Reddam Early Learning School Newsletter Vol 22 Issue 36

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

Principal’s Message

Dear Parents,

By Mrs Simone Cooke

An important component of a balanced early learning programme is building our children’s physical fitness and gross motor skills. Offering our children regular unstructured and physically demanding outdoor play ensures that they are developing healthy habits that sustain them through life. A strong body of research indicates that providing children with regular burst of physical activity, not only improves their concentration skills but also allows the brain to recharge. Each day our teachers set up a range of gross motor activities that encourage children to be physically active in the playground.

Additionally, at Reddam, we provide the children with a range of intentional classes such as My Gym gymnastic drama and movement classes and Yoga lessons to build and develop their Fundamental Movement Skills. These skills are important building blocks for more complex skills that children will develop throughout their lives as they participate in games, sports and recreational activities. These skills include, stability skills such as stretching, bending, twisting and balancing and locomotor skills such as jumping, running, hopping, galloping, skipping and side stepping. Additionally, children benefit from developing manipulative skills of catching, underarm and overarm throwing, kicking, striking and stationary dribbling. Each week in our classes our teachers focus upon intentionally teaching of one of these skills. The earlier these skills are introduced and practiced the more competent and confident children become at incorporating these into their own play.

Principal’s Message Continued…

It is important to acknowledge that children do not naturally learn how to correctly perform Fundamental Movement Skills as part of their normal growth and development, so providing frequent and supported opportunities to develop these skills is of great benefit to young children.

Being physically active is a crucial part of healthy growth and development which also releases endorphins that creates happy children. Crawling through tunnels, riding bikes, balancing on beams and negotiating steps all have the effect of building self-esteem and confidence in our children.

REDDAM

LEARNING SCHOOL ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

EARLY

This week the preschool children had a wonderful time learning how to play croquet, balancing on the stilts and learning playground games such as hopscotch and skipping, in preparation for their move to primary school. At the other end, our Stage 1E children have enjoyed their beams and trestles as we prepare for them for their transition to the larger

1st April 2022

By Ms Emily Brazel

When I Grow Up!

This week we explored further into school readiness. What is school readiness? This refers to a child’s readiness to make a smooth and successful transition and integration into the school environment and its routines and expectation. It is important for children to have a range of skills including social, language, play, physical and self-care abilities. School readiness is extremely important as it allows teachers to expand and further develop a child’s skills in the areas they need. These basic skills help a child make a smooth transition into the school environment.

What will I pack in my schoolbag for kindergarten?

During our group time discussions his week, teachers asked the children what they think they would need in their school bag for kindergarten. The children put on their thinking caps and set to work. Once we had made a list together the children were given coloured textas to create a schoolbag in their activity book. Inside their schoolbag they were asked to write down the the list that they had made as a group. The children were able to practise their writing skills and as well practise their tripod grip in their preferred hand. It was lovely to see all the children use their language and communication skills to talk to their friend next to them about their what each other will be packing in their schoolbag for kindergarten next year!

“Lunchbox” “Morning tea” “Water bottle” “Pencil case” “Hat”

Developing my numeracy skills

Kindergarten's develop a foundation that will equip them ro learn for the rest of their academic lives and math skills are particularly important. Addition and subtraction prepare children for learning about their math topics, including multiplication and division, in school. This week the children were invited to an activity that encouraged them to use their cognitive and thinking skills. They were given a variety of numbers in both letter form and number form in order to create their number sentence. They had the opportunity to either write it on paper or use the small magnetic numbers to place it on a board. Either way, this experience allowed each child to work individually, to develop their early numeracy skills.

Fun in the sun!

This week the children enjoyed developing their gross motor skills by using the obstacle course to jump, hop, skip, run, climb and throwing balls. It was lovely to see all the children enjoy the sunshine!

Stage 4R: Preparing my School Bag

Stage 4R: Developing Numeracy Skills

By Ms Sarah Ross

“In a supportive active learning environment, children who are confident and involved learners are increasingly able to take responsibility for their own learning, personal regulation and contribution to the social environment”

– Early Years Learning Framework.

Recently the Stage Four children have been reflecting on our learning and achievements from throughout the school year. Each child has shared their pride and delight over the growth and changes they have made such as; becoming more independent when saying goodbye to parents, building friendships, developing their language skills , using scissors correctly, writing and even beginning the journey of learning to read. This reflection inspired discussion about the children’s new goals they would like to set and achieve in the new year. Afterwards, the children recorded their goals on a shooting star they had created in a craft activity to represent them shooting towards their future achievements.

Goal setting

“I want to learn how to do hair styles” – Serafina

“I want to learn how to play with my friends” – Flynn

“I want to learn how to cook” – Winnie

“I want to learn how to write” – Kai

“I want to learn how to read” – Ethan D

“I want to learn how to be helpful” – Dylan

“I want to learn how to use scissors very well” – Yuno

“I want to learn how to run fast” – Augusten

“I want to learn how to make pancakes” – Ria

“I want to learn how to pack my lunch” – Amelia

“I want to learn how to make new friends” – Leo

As an extension of our reflection of learning the children were invited to share what experiences they would like to revisit this week. As a class the children decided they wanted to revisit; a volume and capacity activity where they built containers using magnets and filled them to different levels using pom poms, a water play activity with sea creatures, and an alphabet matching activity where they searched for felt letters and matched them with wooden ones.

Balloon challenge

Many of the children requested they would like to play with balloons. This interest led to a team building challenge where the children partnered with a peer tried to hold a balloon together without using their hands. The children decided the best way to do this would be to place the balloon between their tummies. To make this even more challenging the children then attempted this while standing on one foot and seeing which team would hold their balloon up for the longest.

For one last challenge the children were invited to participate in a race with their partners where they carefully tried to walk the balloon to the other side of the greenspace without dropping it. This was an excellent experience for the children to practice their cooperative skills and work closely with a peer that they may not always play with.

Stage 4E: I Want To Learn To…

Stage 4E: Balloon Challenge

By Ms Emily Chacon

When I Grow Up

This week the children focused on their 5 senses! We broke down into small groups and the children were given a sheet with the words, taste, hear, see, smell, feel. In our group we then travelled around the school to find items to write in each section. We first moved to the back garden and the children were asked to close their eyes.

“What can you hear?” Miss Emily asked.

“I can hear the trains” Emily said

“I can hear the construction site” Kingsley answered. We then walked around to the front yard.

“What can you feel?” Miss Emily asked.

“I can feel the sun” Everly said.

“I can feel the wind!” Grace called. The children wrote down their answers, and then we walked downstairs.

“What can we smell?” Miss Emily asked the group.

“I can smell the pastry” Chloe replied as she walked over to the kitchen. As it was time for morning tea the children could smell all the wonderful pastries that were being prepared for their tea.

“Now was can you see?” Miss Emily asked.

“I can see you!” Jayden called.

“I can see more children” Radha replied.

It was then time to have morning tea. Miss Emily asked them all what they could taste?

“Apple”

“Banana”

“Pear”

Scavenger hunts can provide the perfect play activity for children to enhance their sensory development – whether it be simply exploring and becoming aware of their different senses or as part of a team building and bonding session. The children had so much fun and continued their conversations throughout the whole week.

Stage 4D: Scavenger Hunt

Stage 4D: The Five Senses

By Ms Riina Andrew

The final week of revision was fantastic. We enjoyed lots of activities relating to the current year. Again the children had the opportunity to suggest their favourite experiences of the year and we re-visited them. Starting off, we were re-introduced to the Coding provocation.

Each child had the opportunity to revisit the positional language table where they chose a word card, for instance, left, right, above, below, behind and use a small teddy to position that toy accordingly. Another Coding experience was the Lego table. The children were able to build a Fairy Tale Castle using the Lego pieces in a special colour code. Some children wished to work independently while others decided to work in pairs or groups to complete the experience. The final Coding experience was for the children to have the opportunity to draw arrows facing left, right, up, down, in front and behind using coloured Textas. Some children also coloured in their arrows and some children preferred to leave them just as an outline.

On the light table, the children requested number cards and loose parts to practise number patterning. We used this time to practise simple addition and subtraction of loose parts to match the number cards that we were using. We also followed up this experience with counting songs and number writing during the morning meeting to foster this learning.

Geology was a favourite provocation of Jane’s and she decided that she would like to revisit the gem collage experience. Jane recommended that we use rock/gem images (or draw our own), cut them out and stick them on coloured paper. The children seem to love scissor cutting activities and were very happy to participate in such an experience. Some of the children remembered the original experience and others were happy to explore this topic for the first time.

The final revisit was the sensory trays filled with clouds. Using shaving foam, the children had the opportunity to make it rain! Using droppers, the children added blue water to the clouds to make it rain. We also added cotton balls to the trays and dropped more blue water onto them. Some children created a small shower while other children created a storm!

Next week, we will explore ‘All Things Christmas!’, so feel free to send your child to school with a Christmas related item for News Time!

Stage 3/4: Rain Cloud Experiments

By Ms Itzi Garcia

This week Stage 3 has been working on refining their fine motor skills. Fine motor skills are the coordination between the small muscles that control the hand, wrists, fingers, and thumb in coordination with the eye. They help children perform important tasks like feeding themselves, grasping toys, doing buttons up and zipping clothes, writing, drawing, and more. The ability to complete self-care and daily tasks helps a child’s selfesteem and confidence to increase.

It’s important to keep working with children on building their fine motor skills early on. Fine motor skills develop and improve as they move through childhood, it just takes the right kind of practice. Fine motor skills gradually build for children as they do activities to help strengthen their muscles and coordination. Stage 3 had the opportunity to practice and continue the development of their fine motor skills through different activities. One of the fine motor skills activities was on one of our tables and consisted of beading small beads of various colours onto string, spaghetti, and chenille sticks, using hand/eye coordination, allowing them to make various patterns with the different colours and size. During their morning tea, we sliced the bananas down the middle, engaging their fine motor skills to peel the skin off.

Stage 3 also had the opportunity to further enhance their motor skills through play with playdough. In small groups children made their own playdough. We were following the recipe steps, working alongside and being very patient waiting for their turns be taken. Aside from being a good group activity we used the playdough to motivate children to explore sensory qualities, strengthens their fingers, hands and wrists, build children imagination, develop their self-esteem and increase their sense of belonging to their class through discussion about what colour should be used, to what happens when we add more water or oil. While children are busy rolling, poking and squishing dough, they build strength in their little muscles in their fingers and hands. Each way children shape play dough—pushing, pulling, squashing, squeezing, rolling, chopping, cutting—builds fine motor development and strengthens their fingers and wrists. Our last activity displayed on the tables was letter stamping. Stamping activates a new group of muscles in the thumb and fingers. They practised letter recognition and started to stamp their own names.

Housekeeping: With the weather warming up we please ask that your child comes to school with shoulders covered and sunscreen on. Staff will reapply during the day and will continue to ensure your child is drinking water and wearing their hat. Please pack a change of clothes in case children get wet in water activities and ensure all items are labelled with the child’s name.

Stage 3E: Fine Motor Skills

Stage 2/3 & 3R

Welcome to Brazil

By Ms Gabriela Guimaraes

Bem Vindo ao Brasil means Welcome to Brazil! This week our provocation took us all the way to South America to discover all the beautiful things in this exotic country. From rainforests to sports, to animals, and even carnivals, Brazil is a cornucopia of colour and majesty.

We started the week with our group discussion. Brazil is the home country to Miss Gabby and Miss Nina so it was easy to add some new vocabulary and fun facts. Brazilian people speak Portuguese and Brazil is the largest country in South America. The Brazilian landscape is very varied. It is most well-known for its dense forest, including the largest jungle in the world: Amazon.

We set up an invitation for the children to explore the Amazon Forest through sensory play. While playing we added some new vocabulary and explained to the children that two thirds of the Amazon Forest belongs to Brazil, there are over 16.000 tree species inhabit the Amazon and millions of insects are found there.

After discussing the Amazon forest, the children head to the Art atelier to work on their Anaconda snakes creation. Each child was given a paper plate to paint as they wished then we cut the paper on a spiral to look like a snake but be careful they are deadly snakes.

We also took the opportunity to celebrate one of the biggest festivals in Brazil: Carnival. Carnival creates a shimmering spectacle for the world to watch with music, dancing, and enormous parades. The children were invited to decorate their own carnival masks with glitter, feathers, sequins and other resources.

Brazilians LOVE soccer and the country has produced some of the best players in the world. We set up an activity for the children to play soccer table and experience some of this love for the sport.

We ended the Brazil week on a high note as Brazil beat Serbia this morning on a electrifying 2x0 match. The children learned to celebrate as intensely as Brazilians by giving their loudest GOAL cheer!!!

REDDAM

Stage 2/3 & 3R: Welcome to Brazil

Stage 2/3 & 3R: Exploring Brazilian Culture

By Ms Madeleine Grant

Exploring Nature

As part of our focus on Becoming we have been incorporating more natural elements into our learning programme. Nature is a great tool for teaching the topic to young children, as it provides practical examples of growth and change. Incorporating nature into the curriculum is also a core tenant of the Reggio Emilia philosophy, as it teaches children from an early age to have an appreciation and respect for the natural world.

We took a trip to the back garden to get the children up close with nature. Using our magnifying glasses, the children were asked to discover for themselves the beauty of the plants and flowers, soil and mulch, and everything else they could find in the garden beds. When we returned to the classroom we asked the children to reflect on what they had experienced, and share their thoughts with the class. These were some of the delightful reflections they offered:

“Flowers are white and smell yummy” - Amiya

“I like the pink flowers” - Amelia K “We can’t eat flowers, we just look at them” - Arthur

“Leaves are green, so green, like a crocodile” - James

“The flowers smell like a rainbow” - Liam

“The flowers are laughing” - Liv “Bees need the flowers” - Luke

“I like flowers because they are cute” - Mimi

These responses sparked discussion on the five senses, and how we use our sense of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch to explore and appreciate the world around us. We talked about how our eyes allow us to see our friends, our noses let us smell flowers, our ears are used for listening to stories, our tastebuds let us enjoy the foods we eat, and our gentle hands are great for playing with toys and giving hugs.

The children used their gentle hands at our fine motor activity table, where they were given a range of natural and manmade resources to experiment with. The goal of the task was attaching things to pipe cleaners using small wooden pegs. The items given ranged from leaves and twigs, bark and flowers, as well as corks, shredded paper, and felt letters. They were asked to think about the items they attaching, and why some were easier to attach than others. The pegs encouraged them to use their pincer grip and refine their fine motor coordination.

Housekeeping

A reminder to all parents to please ensure all children’s clothing and belongings are clearly labelled with the child’s name!

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER

Stage 2R: Exploring the Garden

Stage 2R: Fine Motor with Natural Resources

Stage 1E

By Ms Justine Heydra

This week in Stage 1E we enjoyed our last week of learning all about nature and loose parts before our term revision week. The children enjoyed a variety of sensory activities, art and gross-motor play throughout the week.

Our first sensory activity was giant leaf tracing. The children each had the opportunity to trace our giant leaves using a variety of different beans, seeds and lentils. This activity was great for developing fine motor skills and working on strengthening the children’s hand muscles. The children enjoyed the different textures of all the sensory items and enjoyed tracing the patterns in the leaf with them. We focused on describing the feeling and texture of the items used and we also named the colours of different objects within our activity.

Our second sensory activity was a group activity that the children participated in with their peers and teachers. We used a range of different shaped and coloured wooden blocks and the children were each given a chance to stack a number of blocks onto our loose parts tower. The children took their role very seriously and the concentration on their faces were extremely serious as they participated in our activity. This activity was great for developing a sense of teamwork, sharing, cooperation and patiently waiting for their turn. The children loved seeing the tower tumble over and they were happy to restart and help one another achieve a new tower.

During group time we discussed and had a small show and tell about our nature detective friends “Curious Carl” and “Curious Callie” . The children were very excited as most of them enjoyed adventures with either detective friend on the weekend. They loved looking at one another 's photo and also enjoyed finding their own adventure picture in our classroom collage. Thank you to all the families that participated in this activity. It definitely looked like everyone had a great time exploring nature.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.

“Don’t just tell your children about the world, Show them.”

- Penny Whitehouse

Stage 1E: Tracing Leaves

Stage 1E: Loose Part Towers

Stage 1E: Curious Carl and Curious Callie

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS

Stage 1E: Curious Carl and Curious Callie

By Ms Amanda Felton

Sink and Float!

Investigation is what we are good at and we continue to explore nature and what it has to offer. And what we focus upon is different materials that can sink and float in nature and also some materials that are man made. Just to get an comparison. Well! We had fun! Lots splashing and getting wet as we see what will sink and what will float.

Everyone was very good at sharing and it was really lovely to see.

Doing the our artwork was a bit hit and miss, as some of the Babies where not to keen to touch the Banksia seed pod. We used this seed pod as a tool to do stamping of our sink and float impressionist look. There was lots of pointing and pushing the seed pod for some, who were not so keen and then for those who where enthusiastic would love to grasp and throw the seed pod down or get their little fingers into the paint. Still great fun no matter how you look at it.

We have been practicing hard for the Xmas concert that is coming up very soon and that is fun as we have a lot of excited children, who love to show their personalities during practice time. Hopefully, they will also display their vibrant characters on the big day.

Could we kindly as that all parents label everything, from bibs to shoes and socks as we have quite a collection now.

Well done Babies keep up the great effort!

Stage 1R: Sink and Float

Drama

By Ms Laura Hudson

This week in Drama Stage 3 and 4 learnt all about Rapunzel. We began our lesson by discussing what a tower is and used our bodies to become the tower. I brought in a book and showed the children the story and how long her hair is! Harper showed us how to brush long hair.

We acted out the story and half the class had a turn making galloping noises like a horse on their legs like a prince. Alex showed us how to gallop. Rapunzel miss heard the prince and instead of throwing down her "curly locks" she threw "smelly socks" (which I brought in). Brendon thought this was very funny. The children then swapped and had a turn at being both characters. Well, done Hayley who used different voices for different characters. Allegra climbed up the tower and Maddy showed us how tall it was!

Stage 4 discussed trust and loss. We spoke about how it would feel for Rapunzel to lose her hair. Sarah said she would be Sad and Chloe she said she would be scared and Harry said he’d be mad! We did a trust exercise where we had to use different senses. We explored what it would be like without hearing and seeing.

Some children had a turn wearing a scarf across their eyes and tried to find their friends. Doudou put his hands in front of him so he could feel any obstacles that were in his way and Lucian trusted his friend’s direction. Well, done to Lucy and Annabelle who helped guide others with their voices.

Drama

By Ms Laura Hudson

This week in Stages 1 and 2 we started by discussing weather. We used different actions to explore this. We had long windy arms, twinkle rain fingers. Next, we dusted off our magic carpet and went flying. It was very windy, so we had to be very careful! A tornado hit and we had to swirl and spin around. When it started to rain, we even put-up umbrella.

We landed our carpets in the snowy Arctic. We discussed what animals might live there then we decided it was a good idea to get dressed up nice and warm so we wouldn’t get cold. The children wanted to go Ice skating, so we put on our boots and skated around, twirling and balancing practicing our freeze positions. I decided on the last freeze pose they would show a scared face. But what where they scared of? Polar Bears, Walrus and BIG penguins taller than me.

Next, I brought in some pictures of Penguins, Snowflakes, Wooly hats, Walrus’s, and Polar Bears. I explained and demonstrated what the word ‘mime’ means, For the next activity

I gave each picture an action, I then held the picture up and the children mimed, they were fantastic at this.

To finish our Arctic adventure, we also danced to a snow version of hokey pokey and sung a winter clothes song with actions.

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL

By Mr Alan Tang