REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER Principal’s Message
3rd June 2022
By Mrs Simone Cooke
“Nature is a tool to get children to experience not just the wider world, but themselves” - Stephen Moss Dear Parents, A lovely element of the Reggio Emilia Approach which we adopt here at Reddam is incorporating natural materials into the chidren’s play. Engaging with natural elements such as leaves, bark, water, clay etc offers lovely open ended play experiences which encourages them to sort, design, experiment and manipulate .With our younger children this may commence with stacking, sorting and lining up materials, which allows exploration and discovery and develop natural awareness and a foundation for being environmentally aware. Combining both loose parts play and natural materials allows children to experiment with different textures, smells, colours, sizes and sounds and natural elements are ideal for this type of sensory play. Offering children materials other than toys that allow them to use their imagination and experiment offers a world of opportunity. It might be exploring the different width and size of twigs, looking at the various shades of green that leaves and grass come in. Smelling flowers or looking at the varying sizes, textures, shapes and sizes of shells. Learning to balance rocks of different colours, shapes or sizes and feel the difference between a smooth pebble and a rough stone or to view the different shades of sand grains provides our children with a greater understanding of the world around them. Even though our children live in an urban environment it does not mean that they cannot enjoy the delights of nature, even in city environments there are puddles, pigeons and rainbows to explore. Our young toddlers absolutely love to add natural materials such as twigs, straw, pebbles and moss into their small world play and love to use their imagination to create small environments for dinosaurs, farm animals or wild animals. In our construction area we often add in a wide range of natural building resources such as large stones, shells, small branches so they can use these to expand their block constructions. REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER
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