Reddam Early Learning School Newsletter Vol 23 Issue 3 Lindfield

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL

LINDFIELD NEWSLETTER

Principal’s Message

Dear Parents

17th February 2023

By Christine Irwin

It was wonderful to see so many of our families attend the parent information evening that was held at Reddam ELS Lindfield from the 6th to the 9th February 2023. The team enjoyed chatting to parents and showing our beautiful class room environments and learning areas. We hope that this was a positive experience for you all and please don’t hesitate to approach myself or the team If you have further questions or queries

Recently the team has been reflecting on how the children in our care have settled into the new year and are separating in the morning from their families into their new environment. We also understand how this can effect the family of the child and the routines at home. This can be an emotional time for not only the child but also for the rest of the family.

It is very normal for your child to experience some difficulties when settling into the school particularly if they haven't been in the care of anyone else before. It is important for families to know that all children are individual and some will settle very quickly whilst others take time and that’s ok and completely normal. We as educators understand this and as a team we have experience in assisting children to settle at their own pace.

In my own experience it is sometimes more difficult for the family if the child happily separates and says good bye without a worry. I have comforted many parents in my time who’s child was happy to go into their new class room excited to join in the experiences provided.

The team will often approach families to find out what interests the child has at home and how we can incorporate this into the arrival at school. Families are also asked to complete a “classroom information sheet” which provides the education team with information all about your child so this can be incorporated into the morning arrival routine. Many of our classrooms now have a sign in and out for the children. This encourages that routine for the children and initiates self confidence in their approach to pre literacy skills. I have noted that some of our children’s siblings are also signing themselves in. Great to see some future students getting use to the routine so early!

Other significant routine tasks for the children include putting their own bag away in their locker, placing their drink bottle on the trolley and putting sunscreen on ready for their day.

By Christine Irwin

Here are a few reminders of settling your child and Family into the routine of starting arly hildhood Education care

What will help my child to settle in?

Starting early childhood education and care can be an emotional experience for both you and your child.

Children can often experience some difficulty settling into a new environment, particularly if they find it hard to separate from family or familiar caregivers.

Here are some suggestions to help support your child:

• If possible, start with shorter or fewer days then gradually increase their time spent at the service.

• Find a preferred staff member or peer that your child can be left with when you drop them off for the day..

• Inform the service about what comforts your child and discuss how you manage activities or times of the day they find unsettling. For example, does your child have a toy or blanket that helps them to settle?

• Show your child that you feel secure about leaving them at the service and that you trust the staff. Say ‘goodbye’ confidently, and reassure them that you will be back later. While it may be tempting to leave while they are engaged happily in play, it can be very distressing for your child to realise you have left without saying goodbye.

• You should feel that you can contact the service at any time to check how your child is settling. The staff should provide you with sensitive, honest feedback.

Starting blocks ACECQA

https://www.startingblocks.gov.au/

Please feel free to have a chat with our education team or myself if you have any worries or concerns about settling into Reddam ELS Lindfield . We are here to help you and your child have the smoothest transition possible and understand the emotional time it can be for everyone. You will find our team here at Reddam are extremely nurturing and understand that every child is different and they all settle with time

Looking forward to chatting soon

Christine Irwin Principal

By Heather Gaskell

Hello dear families

Here we are another week completed and goodness how much fun have the children been having enjoying their focus on Transport? During the week we have provided the children with various sizes, lengths and styles of tubes for them to experiment putting cars down and seeing what happens. This was a completely new experience for some of the children who did not have a complete understanding of the process. But after watching the other children and the demonstration the educators provided, they quickly understood and were delighted when they could accomplish this action themselves. This experience demonstrated just how our babies are becoming confident learners and enjoy the process of attempting new actions.

We have also been enjoying more fun on our track on the floor of our room. Miss Betty played the music "When the ants go marching" and encouraged the children to follow her marching and stomping around our little track. It is great to watch the interactions between the children as they follow each other around the track using those wonderful gross motors skills to stamp and stomp. In fact our littles ones are starting to come together beautifully, following routines and watching and copying each other especially during our group times and even while washing hands. Everyone's confidence is growing and therefore they are partaking more and more in the group times and various experiences.

We are now in full swing with our speciality classes and the children are enjoying a variety of lessons including music, playball and Mandarin. We also run our own art class for the children in which we create a weekly art work and joint art experiences. This week’s art was to use paint, bells and balls to create out stunning art pieces. The balls represented the wheels and motion of the vehicles and the bells represented noise. The children were then encouraged to jiggle and juggle the container making the bells and balls round around. We have also started a new joint art project and owing to our Transport theme we are making a car from a cardboard box. We will begin with painting the box then decorate it with wheels, headlights, and maybe even fashion a steering wheel. Once completed the children will be able to take rides in our very own car we created.

Wishing all our families a wonderful weekend

Heather, Carina, Jing and Betty

Stage 1R:

By Hazel Whybrow

This week the children have been very interested in diggers and construction! Throughout the week we read lots of stories about diggers including ‘Dig, Dump, Roll' by Sally Sutton and ‘The Little Yellow Digger' by Betty & Alan Gilderdale. As we turned each page we were asked to guess the digger based on the sound of, and a fact about, each vehicle. We saw a bulldozer, a digger, a dump truck, a roller and a concrete mixer. The children were eager to hear the name of each vehicle and enthusiastically repeated the names back.

On Monday we walked down to the park to see a crane that had been set up in the building site at the end of our street. The children were all captivated by the big white crane. We watched it turn around, stretch up high, pick up a load of wood, and listened to the engine roaring away.

We walked to the park holding our emergency evacuation rope so we are practising all the time. We are definitely getting more confident in holding the rope together as we leave the service and understanding our role of working together and following our teachers to the park.

Throughout our environment the children have been provided with a variety of vehicles. This week their developing vocabulary has been evident as they name each vehicle they can see. Last week we saw a concrete truck, so this week in our sensory tray the children have been exploring ‘Concrete Ooblek’. They have loved using the diggers to scoop and pour the sticky mixture.

In our construction corner the children have been busy exploring motion, and cause and effect as they roll cars down ramps and slopes. We have been counting down, ‘1, 2, 3, Go!’ and ‘Ready, Set, Go’ before pushing our cars down the ramps.

It was great to welcome our Music teacher Alan to Reddam Lindfield. The children in 1E were amazed at Alans keyboard skills and where even more excited to have a turn themselves. We look forward to Alan’s lesson next week

Thanks for a great week!

Stage 1E:

Stage 2R

By Vivian Truong

This week our focused on family. Home is a place where we can be ourselves and are accepted for who we are. Learning about families allows children to connect with who they are, feel pride in themselves and their families, while also setting down a foundation for understanding others.

Throughout the week, our little learners were invited to share their family photos with their friends and teachers. This opportunity offered 2R the chance to talk about the people most important to them and also helped them realise that family is something we all have in common. Teachers showed them the importance of family and values of parents by practical actions which were enlightening 2R about the importance of family. The children were invited to engage and use their imagination to manipulate magic sand to make homes using wooden blocks and wooden people. This activity encouraged social and emotional growth. The use of loose parts also helped children to expand upon their ideas and renew their interests in block play. With ‘All the people we love’ sensory bins, 2R practised family member names and their roles and learned the values of parents in their lives. Art of the week involved our little artists painting love hearts for their loved-ones.

Children should be taught responsibility as a part of family values. They should know that they play an important role in the matters of the family and must carry out whatever they are asked to do responsibly. Because family is also about cooking together and cooking requires everyone to have a responsibility, this week our 2R's family participated in a variety of cooking experiences. These experiences helped children practice some basic maths concepts and build language skills, self-confidence and laid the foundation for healthy eating habits.

If we sow the seeds of the importance of family in children’s lives and nurture the familial bonds by leading the way, setting examples with lots of patience and love, the children will bloom and smile through life as strong and sensible individuals. A good family results in strong, mature, balanced and caring individuals who are very relevant and much

Stage 2R:

Musical movements support children to confidently explore their body ability and willingly engage with physical and social development. In the second week, our focus Our Favourite Songs integrated 2E children’s favourite songs into each learning experience. We sang and viewed a range of wonderful songbooks. One of our mostliked nursery rhythms was a silly songbook ‘Cow in the Kitchen’ by H June Crebbin & Katharine McEwen.

The children enjoy the afternoon's music group time. Music is a vital part of enhancing literacy, numeracy, and language in a joyful way. At the other table, the children are invited to play with two current favourite songs 'Cows in the Kitchen' and 'Five Little Speckle Frogs'. The frog bond small world contained slippery, slimy water beads that reflected frogs' eggs or slimy skins found on the tables. With scoopers and a bowl, our clever children created imaginative play scenarios as they manipulate the water beads and frog figurines while singing 'Five Little Speckled Frogs' and counting how many frogs jumped into the bond. Moreover, the children can visit the animals in the paddock. A sensory tray filled with lentils and another filled with oats enticed our children to practice their scooping and transferring skills. This helped the children engage in imaginative play with the animal figurines.

The highlights of the week were climbing spiderwebs and going on a big walk around the school. As we discussed sun safety daily, the children showed great concern for their sun safety on a hot day and checked if they had hats on. Gross motor activities are important to physical activities like walking, running, throwing, lifting, kicking, etc. Gross motor abilities also form the basis for fine motor skills and relate to body awareness, reaction speed, balance, and strength. Practising gross motor skills daily helps the children to understand their bodies' abilities so which enhances their confidence to approach risk play situations. As the spiderweb rope is a flexible material that moves when the children use it, it constantly challenges them as they climb, and every action on the part of the structure has a reaction in another part.

When we visited the garden, our friends were so surprised to see flowers in multiple colours. Miss Mia asked, "Which flower do you like?". Charlie went, "The orange one.", then Riley, "the purple", Zoe contributed, "the white one." The children spent a quality amount of time looking and observing the differences between flowers and luckily we saw butterflies. Our little friends likely build positive attachments and respectful relationships with the world through natural affiliation and planting activities with significant adults who share interests in nature with them. Spending time in nature also fosters the children's attention skills and relaxation. Taking a nature walk and trying to observe and investigate different types of plants, insects, and animals enhanced our little friends’ sense of wonder and curiosity, observational skills, and questioning skills. What a wonderful week of learning! Wishing you an amazing weekend!

Mia, Chloe, Shandie, Alisha and Yali

"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything." - Plato

Stage 2E:

Stage 3R

By Grace Nolan

“Teamwork, problem solving, …information synthesizing. With this combination of skills, students become directors and managers of their learning process, guided and mentored by a skilled teacher.” - Edutopia, 2007

As we continue to follow the children’s interest, this week we look further into dinosaurs as one of our project inquiries. The children are beginning to learn the names of the dinosaurs and then match them to cards, this is a great way for children to be able to categorise, sort and even count. As they focus on the differences and similarities between the dinosaurs to match them, the children have shown great identification skills and pre-numeracy skills. From there, the children have also been invited to use slime and playdough to explore fossil concepts like being ‘stuck’ in the mud/lava and what that means in modern day.

The small world palette with the dinosaurs and volcano came directly from the children asking for volcanoes to be involved in the small world. Actively listening and providing these opportunities demonstrate to children that their voice is important and that they can actively participate in their world and learning.

Continuing on from previous week’s gardening experience, this week we watched the children watering the gardens. It was interesting to see the children watering the soil, recalling previous experiences where the children planted seeds and watered them. The children have been enthusiastic about gardening and as a result, we will continue to offer gardening experiences and opportunities.

Creating obstacle courses for the children to focus on different fundamental movement skills have also continued to occur during the week. An unexpected social aspect to this has also been seen as the children rearrange the obstacle course together to create a

Stage 3R:

Stage 3E

By Laura Ashcroft

“The children of today will make all the discoveries of tomorrow. All the discoveries of mankind will be known to them, and they will improve what has been done and make fresh discoveries. They must make all the improvements in houses, cities, communication, methods of production, etc., that are to be made. The future generation must not only know how to do what we can teach them, they must be able to go a step further.” -Maria

Montessori

During Week 2, the children have enjoyed using their emerging sensory capabilities to explore their existing learning environments by finding different objects and materials of various textures such as spikey, smooth, soft, hard and squishy. The children enjoyed recognising and identifying the textures and holding the objects in their hands and sharing with each other their ideas and thoughts. Some children said, “The rock is hard” others said, “The pinecone is spikey,” and some of the children said, “The pom poms are soft” This allowed the children to not only use their sensory capabilities but also connect to familiar and unfamiliar objects and continue to make meaning.

The children also showed a keen interest in exploring different types of text. We looked at one story called, “In my heart” written by Jo Witek where the children were able to reflect on ways to become kind and respectful friends in the classroom and how we can look after each other at kindergarten. The children started to show some levels of

Stage 3E:

Stage 4R

By Amy Cunningham

In 4R we have continued to build on the children’s interest in travelling around Australia. We’ve enjoyed reading and discussing many story books written by Australian authors and sharing our knowledge of the Australian bush and the animals that live there. One of 4R’s favourite books has been ‘The Three Kangaroos Gruff’ by Kel Richards and Janine Dawson. This particular book has a mean old Bunyip in it who doesn’t want to let the kangaroos cross the bridge to get to the tasty grass. The children have loved talking about the bunyip and acting out the story in their play time. 4R had lots of questions around what a bunyip actually is and why it lived under the bridge.

After some research, we learnt that a bunyip is a mythical, amphibious creature which originated from Aboriginal folklore. We talked about what the words mythical and amphibious mean and then brainstormed real animals we knew that could live both on the land and in the water, just like the bunyip.

Following on from the children’s interest in campfires, we decided to make our own damper to eat with syrup for afternoon tea one day. The children used gross and fine motor skills to pour, scoop, rub, mix, stir and knead the mixture. We utilised our mathematical skills to measure the ingredients, tipping them into the bowl, and showed great concentration and patience as we took turns and waited for our friends to have a go. Unfortunately, we couldn’t cook the damper in a real fire like when you go camping, but we were lucky enough to have Miss Jasmine cook our little damper buns in the oven in the kitchen. They were super tasty and we enjoyed munching on them in real picnic style under the shade of the trees in the garden.

In other learning experiences, the children have been extending their knowledge of numbers and addition sentences during our daily morning session. Showing great excitement using 1:1 correspondence to add two, one digit numbers together. We’ve seen lots of wonderful imaginative cooperative cooking taking place in the kitchen, the garden and the sandpit, with a large variety of soups, stews and delicious cakes being created. This is a wonderful way for the children to practice their conversation skills as they communicate with each other, sharing their ideas, thought and process, while also listening to and working with their peers.

We hope you have a lovely weekend ahead and look forward to seeing you all next week.

Stage 4R:

By Lauren Hall

A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.

The children’s interest in gardening continued this week, where we planted some new flowers including echinaceas, pentas flowers, and calibrachoas. The children took turns to help dig the holes in the soil, secured them in place and gave them a big drink. We then looked at the different parts of a flower, noticing the roots under the soil in a diagram. We discussed how the roots play an important part in soaking up water and nutrients for plants. Next, we looked at the flower's stem, leaves and the flower itself - made up of petals and its pollen in the centre. The children wondered why flowers die after we pick them? We learnt that if we pick a flower out of the ground, the roots are usually left behind. The flower cannot continue to grow or live for very long without its roots intact, even though we put them in a vase of water. Flowers look lovely in our homes, but we also have to remember to leave flowers in the garden for the bees too. We then discussed the vital things plants need to survive - clean air, soil, nutrients, water and sunlight.

After reading a story called Eddie’s Garden by Sarah Garland, we recalled how his bean plants grew like a vine. We studied the life-cycle of a bean, how it sprouts, grows roots, develops a stem and leaves, then starts to grow the long beans for us to pick. The children were each given a small planting cup to place a cotton pad in the bottom. The cotton pad absorbs the water and keeps the bean moist to help it germinate. The children placed their bean inside, gave it a spray and we placed our cups up high. We then looked at how our sunflower seeds were progressing from last week, noticing that a few of them had sprouted. Our vegetable garden is starting to take shape with our marigolds and herbs thriving in the sunshine. This week we also planted some carrot and beetroot seeds, learning they are classed as root vegetables. All root vegetables grow underground in the soil with their leafy tops poking out of the top. The children then took turns to place the carrot seeds in one line of soil and the beetroots in the other. We watered them carefully and then had a look at how our other garden beds were doing. The parsley plant has overgrown so we used our fingers to sprinkle the flower seeds back onto the soil to help with its seed dispersal. The children also picked some rosemary which is their favourite scent in our garden at the moment. The children were then asked what else they would like to add to our vegetable garden in the coming weeks.

"Pumpkin seeds." - Alexander "Broccoli and lettuce." - Ellia "Watermelon." - Lucas "Salad." - Ashton "Tomatoes." - Seth "Strawberries." - Chloe

Next week we will continue to observe the seeds we’ve already planted, add more vegetables to the patch, and create more colourful outdoor areas with more flowers. Watch this gardening space!

Lauren, Rowel and Rebecca

- Gertrude Jekyll

Playball

By Coach Lauren Guttman

Hi everyone!

We started our lesson today playing the Playball version of “dodge-ball”. We all ran around the court and Lauren tried to catch us with a beanbag. If Lauren catches us, we know that we don’t get cross or upset – it’s only a game!

We concentrated on tennis – we love tennis and were so excited to see that Lauren brought tennis bats with her to Playball today. We ran around the court balancing a beanbag on our bat – always remembering to keep the bat nice and flat so that the beanbag doesn’t fall off.

We flicked our beanbag high up to the sky with our bat. We all have pretty amazing body strength and muscle tone because you will not believe how high some of those beanbags flew up to the sky.

Lauren gave us each a ball and we “boofed” (our very own Playball word) the ball away with the bat. We also did little “boofs” with our bat, and when Lauren blew her whistle, we “trapped” (stopped) the ball with our bat, always remembering that we do it nice and gently. Lauren went faster and faster and faster so we really had to listen carefully. We had an opportunity to hit our ball off a ball holder and Lauren even encouraged us to try and bounce the ball with our bat – always

Mandarin By Chloe Lin

Dear parents,

Last week I heard one our the stage 3 children arrived at school early especially for Mandarin class! My heart was filled with joy! I am so very happy that you enjoy Mandarin class. In Stage1, we are practicing Mandarin through music and songs, especially the familiar nursery rhymes. I use the Chinese version to arouse children's interest and include cute finger dolls, so our babies can shake their fingers along with the music! And move their bodies!

In stage 2 singing and movement is their favourite! It is the most interesting way for children to learn Mandarin . At the same time, I also taught the children a few catchy finger rhythms, and the children can practice hand-eye coordination while speaking Mandarin. After 2 weeks of practice, most of the children are already familiar with Mandarin vocabularies such as elephant, mouse, hippopotamus, and giraffe!

In stage 3 and stage 4, in addition to music, and movement, I have introduced the Mandarin vocabularies about the school routine to the children, such as: morning tea, lunch, lunch break, afternoon tea, toilet, game time, group time, etc. In addition to allowing children to tell the routine of their class, it also allows them to share their happiest moments. In the second half of the Chinese class, the six-colour dice game was also loved by the children! I prepared a large dice with six colours and corresponding cards. When the children rolled the dice, they have to say the colour of the dice aloud, and at the same time, the whole class performs the corresponding action to the card of the same colour. Some funny moves often make the children burst into laughter!

In every Mandarin class, there will be two dinosaur friends singing the goodbye song with everyone. There is grumpy Mr. Tyrannosaurus and happy Ms. Triceratops.

Please encourage your children to practice mandarin at home. Some of the words used could be " Thank you” XieXie(- Che– Che), “I’m sorry” -duibuqi -(dui-bu-chi) ) and "Goodbye -Zaijian(zai– jen)” in Mandarin!

See you next week！

Music

Welcome Alan!

By Christine Irwin

We have been fortunate to have a new specialist teacher join our team, Mr Alan Tang. In our first few weeks Alan has brought along keyboards for the children to enjoy. Pre Maths skills of identifying colours and number of keys has been a central focus and Alan playing simple tunes for the children to follow along.

The children have been fascinated with the keyboards and are using their attention span and listening skills to really treat each keyboard carefully and extend their creativity and musical skills.

Our babies have been in awe of the Musical talents of Alan and its amusing to watch them stare at our newest teacher with amazement as he plays the tunes that are well known to the children in 1R and 1E.

Welcome Alan what a great addition your are to our week here at Reddam ELS Lindfield