Reddam Early Learning School Newsletter Vol 22 Issue 7

Principal’s Message

By Mrs Kath Boyd

“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.

Kindness in giving creates love.” (Lao Tzu) We are blessed to have a very powerful team of Early Childhood Educators at our school. As magnificent as Luan, Kai & Rowel (our three male teachers) are . . . this week I’d like to acknowledge and thank the fabulous women - staff, teachers, mums and grandmothers - who enrich our ELS Community. International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated each year on the 8th of March, and the theme this year was #BreakTheBias. IWD was established to inspire everyone to help forge a better, more inclusive genderequal world by raising awareness and organising concrete action. We aim at Reddam ELS Lindfield to support families by promoting gender equality in our children's world, and build a future that is more inclusive and balanced than today. Pictured above: One little man amidst six fabulous young ladies/ women.

It's been a wet couple of weeks, we hope you're safe and dry. The staff and I are thinking of you or anyone close to you who has been affected by the floods. Natural Disasters such as these tend to bring out the best in people and communities. Kindness makes people feel good and do good, and at Reddam ELS Lindfield, kindness is something that is fostered by families, practised by the children and actively promoted by the teachers. Kindness is the quality of being ‘gentle, caring and helpful’. Teachers in all four Stages present activities and opportunities designed to build the attributes of empathy, gratitude, perspective, honesty, self-compassion, self-acceptance, humility, collaboration, mindfulness, meditation, trust, affiliation and humour.

Kindness can spring from the smallest of actions, such as giving someone a flower or drawing them a picture, and whatever form it takes, these thoughtful moments have sizeable benefits for everyone. Being kind can increase feelings of happiness and self-esteem, and it’s been linked with better emotional selfregulation. “Kindness can have a positive effect on peer acceptance, and it’s also been described as an ‘antidote’ to bullying because it encourages children to learn how to get along and empathise with one another.” (www.careforkids.com.au) In addition, one of the best things about kindness is that it’s contagious! People feel good when they see others being kind, and this sense of ‘moral elevation’ makes people want to be kind themselves. “Once kindness is felt, its power is understood, and it is more likely to be reproduced.” (Kath Koschel) On a daily basis, the Reddam Teachers promote kindness amongst children at school by helping children understand and navigate the social world. We role-model kind behaviour and provide opportunities for children to: • Celebrate the achievements of others, • Cooperate and work together, • Manage their emotions in ways that reflect the needs and feelings of other people, and • Gain an awareness of what’s fair, and what other people need and deserve.

Principal’s Message Continued...

By Mrs Kath Boyd

Beginning in Stage 1, youngsters learn how to take turns, share, listen to others, compromise, and consider their peers. We also encourage the children to think about the wider community by celebrating awareness days such as Clean Up Australia Day and taking part in intergenerational experiences such as the 3R (Virtual) Aged Care Facility Project. There are lots of fun and meaningful activities that our teachers use to teach and develop kindness, including the following: •

Storytime: Empathy, tolerance and friendship are common themes in picture books, and reading sessions are used to prompt conversations about kindness, teach the children new words and feelings, and ignite their curiosity. Songs are also used to encourage positive actions.

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Role-play: Socio-dramatic play with props and dress-ups creates opportunities for children to solve problems in kind ways and act out nurturing roles (e.g. when a child pretends to be a vet looking after a sick animal).

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Games: Classic games like Charades and Simon Says can be used to teach kindness and manners. For example, children act out ‘helping a friend who fell down’ in Charades or follow an instruction like, ‘Simon Says to open the door for your friend’.

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Sharing activities: A Kindness List involves our older children describing the kind acts performed by their peers. Likewise, a Good Things activity involves children sitting in a circle and sharing positive moments with the child next to them (e.g. they might say, “I love jumping in puddles with my brother!”)

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Kindness Projects: “Currently, 2E children are being read books that promote being a kind and generous friend who uses gentle hands and shares.” (Miss Mia – 2E Core Teacher). Later in the year, the Stage 4 Team will commence the ‘Bucket Filling’ Project when they focus on social emotional learning. Children will be encouraged to ‘fill their bucket’ through small acts of kindness such as: using kind words, using gentle hands, helping friends make their beds, packing-away, bringing a peer their drink bottle and offering cuddles.

Save the Dates: This year we will be (fingers crossed) hosting the following celebrations from 9am – 10.30am on the school campus: •

Mother’s Day – Friday 6th May

• Grandparents & Special Friends Celebration – Wednesday 29th June Both sets of Grandparents are invited (Mum’s parents & Dad’s parents), however if Grandparents live overseas or interstate then an Aunty, Uncle or Special Friend (max. 2 adults) may like to come instead.

Please ask your child’s Grandparents or Special Friends to save the date.

•

Father’s Day – Friday 2nd September

Enjoy the weekend and whatever weather it brings!

Pictured below: Teacher Kensington reading to her student Ellia (3E).

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Stage 1R

By Heather Gaskell

“It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.” (Mahatma Gandhi) The children have delighted in so many ways with the focus this week being on food and ‘What I like to eat’. It has not been a challenge to get them interested in joining in the provocations for the week. Most days, on our provocation table, there was a large assortment of fruits and vegetables and the children eagerly examined the contents. Our little ones showed their curiosity by exploring the veggies and fruits, observing, touching and tasting them. I don’t think any of the children have yet worked out what the coconut is!

To extend their interest and sense of taste we had many taste testing experiences. One was to try honey, this was a super sensory experience from the stickiness to the wonderful sweet taste once consumed. Our beautiful littles were a little hesitant at first with this sticky substance we put on their fingers but once in their mouth, their little faces lit up. Then there was the jelly making experience, again they weren’t sure of the sequence that was happening but, oh me, oh my, the taste was amazing. The final result was enjoyed for afternoon tea and the children readily googled it up.

Another experience we did with the children to help them understand where their food comes from was to plant some seeds. We invited the children to fill some containers with soil and assist in the sprinkling of various vegetable seeds. Then we patted some soil over the top, watered the seeds and then placed them on the windowsill to grow. But we have not seen any sprouts yet, which may have something to do with the lack of sunshine at present. But we will cross our fingers that they sprout soon.

Our Farmers Market was available all week for the children to engage in some pretend play.

There were shopping bags just waiting to be stuffed with the various soft toy veggies or pantry staples available. They took turns at filling their bags and sometimes swapping various items between themselves which extends their social skills of sharing.

Next week we are going to start looking at the 5 senses and hearing will be our first one.

Heather, Doris and Resie

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Stage 1R: What I Like to Eat

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Stage 1R: Exploring Fruits and Vegetables with Senses

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Stage 1E

By Charity Acera

“Children belong first to a family, a cultural group, a neighbourhood and a wider community. Belonging acknowledges the children’s interdependence with others and the basis of relationships in defining identities.”

(Australian Early Years Learning Framework) It is heart-warming to see the growing community that we have built in 1E. The children, old and new are now confident in playing alongside each other and as well as opening up to their teachers both verbally and non-verbally at times of distress and in need of comfort. These secure attachments we have observed are reflections of how the children are now working towards developing their strong sense of self-identity and connection to their world. In addition to this, I am grateful for the parents continuing to support in creating secure and trusting relationships with the 1E community. Your prompt response in creating our Stage 1E Family Photos Display Corner was just commendable.

Following on promoting this sense of belonging and community in 1E, we invited the children to engage in hands-on activities that stimulate their cognitive development, social interaction skills and most importantly build their strong sense of self. Our sensory table promoted our children’s imagination and fine motor skills development through manipulating our laminated visual aids on family members as well as photos of diverse families around the world to promote a strong sense of community and diversity awareness amongst our little children. For another learning group activity, Miss Tima prepared cooked pasta and mixed veggies to engage the children in a shared meal experience inspired by shared family dining. We have discussed the use of plates and forks and their names, we have explored the joy of sharing a meal with friends that turned into family. Family meals provide an opportunity for family members to come together, strengthen ties and build better relationships.

We also explored the topic by engaging them with their favourite nursery rhymes such as Five Little Ducklings and Baby Shark. These songs not only enhance the children’s early numeracy learning but also supports their imaginative play of the concept of mummy duck and little ducklings out to play and the thrilling family of sharks ready to hunt. We continued enriching our learning about family using our ‘Family Face Playdough Mats’, play dough and natural loose parts to express ourselves in putting out facial features to the identified family member. We have daddy, mummy, brother, sister and baby mats for them to be creative in the experience. Our eager friends were keen on identifying parts of the face verbally naming ‘eyes, mouth and hair’ whilst others tried to copy their teacher as she identified it with them.

Pets have also become vital members of a family. Strengthening this cognitive learning, we also showed three animal families, The Giraffe Family, the Elephant Family and the Hippopotamus Family. Here, we observed the children’s prolonged interactions with their teacher as she introduced their kind, their sizes and as well as engage in a pretend play of choosing which is daddy, mum and baby and which animals belong to which family as an enhancement for their visual discrimination skills.

For our art activity, we encouraged the children to make handprints for self-awareness, sensory learning and fine motor enhancement. Here we guided them to create their own family tree handprint artwork, as well as, learn colours green and their actual family photos for more cognitive and vocabulary skills development.

It was indeed an exciting week learning about families. Next week we will bring the fun things we do at home with our family to school. Expect going for nature walks, baking and even doing the household chores such as doing the laundry and washing the plates!

Hoping you all have a lovely and warm weekend!

Charity, Fatima and May

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Stage 1E: The Things I Love About Family

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Stage 1E: Handprint Family Tree

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Stage 2R

By Sara Haddadi

"Touch has a memory." (John Keats) Children are sensory, whole-body learners. They use their senses as they engage in play. They explore the world around them through touch. This week we discovered our sense of touch and learned how to use this sensation to gather information about our surroundings.

To further explore our sense of touch, the children were offered a variety of learning experiences to learn new things. 2R seemed to enjoy painting the spaghetti using brushes and their hands. This experience was a wonderful exploration in colour, texture, sensory, and fine motor play for them.

Another learning experience encouraged them to melt ice hands using water in spray bottles and salt. Using the spray bottles was a great way to develop fine motor skills and the whole process introduced children to science. Besides, another experience involved 2R experimenting with water absorption using big trays of soft cotton balls, food colouring and pipettes. They experimented with mixing the colours and testing how much the cotton balls held the water drops by counting the drops. This type of exploring also led them to natural problem solving too. Furthermore, the frog pond's water beads trays introduced a unique texture to children, allowed them to explore their senses and engaged them in pretend play.

Art of the week involved our little artists using ice cubes and engaging their sense of touch to paint.

They could watch the ice leave colourful prints on the paper. This experience offered the children the opportunity to explore colour mixing, patterns and feel the texture of the cold, wet paint.

The highlight of the week was observing the water density in action. Coloured hot and cold water were the only materials we used for this experiment. When the jar containing hot water was placed on top of the jar containing cold water, the cold water did not rise because it was denser than the hot water and thus remained at the bottom. On the other hand, when the jar with cold water was placed on top of the jar with hot water, the hot water rose to the top because it was less dense, mixing with the cold water along the way and creating purple water. This experiment amazed the children.

2R have been active participants in their learning process so far. They are 'here and now', hands-on learners and learn the best when immersed in the learning process. The teachers help them through both guided and unguided play experiences and provide them with time and patience they require so they can apply new knowledge and skills to new challenges they face every day to learn about the world around them.

Make your weekend shine with a smile and happiness.

Sara, Vivian, Lizzie and Indi

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Stage 2R: Investigating Our Senses of Touch

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Stage 2R: Literacy and Creative Art Experiences

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Stage 2E

By Mia Doan “All our knowledge begins with the senses.” (Immanuel Kant)

This week’s focus was on three of Our Senses - Sight, Taste and Smell. Young children explore and make sense of the world through the perception of senses. Cognitive development, language acquisition and nerve connections take place when children experience and collect information from senses and motor skills. Also, sensory play stimulates 2E children’s learning through exploration, curiosity, problem-solving and creativity.

We rarely perceive a sense independently. Combining different senses helps us to build a big picture of our experiences. The sensory play with musty scent of coffee beans, fruity smells of orange and apple in water, leafy smells of garden herbs, sweet herbal tea leaves and spicy turmeric playdough stimulated our senses and made our days busy and engaged. While playing and participating in these sensory experiences, our fine motor skills, language skills and cognitive development are strengthened in enjoyable and curious ways of learning. We also found rainbow reflection on compact disc (CD) by using torch light and tiling the CD. We read an interesting story called Would you like a Banana? by Yasmeen Ismail. A grumpy Gorilla doesn't like bananas?! This Gorilla said "NO!" to bananas every time he was offered one. However, after having a tiny bite, he loved it and kept asking for another one. This story illustrated the reality of our classroom. At lunch, our friends often refuse to try new food/ fruit/veggies/sauce. However, Miss Mia, Miss Tracey and Miss Xanthe always request our friends to have a little taste or a lick. After this, the children often enjoyed it and asked for more. Another story that attracted our friends’ interest was Handa’s Surprise by Eileen Browne. Handa prepares a fruity surprise for her friend Akeyo. Along the road, Handa’s fruits are taken by some cheeky animals. 2E giggled as the giraffe ate the spiky pineapple, and the elephant took the red mango. Our children’s eyes popped at the vibrant colours in the book and imagined tasting each delicious fruit just as the animals did. The book promotes being a kind and generous friend, a value that we are currently exploring through the concept of gentle hands and sharing.

Exploring senses of sight, taste and smell were more interesting when we were involved in cooking experience.

Miss Tracey invited us to make a healthy treat. 2E children sat nicely and enjoyed the process of making a healthy doughnut. We observed the differences between putting butter or no butter on the hot pan. No butter resulted in stickiness which was hard to flip the doughnuts. Buttermilk scent is a fragrance that is completely true to its name, it was the aroma of a delicious stack of freshly made donuts. On another day, 2E children were invited to make lemon ice-block and banana smoothies. When the taste buds interpreted lemon, it was an unforgettable moment. While some 2E faces were puckered up, others enjoyed this citric acid contained in sour fruit. In addition, banana smoothie was one of our favourite drinks. The unique scent of banana mixed with honey created a fabulous taste.

At the art table, 2E children engaged in a process-based art in which they used lemon, lime and capsicum as painting tools. These special tools provoked children’s sense of smell and touch while painting. Also, the fresh products created beautiful marks and unique textures on our art paper.

Have a fabulous weekend!

Mia, Tracey, Xanthe, Indi, Connie, Shandie and May

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Stage 2E: All About Our Senses

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Stage 2E: Sensory Stimulation Activities

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Stage 3R

By Grace Nolan

“Feeling close to the natural world has been found to correlate positively with pro-environmental attitudes…In fact, nature connectedness is a stronger predictor of ecological behaviours in children, than environmental knowledge.” (Barrable & Booth, 2020) As we look further outside the microsystem of the child into the mesosystem (Bronfrenbrenner, 1979) to explore how the natural environment around us plays a role in learning to respect nature, the children developed empathy and understanding, gained a sense of agency, and used nature as another teacher.

Our art this week asked children to show their appreciation of the natural world by picking and choosing different flowers and leaves to create a small mural by using contact paper. Sitting with an educator, the children were able to choose from an array of carnations, gerbera, baby's breath and cornflowers with a range of different foliage. The children then arranged the flowers on their contact paper and how they saw the beauty of their natural materials. Another creative art experience saw children practising how to use scissors through intentional modelling and explicit teaching, the children were then able to arrange the collage materials to create a flower, using paddle pop sticks as stems. Through their arrangement the children were also able to learn the different parts of a flower and their names i.e. stem, leaf, flower and petal.

Looking outside for inspiration, the children were invited to create bird feeders for the native birds around the school. The children were able to measure out birdseed, honey, flour and water before they combined it and placed it in a mould to dry. The children acknowledged that birds eat seeds and that during the rain they might need some extra “breakfast”. By creating this bird feeder, the children were able to measure and count out the ingredients, incorporating numeracy and measuring concepts.

Another small group saw children making seed bombs to plant later on. Firstly the children collected shredded paper and broke it down using their hands and water, making it a sensory experience.

Then the children squeezed the excess water from a handful of paper and added the clay and seeds to it, creating a ball. Once dried, the children will be able to plant them in soil and watch the paper decompose and flowers begin to sprout.

The seed experience allowed children to explore the different types of seeds using their senses.

Trusting the children and modelling how to correctly use a butter knife, the children cut open fruits and vegetables to expose the seeds, they were asked to describe the seeds, the smells and colours.

Next week we will continue to explore the natural world and sustainable gardening practices.

Grace, Carina, Margaret, Shandie, Chloe and Intisar

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Stage 3R: Creating Twinkle Star Wild Bird Feeder

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Stage 3R: Making Native Flower Seed Bombs and Literacy Experiences

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Stage 3E

By Deb Walsh

“The best classroom and the richest cupboard is roofed only by the sky.”

(Margaret McMillan) Children love to explore the world around them. As they feel confident in their surroundings and with those with whom they interact, they investigate further and further. They demonstrate a sense of wonder about the little things around them and delight in the natural aspects of the world. This week, the 3E children have enjoyed delving into the natural world as we looked at various aspects of nature and its importance to us and our planet.

Engaging in lots of learning experiences at the discovery table, the children were able to freely explore insects, plants and the life cycles of a variety of living things as they used their hands to feel around the small world habitats and magnifying glasses to inspect more closely. We learned about the important roles insects, bugs and animals play in keeping our earth healthy, in addition to our own responsibilities in this. 3D pop up animal observation cards were also introduced, containing some interesting facts about a variety of different insects and animals. The children were then given the opportunity to engage with an interactive app which scans the cards, giving the viewer a 3D view of the insect or animal, where you can press different buttons to hear the sound they make, feed them the type of food they eat and see the habitat they live in.

Our group time discussions centred around how the earth and natural environment benefits us humans and how we can help to look after it. We spoke about sustainable practices, recycling, composting and all the wonderful foods, vitamins and minerals it offers us. In learning about food that we can grow in the ground and on trees and plants, we looked at how some grow both above and below ground. Intrigued by this, the children were given the opportunity to see a time lapse of the growth of a carrot. This led us to discuss the purpose of the different parts of a plant, below and above the soil line.

Next week, we plan to further our learning into the natural environment as we take a dive into the big blue and explore the magnificent ocean and all it has to offer. We turn our focus to marine life and what action we can take to help look after and protect this magnificent natural wonder as we continue to incorporate the concept of pollution and human impact. Looking forward to another week of fun and learning together!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Deb, Natalie, Connie and Kai

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Stage 3E: Garden Explorers

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Stage 3E: Healthy Eating Habits & Manipulation Experiences

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Stage 4R

By Veronika Roth “Patience is the mother of success.” (Vietnamese Proverb)

It is hard to believe that we are halfway through our first term! Each week, as we travel to a different country exploring its beauty and uniqueness, we wonder what life is like when spoken a different language, experiencing a different culture, and living in different natural environments. Time really flies when you are having fun!

This week, we visited Vietnam and learnt about some of its famous landmarks, cultural items, instruments, national plants, and aromatic cuisine. Vietnam's Halong Bay, a Unesco World Heritage site, amazed us with its beautiful landscape, clear water and limestone karsts. The scientific explanation of the rock formations, known as karst, explains how for millions of years seashells and sediments fell to an ancient seafloor forming as solid rock. The tectonic activity raised the resulting limestone above water, creating these unusual mountains standing proud in crystal clear water.

Vietnam’s traditional bamboo flute is called Sao Truc. We experienced this instrument through a movement activity with rainbow ribbons. The children were encouraged to carefully listen to the types of instruments heard and move their bodies and their ribbons to the tempo of the music. Our weekly art focused on two national traditional topics: silk painting and the lotus flower, the national plant of the country. Silk painting is a traditional Vietnamese art form originating from rice paper painting. Silk painting emphasises softness, elegance and has a flexibility of style and typically showcases the countryside, landscapes, pagodas, historical events, or scenes of daily life. Painting silk is full of changing and unexpected characteristics, and a wrong stroke of the brush is irreversible as the material behaves when in contact with the paint, offering an unexpected creative experience. The children noticed and conversed the difference between applying paint onto paper as opposed to silk. They applied toned-down colours as a background and stencil painted the shape of a lotus flower.

One of the most known traditional Vietnamese items is the Non La hat. Like many other traditional costumes of Vietnam, Non la has its own origin, coming from a legend related to the history of rice growing in Vietnam of a giant woman who protected humankind from a deluge of rain by wearing a hat made of four round-shaped leaves to guard against all the rain. The children independently engaged in making their own Non La hats as they cut out a large circle on their paper and decorated it to create their own Non La. To experience Vietnamese cuisine the children were introduced to vegetarian spring rolls, which were baked and enjoyed by all, and they also worked on making their own rice paper rolls filled with vegetables. The focus of making rice paper rolls was the implementation of the fine motor skill of cutting the vegetables with plastic knives. Knife skills are a great way to further children's fine motor skills as it requires the use of hand-eye coordination, finger manipulation and bilateral hand use. The vegetables used today were spinach, capsicum and cucumber, and used shredded carrots as extra filling. The children then placed their cut-up vegetable pieces on a rice paper sheet and rolled them up.

Our trip next week will take us to Norway!

Until then, Miss Veronika, Miss Rebecca and Mr Rowel

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Stage 4R: Creative Experiences and Movements

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Stage 4R: Creative Art Experience & Making Vietnamese Spring Rolls

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Stage 4E

By Lauren Hall

“I ease into a palette of leaf green, rust red, yellow ochre, deep blue and crimson and walk with our people.” (Bronwyn Bancroft, Coming Home to Country) Throughout this week, our class has been exploring Indigenous Australian Artists and experimenting with a variety of mediums and techniques. Our artist of the week was Bronwyn Bancroft, who wrote and illustrated the story books we read. Why I Love Australia illustrated the landscapes of many indigenous countries across Australia in Bronwyn’s distinctive and bold style. We noticed tall trees, curling waves crashing on the beach, stars in the sky, a bird's eye view of a suburban street below, and the coral reef. The children made comments about what sorts of shapes they could see and if they looked similar to the Aboriginal symbols we had learnt last week. The children were then asked what they love about Australia and many said they love the beach and the ocean, and the animals.

Coming Home to Country poetically explained how the indigenous people miss their country when they are away because that's where they feel most safe and connected to the land. Big Rain Coming told a story of how an indigenous family waited for rain every day, hoping that the storm clouds would roll in and drench the dry land. To correspond with this story, the class looked at a special indigenous instrument called a "rain stick," which is used by Aboriginal people and indigenous tribes around the world to make a wish for rain. We listened to how the rain stick sounded as it was tipped one way and then the other. The beans inside trickle down slowly and softly, fast and loudly. The sounds also reminded us of the rain that has been pouring outside of our classroom for the last two weeks.

Bronwyn Bancroft's artwork inspired many of our learning experiences, including our sensory trays where the children scooped and poured jelly balls into jars. They also manipulated two shades of green play-dough to represent a forest. These experiences promoted the use of fine-motor skills, hand and finger strength, as well as imagination and creativity. Bronwyn continued to inspire us with her illustrations of ocean waves as the children used seashells, glass stones, matchsticks and an array of loose parts to recreate the image on a blue, felt background. Our dramatic play campsite was transformed into an indigenous meeting place, complete with woven baskets and bush food to hunt and gather. Tree bark lined the campfire and the children took turns to cook their bush tomatoes, witchetty grubs, vegetables and berries over the flames. In our construction space, the children used Aboriginal symbols made out of felt to represent a campsite, running water, and animal tracks, to incorporate into their imaginative play.

In our atelier, the children were invited to create many artworks inspired by indigenous artists. They made clay pinch pots inspired by story spheres by artist and sculptor, Thanakupi, using their fingers to mould and manipulate the clay into irregular shapes. The class studied animal stick sculptures by Mary Katatjuku Pan and learnt to make their own yarning stick, as they wound coloured wool around it. The children enjoyed the challenge of weaving, similar to the technique that the Torres Strait Islanders use to make their baskets, and Rachael Sarra’s vibrant patterns allowed the children to explore various shapes, dots and lines. We concluded each day by learning our new song called 'Tommy the Termite,' about an insect that hollowed out the tree trunks so the Aboriginal people could cut them down and make their didgeridoos. The children used clapping sticks to keep the rhythm of the song and created actions to tell this charming story.

Thank you for a creative week together!

Lauren, Priya, Luan and Doris

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Stage 4E: Indigenous Inspired Artworks

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Stage 4E: Sensory and Manipulation Experiences

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Playball

By Coach Lauren Guttman

This week to warm up our bodies at Playball we started our session with the parachute. I asked the children to listen to my instructions as we shook the parachute fast and slow. I added some popcorn (plastic balls) to the parachute for the children to ‘pop’. Those sneaky balls kept flying off the parachute!

Once all the popcorn had ‘popped’ off the parachute, I asked the children to collect all of the balls and shoot them through the basketball hoop. The children were so proud when all the balls were collected. I tipped out the balls one more time and our little superstars shot some hoops once more.

Next, I placed some numbered disks on the floor. The children helped me to count the disks as I put them in a long line. There were five in total. I asked the children to turn into frogs and ‘leap’ from one ‘lily pad’ to the next.

Stage 3 and 4 had a go at some hoop play. They listened as I instructed them to jump in, out, spin and hop. The children challenged their gross motor skills!

Stage 1 had fun today practising their throwing and catching skills with soft foam balls. I guided the children to kick the colourful balls and practise their balancing, coordination and gross motor skills.

We finished by singing our playball song and cheering “Go Playball!” See you next week Playball buddies.

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Mandarin

By Chloe Lin

This week in Mandarin, after singing Hello, Ni Hao, we warmed up our bodies and voices by singing Elephant, Elephant and stomping our feet just like a real elephant!

To begin our lesson we learnt some Kung Fu. The aim of Kung Fu is to teach the children nonviolent, peaceful ways of resolving conflict. It gets the children active, and teaches them to be confident, peaceful and focused. Our little movers used the analogy of cutting a watermelon in half to imitate some popular Kung Fu moves.

Next, we returned to the popular face board. Repetition of names and parts of the face each week will help the children to recall these words in Mandarin. 2E made a face that looked like a monster this week, and 2R’s face had 5 eyes! In Stage 3, I encouraged the children to name and repeat in Mandarin some facial expressions like happy, cranky and silly, to extend their knowledge.

After packing away our faces, I challenged the children to a memory game. On the board, the children found 4 animals. I asked the children to close their eyes and then removed one animal.

The children had to guess which animal was missing! Each week I am so impressed with how the children are able to repeat back to me the names of animals in Mandarin.

Our Mandarin session ended today with our goodbye song and stickers for excellent listening and participation. Well done, everyone!

See you next week!

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Drama

By Xanthe Wills

This week we concluded our exploration of the question “What is Drama?” To start the lesson we always have a shake of the parachute. We went around the circle and named colours in Stage 2, and named our favourite desserts in Stages 3 and 4. We sang Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.

Icy Pole visited us one last time and wanted to see if we could remember and put into practice the foundations of drama that we have learnt over the last few weeks. First, we had a go at some imaginative play. We pretended that the floor had magically changed surfaces. Icy Pole called out, “the floor is…” and we pretended to be walking on sharp weeds, slippery ice, bouncy floor, marshmallows, and sticky mud.

Icy Pole then introduced the children to the idea of an audience. I placed the children against a wall in the room. This was where the audience sat. We practised turning on our listening ears and watching eyes, and we discussed what being a good audience member would look like. “What do audience’s do at the end of a performance?” Asked Icy Pole. “They clap!”, exclaimed Allegra from Stage 3E. We practised clapping, and I modelled to the children how to take a bow.

I then pulled the children aside in groups of 3 or 4 (audience staying where they were), and gave them a scenario for a scene. The children acted out the scene, and then bowed to signal the end of the performance. The audience then had to clap, and guess what the actors were doing.

Some examples included: being hungry lions and finding something nice to eat and then falling asleep, stomping elephants who were thirsty and found a nice watering hole, and crocodiles who snapped up a nice fish.

We then stood in a circle with our toes around the mat. I instructed the children to put one hand on their tummy and one on their back, and then look at their toes. This is a bow! In Stage 2, to help with the concept, we sang Rock-a-bye Your Bear which mentions bowing to your partner.

Stage 3 and 4 had a go at Pass The Ball, an imaginary game where they passed imaginary objects around the circle. Stage 4 extended this to “What’s the goo?” Where the magical goo can turn into anything you like!

In Stage 2, we finished with a visit from Lorry the Lorikeet.

Well done everyone on a fabulous drama session!

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Happy Birthday!

A very happy birthday to our children who are celebrating their special day this week. We wish you all the best!

09/03 - Harvey (3R)

11/03 - James (4R)

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