Reddam Early Learning School Newsletter Vol 22 Issue 31

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

Principal’s Message

Dear Parents,

By Mrs Simone Cooke

What a wonderful time the children have had this week embracing their new provocations, practising for their Christmas concerts and looking forward to Diwali (Deepavali festival) along with Halloween festivities next week. With all these events fast approaching it is timely that we discuss how we approach Celebrations and how we make them inclusive for everyone. Here at Reddam we have many rich and diverse cultures with many different traditions, values and beliefs. Celebrations provide us with a concrete way to share our cultural backgrounds, to build tolerance and understanding, celebrate cultural diversity and build respect and a sense of belonging for everyone.

Throughout the year we draw upon the celebrations that hold meaning to our particular children, these include a wide array of celebrations based on our children’s cultural heritage and interests, these may include Christmas, Chinese New Year, Diwali, Hannukah, Mother’s Day, Halloween, Reconciliation day. There is no doubt that children love Celebrations and traditions and rituals are important for fostering a young child's personal identity and sense of belonging. They teach values, offer comfort and security and create lasting memories. Just as Sunday dinners, family game nights or family reunions hold special memories in our lives, so too do our school celebrations.

This week our children in 3R had the opportunity to enjoy a wonderful Yum Cha feast as part of their Provocation “What a wonderful world”. Thank you to all our families who contributed plates for this special lunch. Next week the children are looking forward to celebrating the Deepavali festival together .

REDDAM

Principal’s Message Continued…

The children will also have the opportunity to dress up for Halloween on Tuesday and Friday next week and “trick or treat” at school. We understand that some children are not permitted to eat sweets, we therefore request parents to provide written consent for this and your core teacher will be in touch with you to arrange this. We will also be offering alternative sultana’s treats for those who wish to have these instead.

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL

ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

1st April 2022

Throughout the year we often invite each of our families to share your family traditions with us. We want to honour the rich cultural diversity of all our children here at Reddam, as well as Indigenous perspectives of First Nation people, embedding these into our day-to-day classroom practices where we can raise an awareness in our children of other ways of being and belonging. Please let your class teacher know if your family has a special celebration coming up so that we can celebrate these events with them.

We know that Birthday parties are also important to our children and our families, which is why we welcome you to celebrate your child’s birthday with their class. Particularly at a time of Covid when many children have not had the opportunity to celebrate their special day, being able to celebrate with their school friends is more important than ever before. However, please remember that as some of our children have nut allergies and our school is a ‘nut free’ zone, we do request that you do not send in cakes that contain nuts. We have special egg free, milk free and nut free muffins that we can offer as alternatives for our children who have allergies so we can ensure that they can also be included in our celebrations.

Our Christmas concerts as you are aware, are planned to take place in December and we are thrilled that we are able to have these return to being held at school. A timetable has been sent out by each of the core teachers. Please let us know if you have not received these as our children absolutely love to have you present for these and they are a special time for us all. We will also video our concerts again this year so that you can send these precious moments onto family and friends.

We look forward to sharing many celebrations together in the weeks ahead.

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

By Ms Emily Brazel

Welcome to Term 4!

This term the children will be participating in a number of activities that will get them ready for big school. Our over aching theme will be 'when I grow up', and with that the children will engage in a number of experiences that inline with school readiness.

Beginning school is a huge step for young children and assisting them with transition to school is essential in their journey to continue to be successful, confident and, independent learners.

Knowing what to expect in the school environment helps to create a smooth transition for children. As Stage 4 are going to school in the new year we have made School Readiness the focal point of the children’s learning during Term 4.

Our School Readiness program at Reddam seeks to equip children with the skills necessary for beginning school. The skills relate to social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development.

Stage 4 is extremely excited to begin their new journey at Primary School and have been eager to learn about the experiences they will have when they go to their new schools.

My goal for kindergarten!

As we are going into Term 4 this week we asked the children “What is your goal for big school” the children were asked to set a goal that we could work on in term four that will help them in primary schools. Some goals were very creative! After the children had completed their goals we then asked for them to create a rocketship to go with their goals. This will help them shoot for the stars! These goals will be displayed all term to remind the children of what we are aiming for in 2023.

Have a look on the wall for some of their exciting goals.

Phonics bowls

As the children are becoming more interested in letters and words the teachers decided to set up an experience to help them with their phonical awareness and literacy development. The teachers set up six bowls, each with a letter attached to it. Trays were placed in front of them with a variety of toys, letters, pictures and objects inside. The children were then asked to use the tongs to match the correct object to the letter in their bowl.

Children learn to recognise how sounds are represented alphabetically and identify some letter sounds, symbols, characters and signs. Phonics is essential for children to become successful readers and spellers/writers in the early years of schooling and beyond.

This experience not only allowed the children to practise their literacy skills, alongside their phonics awareness but it also allowed them to develop in their fine-motor skills, as they used the tongs to place each object in the correct bowl. Developing fine motor skills helps children do things like eating, writing, manipulating objects and getting dressed.

Stage 4R: Phonic Awareness

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

Stage 4R: Writing Practice

Stage 4E

By Ms Sarah Ross

Getting Ready for School

Starting primary school can provoke many emotions in young children from feeling nervous or anxious to feeling excited. This term we look forward to supporting the Stage 4E children to have a positive start to school and promoting their health and wellbeing as they get ready to take the next step in their learning journey. Many of the children have lots of questions about going to primary school which will be used to guide and develop our educational program as we move through your child’s last term of early education.

Knowing what to expect when joining a new school environment will support Stage Four to have a smooth transition and prepare them for the new exciting challenges primary school has to offer. As part of our preparation for our Term 4 learning provocation each child was asked what they would like to know about primary school or learn in preparation for school. Their answers included;

I want to learn…

“How to make friends”

“How to help people”

“How to be kind”

“How to make good choices”

“How to pack my lunch”

“How to do long division”

“What will we learn at big school” “How to do times tables”

“How to get ready for school in the morning”

Throughout the Term we will embed these ideas and questions into our educational program.

Fun with literacy

In our first week of term the Stage Four children explored a story about the famous author Astrid Lindgren. The story follows Astrid as a child when her love for reading and stories blossoms into a talent for reading and writing which leads to her creating beautiful stories for her own children as an adult. The stories became so popular amongst her friends and family that she decided to get them published.

Astrid Lindgren’s stories have now been loved by many children around the world for generations with her most notable stories being about the popular character Pippi Longstocking. The children were very inspired by Astrid’s story and throughout the week applied themselves diligently to literacy play and lessons including; matching and writing rhyming words, practicing their letter formation with loose parts and engaging in watercolour activity where they uncovered hidden letters which they proudly identified and sounded out.

Reminders: Stage 4E are having their class photo is this coming Tuesday the 25th of October at 9:30am. If your child does not attend on Tuesdays please make sure you arrive no later than 9:25am.

If you wish for your child to take part please check and respond to the email.

Stage 4E: Watercolour Letters

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING

ST LEONARDS

Stage 4E: Matching Rhymes

Stage 4D

Here We Are… Term 4. The Countdown is On!

By Ms Emily Chacon

This term our main focus is school readiness and ensuring the children feel confident and motivated for kindy.

Throughout our morning session we discussed our friends and each child was encouraged to say one nice thing about each other.

Miss Emily stuck a piece of paper on the board and wrote each child’s name in the middle. We then went around the group and the children were invited to say something about that child, whether it be what they like, what they are good at, or a personality trait.

It was wonderful to see how much the children recognised each other’s achievements and comfortably talked about them in a group.

This experience promoted public speaking skill building and abilities to further language and communication skills.

Following on from the mid maps, a picture of a child was pasted in the middle of the page, and 4 children were invited to come and write about that child. Miss Emily then sat with the child and read out all the wonderful things their peers wrote about them. Using watercolour paints the children could then decorate the background.

Across the week the children were called to sit one on one with Miss Emily to talk about their goals for kindergarten 2023.

The children came up with wonderful goals to set:

“My goal is to listen to my teachers” – Deyanna

“My goal is to do painting” – Louise

“My goal is to make new friends” – Alison

“My goal is to tie my shoes” – Clementine

“My goal is to have fun” – Paige

“My goal is to do work” – Golden

“My goal is to learn more” – Darcy

It was wonderful to see the children acknowledging their aspirations. Goal setting for children is important because it gives them a sense of purpose that can improve their confidence and build their self-esteem. It also helps them to focus and make better decisions.

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

Stage 4D: Phonic Bowls and Self Portraits

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

Stage 4D: Self Portraits and Word Matching

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING

By Ms Riina Andrew

Aperture and Photography

Welcome back to term 4. We have a fun filled learning term ahead of us to finish off the year.

The first topic of our provocation this term is Aperture and Photography. As all the children are interested in photos and the process of taking photos, we decided to explore this concept in detail. Taking photos consisted of the use of a digital camera (techno-toy) of which we took turns of taking photos of our interests and each other. This exploration allowed the children to represent and create in the first instance and in the second, it allowed the children to explore, communicate and investigate the area of photography.

During this experience, the children were also extending their skills and knowledge of mathematics. They discovered a new way to learn about size concepts, boundaries, ratio, proportion and scale. Units of area, partitioning and spatial awareness were also included areas of learning as the children took photos of the class group, each other and when participating in a ‘Photo Scavenger Hunt’ around the school as well. The camera was used in play to experiment and capture the children’s own images using a software tool called ‘Photobooth’ where we explored the different types of images we could use to take photos, such as, x-ray, light tunnel, stretch, mirror, normal, twirl, thermal camera, kaleidoscope and squeeze.

Using these actions, the children’s learning adhered to traditional tenets of play and provided a new way to investigate their images and the way the image could be modified depending upon the chosen image capture setting. By the use of dynamic manipulation of size, the children discovered how to make the figure further away by moving backwards and to make the image larger, they moved closer to the image that they wished to photograph and print for our display, which is available for all to view.

Stage 3/4: Aperture and Photography

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL

Stage 3/4: Aperture and Photography

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL

Stage 3E

By Ms Itzi Garcia

Welcome to term 4! This term stage 3 will travel around the magical world of books. During this term children are being invited to bring their own books and share their favourites stories with their friends and teachers. To find out what topic children were interested in teachers asked them about what their favourite book is.

What is your favourite book?

Henry: “Gingerbread man”

Aneilia “I made an Elsa’s book”

Owen: “I like racing cars books”

George: “The Gruffalo”

Franco “My favourite book is Thomas”

Risa “Cinderella and princesses”

Claire “Mickey Mouse” Summer “Cinderella”

Stella “Elsa” Charlie “Gingerbread man”

James “Beauty and the Beast” Jake “I like the monster’s book”

Faris “Spiderman”

Leo “Three little pigs”

Ella “My favourite book is Peppa Pig”

Lia “Kitty cats”

Aaron “Three little pigs” Alexandra “I like fairy tales”

Gisele “I like Spot because he has a Christmas party”

Finn “I read lots of stories, I have Jack and the beanstalk”

Sofia: “I read the red riding hood with my daddy”Joseph “I like rainbow”

Caelie “The very hungry caterpillar. I have a small very hangry caterpillar at home”

Ethan Chen “Policeman. He gets the bad guys”

MyLan “I like fairies and princesses. My brother has lots of books at home.”

Morgan “I have lots of book at home. I like reading stories with mummy”

Sophie “I don’t know I have plenty of books at home maybe…Elsa?”

Letters and words

As usual, every morning children were encouraged to trace their names in our sign in station and this week we also started to practice how to write our names with a very successful result. Tracing helps little ones refine their pre-writing skills and builds the foundation for drawing and writing letters and words. Tracing is also beneficial as it helps build: fine motor skills, pre-writing skills, concentration and focus, visual-spatial skills, creativity and drawing skills

Housekeeping:

With the weather warming up we please ask that your child comes to school with sunscreen on. Staff will reapply during the day and will continue to ensure your child is drinking water and wearing their hat.

“You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax all you need is a book!” – Dr. Seuss

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

Stage 3E: Books Books Books

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

Stage 3E: Learning to Write

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING

Stage 2/3 & 3R

Welcome to China

By Ms Gabriela Guimaraes

Our around the world provocation started with the exploration of one of the biggest countries in the world: China. The children had the opportunity to explore and discover a little bit more about this very distinctive culture. Throughout the first week of the term the children were exposed to many enriching activities. We learnt about the Chinese national costumes, beliefs and traditions.

We went to the capital Beijing to visit the Great Wall of China, there was a lot of discussion about this spectacular architecture during the week. During our conversations we talked about how this is a very long wall that covers much of the northern border of China. The wall was built to help keep out the enemies from the other countries. The teachers explained that the great wall was built with all resources that were available nearby such as dirt, stones and bricks. After sharing the history of the Great Wall the children were invited to build her own great wall.

During our week in China, we discussed what language Chinese people speak and we learned a few words throughout the trip with some help from our Chinese teacher Fion. The children painted a beautiful frame to display their Chinese name.

Our black and white panda bear sensory bin was a hit. The children enjoyed exploring the rice and beans in the bin while they were scooping and looking for the panda bears that were hiding in the mixture. The children also decided to make a house for the Panda bears. We also talked about how Panda bears are originally from China. Pretend Play is always a favourite. This combined with different resources and an intriguing culture gave the children the perfect combination. Our Reddam Chinese Yum Cha restaurant had all the resources that you could find in a real restaurant. We made noodles, dumplings and herbal teas. Chinese lamps and the Maneki Neko Cat added a touch of reality to our pretend play.

Yum Cha

Food is a huge part of Chinese Culture. Many families enjoy dumplings, noodles, and spring rolls just to name a few favourite dishes. On Thursday, all the children were invited to bring a share plate to enjoy the traditional Cantonese feast Yum Cha. Thank you very much for all the parents for contributing to this social experience.

Nǐ hǎo!

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

Stage 2/3 & 3R: Welcome to China

Stage 2/3 & 3R: Yum Cha

By Ms Madeleine Grant

Belonging, Being, Becoming

We have begun our final term together as Stage 2R, and the theme is taken from the core elements of the EYLF that are essential to early childhood teaching. Belonging will explore the many groups in which we belong to, including our families, cultures, friendship and our school. Being is a unit on self-identity, and aims to provide children with means to extend their creativity, confidence and self-expression. Becoming will focus on the skills

This week our topic was faces and feelings. As a class we read the When I’m Feeling… series by Tracey Moroney, and discussed the emotions featured in the stories and what examples from their own lives can cause such reactions. Open discussion about both positive and negative feelings helps children to understand their feelings and provides them with the vocabulary to help them express themselves in constructive ways. As we listed the various emotions we asked the children to show us their best happy, sad, angry, sleepy, and content faces.

This was extended in our set activity where the children were given loose parts and asked to use them to create faces in playdough. They were asked to think mathematically and critically about what makes a face; what features are there? How many eyes, noses, mouths or ears do we have? What emotions is the face feeling and how is this conveyed through their expression?

Playdough and loose parts play is an essential element of the Reggio Emilia approach, as it provides children with activities that can be structured and tailored to a topic while still allowing the children the freedom to express themselves and engage in tasks int heir own way. Playdough is great for exercising their hand and finger muscles to give them the strength they will need for writing, and loose parts opens opportunities for premathematical learning.

In the art atelier the children create unique self portraits by first observing their reflections in a mirror. They were given paints and asked to paint their faces, either by painting a face onto the glass or by adorning their reflections. Again we asked them to talk us through their thinking, explaining what features they were drawing and what the colours meant to them. The results are a beautiful range of artworks that are as unique and creative as the artists behind them!

Housekeeping

A reminder that our class photo will be taken next Thursday. Please contact Juliana and myself if you are wanting your child to be a part of this.

Next week the children will be encouraged to dress up to celebrate Halloween, and will be trick-or-treating on Tuesday and Friday. Please do not dress up your child in a costume Thursday!

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

Stage 2R: Making Faces an Feelings

Stage 2R: Self Portrait Reflections

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL

Stage 1E

By Ms Justine Heydra

This week in Stage 1E we continued with our Nature and Loose parts provocation. The children have enjoyed engaging with a variety of different sensory activities and a series of investigation games.

Our first sensory activity tied in nicely with our Curious Carl and Curious Callie assignment. The children had the opportunity to explore natural leaves and flowers with magnifying glasses. Using magnifying glasses, promotes discovery and exploration while using finemotor skills and hand eye coordination. The children enjoyed using these and had so much fun.

Our second sensory activity involved leaves in jumbo ice blocks. This was a great sensory activity as we explored our senses by using touch. The children loved the feeling of the ice and the fact that the ice blocks were so cold. They were curious to see the leaves and slowly watch them melt.

Our last sensory activity involved painting using white cotton balls and a water colour mixture which the children could paint onto the cotton balls. This activity enhanced the children's creative abilities, their fine-motor skills and strengthened their hand/finger grip that they will use to learn to write.

The children have enjoyed investigating and exploring in our playground and they absolutely loved finding different leaves, bark and bugs. The children have also enjoyed seeing one another’s photos of Curious Carl and Curious Callie. We invite parents to have a look at our collage near the door where we have displayed everyone’s weekend adventures.

The children have also been very busy practising for their end of year concert. Please ensure your child is at school by 9:30 every Monday and Thursday for their concert practice. We do have smaller rehearsals on a daily basis if your child does not attend on those days.

Also, a reminder that Stage 1E will be having their class photo taken on Monday 24th of October. Group A will have their photo taken at 8:30am and Group B will have theirs taken at 9:00am. Please refer to my email sent out for the class list and please bring your little one to school dressed in their photo attire.

Wishing you all a great weekend!

"The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you." - B.B King

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING

LEONARDS

Stage 1E: Nature Investigation

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

Stage 1E: Nature Exploration

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

Stage 1R

By Ms Amanda Felton

Welcome back to another fabulous term as we continue on with we our journey of learning. We take a look at sand. What it feels like and what it looks like. Each of the Babies explore their understanding what sensory is through touch and drawing lines with a stick. That helps them see how we can use nature as a form of communication when using natural materials like sand in an creative way. As part of our intentional learning we are working towards dexterity skills and learning how to coordinate their movements and with focus. And yes, it’s a challenge and is really great for their confidence.

The babies then adapted and transform their understanding of drawing with sticks, to art and in the form of expressionist. They used white paint mixed with gold sparkles to represent sand. Each Baby did really well to coordinate their movements, even though it was a little bit challenging for some.

For the term we will be focusing upon different materials from nature, such as sand, dirt, seeds, leaves and water. How it works and why we need nature. So we have lots to learn in the coming weeks.

Also with housekeeping. Would our lovely families please remember to label everything.

Keep up the wonderful effort Babies, we have achieved so much and there is more to explore and achieve.

Stage 1R: Nature’s Sand

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING

Drama

By Ms Laura Hudson

This term in Drama we will be exploring lots of different Fairytales. First week back was all about animals and pigs!

Stage 3 and 4 started with a vocal warm up "boom chicka boom" using our normal voice, low and high pitched. Our physical warm up this week was a game "What's the time Mr Wolf". Kingsley and Joshua had a turn being the wolf. I then asked the children to name different words with the letter P. Evelyn said Pasta and Rafael said Pig! We then used our bodies to make different objects and shapes, including the letter P, Straw, Bricks, Pigs, Wolves and Houses. Marcus showed us how to be a stick and Leo and Sammy had a turn being the wolf!

Stage 4 did a following the leader occupational mime exercise using the characters and objects in the story. I split the group into 4 groups. Straw pigs, Stick pigs, Bricks pigs and Wolves. One group would mime different actions e.g.- Being a pig or building the house or the house falling, and everyone had to copy! We then told the story this way. When the children heard their group words, they had to act them out! Well, done Betty and Catherine who used their bodies and followed the leaders very well!

Stage 3 worked together to re-tell the story! As a group we became all the different objects and characters. We learnt to use our bodies and voices in different ways to do this. The children changed some parts of the story. Including the end where we called 000 to help the wolf. Henry showed us how heavy the bricks were, and Claire fell over when the house blew down.

Stage 2 and 3 began their lesson by looking at the "Old McDonald heard a Fart" book. The children helped identify what animals were there, what noises they make and if they would be found on a farm or not. Dylan showed us his chicken. We then sung Old McDonald had a farm. Cici did a great job singing and turning into these animals Stage 2 danced to the "Good Morning Farm animals" song and used their bodies to turn into different animals. I showed everyone the letter P on a piece of paper and the children named things starting with P and we even used our bodies to make the P shape. Masha and Claudia worked together to make a P.

Next I showed the class 3 photos of Straw, Sticks and Bricks to introduce the 3 little pigs. As a big class we told the story together. We all got to act out the different roles and events. The ending was a bit sad, so we changed it! We finished with a game "What's the time Mr wolf". Jireh was so fast to run back from the wolf.

Stage 1 and 2 look at the pictures in the Old McDonald book. We then played the song and we all sung, clapped along and did all the different animal noises and actions. Well done Zoe who was clapping along and Sophia for doing Mooing like a cow. After shaking our parachute. We then danced to Good morning farm animals. Arti loved the tractor and Alexi showed us their best pig snort.

It was such a fun lesson and was great to be back after the holidays I wonder which fairy tale character we will meet next?

Piano

By Mr Alan Tang

It is great to be back at Reddam ELS in Term 4. The children are thrilled to have their piano's lesson with an additional Ukulele. :)

Piano

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

My Gym

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL