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Sensory experiences are a wonderful experience for children as they are able to use their fine motor skills to manipulate the resources but also their emotional skills are engaged through the calming effect of squeezing sifting and sorting
Reddam
Dear Firstly,Parents,wewant to give you a save the date for our, Family Breakfast to celebrate Fathers day Thursday 1 st September 2022 at 8am. We look forward to having a member of the family come along to have breakfast with the
The Colours of the earth and surroundings are also being explored with beautiful learning environments provided for children to explore, where other classes are studying cultures and people around the world particularly focusing on our own multicultural community here at SensoryReddam.play is visible in every classroom and continues to be a popular experience amongst the children. It is apparent that the children have been exposed to these kinds of experiences from stage 1 as they are very precise in their actions and strategies whilst manipulating the sensory material such as sand, rice, beans, goop, slime, playdough and shaving cream just to name a few.
Itchildren.hasbeen wonderful to see such a positive start to term 3.
Dramatic play is still a big hit with the children and our team is constantly responding by providing learning spaces and resources to extend children’s learning. Camping and cooking in the home corner are fan favourites at the moment so you may see our pop up tents in the upper playground this week. Children are also busy at the home corner kitchen dressed up as a caterpillar or fairy making dinner for their famlly.
The children and educators have dived into their projects with much vigor and I have manyobservedexperiments occurring in our classrooms. From measuring and pouring water to using our senses when playing with playdough and observing the layers of the earth.
Early Learning School Newsletter 12th August 2022
The value of sensory experiences: They encourage children’s language development.
By Mrs Kath Boyd
Emotional
Children may explore maths concepts, such as volume, 3D structures, and measurement.
Develops
Develops children’s fine motor skills and hand/eye coordination. problem solving skills outlets for children
Develops children’s fine motor skills and hand/eye coordination. problem solving skills for children forward to chatting with you soon.
Develops
Principal’s Message Continued...
Children may explore maths concepts, such as volume, 3D structures, measurement.
Looking
Emotional outlets
The value of sensory experiences: They encourage children’s language development.
Christine Irwin Principal
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We started the week by investigating the well known flightless bird, the Kiwi, of which inhabitants of the country are often fondly called. This bird is a nocturnal bird which lives in the rainforests of New Zealand and scurries around in the undergrowth seeking our tasty worms and other creepy crawly insects. The children were given the opportunity to explore a sensory tray filled with mulch, sticks and leaf litter just like the floor of a rainforest. There they found the Kiwi’s, poking and prodding their way through the mulch. Over the week the children were able to inspect these little birds at close range and admire their unique shape and looks. During our group times for the week we explored a very popular book series in New Zealand called ‘Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy’ written by Lynley Dodd. Like a lot of great book series this book is based on rhyme, rhythm, repetition and humour. It is a vibrant, bright and funny series of books about a little dog and his friends and the fun antics they get up to. The children were captivated as we read to them and we will keep them in our rotation of reading materials for just that reason. Our art experience for the week was to use some native flora and in honour a very famous rugby team, the colour black for the All Blacks. The children were provided with a branch of fern leaves which they could dip into the black paint. Then were able to either stamp or swish their fern leaves onto their empty canvas producing some gorgeous masterpieces. Art time is when the children can use their fine motor skills and imaginations which shows in their art and gives them a great sense of achievement. The children even were able to take part in a pretend hungi in the sandpit. Our little ones helped to dig a hole and fill it with stones. We used some crumpled cellophane to represent the fire heating the stones. We wrapped up some wooden food in leaves and placed it into a basket burying it so it could cook underground. We then dug up the food and had an imaginary feast. This process to some of you, burying food to cook may seem bizarre but trust me, it is an amazing experience and the taste is yum Wowyum!what a week of learning was had by our stage 1R room, lets see if you can further our knowledge of each other by taking a look at India next week. Nga mihi (Thank you) and Ma te Wa (See you next time) Haere ra (Goodbye) Heather, Doris, Jenny and Jaycel
Stage 1R
By Heather Gaskall 3 “There is only one word for New Zealand epic!.” Bear Grylls Kia Ora (Hello) and nau mai haere mai (welcome) families to our second week of term 3, the children and teachers have immersed themselves into some Kiwi culture this week with a tour of Aotearoa (New Zealand). This is my home land and I have enjoyed bringing a little of it to class. Throughout the week we have listened to some of my favourite sounds and music of New Zealand, one song which always interested the children was Poi E by Patea Maori Club.
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Stage 1E By Charity Acera 6 “Every child is a different kind of flower, and altogether makes this world a beautiful garden.” (Anonymous)
Promoting EYLF Learning Outcome Two where children become socially responsible and show respect for the environment through their growing appreciation and care for natural and constructed environments. A sensory display of a small world ‘garden’ welcomed the children. The garden was filled with natural camellias, insects, and bugs. The children were observed to be demonstrating their curiosity towards the flowers, some took their time to smell, and others went to share them with their teachers and peers, showing a great sense of connection, confidence, and trust among others. This has also allowed the group to appreciate the beauty of springtime with our natural blooms such sweet gestures! These beautiful interactions indicate that they are practicing their sense of connectedness to others and at the same time exploring their five senses. Our group time is always the children’s highlight of the day. Their focus and interest have become more advanced as they enthusiastically participate in sing alongs of their favourite tunes we also revisited ‘I Can Sing A Rainbow, a lovely song for them to enjoy and become familiar with. We also read a book called ‘Seasons’ which talks about the wonderful changes during the whole year. Well done for becoming such confident and involved young learners 1E! Additionally,they were also invited to participate in developing their sense of touch and basic numeracy skills through counting the butterflies and bugs on display which are quite a common sight during the spring season. The group loves counting as well as sharing the learning experience with their friends. Tapping into their creative expression skills, we incorporated a lesson on colours into our creative experience. Using green, blue, orange, and yellow acrylic paints we encouraged the children to dip a sliced ‘okra’ vegetable into the paint. Surprisingly the children enthusiastically dipped and dabbed the okra and were not even bothered by how it felt on their fingers.
Hoping you all have a lovely weekend!
Charity, Resie, May,Rowel and Yash
Another week of fun and vibrant exploration focusing on the season of Spring. Don’t we love this season, it is the time of new beginnings. Flowers bloom, trees grow, the sound of birds chirping fills the air, and fields are blanketed in lush greenery. What a glorious way to engage our children with all these lingering wonders and beauty! Teaching lessons about spring excites the children’s creativity and imagination. They were exposed to texture play experiences, dramatic play, and sensory experiences and built friendships with their peers as they explored and observed the wonders of nature. To illustrate these learning experiences, we explored spring through our senses of touch and sight.
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Last week 2R showed great interest in dinosaurs, so this week we delved more into dinosaur worlds and learnt more about them. Children learn more effectively when we engage them in everyday activities and learning experiences based on their interests.
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The teachers in 2R use the children's interests as the starting point rather than the endpoint. It then becomes our role, in partnership with children, to convert the interest into a practical learning experience, rather than assuming an experience will be worthwhile simply because it is child chosen or child directed.
Stage 2R
Our focus is on where an idea leads rather than its source. A good thesis usually becomes an interest, whether from a child, a group of children, a family, a teacher or elsewhere. We need not worry about interfering with children’s creativity or freedom of choice by introducing potential areas of interest. Children are not likely to think about the source of an idea. If it interests them, they will take it and make it their own.
This week’s learning experiences included green rice sensory trays where the children were encouraged to crack the eggs to reveal baby dinosaurs. The children practised their pouring skills by transferring the rice from one side of the egg to the other. 2R awakened their senses with our green water beads dinosaur worlds and sparked their imaginations. Furthermore, they enjoyed making dinosaur fossils and footprints on the playdough. They were also fascinated by the “Fizzy dinosaur eggs'', a STEM inspired experience, and loved watching the bicarbonate of soda fizz and melt away when they added vinegar. Small world play encourages the development of language as children sometimes narrate their play verbally as well as internally when they imagine. Creativity and imagination are essential for a child's growth. Children use their imaginations and creativity to build worlds populated by their favourite interests when they play with them. These meaningful experiences provide the children with a safe space to experiment and explore new concepts. Art of the week involved children creating dinosaur collages, and they also engaged their creativity in making dinosaur stomps paintings. 2R experimented with stomping, swirling, sliding, played around with colour mixing, pretended to jump in paint puddles, counted footsteps, and used different parts of the dinosaurs to paint.
The week's highlight was when the children were encouraged to make their dinosaur fossils. 2R learns typically best when they are involved in the learning. They were focused during this experience and paid great attention to what they were observing. The ability to concentrate and sustain attention on all kinds of tasks is crucially essential for children because it helps them learn and improve, which leads to their self confidence and positive self esteem. Children’s thinking, feelings, and dispositions are the centre of our curriculum and inform the planning and implementation of our educational experiences. Our focus is on providing contexts in which children have rich opportunities to build concepts and skills through meaningful exploration and active experimentation. As a result, we'll grow young children who seek to participate actively in an experience to create concepts, ideas, and skills over time. Have a relaxing and fun filled weekend. 2R Team
By Sara Haddadi “If we experienced life through the eyes of a child, everything would be magical and extraordinary. Let our curiosity, adventure and wonder of life never end.” (Akiane Kramarik)
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• • What an
Welcome to Week 2’s learning focus First Responders. Fire engines and first responders’ vehicles have been long term interests in the 2E classroom. To extend on those interests, we explored careers as first responders who are always willing to put others before themselves.
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2E firefighters joined in red rice and water beads sensory bins which included roads, traffic lights, signs, and vehicles. We aimed to enhance the children’s understanding of emergency vehicles approaching, sirens and giving way. The children were fascinated with all the fire engine vehicles and started to create emergency scenarios in their play. The children were invited to mix two primary colours red and yellow which make orange on shaving foam or cornflour mixture. These fun experiments reinforced the children’s knowledge of colour mixing and also helped them to understand the symbolic meanings of red, yellow, and orange as fire and emergency. They can also observe that shaving foam has a lighter texture while cornflour looks like liquid but very hard to scoop. The colour mixing in these two materials created amazing marble effects. We also set up a police station to encourage children to experience the police work site, talk to colleagues through walkie talkies, take notes with pens, make reports with keyboards, use handcuffs to restrict the movement of prisoners, and use whistles to direct traffic. The children enjoyed this role playing game and they all have a dream of being a community hero. Additionally, the paramedic interactive trays where the children could bandage up their friends, provide teachers and friends with bandaids, and check everyone’s vitals. This tray was very popular as the children love to engage in imaginative play and could create scenes with the resources provided. Our favourite book of the week was ‘Fighting Fires’ by photojournalist Susan Kuklin. This realistic book describes for children, in accessible language and clear images, the vehicles, tools, and procedures used by fire departments. Dynamic full colour photos capture the thrill of clanging fire trucks and the skill of the firefighters. We then discussed the jobs of firefighters and how to become one. Miss Mia asked the children, “Would you like to be a firefighter?” Alyssa, Jasper, Dylan, Harry, Noah and Lucas W raised their hands and responded cheerfully, “YES!”
Stage 2E By Mia Doan 12 “All first responders do noble work, and all of them deserve our respect and our appreciation.” (William Barr)
The children were invited to the backyard in a small group to test the children’s memory after reading the book and practice rolling and extending the fire hose (garden hose). We learned how to put on safety clothes, stand, hold and turn on the fire hose and imagine that it would be very difficult because the water would be so strong. The children had fun pretending to be firefighters and practising their grip development skills when using a trigger in the spray gun. The children commented along:
• Jasper: “We need to put on a heavy air tank and mask.” Alyssa: “Put on the boots” Clara: “Put on gumboots and gloves” Aaron Z: “Wear the helmet and jacket” exciting week of learning! Wishing you a fantastic weekend! Mia, Xanthe, Chloe, Shandie, Jing, and Alisha
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The children were also invited to investigate a variety of herbs and spices with letter cards and magnifying glasses to examine various seeds in jars and compare them to flash cards with the plants that they become. As an extension, the children were also challenged to match fruits with their cut halves inspired by our wooden fruit cutting set.
By Grace Nolan 15
After some deliberation, the children decided to make tacos! Amelia confidently walked to the kitchen and exclaimed “First we need the butter.” Harry disagreed and said, “No, we need to boil the water first.” Oscar prepared the kettle to go to the stove. Sarah and Amelia decided to make an entree with “Pasta and cereal and sauce!”. Throughout these rich dramatic experiences, the children are sharing aspects of their lives, experiences and are sharing them with each other. The children are also demonstrating their knowledge in regards to cooking as they understand some basic elements of cooking and creating a meal. The children are also taking turns, collaborating and sharing the space to ensure that each friend is able to have a turn. This was seen throughout the week at the dramatic home corner and highlights the positive impact that dramatic play and imagination can have on children’s confidence and social skills.
This week’s provocation of ‘In The Kitchen’ saw many friends sharing their ideas, understanding, home life and culture through the medium of cooking! Children are also able to explore new and familiar perspectives , listen to others’ ideas and respect different ways of being and practise inclusive ways of achieving coexistence.
Miss Carina’s group stayed indoors in an educator led dramatic play. The children joined together on the mat to first discuss what they were going to cook. The children suggested: Lindsay “Chicken.” Sarah “Marshmallows.” Natalie “Love heart marshmallows.” Harry “Taco night with cream and cheese and meat and no salt.”
Stage 3R
“Children actively construct their own understandings and contribute to others’ learning. They recognise their agency, capacity to initiate and lead learning, and their rights to participate in decisions that affect them, including their learning” ( EYLF, 2009)
At the sensory table the children were offered cooked rice noodles, chop sticks and scissors to refine their fine motor skills. This activity was chosen as cutting paper has been very popular with the class since the addition of accessible scissors at our writing table. Oscar showed a friend how to hold the chopsticks in one hand, “like this Harry!” This experience allowed the children to share aspects of food that is familiar to them, with others and start conversations about their own personal experiences with food. Next week we look at ‘In the garden’ Carina, Jenny & Margaret
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Our group time we sat in a circle and everyone held a rock while they were communicating how they were feeling today and everyone took turns and expressed their feelings and also introduced themselves and identified their friends names. Also during this time the children were given the opportunity to find their names and then place the name on their picture. As we continue to encourage the children to identify their literacy skills and name with our learning set ups by incorporating sensory, constructing and giving the children free rein of colours and creative tools. The children have been increasing their creativity and their self portraits which are becoming more defined and
Welcome to our Week 2, we have continued on with Me, Myself and I. The children feel a Sense of Belonging and also a strong sense of identity through social pretend play and look into the differences between people and what we all have in common, Throughout the week the children have been invited to explore various skills to enhance their fine motor skills and cognitive development through puzzles and also a cutting station with magazines and leaves to create their own collages and strengthen their hand grasp.. We have also set up a Indigenous table that is open ended with pebbles and rocks to create and that can resemble the Indigenous Symbols.
Nextdetailed.week we will be focusing on Emotions and Feelings We hope you have a lovely weekend Natalie & Laura & Kai
Stage 3E By Natalie Horstman 18 “Children want the same things we want. To laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained, to be delighted" Dr. Seuss
Werecognition.havecontinued
This week the children have been enjoying the doll house exploring their social skills and expressing their interest in pretend play with their peers, the dress up have continued to be of interest to the children. Our tables were set up with flashcards of various emotions with this experience the children were to uses buttons and rocks to make it resemble the flashcards.
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“There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.” (Sir Ranulph Fiennes)
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Our stories during the week were written by Australian author, Jackie French. Each book recalled a natural disaster that occurred in Australia, from droughts, cyclones, floods and bushfires. The children commented on the illustrations and the destruction that was caused. Families lost their homes due to flooding; they burnt down or were torn apart by 240km/hour winds. Farmers struggled to keep their crops and animals alive without any rain for months, even years, causing the land to dry up. The children said they felt lucky that they have never experienced chaotic weather like this before and showed compassion for the families in each story.
Thank you for a beautiful week together. Next week our class will Explore the Ocean. Rebecca, Vianne and Ling Kim
Stage 4R By Rebecca
This week our learning experiences included discovery trays filled with coloured sand and loose parts for the children to scoop and manipulate. Each tray reflected the seasons to stimulate conversations about what types of weather and changes occur. Yellow sand and beach items represented Summer, orange leaves and wooden materials reflected Autumn, snowflakes and ice crystals created a Winter wonderland, and green grass, blooming flowers and insects meant Spring had sprung. We also discussed how each season typically lasts for three months in Australia and in a continuous cycle. However, some countries have longer seasons depending on where they are located. If countries are closer to the polar caps, then they endure longer winters, while countries that sit closer to the equator typically have humid weather all year round. The children also showed an increasing interest in clouds, manipulating cotton balls in their fingers to create different shapes in the sky. This interest then prompted our class to investigate the water cycle and we read The Little Raindrop by Joanna Gray, which illustrated the journey of a single raindrop.
It was a rainy week but the weather didn’t stop us from having fun. As Winter starts to creep up on us, the children are appreciating the moments when they feel the sunshine on their faces when they play outside. Our class has also noticed the leaves changing colour and the bare tree branches around our campus. These observations have led to a rich provocation focused on different types of weather, the four seasons and natural disasters.
During our morning group times, the class recorded the daily weather and temperature. Miss Lauren showed the children our May calendar and some weather symbols sunny, overcast, raining and thunderstorms. She explained that the weather can be unpredictable or stay the same all week, but it’s always handy to record the weather to see if there’s a pattern. The children looked outside the window each morning and we also used a weather app to measure the temperature in degrees Celsius, placing the arrow up or down the thermometer.
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“Space is for everybody. It’s not just for a few people in science or maths, or for a select group of astronauts. That’s our new frontier out there, and it’s everybody’s business to know about space. (Christa McAuliffe, American teacher and astronaut)
FunMercuryfacts: ’s surface is covered in craters from meteors and comets colliding with it.
Jupiter has at least 64 moons and its big red spot is a giant storm that never stops moving.
Venus’ air smells terrible because it contains a chemical called sulphur.
Saturn is surrounded by 7 rings that are made of tiny pieces of ice, dust and rock.
Uranus is made up of gas, liquid and ice, and spins on its side.
Stage 4E By Lauren Hall
- Mars is being explored by robots called 'rovers’ that collect information and take photos.
- Neptune has the strongest winds in our Solar System that blow at 2,000km per hour.
This week our class continued on their space adventure and investigated each individual planet. The children showed a lot of interest in learning about how many moons each planet has, what their climates are like, and they wondered if any planets were home to extraterrestrial life? Our story of the week was called Meet the Planets by Caryl Hart, and we zoomed around the Solar System with an astronaut and his dog to learn a little about each planet. Throughout the week we also watched some short documentaries to gain more information and view some of the photographs that have been taken by space probes.
Earth is the only planet where plants and animals live because of its temperature.
The children engaged with a variety of space themed experiences including discovery trays filled with orange sand to represent Mars and blue kinetic sand to represent Neptune. The children enjoyed using the astronaut and spacecraft figurines, and incorporating the facts they had learnt about each planet into their role play. Plugging flowers were used to construct spacecraft and satellites, and pre literacy and numeracy skills were promoted with crater counting and topic words to identify and copy. The storybook Aliens Love Underpants by Claire Freeman inspired the children to create their own aliens. They thought about what features their aliens would have and then drew and cut out their alien’s body out of coloured paper. Once they were finished the children were encouraged to think of a name for their alien species and imagine which planet they came from.
Our highlight of the week was singing our song, Space Song Rocket Ride by Barefoot Books, and watching a few parts from the movie Martian starring Matt Damon. We saw how the astronaut drove a rover along the surface of Mars, communicated with NASA using his computer, and kept his space suit on whenever he would leave his research station. The children were amazed that he was able to grow potatoes so he didn’t run out of food, and that he built his own spaceship out of spare parts. We then had a discussion about how we might be able to live on Mars one day because there is evidence of water and ice. However, we would probably have to live in artificial habitats in order to survive the inhabitable conditions. There are so many possibilities!
Lauren, Priya, Faranaaz and Vianne
Stage 4E By Lauren Hall
We’ve had many rich discussions this week and the children have posed some very interesting questions. Next week we will explore the world of colour and learn how we can make a plethora of colours just from blue, red and yellow.
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Stage 4E: 26
