Reddam Early Learning School Newsletter Vol 22 Issue 29

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL

LINDFIELD NEWSLETTER

In stage 1R this term the children were involved in many experiences reflecting earth and cultures. It was wonderful to see the variety of resources used with our youngest whilst they explored this topic.

In 1E the children were involved with the seasons and snowflakes adorned the classroom. This topic morphed into sustainability by the end of term and the children are busily sorting resources into the recycling bins. Sustainability will continue as an interest throughout our VCP and into the new Stageterm.2has

been a hype of activity over the past 9 weeks as the children delved into occupations across both 2R and 2E. It was lovely to see the children looking at roles that are held by people in our community such as construction workers to palaeontologists. Moving into term 4, 2R are extending their interests about different cultures in the community and there is still a strong interest in animals. The children in 2E have started to discuss their emotions and feelings so the team is looking to explore this area further in term 4.

All of stage 3 continue to learn Auslan throughout the term in their group times. It is so lovely to see the children learning another way to communicate and help their friends understand. Our stage 3R children were very busy in the world of make believe. Camping, cooking, dress ups, home corner restaurants and sand pit bakeries are some of the experiences that the children enjoyed. Imaginative play will continue into Term 4 as an interest in Dinosaur emerges. In 3E the children have been exploring emotions and feelings. This sparked many conversations of big feelings that 3 year olds often have and what we can do with these feelings and how to find experiences to find calm. Term 4 sees the interest of children moving into the alphabet and writing their names. Our drawing Learning centre will continue to be a big player throughout this Theinterest.4Rclass

started their Term 3 by researching planet earth and how our planet was formed. We saw some lovely artwork including watercolours used to make our planet in the colours seen in provocations provided of planet earth on our visual arts tables. The children have recently moved their interest to the rainforest of South Africa. Please drop by their classroom to see the display of beautiful paintings the children completed of the Savanna using the colours of oranges and yellow and black.

Principal’s Message Continued...

By Chrsitine Irwin

This interest will continue into Term 4 as Australian animals were introduced to the discussion including aboriginal drawings that represent the animals in dreamtime books and stories. The solar system bought in the beginning of term 3 for 4E where planets and aliens decorated the room and a brilliant galaxy painted by the group was displayed. The class has recently moved onto researching machines and inventions and the children have enjoyed observing how different machines work and have made some delicious juices and smoothies.

I look forward to Term 4 and the interests that are emerging. We will also begin or orientation our children to the next step for 2023 whether it be the next stage at Reddam ELS Lindfield or off to primary school.

Vacation Care Program

Week 1 VCP 26th Sep 30th Sep Our local community Week 2 VCP 3rd Oct 7th October Spring has sprung We have booked in some special visitors during our vacation care program. Please refer to our programVCP for more information

Class photos

We will be taking group photos this year in October. The photos will be taken by our team and added to your child’s portfolio which will be given to you at the end of the year. We ask that stage 3 and 4 children wear their school multiform on the class photo days. Class photos dates are as follows:

Tuesday 25th October 2022

Wednesday 26th October 2022

Thursday 27th October 2022

2023 Enrolments

We are now looking at enrolments for 2023 , an email will be sent to all current families within the next week in regard to confirming positions for next year.

Looking forward to chatting with you soon.

Christine Irwin Principal

By Heather Gaskall

Hello our dear families,

This week as part of our investigation of the seasons, our little ones have been learning about Autumn. Autumn is a very colourful time of year when trees turn amazing colours. It is also a time of year to prepare for winter whether you are human or animal. In some parts of the world it signals that the daylight will cease all together, hence the need to prepare. Discovering different seasons is a fantastic way to have the children connect to our natural world and recognise the differences and changes among the seasons.

The children have enjoyed a vast range of sensory experiences during the week, we have explored and taken a relaxing stroll through the Autumn leaves. The children loved stomping on the leaves and listening to the crunchy sounds they made with their friends. We even gave the children an autumn shower of leaves falling over their heads which brought on a series of giggles from them all. Autumn is such a pretty time of year which fills many of the senses with wonder. They children were welcomed to the room many times with various sensory trays such as the one filled with amber coloured salt and autumn elements including synthetic autumn foliage, pine cones and crimson leaves. We all love walking around on the crunchy leaves while walking our doggie friends so of course we presented this in a sensory tray to demonstrate this. Another tray contained some dogs, with rich red coloured rice and leaves. The children played imaginative games with the dogs and could be heard saying ‘woof woof’ as they interacted with their friends. In our sensory trays we always attempt to provide the children with many learning experiences, like paint brushes. These help them to practise their creativity and fine motor skills. Or scoops and jars which again is their fine motor skills but also grip and hand muscles along with eye hand

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activities with the children during the week was to make a sun catcher using autumn leaves and contact paper. The children were invited and took turns at selecting leaves before sticking it onto a sticky clear covering on the window. Once everyone had a turn, we placed another sheet over the top making a pretty leaf sun catcher for our window.

However, I think the experience that brought on the most fun and giggles this week was when we talked about how it became cooler in the Autumn months and how we dressed for that. The children were provided with a large array of cosy warm scarves, gloves and hats to try on. Even a pair of ear muffs, goodness that was cuteness overload.

We are all looking forward to Term 4 where we are going to look at many aspects of animals, from the largest to the smallest. We will learn about animals with jobs, the scariest, mythical animals, flying animals, extinct animals and many many more.

‘Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.’ Albert Camus

Wishing all our families a wonderful weekend!

By Charity Acera

“If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it. Perhaps this is what Thoreau had in mind when he said, “the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think the same is true of human beings.” David Sobel

All education and care services are required under the National Quality Standards to educate and support children to embrace sustainable practises. Quality Area 3 includes an element (3.2.3) to ensure services ‘care for the environment and support children to become environmentally responsible’ (Guide to the National Quality Framework, 2018).

At Reddam we have taken this approach into our programs, specifically this term’s provocation theme about ‘Earth and The Four Seasons’. The powerful quote mentioned above is such an eye opener to all adults on how we want our young generation to value and respect the world they live in and become stewards for future generations. Through early education, we are exploring current environmental issues and most importantly embedding in them love for Mother Earth’s grandeur. 1E continued to promote and practice responsible recycling and as well as an appreciation of the Earth's vast resources. Teaching children from a young age would create a positive habit for them that they can practice in their lifetime most especially at taking roles in respecting their environment and appreciating its natural wonders and beauty.

Last week, we introduced the ‘Polar Regions’ to our eager learners. It has been known that these regions are crucial for our survival as they have been found to react acutely to fluctuations in climate and temperature. The children not only enjoyed playing with polar animal figurines but at the same time extended their fun learning by appreciating the magnificence of these important parts of our Earth through varying sensory, gross motor, and creative experiences. We placed some ice around the trays and blue salt as pretend snow in icy water. The children were observed positioning the polar animals in different places and making up interesting associations with them. A small world tuff tray of the Polar regions was also one of the children’s best when we included polar animals such as penguins, walruses, polar bears, sea lions, and more for them to increase their imaginative play and enjoy the world of these extreme environments.

Additionally, positive role modelling of sustainable practises such as selective waste recycling, conserving energies such as turning lights and water when not in use and using sustainable tools and materials in learning activities are just a few of the actions we have taken on board alongside our little learners and 1E community. On this note, we wanted to extend our appreciation to everyone who participated in these activities and sustainable initiatives. Your positive response creates a domino effect on our young learners and at the same time builds in them great love for the world they live in.

What a marvellous term of learning and giving importance to our natural world. May we all take time to appreciate and say THANK YOU, EARTH every day of our lives may it be with our children or personally. :)

A reminder that our Vacation Care Program will commence next week and focus on the themes: Our Community and Spring has Sprung. Surely another two weeks of fun and learning!

May you all have a wonderful weekend and happy holidays ahead!

Charity,Love,

May, Resie, Mary, Yash and Rowel

By Sara Haddadi

In Week 8, inspired by our previous engineering week, we delved more into engineering and focused on construction sites, civil engineers and construction workers. Construction play is proven to make a difference in the way children think and complete tasks. Simple things such as counting blocks, measuring weight and moving objects all contribute to making a child think outside the box. We discussed the importance of construction work and how people at the construction site have to work together as a team to succeed.

A variety of construction sites' sensory experiences and small worlds provided 2R with a rich learning environment, where they explored and investigated their play materials and used scientific methods of observing, forming hypotheses, experimenting and making conclusions. It involved them engaging their creativity in role playing with their peers which resulted in developing their communication and language skills, allowing them to act out and make sense of real life situations and more importantly, developing their social skills as they were collaborating with others. They had the greatest time moving and bulldozing different materials around the bins and making their workers work hard. They rolled the trucks through the sand or rocks, filled the dump trucks, and made lots of noises while driving the loud equipment while pretending to run their job site!

With the pom pom colour construction site, children practised their colour recognition and developed their fine motor skills, as they used construction vehicles and tweezers to dump the coloured pom poms into the corresponding bowls.

Art of the week offered children to paint using construction vehicles. The car tyres made interesting patterns in the paint and the children experimented with different cars to observe their unique patterns. Process art has no predetermined or predefined outcome for the art project, the children have the opportunity to just let the art happen and be what it will.

Our Reggio Emilia approach always engages children to see the world through their own eyes while they are involved in the play, it constantly stimulates a child's brain, hence, aiding their education. By allowing children freedom in construction play, we help them think independently and make decisions based on what they are learning. This is great for us as teachers and it will then transpire into other areas of education and make the child a well rounded learner as they grow older.

To those families who are travelling, we wish you a safe and happy school holiday. Term 4 commences on Monday 10th of October and over the following two weeks, the children will be offered engaging VCP learning experiences. Thank you to all our teachers, families, and the 2R children for a very busy and successful Term 3!

2R Team

"

A world which sees art and engineering as divided is not seeing the world as a whole.” Professor Sir Edmund Happold

By Mia Doan

Science is not just about learning facts and conducting neat experiments. It is a way of thinking and developing skills so that we can understand the world. Throughout Week 8, our little scientists engaged in observation and investigation from multiple science experiments. The science experiments aimed to develop the science inquiry skills of observing, predicting, checking, questioning and discussing. From here, they gained a deep understanding of what scientists do.

Dripping primary coloured slime aesthetically pleased our friends' eyes. They pulled, kneaded, squeezed and left it on the tray and waited for it to drip down. This activity reinforced our children’s understanding of gravity on Earth. To strengthen our friends’ fine motor skills and eye hand coordination, we used scissors to cut the slime. This builds up the tiny muscles in their palm and hand since they have to continuously open and close the hand. Mixing banking soda and vinegar was the most famous activity of the week. When the vinegar (an acid) is mixed with the baking soda, there is a spectacular chemical reaction that is easily observable. The reaction releases a fizzy gas called carbon dioxide that helped the children to understand cause and effect.

We integrated our interests by roaming back to ancient times and exploring the extinction species Dinosaurs. Most of our children are fascinated by different types of dinosaurs, but they might not know that studying dinosaurs is a career option. We call the dino expert, Palaeontologists. Another STEM based learning experience that attracted our children’s interest was the volcano eruption. We filled a jar with red food coloring, soap liquid, and a few spoonfuls of baking soda. The children took turns squeezing the vinegar into the jar or scooping and transferring the baking soda into the jar. Waiting for the movement of the eruption, their faces filled with surprise. This play activity enhances children’s understanding of cause and effect concepts, hand eye coordination, observation skills, and fine motor skills.

Miss Mia read the story When I Grow Up by Andrew Daddo. This story is about how every child has fantasies and imagination for their careers when they grow up. Some people want to be hairdressers and design hairstyles for others. Some people want to be astronauts and rockets to explore the vastness of the universe. Some people want to be art performers on stage, someone wants to be a teacher and tell stories to children. The children were asked what do they want to be when they grow up. They all had their own ideas:

Jasper ‘Policeman’ Winston, Clara and Grace “Doctor’ Lucas W. and Alyssa ’Firefighter’ Victoria and Johnathan ‘Teacher’ Laura ‘Bunny researcher’ Felicity ”Scientist’ Hamish ‘I want to be a scientist’ Josh ‘Bulldozer driver’

Aaron Ye, Lucas D, Noah, Aaron Z and Andrew ‘Excavator drivers’

We had a fantastic Term 3 exploring different career paths which were led by the children’s interests and play ideas. Let’s see where the learning journey will take us in Term 4.

Have a wonderful Spring holiday! From Mia, Shandie, Chloe, Xanthe, Jing, Ling, and Alisha

“The scientist is not a person who gives the right answer; he/she is one who asks the right questions.”

Claude Levi Strauss

By Grace Nolan

Different ways of storytelling allow children to be curious, wonder and explore different forms and mediums of storytelling. This week we use Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander symbols for children to create their own stories and become involved in oral storytelling. With wooden symbols, the children are able to sequence symbols to create a story, or use the sand to draw their own symbols and create meaning from them.

Our art this week is open ended with collage and drawing materials provided to the children to stick, colour and purposefully arrange on cardboard to create their own puppets. The children’s materials included yarn, coloured paper, ribbon, washi paper, eyes, glitter, paint and crayons. Once they made their puppets, we added paddle pop sticks for the children to be able to use in their own storytelling. The children could be seen proudly sharing their puppets with others and using them in their dramatic play or simply when reading a book.

Our table experiences continued to provide opportunities for the children to extend their literacy skills with alphabet puzzles, line tracing and story stones. Our numeracy experiences encourage children to organise and sort based on different characteristics such as shape, colour and/or amount. These experiences embedded indigenous perspectives as they include the Emu in the Sky constellations, symbols and books that provide an environmental holistic approach to embedding First Nations cultures within a classroom setting.

Our small groups saw collaborative work as the children made their puppet stage, painting, cutting and gluing collage materials to transfer a cardboard box into a stage fit for a puppet! In our small groups, we also worked on storytelling through movement and books. Using familiar books, the children were able to act out the different parts and retell the story in their own words.

Wrapping up for the term we provided the children with experiences provided throughout the term that the children enjoyed the most. Extending upon the children's interest in dramatic play, the addition of dress ups in the home corner proved to enhance the children’s imagination, games, storytelling and social skills. Dress ups also encourage self help skills as they dress themselves and assist others.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend from the 3R Team

“Children are not things to be molded, but are people to be unfolded.” Jess Lair

By Natalie Horstman

Welcome to Week 8. This week we are continuing to explore more about the Japanese culture which the children have been thoroughly enjoying. The children have shown lots of interest and enthusiasm towards the different sensory trays where they have been able to manipulate various objects and gain inspiration from different photos. This has involved carefully observing different elements found at Mount Fuji, cherry blossoms and engaging with pretend sushi. This has allowed the children to engage in meaningful conversations with each other and to discuss what ingredients go into making sushi. The children have become confident counting in Japanese, while continuing to show interest in other languages, Ichi Ni San Shi Go Roku Nana 8-

The children have become more involved in pretend play where they can share, turn take while exploring different roles. The children used their home corner as if it were a cafe, this allowed the children to think about who was serving the food, who the waiter was and who was in the kitchen preparing all the delicious treats. Each child actively involved themselves in this process and were able to either initiate

Kachou Fuugetsu

“Flower, Bird, Wind, Moon.”

‘Experience the beauties of nature, and in doing so learn about yourself’ Japanese Proverb

By Rebecca Kim

To conclude our term’s provocation ‘Being Exploring Our Earth,’ the children investigated a variety of rainforests around the world, categorising the animals that inhabit the four distinct rainforest layers the forest floor, the understory, the canopy and the emergent layer.

We ventured to the Africa where we learnt about the lemurs that inhabit the island of Madagascar, and the gorillas that live in the forests of central and western Africa. We also investigated the dry savannah learning that it’s extremely dry and home to many safari animals including elephants, giraffes, hippos, rhinos, baboons, meerkats, zebras, cheetahs and hyenas. The story The Ugly Five by Julia Donaldson, also highlighted some of the more unsightly animals we might find including the wildebeest, warthog, marabou stork, vulture and hyena. The children were then invited to paint their own interpretations of the savannah, using paint scrapers to move yellow and orange paint across their paper, before painting black silhouettes of trees and the animals they wished to include. The paintings looked very effective!

Our last week of Term 3, our class explored native fauna (animals) of Australia and Aboriginal Dreamtime stories. The word ‘native’ means that these animals only grow and live in Australia and are not found anywhere else in the world. Miss Rebecca then challenged the children’s knowledge of Aussie animals, including some less familiar ones the quoll and wedge tailed eagle, and then some favourites kangaroo, koala, wombat, dingo, kookaburra and echidna.

To promote various Australian environments, the children explored the Great Barrier Reef, remembering that we need to keep our oceans clean and rubbish free for the sea animals. Pink and pupple playdough was provided for the children to create their own Australia birds with colourful feathers and stones. Green sand filled our exploration trays for the children to role play with Australian animals and manipulate the natural items to create habitats. Over at our next table, the children took turns to put together with wooden bird puzzles.

Term 3 has been filled with so many rich learning moments and discussions which have inspired our provocation each week. The children are well and truly settled into the classroom and we look forward to what Term 3 has in store. Our Vacation Care Program commences again during the school holidays and we wish our families a safe and relaxing time if you’re taking a family trip.

Rebecca, Jenny and Ling

“Look after the land and the land will look after you. Destroy the land and it will destroy you” Aboriginal Proverb

Jamie Oliver

During Term 3, the inquisitive children in 4E have engaged with various S.T.E.A.M. concepts each week. We’ve explored colour mixing, 2D and 3D shapes, construction, famous artists, and The Solar System. Each provocation invited the children to ask questions, hypothesise, express their creativity, and use their analytical thinking skills as they broaden their knowledge, understanding, and their increasing interest in the sciences.

To conclude our term’s provocation, the children were invited to engage with a different cooking experience each day and learn how to use various kitchen appliances. When children engage with cooking and food preparation, it teaches them about looking after themselves and others, good nutrition, manipulating utensils safely, and working with others to produce a final product. There are also many opportunities for numeracy and literacy learning such as understanding measurements, quantities, and how to follow a recipe. We started with a popcorn machine and waited in anticipation for the corn kernels to explode before enjoying our healthy snack. We read Handa's Surprise by Eileen Browne, about a young African girl who carries a basket of fruit to her friend’s house in the next village. After identifying each fruit in the story the children were invited to use Miss Lauren’s cold press juicer to create their own juice concoctions. There was apple, pineapple, oranges, watermelon, and strawberries to choose from, and the children loved watching how the juicer separated the juice from the pulp.

Continuing on with our food technology, we read My Spaghetti ABC by Deborah Niland, before attempting to make our own fresh pasta dough. The children loved the novelty of using the manual pasta machine as they turned the handle and watched their dough become flatter and longer. The most magical part was when the dough was put through the fettuccine cutter to turn it into ribbons. After drying the pasta out, the children took their portion home for dinner to enjoy with their favourite topping. We also made frozen fruit smoothies in a giant blender and experimented with various flavour combinations. Mango and strawberry was voted as the class's favourite. We ended the week by learning how to use a stand mixer to make a fresh batch of scones, complete with jam and cream.

What a fun week of cooking we had! We learnt so much about different ingredients, where certain foods come from, how they are grown and produced. It was very encouraging to see the children so enthusiastic about participating in each cooking experience this week, and we hope they continue to be inspired in the kitchen at home.

Thank you for a wonderful term of learning together in our classroom!

“We need to make sure that all kids are given the opportunity to learn about food and good eating habits while they are still young, so that they are sorted for life.”

Mandarin By Chloe Lin

Dear Families,

I am very happy that it is time for Mandarin class every Friday. I'm excited and able to communicate with the children of Stage 2, Stage 3 and Stage 4. Every time I go to a room, their lovely hugs make me feel warm and sweet.

In Stage 2R, I shared with them the story of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", and the children loved the food and caterpillar resources I prepared. In this story, we learned how to express numbers, fruits, day and night in Mandarin. Children also express their preferences about the food the caterpillars have eaten. In addition to language learning, it is also an opportunity to increase their cognitive

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is "What do you want to be when you grow up?" We learnt the following conversation through a song:

“What do you want to be when you grow up? “ (Nǐ xiǎng yào dāng shénme?）

“I want to be a … “ (Wǒ xiǎng dāng…）

I show them all kinds of different professions by flash cards: dancer, doctor, influencer, architect, farmer, teacher, driver, engineer and astronaut. The children took turns taking the stage to share their thoughts and preferences.

Through the sharing of children, we can also know what they are interested in ; many children will also want to pursue the same career as their parents. I also share with the children that being a farmer is also a job I am very interested in, because I can watch the plants grow from seeds to fruit trees and then to fruit. Just like watching the children progress and grow day by day, it is a meaningful participation. And the farmer is really important to us! There is no good fruit and vegetables without being a farmer, so this is a career I am very interested in.

Looking forward to sharing more different careers with them next week! Chloe

By Andy

And so, I returned this week to Reddam after my touring hiatus. It was so wonderful to be graced by such a warm welcome upon my return with very eager students, asking me many questions about what I was up to, and what I had planned for them this week.

It was fascinating to see, after so many weeks away, how much the kids had remembered about our usual Alphabet warm up. From each class a handful of students were able to anticipate what the next sound, word or action we would exercise. The anticipated exercises in particular were met with thrill with Stage 4, as we formed rhotic like placements to say, “Kansas. Kentucky. Chicken!” My favourite of the day is hearing the collective group saying ‘tea time’ as we practice our soft and hard ’T’s’ coming into different vowels, and hearing each class say “ziggity Inzag”.each class this week, I taught ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’, which was familiar to a few of the students. The students, as they always do, requested that we sing it really fast, and then that we sing it really slow. Associating actions to the lyrics helped the kids remember what was coming next, as we moved through motions of swaying trees and alert then sleepy lions.

After our song for the week we played with rhythm. On beats one and two, we would lightly slap our hands on the floor, or our laps, and then on beats three and four, we would clap. Some students fell into patterns of interchanging lap, clap, lap, clap, opposed to lap, lap, clap, clap, but after some time repeating this exercise some students fell into the correct pattern, some from looking around them to see what others were doing, some hearing that their claps were louder over the lap/floor sound. One of the Stage 3 groups in particular was very good at stopping clapping all at the same time, and clapping exactly one beats one, two, three and four.

I was pleasantly surprised to meet a lot of new faces in Stage 1 this week, and allowed them to discover sounds with a box filled with instruments. Some students lean towards more rhythmic instruments, like a drum or a shaker, and others, like Lily for example, has no interest in the strictly rhythmic instruments, and found tonal/melodic/harmonic instruments, like the xylophone

Nextfascinating.weekI will be bringing in the melodica once again, after being requested by many of the students last week.