Principal’s Message By Christine Irwin Dear Families, We apologise for the date sent previously in regard to our Fathers Day Morning Tea. We have decided to honour the date sent earlier in the year. Details listed below: Family/Fathers Day Breakfast Friday 2nd September 2022 at 8:00am We look forward to having a member of the family come along to enjoy breakfast with the children. As well as Fathers Day, we are excited to celebrate CBCA (Children’s Book Council of Australia) Book Week 2022 Book Week 2022 at Reddam ELS Lindfield Monday 22nd Friday 26th August Our Core Teachers will email you directly with details on how each class will be exploring book week so please keep you eye out for their email. As I walk around our classrooms its interesting to observe the children learning in so many areas of their play. Learning occurs at all parts of the day not just our group time or indoor experiences. Children’s play is their work and to watch how they incorporate their developing skills into their daily relationships and interactions with their environments is unique and individual to each child. Children build developmental skills throughout the routine of the day however they are also learning pre math skills, pre reading and pre literacy skills, pre writing and pre science skills . REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL LINDFIELD NEWSLETTER 19 August 2022
By Christine Irwin Pre maths can be seen when children are measuring the sand in the tray and how many of those scoops with fill the container or assisting with morning tea and setting up the utensils and plates in order for their friends to join in the meal together. Pre reading is extended when children follow the story that the educator is reading at group time and begins to understand the sequence of the story or flipping through the pages in the reading corner caring for our books. Or enhancing their pre literacy skills whilst observing their environment and the words that are displayed in their room which enhances familiar forms and shapes of letters and symbols.
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Christine Irwin Principal
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Freely choosing from the writing centre’s in the room to practice how they grip the pencil and manipulate the pencil or crayon to make marks on the paper, or symbols that represent their creative thoughts or a shape that is recognisable to them and others. Or increasing their fine motor skills to be able to control a writing instrument is observed when the children are using small tongs or squeezing the measuring dropper to fill it with liquid to transfer to another container during the sensory experiences. These experiences all assist with pre writing skill Predevelopment.scienceexperiences happen throughout our day from observing a caterpillar closely in our garden and how the tiny legs move along the leaf to being involved in water play and watching our experiment dissolve back into water. Learning is occurring in so many ways throughout our day that there are countless opportunities and moments that provide time for children to extend their development. Our educators are there to observe and scaffold these moments to provide the children with the resources and set ups to continually encourage children’s curiosity for learning through their play and relationships with each other.
Principal’s Message
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Stage 1R By Heather Gaskall ‘Not all those who wander are lost.’ J.R.R. Tolkien Namaste our dear families and welcome to our journey of discovery of that mystical country, India. The children and teachers have expanded their knowledge again of another country that has heritage in our room. The children were greeted each morning with the amazing sounds of Indian music. We learned all about the Diwali festival which is a five day festival of lights celebrated by millions of Hindus, Sikhs and Jains across the world. Diwali, which for some also coincides with harvest and new year celebrations, is a festival of new beginnings and the triumph of good over evil and light over darkness. As part of our sensory exploration for the week we also investigated some Indian spice, mmmh which made the room smell wonderful. During our group time, we presented the spices to the children to smell and feel. To extend the sensory side to this, we then allowed the children to mix the spices into playdough. They were offered rollers to roll the play dough and make different shapes and prints in the dough. They demonstrated themselves as confident learners during the experience as they took the initiative to join the activity and manipulate the materials and tools independently or with the support of the teachers. Our art experience for the week we invited the children to use an Okra bean and gave them the colours orange, white and green which represent the colours of the Indian flag. The children could use their own imaginations and stamp or swipe the okra across their pages making all sorts of patterns and designs. As the children did this we talked about what colours they were using. Our learning about India coincided with one of their festivals, the festival of Raksha, this is a popular festival traditionally Hindu in which the sister gives her brother a Rakhi. This is an ornamental cotton wristband tied on to the girl/women on the wrist of a brother, or the one who takes on the responsibility of a brother. The children and the teachers have had a brilliant time learning and discovery interesting facts about India and next week we will turn our focus to Thailand. Wishing all our families a wonderful weekend!
Heather, Doris, Jenny and Jaycel
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The sensory learning experiences ranged from small world beach play tray experiences to balancing fresh lemons. Extending on this with taste testing experiences with popular juicy fruits during summer oranges, lemons and watermelons. The children had so much fun during these activities, it is such a joy to observe their enthusiasm during learning alongside their peers and Additionally,Educators.
Next week will be focusing on the colorful season of Autumn May everyone have a lovely weekend!
Stage 1E
Charity, Resie, May,Rowel, Mary and Yash
This week we continued to explore and enjoy The Four Seasons, as we came to focus on the most loved season of the year, Summer. Summer indeed has its own flavour, a flavour of fun, excitement and often when we look forward to enjoying delightful outdoor moments with family and friends. As a child, I recall enjoying the beach and the warmth of the sun on my skin. We continued to provide the children with a variety of Summer related learning experiences. Observing and exploring seasons and weather gives children the opportunity to learn about the natural weather occurrences and appreciate the beauty they bring. We allowed the children to freely express themselves through sensory learning experiences, taste testing activities, creative art sessions and investigative play learning. We provided play based opportunities that encouraged the 1E children to discover, create, improvise and imagine...simply to enjoy being. Being a child that is joyful, learning and discovering the possibilities of the world.
By Charity Acera “Summer has a flavor like no other. Always fresh and simmered in sunshine. ” Oprah Winfrey
1E children were invited to express this knowledge and ideas through creative experiences. Using cotton balls dipped in water, the children enjoyed a mess free art experience as they practiced their grip and stroking skills, brushing the damp cotton balls against a dark blue paper creating patterns of wet patches on the paper. The creative experience supported children to identify and understand their emotions, make sense of their feelings and express themselves non verbally and verbally.
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2R Team
This week, we decided to encourage children to connect and contribute to their Planet Earth to broaden their experiences and awareness of the world around them. We aim to educate the next generation to be more mindful of the choices they make and how they will affect the future of the planet. By knowing how special our planet is, children will be more willing to conserve the resources on it and formulate their ideas about the small steps they can take now to help protect our ThroughoutEarth.
the week, children enjoyed a variety of engaging experiences to discover more about their homes. Shaving cream Earth and Earth slime sensory experiences challenged children’s imaginations and language skills through storytelling. They sorted the animals based on where they lived: land, water, or both. We discussed how to make planet Earth a thriving environment for animals by adopting rescued animals and being respectful towards all of them and reducing trash on the ground and in water too. 2R's little artists created their very own Earth using balloon stamping which improved their creativity. Moreover, the loose parts provocation to create Earth image was another experience for them to express their creativity. Another experience involved children experimenting with water absorption through the Earth Water Science Absorption Experiment. Our green thinkers soaked the cotton balls and pads and made mini Earths. They experimented with mixing the colours and testing how much the cotton pads and balls held the water drops by counting the Thedrops.highlight of the week was discovering the layers of the Earth using playdough layers, which helped the children to be able to explore the layers of the earth, hands on. Using a hands on activity such as this, helped 2R be able to conceptualise what they were learning and be able to retain it.
Stage 2R By Sara Haddadi 11
The best way to show children how to care for the earth is to model earth friendly behaviour. We should make changes in our own life that promote energy conservation, recycling, and giving back to the community, and show the children the importance of taking personal responsibility for our planet. Hopefully we helped our little ones to show respect, care and appreciation for their natural environment and also build their identity and sense of belonging as we all belong to this fascinating blue and green planet. We hope that you will all enjoy your weekends by all means!
"The Earth is what we all have in common.” Wendell Berry
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The children were engaged in a fun engineering STEM activity. They imagined they were engineers/builders who were creating buildings/skyscrapers in the busy city out of colourful blocks. To help make the blocks stick together like real bricks the children utilised shaving cream as a sticky substance, much like how actual bricks use concrete to make them stick together. Not only did the children enjoy this messy play, imaginative play and fine motor development were also promoted. We introduced the children some of the most famous architecture in Australia and around the world, including 2E well known place, Sydney Opera House and Habour Bridge. We simulated the characteristics of Sydney's harbour city, so that children can experience the fun of catching fish in the beautiful harbour, and at the same time foster their fine motor skill and concentration.
On our provocation table, the children can drive on multiple construction vehicles to dumb the dust, lift heavy objects and flatten the surface. Connecting to the children’s interests in the construction vehicles on the construction site opposite to our backyard, we represented construction zones for sensory play by using corn kernels, small tree logs, pebbles and different types of construction vehicles such as cranes, excavators, bulldozers, diggers, road rollers and dump trucks. The children used the construction vehicles to manipulate and pick up stones, blocks and various other things and move them about the area.
Hamish: "Look at my tall building."
Carl Jung Welcome all to another wonderful week of learning. This week’s focus was ‘When I Grow Up, I Can Be… Architects, Engineers and Builders’. Based on our children’s interests in construction vehicles, we extended their knowledge by adding the roles of architects, engineers and builders in construction projects.
Clara: "I'm making rainbow city too. I will use all the colours."
Aaron Z: "Orange building is my favourite."
Stage 2E By Mia Doan 14 “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.”
Wishing you a wonderful weekend, Mia, Xanthe, Chloe, Shandie, Jing, and Alisha
Alyssa: "I'm making my city."
Laura: "I want pink and purple."
Dylan: "My big building has windows now."
2E children also like to count how many fish they caught, and children also get a sense of accomplishment from this activity. Our favourite book of the week was Let’s Build A House. This book is written by real life engineer Mike Lucas and illustrated by Daron Parton. It talks about how we, step by step, build a real house. Children learnt from this book that it takes a lot of time to build a house. We need to use an excavator to flatten the ground, then use wood to make the structure of the house, and then add cement and bricks to complete the roof, floor and walls, plus Windows and doors, install all electrical wiring and plumbing, paint the interior space, and then the big clean! Happy moving in! At the art table, our friends were invited to create a skyline city collage. They selected their favourite colour pieces of paper in different shapes to make their own night life city. Our children were excellent at using glue stick to stick their buildings and windows. During the art the children explained their intentions: Jasper: "I will make rainbow city and add light (yellow small pieces) on."
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In our small groups we were able to look through different seeds and pick a few to plant. The children were able to pop on gardening gloves and handle real spades and shovels to move the dirt from the bag into their small pots. Then the children poked a hole and planted their seeds, covering them with soil and watering them. By providing children real examples and opportunities to use real tools, they are able to understand and connect to their world as well as manipulate and practice whilst using them. Other groups included engaging in garden yoga where they were taken on a guided meditation through the garden whilst they navigated their physical space and extended upon their gross motor skills.
meetings we discussed different aspects of gardens whether we had one ourselves, or where we could find them, what grows in a garden and what gardens need to grow. Here are a few of their responses Kai “ Lots of vegetables” Natalie “Flower” Ellie “I play with my mummy and daddy in the garden with my family” Lindsay “grapes” Avery “Strawberries” Valerie “Flowers” Myra “Flowers” Vivienne “Carrots” Angus “carrots” Aiden “Mandarins and carrots” Chloe “I like grapes” Sohye “nothing, only toys” Michael “vegetables, clean vegetables” Sebastien “Radish and leaves” Luka “carrots and flowers” Amelia “My mum do have a little garden but he don’t have a big garden”
The children's enjoyment of the home corner has led the educators to further extend upon their interests by continuing to offer dramatic play small groups where educators follow and participate in the play. As a result, educators can gain insight into the children's knowledge and understanding as well as guiding and modelling language that supports their social and emotional skills. These play episodes has led educators to notice that the children are still engaged and interested about BBQs, Camping and Cooking. Next week we will be revisiting the first few weeks experiences to consolidate and extend the children's interest and knowledge.
Stage 3R By Grace Nolan 17 ‘We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children’ — Native American proverb
During our exploration of ‘In the Garden’ the children were exposed to all things nature! Our indoor experience allowed children to independently explore small insect worlds with magnifying glasses or use them in dramatic play. Our sensory experiences saw friends using wooden fruits and vegetables buried in dirt to match, this was also accompanied by wooden letters to include environmental and intentional literacy. Our creative process art found children creating their very own veggie patch. First covering the paper with brown ‘dirt’ before adding in collage materials that resemble carrots, apples, bananas and lettuce. The children enjoyed being able to curate their own unique veggie Inartwork.ourmorning
Stage 3R By Grace Nolan 18
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During various group experiences, the children have been introduced to learn different songs and rhymes in sign language. For example, the alphabet song, I can see a rainbow and We are one. This has allowed them to understand who uses sign language, how and why they communicate using their hands and other body actions to communicate their needs with each other. The children have enjoyed establishing connections between the different songs, while being exposed to a wide range of music. The children have continued to engage in a yarning circle each morning where we acknowledge the traditional owners of our land, and gather the children around a campfire with wooden blocks and sticks. This allowed the children to collect different pieces of nature to place on the pretend campfire, and start to think about what the Indigenous people use a campfire for. Through these transitions and experiences, the children have been exposed to new vocabulary including bush tucker, hummies (huts for Indigenous people), damper and traditional dances and DreamTime Stories. For next week, our goal will be to continue exploring feelings and emotions through how we show kindness, empathy and gratitude towards different cultures. We have started to engage in some discussions about how we show kindness and respect towards the Indigenous culture evident here in Australia. This has allowed the children to actively explore the Indigenous culture through loose parts play, observing different Indigenous symbols, analysing quality picture books, engaging in yarning circles and making pretend campfires to cook our food.
We hope you have a lovely weekend
The children have continued their exploration with feelings and emotions, as they are beginning to identify how others might be feeling in certain situations and brainstorm together what kindness looks like in the play space. The children were invited into a group experience where they were required to draw a self portrait of some of their peers. They were able to use their creative skills and start to think more conceptually about where the eyes, nose and mouth goes.
Stage 3E By Natalie Horstman 21 'For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.' Aristotle
Welcome to our Week 3. This week is all about exploring the children’s feelings and emotions. We have continued to talk about emotions and how we can feel happy, sad , angry and loved. The children are engaging well with expressing their feelings and being able to build upon their confidence in talking in front of their peers.
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Our provocation Exploring Our Earth continued as our class dived down through the layers of the ocean this week. Two thirds of our planet is covered in water so there was a lot to explore. We learnt about many of the sea animals that inhabit each ocean zone and discovered the Sunlightfollowing:Zone:
Twilight Zone: 200m deeper there is less sun and the water becomes a little colder. Creatures include jellyfish, swordfish, pufferfish and whales.
The Abyss: 4,000m deeper in the ocean it is pitch black and extremely cold. Creatures include the dumbo octopus, vampire squid and many prehistoric looking creatures.
The Trench: This is the ocean floor approximately 11,000m deep. All the creatures down here mostly glow in the dark, including the viper fish and angler fish. They look as if they have LED lights running through their bodies, and we were surprised to learn that there are underwater volcanoes that let out hot steam from the centre of the Earth. Our story books of the week included The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister, which reminded us about the importance of sharing and being kind. Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson was also a firm favourite as we read how a crab, a sea anemone and a bristle worm cohabitated in a rock pool. The children used a variety of water colours to paint their fish before sticking on glittery scales and creating a coral reef background with mixed materials. Around our classroom the children engaged with many ocean themed learning experiences. At our manipulation table they moulded and shaped blue play dough and kinetic sand to create coral reef environments with faux seaweed, stones and shells. At our numeracy station the children used wooden fish to help them count from 1 20, and our small world area was full of imagination as the children worked together to create a coral reef for the sea animals.
Rebecca and Jenny Rebecca Kim
“The sea is an underwater museum still awaiting its visitors.” Philippe Diolé
Next week our ocean adventures will continue as we learn how to implement sustainable practices to protect our sea animals and keep their environments clean.
Midnight Zone: 1,000m deeper the water reaches freezing temperatures because hardly any sun can reach down this far from the surface. Creatures must be able to survive the cold and dark conditions of the water. They include hatchet fish, lantern fish and the tripod fish.
This is the first zone that begins at the surface, where the water receives the most sun. Approximately 90% of all sea creatures live in this zone and on the coral reefs. Creatures include starfish, crabs, tropical fish, stingrays, sea urchins, sharks, dolphins and sea turtles.
Stage 4R By
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Every story book we read this week featured a plethora of colours. White Rabbit’s Colours by Alan Baker had a bunny that hopped into a blue, red and yellow paint pot. As she moved from pot to pot, she soaked herself in each primary colour, mixed the colours and turned herself into orange, green and purple. Mix It Up by Henri Tullet had lots of paint blobs on every page and we followed the instructions of how to mix them. We had to tap on the blobs, shake the book, press the pages together and tip the book upside down. What a fun book! We also read Mixed by Arree Chung, about blue, yellow and red dots that lived in separate parts of the city. When a yellow and blue fell in love and got married, they started a new generation of secondary coloured dots, inspiring the other colours to mix too.
What a colourful week we had together in our classroom! The children explored the vibrant world of primary, secondary and tertiary colours which inspired their learning and play. During our morning group times we learnt about colour science, starting with the three primary colours blue, red and yellow. When two primary colours are mixed together, they create secondary colours green, orange and purple. When a primary and secondary colour are mixed together, they then create tertiary colours. We studied Isaac Newton’s ‘Colour Wheel’ and learnt that the colours which sit next to each other on the wheel complement each other. But if the colours sit opposite to each other, they usually create a shade of brown. If you mix yellow, red and blue together, you will also create a shade of brown.
Stage 4E By Lauren Hall
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Throughout the week the children engaged with a variety of colourful experiences. Bicarbonate soda and coloured vinegar was provided for the children to make bubbly rainbow reactions. The children were encouraged to create a variety of hues using primary coloured water as they transferred it into their experiment trays. Colourful puzzles were popular, as well as our fine motor activities where the children practised their threading, and used small tongs to manipulate coloured balls to create the layers of a rainbow. At the art table, the children experimented with creating various shades and hues by mixing primary colours together, creating a grid of new and exciting colours. They also explored “splatter painting” inspired by Jackson Pollock, where they used straws to blow paint across their paper in different directions. We discovered so many new colours this week. To extend the children’s interest in colour science, we will explore famous artists and how they created their masterpieces. We look forward to another artistic week in our classroom!
“Colour is a power that directly influences the soul.” (Wassily Kandinsky)
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In stage 2, I encourage children using their favorite finger puppets to meet family members and sing nursery rhymes. It also encouraged children to recognize their body parts and physical interactions. Then use the magnets to teach the children the vocabularies of the week: apple, lemon, cat, dog, car, flower, tree, elephant and mouse. Children also practice their concentration and memory in the game "Guess Who's Missing".
In stage 3 and stage 4, we continue to practice opposite words. In addition to practicing the oral practice of nouns and adjectives, children are also familiar with the pronunciation and concentration of these new words in the memory sorting game. The children were all looking forward to the opportunity to express themselves, and they all enthusiastically came to the teacher and said their newly learned Mandarin vocabularies aloud. I enjoy sharing the beauty of Mandarin with the children every time I go to different classes. They look happy when they sing Chinese nursery rhymes, which makes me deeply experience that every Chinese class is not only language teaching, but also cultural exchange and sharing of life experience. In particular, children from different cultural backgrounds are also excited to share the newly learned words in their mothers language, so that children can see the colorfulness of the World Village while having Chinese classes.
34 Mandarin By Chloe Lin The focus of this week's Mandarin class is on opposite words. In classes of different age groups, we use different methods to let children know the opposite words in Chinese: big and small, tall and short, soft and hard, sweet and sour, moon and sun, day and night, etc.
In Stage 1 this week we became eggs! We curled our bodies up very tightly and then used our bodies to “crack” out of the egg. We became all different kinds of animals that hatch out of eggs including dinosaurs, snakes, and birds. Then, we had a visit from Cocky the Cockatoo who loved to tickle his friends with his tickly feathers. I am so impressed with Stage 1’s development and their ability to follow along with my instructions in drama.
This week in drama we embarked on the final instalment of our Treasure Map adventure. This week we found the treasure! We began drama, as usual, with our hello song, colour recognition, and shaking of the parachute. Stage 4 were asked: What do you think will be inside the treasure box? Before packing away the parachute, Stage 4 played a fun game, “The Keeper of the Keys”. The children sat in a circle and one child was asked to leave the room. While they were away, one child in the circle was given a key to hide in their hands. The rest of the children were encouraged to make fists with their hands and pretend to be holding the key. The “finder” then returned to the circle and had 3 guesses to figure out who was the keeper of the keys. Stage 2 4 came on an adventure around the school to find the treasure box which I had pre hidden. When we found the treasure box, we used the key from last week to open the padlock and then repeated after me: Abracadabra! Alakazam! Wibbly Wobbly Woo! Inside the treasure box, the children found golden coins, lollies, fairy wands, and bubbles. We used the magical fairy wand in a game. Whoever was holding the fairy wand had the power to turn the class into whatever they wanted! Some of the suggestions included babies, grandmas, dogs, cats, snakes, lions and bears. The children of Stages 2 4 were then rewarded with a special surprise from the treasure box a chocolate coin or lolly. I am so impressed with everyone’s persistence with the treasure map and wanted to reward everyone for an excellent 5 week exploration!
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