they can be featured in our project.

Enjoy the weekend and whatever weather it brings!

Pictured below: 2E’s colourful birds provocation.

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Stage 1R

By Heather Gaskell

“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” (Mark Van Doren) Happy Valentine’s Day to all, our week started with a burst of red and a lot of hearts. The children immersed themselves into the celebration of Valentine's Day and gave their very best efforts to make it a fun day. There were red playdough hearts being poked and prodded by cute little chubby fingers everywhere. What a delightful start to the week.

For the rest of the week we focused on our body parts, of which we enjoyed some exploration with some bones. The children were fascinated by the various bones and closely inspected many parts for their features. We even had a skeleton on hand (no pun intended) which offered a great visual interpretation for the children to assist in understanding of the human body and just what is under their skin.

The skeleton also inspired the children for the artwork of their week, which was to create a skeleton using cotton buds. The children were assisted to brush glue onto black paper. Then they were allowed to select cotton buds and arrange them on the paper, transforming them into a skeleton. Not all the skeletons appeared human, I think there may have been some individual interpretations happening.

For some sensory stimulation, the children were invited to discover the hidden body parts in a salt sensory tray. There were wooden scoops which provided for them to challenge their fine motor skills. They then searched in the tray for the body parts, which then opened up a discussion on which part of the body it was and where abouts on their own body that part was.

Also, we welcomed Playball back this week, a very big welcome to our Coach Lauren and glad to see you back. The children were given spiky balls to feel and play with. Coach Lauren encouraged them to throw the balls up and down which as well as challenging their gross motor skills helped them with the understanding of the words ‘up and down’.

Next week our focus will be on what we wear, there will be hats, handbags, scarves, dress ups and many more items for our little ones to fantasise with.

Heather, Doris, Resie and Jan

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Stage 1R: The Human Body & Valentine’s Day

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Stage 1R: Happy Snaps

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Stage 1E

By Charity Acera

"The senses, being explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge. Our apparatus for educating the senses offers the child a key to guide his explorations of the world, they cast a light upon it which makes visible to him more things in greater detail than he could see in the dark, or uneducated state."

(M. M. - The Absorbent Mind) Babies experience life, learn and develop intelligence through the use of touch, taste, smell, sight and sound. These learning journeys of discovering their five senses and using them as their compass enables them to make sense of the world. Studies show that children, even adults, learn best when they engage their senses. This reflection inspired us to delve into learning about The Five Senses - encouraging the children to explore, enjoy and learn from their school environment.

The 1E children started the week developing their understanding of their sense of smell by investigating our very own herb garden beds. They were then introduced to a mystery box wherein their sense of touch was tested. Stimulating this important sense, we invited them to explore and guess the hidden items with varying textures— soft, cold, rough, hard, wet. This piqued the children’s curiosity and many were so excited to put their tiny hands in the mystery box.

Moving on to exploring our sense of taste, Miss May led a taste test with our young learners. To experience this, she prepared a tasting tray which our children proactively engaged with. They were able to taste sour orange, sweet honey, and salty salt. Honey came in as the most preferred taste as we observed the excited group eager for more!

Our sensory table stimulated the children’s cognitive and fine-motor learning skills. It also helped their brains create stronger connections to sensory information and learn which are useful and which can be filtered out. Here, we provided them with trays filled with a variety of textures - such as silky and squishy jelly mix tray, rough shredded wood items and hard uncooked pasta for our noodle soup play. We allowed them to explore their senses using a variety of learning displays. We observed our little friends intently manipulating the resources thus enhancing finger muscles, eye-hand coordination and concentration.

With our creative, sensory experience, we assisted the children to dip jingle bells of various sizes into bright coloured poster paint and roll them onto a tray. We invited them to shake the tray creating interesting sounds while leaving colourful patterns on the paper. As our little explorers experimented with these uncomplicated tools, they created the art outside the bounds of the tools' intended use. The art experience enhanced the children's sense of touch, hand muscles and wrist extensions, fine-motor skills, colour identification and vocabulary bank. Through art, children make sense of the world, express and communicate non-verbally.

Next week’s focus will be on helping the children identify their different feelings and expressing these emotions through words, pictures and gestures.

Thank you for spending your time reading our newsletter. Wishing you a lovely weekend ahead!

Charity, Fatima, May, Indi and Resie

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Stage 1E: Jingle Bell Art & Pom Pom Sorting

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Stage 1E: Exploring The Five Senses

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Stage 2R

By Sara Haddadi

"The body is the instrument of our hold on the world." (Simone de Beauvoir) This week we started our journey learning about My Body. Identifying body parts and being intentional about using them is a cognitive, physical, and language-enriching process for children. In early childhood, we learn through sensory discovery which happens by moving through and experiencing the world. With each physical ability we acquire, we become more aware of something else we can do, see and explore. Our bodies are essentially our toolkit for discovery.

Children were especially intrigued with the skeletal system. They discovered a variety of X-Ray photos of different body parts. Children also manipulated black playdough and Q-Tips as the bones to create X-Rays. They simply learned the bones are responsible for supporting our bodies, giving us our shape, and protecting our major organs. Our little learners practised to be surgeons and enjoyed injecting gelatin with different colours. This experience was all about science and art for children. They observed how fascinating it was to shoot streaks of colour through gelatin and when the colours mixed together.

One of the children's most favourite experiences during the week was our water beads human body sensory tray. In these trays we had red and white water beads just like white and red blood cells in our body and human body organs. Children enjoyed discovering the cells and learning about how each organ works. Inspired by blood vessels in our body, 2R were encouraged to a process art experience where they used cooked spaghetti, red paint and tweezers to create blood vessels paintings.

The highlight of the week was inviting children to create a pumping heart model which demonstrated how a real heart pumps blood in and out of its chambers and sends blood around our body. The curious 2R seemed to enjoy squealing with delight as ‘blood’ squirted out of the straw! Moreover, to learn about dental care and oral health, children practised brushing plastic teeth. This sensory activity was a great introduction to the importance of dental health and great for practising teeth brushing!

As we model the different ways to meet our physical needs and learn about our bodies, children will learn that respect and kindness play a large role in caring for their bodies. Eventually, they will learn that a happy body is a happy me and be more inclined to cherish their bodies throughout life!

Here’s wishing you a wonderful weekend filled with happiness.

Sara, Vivian, Lizzie and Indi

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Stage 2R: Learning About The Human Body (Part 1)

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Stage 2R: Learning About The Human Body (Part 2)

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Stage 2E

By Mia Doan

“A child doesn’t learn about colours by staying inside the line, but by having the time and possibility to try them out.” (Angelique, Reggio Emilia inspired) This week’s focus was Our Favourite Colours where we conducted an investigation of everyone’s preferred colours.

2E children have demonstrated a growing sense of wonder and curiosity in hands-on science experiences over the past few weeks. Exploring colours opened opportunities for the children to experiment with different colours, ask and answer their own questions, build logical thinking, and improve their problem solving skills.

A sense of curiosity about natural science and the world was observed when our little scientists were asked a variety of questions including “Why does mixing two primary colours make another one?” and “If we mix two colours, what will it turn into?”, while experimenting with the three primary colours. This open-ended experiment was a famous activity of the week that created a great opportunity for children to learn about turn-taking and negotiating for their turns. The children strengthened their fine motor skills by using pipettes to transport a measured volume of liquid from the jar to a wavy mat or sample testing containers. This play activity enhances children’s understanding of cause and effect concepts, observation skills and liquid movement. Grace curiously asked, “What colour will this make?” When she tried to mix blue and yellow. Aiden exclaimed, “I made purple by adding red!”. Dylan explained the process of mixing colours by saying “First you squeeze it, and then you put it on the tray!”

In this week’s differentiated learning groups, 2E scientists were involved in a range of scientific experiments from testing the density of oil and water, mixing colours, and the Skittle rainbow experiment to finding colours in natural ingredients. The highlight of those experiments was that Miss Tracey engaged 2E friends to be magical baristas and make the ‘Fairy Blue Tea’ with dried butterfly pea flowers from her herbal garden. Firstly, we counted how many blue butterfly pea flowers to add into hot water then watched them infuse - creating a vibrant blue liquid. Next, our baristas squeezed lemon/lime juice into the tea. All of us were blown away when we saw the blue tea magically change to purple. Our friends clapped excitedly and cheered, “It is purple now!” Next, we added some honey and ice to make the brew more delicious. Butterfly pea tea is a natural, herbal remedy with many health benefits. It is also caffeine-free and very safe for our little friends to consume. This was not only a STEM activity but an entertaining cooking experience for the children.

We continued to explore narrative and informative texts. The mix of informative and narrative texts stimulated our friends’ curiosity as they posed questions and connected new information to prior knowledge. Two favourite books of the week were White Rabbit’s Colours by Alan Baker and Mouse Paint by Ellen Walsh. The facts embedded in these narrative books informed 2E young scientists about the concept of colours in a fun and engaging way. 2E children enjoyed listening to a traditional Aboriginal tale, How the birds got their colours? by Mary Albert, of the Bardi people, Western Australia. This Dreaming story is a wonderful way to inspire conversations and deeper understandings of Aboriginal culture and practice.

At the Creative table, children were invited to choose their favourite coloured ice cubes to paint their piece of art.

This art activity also promotes the concept of solid and liquid as an ice cube is a solid-state of water. At room temperature, the ice cube turns to liquid and creates a beautiful mark on their artwork. 2E children enjoyed sliding the coloured ice on their artwork and being cooled down on a warm day.

Have a colourful weekend!

Mia, Tracey, Xanthe, Indi, Resie and Kai

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Stage 2E: Experimenting With Colours

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Stage 2E: Colours Galore

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Stage 3R

By Grace Nolan

Welcome to another great week where we focus on the families of the children. The children shared more about their home life and those who are important to them, including grandparents, cousins and pets!

During our ‘Morning Meetings’ this week we discussed our pets! The children loved sharing what their pets are and their names, other children have told the class about their dream pets and what they would call it.

The children then were asked to think of ways to take care of the pets, with responses about feeding and walking them popping into mind right away. From there, the children were invited to create a tally of the animals in their lives, whether their own or an extended family member. This experience allowed the children to see visual representations of the pets while also encouraging numeracy skills as they graph and count how many animals the class has in total, and how many cats versus dogs.

As a class we have also introduced ‘Blinky Bill’, the 3R mascot! The concept behind Blinky is to allow children to take him home, take photos and write a short journal entry about Blinky’s time with each family.

This will be a long term inquiry project as it continues through each term and vacation care until every family has hosted Blinky. Once the mascot returns to the class, the children will have the opportunity to share what they did together and share photos. Through this, children are able to gain a sense of responsibility, a sense of agency and belonging while also sharing in the class community as they all contribute to taking Blinky for a week. With the photos and journal logs, we are able to create photo albums of Blinky with the children, consolidating their sense of belonging to the 3R classroom community.

Our creative art this week used the diversity of families as inspiration as the children paint collected leaves in rainbow colours to create a collaborative rainbow flag. The children firstly foraged for the leaves by going for walks around the school. These small experiences allow children to see beauty in nature as they pick specific leaves based on colour and size, contributing to their respect for their natural environment.

Afterwards, the children were invited to paint the leaves different colours and once dried will be arranged to create a rainbow collaborative art piece.

In our small groups today the children have been engaging in dramatic play, specifically bath time play with dolls. As many children have younger siblings and cousins, this week the children were invited to role play bath time with the dolls, tubs of water with baby soap and cloths. Through this experience, the children demonstrated gentle hands, care and respect.

As we continue our pet and animal journey, other small groups included using clay to make animal paw prints. Introducing new materials to the children gives them a chance to explore and practise new skills while also engaging in the provocation. Another small experience saw children playing snap with animal cards, working on recognition, hand eye coordination, structured game play and counting.

Next week the class will focus on Our School.

Grace, Carina, Shandie, Margaret and Chloe

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Stage 3R: Investigating Home Settings & Nurturing Baby Dolls

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Stage 3R: Blueberry Pancakes & Blinky Bill’s 1st Adventure

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Stage 3E

By Natalie Horstman & Deb Walsh

“A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people” (Mahatma Gandhi) Our Learning journey this week focused on Cultures Around the World. Throughout everyday life we are enriched with various cultures. As Early childhood educators, we build on Cultural Competence by promoting equality, respect and valuing cultures. Offering the children to feel a Sense of Belonging and become more aware of differences and similarities between people, as well as looking different, speaking other languages, following different customs and traditions, this is what makes our world multicultural and beautiful. (Quality Area 6: Collaborative Partnerships with Families and Communities.)

This week we travelled to many countries that offer rich culture and great insight into their history.

We aimed to facilitate learning experiences that represent the countries and promote diversity and inclusion. This week the children explored India, France, Japan, Australia and China. The experiences on offer varied from creative to sensory to informative discussions. The children were even given the opportunity to make their very own sushi which is a popular Japanese food and also had the opportunity to see a traditional Japanese outfit.

The learning experiences and the appreciation of introducing basic phrases in a variety of languages, offers the children the opportunity to learn and engage with different sounds, vocabulary and dialect. As educators, in partnership with children and their families, we enjoy sharing our culture as a group. (Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity.)

At our group times, we used the world map each day to look at and find where each country was. This was offering the children an awareness of geography and a greater understanding of our planet. These aspects are important in developing self-identity and where we all come from.

By children being able to engage in this, it's giving them the opportunity to have a voice and ask questions as they are all curious learners. (Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world.)

Next week we will continue our learning journey as we enter into a world of colour and explore the colour spectrum, giving rise to the children’s natural curiosity and cognitive abilities as they use the processes of mathematical thinking and experimentation to solve problems.

We hope you have a lovely weekend!

Deb, Natalie, Connie and Kai

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Stage 3E: Exploring Different Cultures

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Stage 3E: Happy Valentine’s Day

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Stage 4R

By Veronika Roth

“Memories warm you up from the inside.” (Haruki Murakami) Konnichiwa! Greetings from Japan!

Our week of learning about Japanese culture kicked off with a special Japanese lesson led by Miss Mayu. She taught the children the following words: Konnichiwa - Hello; Ohayo - Good morning; Sayonara - Goodbye; Arigatou - Thank you. Miss Mayu then explained the Japanese alphabet, called ‘hiragana’. There are three different versions of hiragana charts in use and we have looked at the original and oldest version today. We read out loud each of the characters, then watched Miss Mayu write some of the words we have learnt and made connections between the Hiragana characters and English letters. The children were active participants in this learning each taking turns to familiarise themselves with the Japanese scripts finding the appropriate English letters.

In traditional Japanese homes, a low table made of wood called a chabudai is the centre of mealtimes. People sit around the table on their legs tucked under on soft cushions. It is custom in Japan to take shoes off before going inside. In Japan, rice is served at every meal accompanied by a hot cup of green tea. The Japanese eat small portions of a large variety of food, which they like to make appealing. Bowls of soup, noodles, vegetables, and fish are also served. For this lesson, we sat around our very own chabudai table and enjoyed making traditional Japanese vinegared sushi.

Japan has a long history of art being at the forefront of Japanese culture. This week, making koi kites and painting cherry blossoms enhanced the children’s creativity. They worked in a variety of ways: in small groups they painted and collaged traditional fish kites and flew them around in our garden, an independent art experience of recreating the beautiful blooming cherry blossoms.

Exploring Japan could not be complete without the learning of origami, the art of paper folding.

Throughout the week, the children were invited to freely explore ways of folding paper, finding their own rhythm and creativity in the activity. During a group lesson on Wednesday, the children carefully followed the step-by-step instruction of folding a paper plane each, working independently. The children were introduced to the Japanese flag and used the paper planes they made, throwing them in the direction of the flag to symbolise their journey to Japan.

We are looking forward to our trip to Europe next week, when we will visit France!

Warm wishes, Veronika, Rebecca, Monica and Rowel

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Stage 4R: Japanese Culture (Part 1)

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Stage 4R: Japanese Culture (Part 2)

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Stage 4E

By Lauren Hall

“Those who lose dreaming are lost.” (Aboriginal Proverb) This week, our class learnt about The Dreamtime. The Dreamtime originated in the very beginning where the land and the people were created by the Spirits and their Ancestors. It is believed that the Spirits gave the Aboriginal people their hunting tools and gave each tribe its land, symbols and their Dreaming. Each Dreamtime story originates from a different Aboriginal tribe and their country within Australia. During the week the children took inspiration from The Dreamtime and role-played with small animal figurines in sand trays and took turns contributing to a collaborative story about Australian animals during our circle time.

Throughout the week we read a variety of Dreamtime stories including, How the Kangaroos got their Tails. When the two kangaroos fought and threw sticks at each other, they landed on their backs and turned into long tails. Next, we read Tiddalick: The Frog Who Caused a Flood by Robert Roennfeldt, based around a giant frog that was so thirsty that he drank up all the rivers and billabongs in the land.

All of the other animals had to find a way to get the water back and decided to try and make Tiddalick laugh. The children engaged with sensory water trays where they role-played with giant frogs and toads, water beads that represented tadpole eggs, and they created pond-like habitats for them.

Our most loved Dreamtime story was called How the Birds got their Colours. We read how all of the birds had black feathers in the beginning. When a dove pricked her foot on a sharp stick, out poured a rainbow of colours, covering all of the birds and their feathers. Every bird received different colours, and the crow remained black. The children concluded that the crow didn't get any colours because he was unkind towards the dove. Our class then learnt that there are 850 different species of birds in Australia and were invited to paint their own colourful bird of their choice. Feathers were then added to give the birds some texture and each bird looked different and unique. Our last Dreamtime story was Warnayarra the Rainbow Snake. This story explained how Warnayarra came in a storm, damaged the farms, and still rests under Nongra Lake. At the art table the children created a collage of rainbow snakes, using coloured pieces of wool, glue and watercolours to create various shapes on their paper.

In the afternoons the children enjoyed learning some new Australian animal songs to add to our song repertoire. We started with a dance and movement song called, I Can Be...a Kangaroo where the children hopped on the spot, ran like emus and slithered like snakes. We then danced along to Follow the Animals as we travelled to Uluru, and used shaker eggs and clapping sticks whilst singing along to Inanay Capuana.

Thank you for an inspirational week of learning!

Lauren, Priya, Luan and Doris

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Stage 4E: Sensory and Manipulation Experiences

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Stage 4E: Dramatic Play and Creative Experiences

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Playball

By Coach Lauren Guttman

Hi everyone!

The Stage 1 children focused on refining their balancing and ball handling skills. Stages 2 - 4 began their lesson this week playing the Playball version of Dodgeball. They all ran around the court and I tried to catch them with a beanbag. If the children got caught, they knew not to get cross or upset – it’s only a game!

We then concentrated on tennis – the children love tennis and were so excited to see that I had brought tennis bats with her. They ran around the court balancing a beanbag on their bat remembering to keep the bat nice and flat so that the beanbag didn’t fall off.

The children flicked their beanbag high up into the sky with the bat. Many children have pretty amazing body strength and muscle tone because you will not believe how high some of those beanbags flew up to the sky!

I then gave each child a ball and they boofed the ball away with the bat. They also did little boofs with their bat, and when I blew my whistle, they gently trapped (stopped) the ball. I went faster and faster and faster so the children really had to listen carefully.

Next was an opportunity to hit our ball off a ball holder and I even encouraged the children to try and bounce the ball with their bat – always remembering to wait for the ball to “pop up”.

Lastly, the children crossed the ‘Playball river’ on ‘lily pads’ (beanbags) and cheered so nicely for their fellow teammates.

Such fun lessons, champs!

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Mandarin

By Chloe Lin

This week we welcomed back the wonderful Miss Chloe to teach us Mandarin. Miss Chloe began by singing the welcome song Ni Hao, Hello, Olay! and invited the children to follow along with her actions. This song will be sung at the beginning of each lesson so that the children can get excited about learning Mandarin.

After the welcome song, Miss Chloe got the children dancing to Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and The Sweet Bears. Well done to Stage 4 who are beginning to correctly translate popular songs like Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes into Mandarin and use the correct hand actions.

Now that our bodies and voices were warm, Miss Chloe showed the curious children a picture of a blank face, and helped us to name each facial feature as they were put on the board. The children were then invited one by one to come up and place a facial feature on the board to create their own unique face. Stages 2 and 3 were encouraged to repeat the Mandarin translation and stage 4 had a guess.

Next in Stages 3 and 4, Miss Chloe presented the children with a box filled with animal cards.

Animals are important to Chinese culture and are often featured in Chinese artwork and literature. The animals signify values like longevity, luck and prosperity. The aim of this exercise was to match the animal cards with their habitat. The children were invited one at a time to have a go at matching.

Miss Chloe then played a memory game with the children with three cups and some miniature figurines. “Can you remember which item is under the cup?,” asked Miss Chloe as she asked the children to lift up the cup and reveal what was underneath. Miss Chloe mixed the cups around to challenge the children’s memory!

Miss Chloe’s special friend Emily the Elephant paid us a visit and taught us how to say some important words like “hello”, “goodbye”, and “welcome”. The children giggled as they interacted with their friends using their own finger puppets.

To finish the lesson, Miss Chloe sang the goodbye song and presented each child with a sticker for excellent listening and participation.

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Drama

By Xanthe Wills

How exciting to be starting back 2022 with Drama! I’d like to introduce myself, my name is Xanthe and I’m so happy to be back teaching Drama this year.

This week we started on our first topic for the year “What Is Drama?” We started our lesson with parachute play and colour recognition. We will continue to do colour recognition for the first few weeks as we continue to make links between the colours on the parachute and the colours of things around us. To help us this week we had a visit from a friendly polar bear called Icy Pole who was so excited to see what the children could remember from last year. We explored four important concepts of drama this week: copying, pretending, emotions and spatial awareness.

Actors need to be good at copying. We copy different people, objects and animals so that we can become those things. Icy Pole loves to play Icy Pole says. We play games like this in Drama to encourage spatial and body awareness. To play, Icy Pole called out things like “touch your nose”, “clap your hands” and “tickle your toes”, and the children were encouraged to follow with the actions. For Stages 3 and up, if Icy Pole didn’t say “Icy Pole says…” the children were told not to copy. This caused a lot of giggling!

Icy Pole then wanted to see if we could be different animals. Actors have to be good at pretending. The children became snapping crocodiles, tall giraffes, slithering snakes and stomping elephants.

We then explored our emotions by using our faces. Actors need to be able to show their emotions. The children in Stage 2 and 3 showed me (and Icy Pole) angry, sad, excited, and happy. Stage 4 was challenged to display more complex emotions like bored, shocked, tired and scared.

Actors need to have good spatial awareness. The children spread into their own space and then pantomimed shrinking small and growing tall. The children were asked to start very small, like a seed planted in the soil. In Stage 4, the children were given ten counts to grow or shrink into the object/animal called. At first, we grew into trees, flowers, and mountains. Icy Pole had fun walking through the forests and mountains - he saw some very convincing trees. We then used this same activity to turn into animals of different sizes, for example, from a mouse into a giraffe and then into a snake. Well done to the children for understanding the concept of big and small.

We finished with a cuddle from Icy Pole and our goodbye song. Welcome back everyone and I’m excited for the term ahead.

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