(ACECQA
where the school undertook the Assessment and Rating process against the National Quality Standard.
to
REDDAM ELS LINDFIELD 26thNewsletterAugust2022
you
The National Quality Standard (NQS) sets a high benchmark for early childhood education and includes 7 quality areas that are important outcomes for children. Services are assessed and rated by their regulatory authority (the Department of Education in NSW) against the NQS, and given a rating for each of the 7 quality areas and an overall rating based on these results. Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority) very proud inform that Reddam ELS Lindfield was rated at Exceeding the National Quality Standard. to our dedicated team of educators and support staff who go above and beyond to provide an excellent standard of care and education for our children.
Thecare.NQS
We are so
Congratulations
Principal’s Message Continued... By Chrsitine Irwin Upcoming events: Family Breakfast to celebrate Fathers Day Friday 2nd September 2022 at 8am We look forward to having a member of the family come along to have breakfast with the Achildren.reminder that it is important to be aware of our local community when parking your car on the day of our Family breakfast to celebrate Father’s day. We encourage all families to park in adjoining streets rather than in the Reddam carpark as this causes congestion for other families and adjoining organisations using the building aside the school. Looking forward to seeing all our dads, grandfathers and family representatives on the day. Looking forward to chatting to you soon Christine Irwin 2
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“The sweetness of food doesn’t last long, but the sweetness of good words do.” Thai Proverb Sawadeka, our dear families, This week our adventures in the world around us has led us to Thailand, a country known for its tropical beaches, opulent royal palaces, ancient ruins and ornate temples displaying figures of Buddha. And if I saw you in person I would make a wai by bowing my head and putting my hands together under my chin as a mark of respect. These little gestures and more are some of the interesting things we have been learning about the countries we have been visiting. The children have enjoyed the many sensory delights presented to them based on the wonders of Thailand. Such as a table set up with sea shells, orchids, butterflies, grasshoppers and magnifying glasses which the children used to inspect the tray even more closely. The children expressed an interest in feeling the orchid flowers between their fingers. Another of the sensory delights presented to the children was an elephant sensory tray. Elephants are a large symbol of Thailand and there is a yearly festival to honour Thailand’s elephants. The children had an opportunity to engage their senses and practise their fine motor skills by stretching and pulling the slime while helping the elephants in and out of the slime. In Thailand, boats are widely used for travel, hauling goods, fishing and even a floating market, and therefore we provided the children with an opportunity to explore a water boat sensory play. The children investigated the cause and effect, float and sink while enjoying this experience. After that, we offered the children scoop nets to catch the coloured fish hiding amongst the rocks and boats, using those little senses and Ourskills.artwork
By Heather Gaskall
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for the week celebrated the elephant, the children were encouraged to place grey hand prints on their page to represent the elephant. Then they were given the opportunity to decorate their elephant in their own style. We have some very pretty decorated elephants on our wall. Please keep an eye out for the tapestry post showing our art gallery. As part of our tour of Thailand, we invited the children to observe and taste some popular Thai fruits like dragon fruits and custard apples. The children were fascinated by the look and colours of these fruits and eagerly gathered around the table for this experience. We cut the fruits up in front of the children and they were amazed by the colour and textures on the inside. We then encouraged the children to taste the fruits and found that the children really liked the dragon fruit the most.
Stage 1R
Stage 1R:
True to this wonderful natural exhibition, we incorporated the Autumn experience in school. Improving the children's sense of connection to their world and as well as becoming confident and involved learners we prepared a multitude of experiences that they can explore and investigate. Sensory learning displays were set out such as trays filled up with varying textures and colours of Autumn. Ranging from pines, dried crispy leaves, wooden blocks, fresh apples that the children cannot help but bite, and more that surely held prolonged interest in their imaginations, sensory learning and pro social learning skills during play. This is what we wanted to bring into focus with our children and with our provocation set up, which showed the changing colours of the leaves. The children were able to practise their colour recognition and identification skills as we played with the leaves on display. Additionally, these activities allowed them to explore their basic counting skills when the teacher encouraged them to verbally and non verbally count the autumn leaves, raw apples and pine cones during learning group times. Significantly, we have observed such beautiful interactions and as well as turn taking skills with our children whilst participating in the learning experiences.
Charity, Resie, May,Rowel, Mary and Yash
“Autumn, the season that teaches us that change is beautiful. ” Anonymous Autumn one of Earth’s four seasons. It has its own delightful experience as we can see the beautiful colours on the tree leaves like vivid yellow, rich reddish brown and plants beautifully coloured and splattered around everywhere. It is the season where many people make their travel plans as it is one of the most pleasant seasons of the year along with exhibiting the most beautiful aspects of nature.
Stage 1E
A cognitive and fine motor skill activity challenged our children to balance fresh apples on hygienic craft rolls. Grasping the apples strengthens the children's hands for pencil grip when they are ready to write. Also this allowed them to practice their impulse control as they steady the rolls to keep the apple on top of each roll. Holding one's hand steady is a great way to build muscles and arm strength. Seeing their happy faces every time they balanced an apple was so rewarding for both the children and the educators as they surely felt a sense of accomplishment in completing such a task. Our weekly art that is inspired by our this week themed Autumn, children making a leaf stump art that is made by stumping paint coated leaves on a paper repeatedly until achieved the desired amount of paint on the paper. This activity stimulates and supports child creativity, social, fine and gross motor skills. This term’s aim is to let the children connect with the world they live in and we hope to continue to give them a sense of awareness of themselves including an understanding of all the changes which occur in their surroundings.
Thank you all for taking the time to read and enjoy this week’s school’s experiences both in the classroom and online learning!
By Charity Acera 6
7 Stage 1E:
It can be challenging to explain subjects children can only use their imaginations to understand. While they are toddlers, they learn about the world around them and take in as much knowledge as they can each day. We, as adults, should take the time to slowly teach them about the topics that interest them, such as the stars, planets, Sun, and moon, in simple terminology, so we can enlighten their thoughts and teach them about the entire universe that surrounds them. We hope that you're all going to have a delightful weekend!
2R enjoyed a variety of engaging space themed learning experiences throughout the week to create space themed mini worlds. They enjoyed manipulating the galaxy playdough and water beads, discovering the moon dough, manipulating moon dust trays, creating constellations using sand and gems, discovering galaxy black beans trays, making stretchy universe slime, and learning and observing that our universe is stretching out in all directions just like slime. Along with all these learning experiences, we had different sizes of planet looking marbles, gems, mini astronauts, spaceships, rockets, and so many more spacey loose parts. The children added imagination, storytelling, oral language, cooperation, sharing, turn taking, counting, and sorting to all these sensory experiences. Art of the week involved our little ones creating their unique planets using paint in different colours. They made up a lot of stories regarding the expedition and moon landings. Additionally, 2R improved their fine motor abilities, creativity skills through narrative and imaginative play, and maths skills through counting and sorting objects due to all these learning experiences. Children develop critical problem solving strategies as they manipulate objects and explore through their senses. Guessing, experimenting, testing assumptions, and drawing conclusions are all foundations of the scientific method.
Stage 2R
By Sara Haddadi
8
2R Team
Learning about the Solar System at a young age can inspire astronomy as a passion, ignite imagination and encourage a long term fascination with outer space. Children's natural curiosity will spark eager research and discovery about our universe and their understanding of the world they live in is widened by space exploration and astronauts. This week, our little astronauts discovered outer space and learned that next to our planet Earth, there are seven other planets in the solar system and many dwarf planets, moons, and of course, the Sun. Our solar system is located in the Milky Way galaxy and there are so many galaxies in the universe.
"We are part of this universe; we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us." Neil deGrasse Tyson
9 Stage 2R:
10 Stage 2R:
To celebrate Science Week, we invited the children to an all time favourite bubble experiment, bi cap soda and vinegar. The children made a fizzy Earth by adding blue and green vinegar colours into the bi cap soda contained in circle containers. The children found it satisfying to observe the chemical reactions immediately after their actions.
“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” Native American Proverb
On the provocation table, the children were invited to look at Earth from the space distance. Our planet Earth is recognised by the colour blue and green which representing for ocean and land. 2E environmentalists were challenged to classify animals into two different group: on land or in water. We used slime to enhance the children’s sensory skills in play as well as knowledge about visual representation by the two different colours. Our clever friends quickly group the animals together and place them on the right colour slime. A little bit tricky that some animals can live both on land and in water.
Let’s make every day Earth day. Mia, Xanthe, Chloe, Shandie, Jing and Alisha
This week’s focus is ‘When I Grow Up, I Can Be… Environmentalists and/or Biologists Green thinkers’. We are privileged to be surrounded by green landscape and fresh air here in Reddam. The children likely build positive attachment and respectful relationships with the nonhuman world through experiences with significant adults who share interests in nature with them. The natural outdoor play contributes to 2E children’s positive attachment with the natural environment that the children are aware of the impact of human activity on the natural environment. They would stop a friend from playing with tap water by saying “wasting water”.
Stage 2E By Mia Doan 11
To appreciate our Mother Earth which is now the only liveliest planet, we enjoyed reading ‘Thank You, Earth: A Love Letter to Our Planet’ by author and photographer April Sayre. This book engaged us in a stunning exploration of the beauty and complexity of the world around us by using remarkable photographs. Through this book, we learnt that there is no gravity, air, nutritious soil and water to nurture the lives of living things in space. For now, Earth is our one and only planet. Miss Mia also discussed about recycling that turning waste materials into brand new products to help protecting our environment.
Recycle, Reduce and Reuse the 3R sustainable ways of living were incorporated in the Earth rice sensory trays. The trays were filled with plastic bubbles, water bottles and bottle caps which were repurposed into play. 2E children were invited to play bowling with empty water bottles. After each turn, we counted how many bottles that have been knocked off.
12 Stage 2E:
13 Stage 2E:
Our final group saw children watching and participating in cooking veggie sausages. This experience allowed the children to learn about fire/heat safety as they identified when the press was hot and how we could keep safe. The children came up with strategies to keep everyone safe such as sitting back, hands off the table and looking to see when the heat light was on.
Michael: “Pasta and rice.”
Sarah: “ Pasta and tomato and pizza. In the morning I eat a bread!”
engage in Book
Luka:
“Stirring, measuring, rolling, squeezing and spreading are just a few of the kitchen tasks that allow young children to develop their fine motor and hand-eye coordination skills.” (Whiteford, 2017)
Aiden Lam: “Pasta, rice and pizza”
week
Harvey: “I make pasta and rice and pizza. I like garlic bread.” Chloe: “Rice.”
Edmund: “Last week I was making meatballs.”
Hugo: “Garlic bread, pasta” Lindsay: “Fish”
Following the children’s interests we decided to continue with ‘Camping, BBQ’s and Picnic’s’ as we revisit some of the experiences from the start of term. By offering familiar experiences children are able to master their skills and consolidate their understanding and knowledge regarding new concepts and skills. The children’s love for cooking has become apparent as they continue to use the dramatic home corner to cook for each other as well as incorporating in their dramatic play outdoors using the picnic equipment to further develop their ideas surrounding cooking and sharing with others. Through this terms’ provocation we have seen the children’s ability to read each other's behaviour socially increase as they listen and take on ideas from others whilst playing to enrich the play episode.
Stage 3R By Grace Nolan 14
Harry: “Ice cream, help cooking for taco night” Brian: “Ice cream”
During our Morning Meetings we discussed with the children different aspects surrounding cooking in their What do they eat? How do they help at home? Here are some responses about what they cook at home with their parents:
The children and educators then used the upper grass to create a ‘camping sausage sizzle’ with a tent and camp chairs for children to role play!
Next we Week!
During the week we provided experiences that allow children to develop their sense of agency whilst also giving the opportunity to extend upon their fine motor skills. One group were given butter knives, chopping boards, bamboo skewers and an assortment of fruit to chop and thread onto the skewers. During the experience, the children and educator discussed all the fruits they enjoyed, how to safely use the knives and how we were going to share our food with the class, creating a sense of community amongst 3R.
Ellie:Valerie:Avery:“Broccoli.”“Pasta.”“Rice,carrots.”“Pastaandanegg.”Myra:“Pasta.”
Miss Grace, Miss Carina and Mr Callum.
Sebastian: “Radish, cook in soup with sausage”
Another group made watermelon lemonade by demonstrating how to cut watermelon, which the children enjoyed thoroughly. Then they rolled and squeezed lemons and measured out water and lemonade to add to the pitcher. The children were exposed to environmental numeracy and were also explicitly shown how to measure quantities of liquid and solids.
Kai: “Carrots and pizza”
Amelia: “Carrots and noodles and it makes rainbows in the puddles”
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16 Stage 3R:
Welcome to our Week 4, we are revisiting about how we can be kind to each other and how we identify how we have similarities and differences such as hair colour and eyes etc. To incorporate emotions the children were offered to investigate with loose parts and yellow playdough to demonstrate emotions that they have been familiar with.
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We
We hope you have a lovely weekend
• • • • • • Next
Stage 3E
By Natalie Horstman
During our morning meeting we revisited our group discussion about ‘What are feelings and emotions’. We read a book called ‘In my Heart’. The children were able to identify how their hearts felt, such as loved, happy and sad. The children are able to recognise emotions on other faces and differentiate between them all. have been doing a lot of brainstorming: week we will be focusing on how we can show kindness and gratitude towards other cultures.
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 Dream Time Stories. As a simple recipe to make bread, together we made ‘Damper’. As a group we mixed all the ingredients together and we enjoyed it after it was baked in the oven. It tasted delicious with strawberries, salty and sweet, a very nice combination. Our creative experience the children explored the tea tree flower and squeezed the juices out of the flower to create beautiful scented masterpieces. We have also been continuing on with Indigenous Symbols with red and yellow to showcase the colours.
Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well’ Voltaire
Stage 3E:
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Enjoy your weekend!
Stage 4R
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Rebecca, Jenny and Malron
During our learning sessions the children engaged with many ocean themed experiences. Bamboo toothbrushes were provided to clean seals and penguins that had been exposed to oil spills, turtle habitats were constructed out of sand, stones and shells, and play dough was used to shape and mould into marine environments. Sea shells were also available, as well as our recycling station where rubbish was sorted into each coloured bin to avoid it ending up in the sea. At the art station, the children were invited to illustrate their own sea turtles with markers and pastels, and experimented with a paint scraping technique to create a collage of jellyfish.
Next week we will continue to explore our oceans, learning about the animals that inhabit the North and South Poles. We will also investigate the effects that global warming and climate change have on our polar caps.
“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” Robert Swan)
This week the teachers were incredibly proud of how the children demonstrated such enthusiasm for caring about our planet. By incorporating sustainable practices into the children’s early years education, it allows them to make conscious decisions, show concern for our environments, and sparks their motivation to action sustainable projects both in the classroom and at home. The children ARE our future and our best advocates for preserving our planet for years to come.
By Rebecca Kim
Our provocation continued with the children’s interest in marine life, investigating how to protect sea creatures and keep their habitats clean. Whenever our class discusses the harmful effects plastic has on our planet, the children always remember that sea turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and ingest them. We explored this problem in detail and discovered that when turtles swallow plastic bags they experience ‘Floating Syndrome’, preventing them from diving underwater, which leads to breathing problems, starvation and even death. We also learnt that plastic straws are a huge contributor to our ocean pollution and can get lodged in turtles’ nostrils. Most plastics aren’t biodegradable, will break down into harmful microplastics, and be eaten by sea creatures. However, there are many ways we can reduce, reuse and recycle the plastic in our lives, as we learnt from the story book A Planet Full of Plastic by Neal Layton.
To further investigate how we can prevent such tragedies occurring, we read a helpful information book called I Can Save the Ocean by Alison Inches. We learnt that many types of plastics, chemicals and motor oil end up in our oceans, usually via our drains. Our next story was called Meet the Oceans by Caryl Hart, which helped us locate and identify each ocean around the world. We sadly discovered that there is a floating garbage patch in nearly every major ocean. We also learnt that the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, is at risk of coral bleaching as a result of global warming. When the water temperature rises the coral begins to lose its colour and eventually dies. This threatens the natural ecosystem where many creatures depend on coral and plants for food.
21 Stage 4R:
22 Stage 4R:
Thank you for an artistic week in our classroom together. Next week we will explore two dimensional shapes and three dimensional prisms, as an extension of the shapes we created in our artwork this week.
Stage 4E By Lauren Hall
Lauren, Priya, Faranaaz and Marlon
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once they grow up.” Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso's cubism style inspired the children to create their own portraits. They traced a circle and then divided it into a series of triangles and squares. They then filled in each shape with coloured pastels and applied water colours over the top to give their picture more vibrance. The children then drew the facial features they wanted to include on their faces to create their own unique and abstract portrait. To conclude our provocation, we read about a biography about Mexican born artist Frida Kahlo. We loved Frida's positive attitude towards life and her motto, "Viva La Vida," which means "Love Life!" Frida's self portraits incorporated animals and nature into the backgrounds. Using their own photos, the children decorated them with water colours and bright paper shapes. Some gave themselves flower crowns and earrings, and surrounded themselves in a plethora of colours.
To foster the children's interest in colours and creating their artworks last week, we explored a variety of famous artists and their individual styles. We started with French impressionist Claude Monet. Our story, The Magical Garden of Claude Monet by Laurence Anholt, featured the beautiful country gardens in Giverny, where Monet lived. We saw the seedlings in the greenhouse, Monet’s flowers, and the lily pad ponds underneath the Japanese bridge. Each illustration incorporated parts of Monet's most famous artworks too.
Vincent Van Gogh was our next artist in focus. Our story Katie and the Sunflowers by James Mayhew, saw a young girl called Katie, visit the art gallery where she stepped into Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' to collect some seeds for her garden. We then looked at another famous painting by Van Gogh called 'The Starry Night.' We studied the brushstrokes and lines of the painting and noticed that he created the same coarse texture for many of his works. The children commented about the night sky in the painting as the lines swirled around like waves in the ocean. The children were then invited to create their own interpretation of 'The Starry Night' at our art table, using thick paint and using tools to create the same textural lines as Van Gogh. Henri Matisse painted and sculpted for most of his life, before he turned to paper art after falling ill and being confined to a wheelchair. He created enormous and breathtaking paper cut outs. Some of the shapes reminded the children of leaves, coral, plants, we saw a bird shape, and stars too. To extend the storybook, the children were invited to the art table to create their own Matisse inspired picture. Pre cut paper shapes were provided and colourful paper for the children to cut out their own shapes as well. The children experimented with how to layer their coloured paper shapes, where to position them and create their unique masterpiece. It was encouraging to see the children demonstrating a lot of confidence with their scissor manipulation skills and thinking of intricate shapes to include in their pictures.
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Stage 4E: 25
Stage 4E: 26
Playball By Coach Lauren 27
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.
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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!
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.
By Xanthe Wills
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Mandarin
Children loved this week's topic very much. Everyone wanted to be a little model wearing an organ teaching aid vest. They also actively shared the body organs they felt during the activity. Many children also share their own life experiences. For example, if they want to go to the toilet, they must go to the toilet immediately, otherwise they will have a stomachache; when they are held by their mother, they can hear their mother's heartbeat; when their father sleeps, they can see their father's big belly up and down. Every child is a fantastic observer, through their eyes, they can always find different surprises and joys of our life.
By Chloe Lin Hello families, In Mandarin class of this week, I shared the new song "Dance of Tai Chi" with the children. Tai Chi is an ancient Chinese type of exercise program. Practicing Tai Chi can also exercise children's bodies and promote their healthy growth. Children are in the golden stage of growing their bodies. Practicing Tai Chi can promote the growth of bones and improve all aspects of the body development. At the same time, Tai Chi is also a mindfulness training activity. Children can concentrate their body movements and be aware of their breathing and feelings. When I asked the children if they liked the new song, they responded, "It's a beautiful song, so I like it." Short Tai Chi exercises on the beginning of class can effectively calm down their body and find the peace of mind.
The topic of this week is about how to say the organs names of our body in Mandarin. In each class, by sharing about the operation of the digestive system and the urinary system, I let the children know how the food they eat and the water they drink make the body absorb and digest. metabolism. At the same time, let them know the magic of the human body, such as feeling the ups and downs of the lungs by taking a deep breath, feeling the beating of the heart after running fast, feeling the empty stomach when you are hungry, feeling the tummy when you want to go to the toilet sense.
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