REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL LINDFIELD NEWSLETTER
Principal’s Message
Dear Parents,
By Christine IrwinWell what a year! This is our final newsletter for 2022 and I would like to take this opportunity to thank so many that support the school
First a few reminders
Our last day of care this year is Friday 23rd December 2022 Our first day of care for 2023 is Tuesday 10th January 2023
Please let us know of your last day of care as per email sent from Chenise so we are aware of children’s attendance.
Our first thank you must go to Rob our Gardener and his team who work so hard to make the school look beautiful and safe for the children everyday.
Thank you to the parent committee who are always supportive and available to help the school.
Thank you to all our beautiful children. We are so blessed to be able to be part of your learning journey, You make us laugh everyday and we are constantly amazed with your development. and delightful interactions and conversations. It is pleasure to spend our days with the children.
We wish our children who are off to “Big school” the best of luck and hope to see you in the future. We would love to see our past students so please come visit us anytime.
Thank you to our sister schools and staff, Reddam St Leonards ELS and Reddam ELS Woollahra, particularly both Principals Simone and Dee and enrolment officers for assisting both Chenise and I with our questions and orientation into Reddam. Your friendship and support are so appreciated.
Principal’s Message Continued...
By Chrsitine IrwinThank you to Rhonda and the Reddam management team for supporting the quality care we provide for the children and trusting in our ability as Early Childhood educators.
Thank you to all our families who support us and entrust us with their most precious processions. We are truly grateful for letting us be part of your child's life and their learning.
And last but certainly not least,
Thank you to the Reddam Lindfield team of educators including Admin team and Kitchen team .
I cannot thank you enough for your support and kindness you have shown me since I started here in June. Your interactions with the children, your understanding of early childhood and your collaboration as a team is exemplary. I am so proud of all of you and so grateful for your friendship. I am truly honoured to work with you .
On behalf of the team I would like to wish all our families and children a very Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New year.
See you in 2023
Christine Irwin Principal
Term 4 Week 8
Heather GaskellHello our dear families and welcome to the last newsletter of the year, my how the time has flown. It’s amazing to see just how much our beautiful little ones have grown over the year. It has been a wonderful year teaching and guiding your little ones and seeing the growth and security they have achieved. We as educators have enjoyed watching your children blossom and become more secure in their surroundings. And in return we have been privileged to receive their warmth and cuddles as they felt secure with us. Thank you for allowing us to be a part of your little one's early learning journey. Remember when they started, I am not sure who was more nervous, the children or you, the parents. Many of our little ones were not even walking when they started and now they race around. Even the drop offs are different, going from peeling them out of your arms to they race in the door and some even forget to say goodbye. It is going to be hard to say goodbye to all but I can assure you that our teaching team is never far away for support or cuddles, in fact I insist on cuddles!
The Stage 1R team wishes all our families a very happy and prosperous holiday season and we look forward to seeing the further changes your children will make as they continue their journey with us here at Reddam Lindfield in the following years. Yes, even though they leave our classroom they never leave our hearts. And we will enjoy watching them as they progress through the other classes.
Please remember our Christmas Concert is on Tuesday 13th at 3pm and if your child does not attend that day you are still welcome to come for the concert. The children have been practising and hopefully are ready for the concert and to show you just what they can do.
Wishing all of our families a wonderful festive season and a joyous holiday Heather, Doris, Jenny, Jaycel & Yali
Term 4 Week 8 Stage 1E Miss
Charity Acera
“So often you find that the students you’re trying to inspire are the ones that end up inspiring you.” (Sean Junkins)
Over the past year, your children have grown up so much as they have demonstrated confidence in all areas and are more expressive in showing lots of love and affection towards us as educators and to their peers. We observed beautiful displays of cooperation and friendships amongst each other and have learnt how to be patient with turn taking and sharing toys and play environments. The experiences we provided for the past week’s have surely increased the children’s sense of belonging, being and becoming. The goal of promoting a sense of independence and confidence have been observed throughout the period, and with that, we couldn’t be more grateful.
Needless to say, toddlers are learning all the time, hence last week’s topic on exploring the world of occupations which has opened ideas and interests from the group as they learnt more about their world and the important roles of people around them. This encourages them to learn about the different occupations that may give inspiration to them when they grow up; building these inspirations through dramatic play boosts their self esteem and their ability to create positive and healthy relationships in the future. Additionally, we revisited topics over the past terms wherein they had the chance to take what they have learned, make it their own, and apply it in their daily interactions through their solitary and shared play learning experiences. We provoked their basic counting skills with the 'how many can my hands hold' activity, explored their senses through our fruit and flower display and tickled their imagination and creativity with our small world construction dramatic play all for the benefit of understanding themselves and the world around them.
As this year draws to an end, soon we have to say goodbye to 2022 and welcome a new year full of positive manifestations. My sincerest gratitude, on behalf of the 1E Team for your continued help, patience and trust in letting us be a part of your child’s early learning journey as well as allowing us to be inspired by them in providing the best care and education possible for your children.
Finally, I also want to thank every child for all the warmth, memories and learning that we have shared over the year as well as to you, for always being there for your child. It is a blessing to have parents that love their child as much as you do. You are an inspiration to teachers everywhere. Congratulations to us all!
Looking forward to welcoming you back next year to begin another school year full of educational activities and learning opportunities. Wishing everyone happy holidays!
Charity, May, Rowel, Resie and Mary
"It is not about smart children, it is about happy children who have the confidence to learn and pursue things dear to their heart. " (Alexandra Eidens)
It has been a great eight weeks of encouraging 2R to develop an understanding that every culture has its own traditions, beliefs, and values and helping them treat each other with respect and dignity from an early age. This week, we travelled to Italy .
Throughout the week, the children were offered a variety of learning experiences to learn more about Italy culture and its interesting facts and beliefs. The children invited by made their own pasta by the playdough and pasta maker, in school with their friends . One at a time, the children took turns to roll out a portion of the pasta dough. They used the manual pasta machine that was secured to the side of table. The children were assisted to roll out the dough and change the settings on the machine so the dough became longer and thinner. The children loved the novelty of spinning the machine's handle around and around and watching the mechanics move. We dusted the dough as well with extra flour to avoid it sticking together with a pastry brush.
Our Italy Sensory Trays filled with lots of pasta along with some pretend Italian foods and ingredients for children to engage their creativity to pretend to cook some yummy pasta dishes! The children learn and explore with their sense of touch and even sound.
Our pretend cloud dough section was very popular this week. We had some cloud dough sensory trays made with flour and oil for children to pretend to make dough. It was really fun to scoop, mold, build with, or just squish the cloud dough between our fingers!
Cooking with children is the best way to introduce a culture to them. So to bring a taste of Japan to our room, we made our own pizza in school with our little friends in the morning and enjoyed them for our afternoon tea. The children gently spread tomato sauce on their pizza bread and added their toppings including mushrooms, tomatoes and cheese (the most delicious toppings).
This week is the last Newsletter of 2022. I just want to say Thank you for making this entire year not only possible, but the best year of my teaching career. I feel I am so lucky to get an opportunity to know you all and be your child's educator. Everyday we came to school, we laughed, made jokes, and cuddles. Your child inspired us with their own thoughts and playing ideas.
It’s a pleasure to teach this class because you all encourage and recognise our efforts. Other Teachers always ask if my children in 2R were my own children, which is a testament to how much they love coming to class. Thank you for your encouragement, wishes and pressies. I really appreciate it and feel like I am getting spoiled so much. I hope you have a great holiday and stay safe. Wishing you and your family a joyous Christmas and a Happy New Year. 2R Team
Vivian, Connie, Fatima and Lizzie
“The art of research already exists in the hands of children acutely sensitive to the pleasure of surprise. The wonder of learning, of knowing, of understanding is one of the first, fundamental sensations each human being expects from experiences faced alone or with others.”
(Loris Malaguzzi)This week’s focus is ‘Surprise’ in which we explored what surprise feels like and why some people love surprises. Children innately love learning. Young children know how to take the smallest observation, object, or surprise and turn it into a learning experience. They employ investigative techniques without even knowing how to define them as such. Surprise upends what learners believe and helps them to make discoveries; giving strong opportunities for independent learning.
Science experiments always excite and amazed young children. Next, we started with a sensory play that involved bicarbonate soda eggs which the children ‘hatched’ by using a pipette to drop vinegar on the eggs. The eggs were surrounded by sand and leaves to mimic a natural nest where dino eggs would usually hatch. Through this experiment, the children watched the melting and heard the fizzing of the egg when they added vinegar. The children enjoyed learning about how different liquids react with other substances.
We adored a new book titled, Happy Hector by Polly Dunbar. Hector is so happy sitting on Tilly's lap until the others all join in and spoil it. Hector was sad and upset as Tilly started to have new friends. But Tilly knows just how to show Hector how special he is to her … she has painted a surprising picture just for him! Miss Mia asked, "What can you do to make your friends feel happy and surprised?
Japer: "I take Clara to the train museum."
Alyssa: "I take friends to see kookaburra."
Lucas W: "I take Jasper and Noah to see the excavator."
Aaron Z: "I take friends to the excavator museum."
Victoria: "Play together and share"
Winston: "Play"
Joshua: "Build something"
Throughout Term 4, we have witnessed a great emotional maturity, independence and social competence in each individual. It is vivid that prosocial behaviours (sharing, caring, helping, comforting, cooperating) can be fostered through cooperative experiences, daily discussion and positive guidance that help children understand positive interdependence. There is a common belief that young children could not share or engage in cooperative experiences. However, 2E children are capable of interactive play, building friendships, sharing and negotiating for turns, and exhibiting concerns for others. As children interact and cooperate together, they have opportunities to regulate their thinking, reasoning, and problem solving skills, hence, new social understandings and adaptive behaviours are constructed and scaffolded by peers and teachers. Our children demonstrate great problem solving skills, friendly conversation (praise, encouragement, suggestion), share their home resources, provide support, work together, respect others, build trust and solve small conflicts with their peers.
We have had such a wonderful year together. It has been a pleasure to be your teachers and we are so very proud of how much you have learnt and how much you have grown. We wish you all the very best in your next learning journey. May your home be filled with the joy of the Christmas season. Wishing your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Happy Holidays!
Mia, Shandie, Chloe, Jing, Alisha, and Vianne
Week 8
The children in the 3R classroom were invited to the slimy world of amphibians and fish this week! Our little friends learnt about fish and amphibians through exciting sensory play, digital learning as well as class discussion.
Our sensory experiences this week saw the children delve into gooey chia seed frog ponds as well as a recycled soya fish water play. At our table top learning experiences the children traced different types of fish with loose parts. Next to this our friends enjoyed matching underwater sea creatures in a fishy bingo! Finally the children created shapes with our paddle pop shape sticks.
In our morning meetings we researched the characteristics of amphibians we found out the amphibians spend some of their life in water and then on land, have a backbone, are cold blooded, can breathe air through their skin, lay eggs and often have webbed feet! We also reviewed our knowledge of fish through class discussions as the children were asked, “What do you know about fish?”
Sarah “Fish live in the water.”
Ayden “Jellyfish.”
Edmund “Fish eat um.. bubbles. Mostly they eat crabs.”
Angus “They take care of their babies.”
Hugo “Fish don’t sleep in a bed, they sleep in water.”
Tarik: “ Fish have a backbone.”
Ally “Swimming clown fish.” Myra “Nemo is a fish.”
Our favourite small group activities this week were when Jenny and friends visited the stage 4 backyard to leap like frogs across the balancing logs! Other children joined Carina to plant our herb and tomato seedlings which have been growing since September vacation care. We also found a fantastic video series which follows the life cycles of different creatures including butterflies, frogs and clown fish!
Although our newsletters are finished for the year, our learning will continue until Reddam’s end of year closure. We look forward to seeing you again in the new year!
Happy Holidays, Carina, and Callum
Wrapping up the term! The children have thoroughly enjoyed their exploration of various picture books and genres, where they could become familiar with fiction and non fiction, identify with different characters and proceed to share their thoughts and ideas about what happens before, during and after the story. The children also have continued to engage in lots of small group activities where they can sort and match letters to pictures, recognise different letters and sounds and as well use sign language to practise communicating with others for a range of purposes. The children have been provided with the opportunity to enhance their literacy skills by engaging in circle games such as Bug in a Rug, Doggy Doggy Where’s Your Bone and Sandy Boy, Sandy Girl which has allowed the children to use their interpersonal skills, share and turn take. This has enabled the children to build upon their social and emotional development, regulate their emotions and become kind and respectful friends. The children were encouraged to engage in sharing news, where some friends brought in photos of their family, recent holiday adventures and special things they have done on the weekend. These opportunities have enabled the children to use their verbal communication skills, stand up in front of their peers, share and listen to differing ideas and viewpoints. We wish all the families a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Link to the Early Years Learning Framework:
Outcome 1 Children have a strong sense of identity as they feel secure and safe to initiate their own play opportunities and engage in meaningful conversations with their teachers and peers.
Outcome 4 Children are confident and involved learners, as they follow and extend upon their interests showing enthusiasm, interest and curiosity.
Outcome 5 Children are becoming effectively communicators as they use a wide range of materials to express themselves and contribute to various groups by sharing their thoughts and ideas.
“Great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood” John GreenWarm regards, Laura, Natalie, Kai and Margaret
What a fabulous term we have had! This week we finished off our term by exploring measurement. At our sensory table the children have water trays to explore volume and capacity, playdough with small, medium and big cookie cutters, and a 'heavy' and a 'light' sensory tray.
Many of the children were busy exploring the clocks at our numeracy table. They looked at both the analog and digital clocks and matched the same times together. We talked about how the hands on the clock put to the numbers and tell us the time. The children quickly understood how to match the numeral on the digital clock to the number the hand was pointing to on the analog clock. We have also been talking about measuring length and today the children used the rulers and measuring tapes to draw lines on paper and then measure them. We discussed that we measure in centimetres and metres and that a longer line will have a bigger number than a smaller line.
During the week we read 'Counting on Frank' by Rod Clement. This book talks about a variety of measurements such as how long a pen could draw for, how many objects would fit into a room, how tall trees grow, and the volume and capacity of a bathroom. We enjoyed the silliness of this story and discussed what different things we could measure! We also read some other books that discussed height and size including ‘Jolly Tall’ by Jane Hissey, ‘I wish I were big’ by Peter Bowman and ‘Up and Down’ by Oliver Jeffers.
Thank you to all our families who joined us to celebrate 4R graduation and Christmas concert. It was wonderful to see the children receive their certificates and proudly wear their special graduation hat your children's achievements. We are so proud of the children and how much they have learnt and grown this year. We hope that you enjoy the presents your children made and the documentation of our learning throughout the year. Thank you for the lovely gifts we've received, we are so thankful, and it truly has been our pleasure to love and teach your children this year.
Thank you for a fabulous year in 4R and we wish all our families a Happy and safe Christmas!
This week we celebrated all of the children’s achievements at our Graduation and End of Year Celebration. They have reached so many milestones, both with their social-emotional readiness, developed their confidence, their pre-literacy and numeracy skills, made new friendships and made our classroom a joy to learn in. Thank you to all of our families for attending this special morning with your children. As the term draws to a close, our provocation has led to how we are feeling nervous and shy. Now that most of the children have had their kindergarten orientations, we have had many conversations about how they are feeling about this transition. Starting kindy can be both exciting and overwhelming for the children and it's important they feel supported with this big change. Our story of the week was When I'm Feeling Nervous by Trace Moroney. We read how Bunny felt as if there was a washing machine in his tummy, mixing all of his feelings up when he felt nervous. Sometimes we can feel nervous about trying something new, visiting a new place, or talking in front of others. The best thing to do is to take some deep breaths and tell ourselves that everything will be okay. Things might be hard at first, but if we give things a go the nervous feeling will eventually go away. Our class also discussed how we are feeling excited and nervous about transitioning to kindergarten. Some of the children admitted that they hid behind their parents when they first arrived, and also felt scared and shy when meeting their new teachers and classmates. However, after a few visits, some of the children said they felt more confident and were looking forward to their next orientation. That's fantastic to hear! Story books including First Day and Old Friends, New Friends, both by Andrew Daddo, also helped the children to visualise what their first day of “big school” would look like and suggested ways to make new friends. Our fairy tale of the week was The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We read how three goats lived on a green hillside - a small, medium and large goat. One day the goats were hungry so they decided to cross the bridge to find some more grass. However, the Bad Old Troll was hiding under the bridge and wouldn't let the goats cross and tried to eat them. When it was Big Billy Goat Gruff's turn to cross the bridge, he rammed his horns into the troll, knocking him into the river. The goats never saw the nasty troll again. The children were impressive with their acting skills as they took turns to perform the fairy tale in front of each other. The children have gained so much confidence through their weekly performances, learning to project their voices and experiment with different characterisation. Thank you to all of the beautiful children in 4E for a wonderful year in our classroom. Thank you to all of our families for your support and positive feedback about our educational program. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to educate and care for your children. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
