REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER Dee’s Message
4TH FEBRUARY 2022
Dear Parents and Caregivers, As we start a new year in the ELS it is worth reflecting on the educational approach we take with the children in our care. Some years ago, we made the decision to investigate, and then implement, a Reggio Emilia inspired approach in the ELS. Although this term might be well known across the world, what it actually means in practical terms is perhaps less understood. As its name implies, the Reggio Emilia approach was first inspired by a teacher, Loris Malaguzzi, in the tiny town of Reggio Emilia in Italy. It was his belief that, far from being passive absorbers of knowledge and skills, children were competent, curious and capable individuals. He believed that an environment in which self-discovery was possible created the best potential surroundings for learning to occur. As we look ahead to the future which these little people will inhabit, and as we try to imagine the potential careers which they might fill, one thing is certain. Their skills of
creativity, adaptability and the ability to problem solve will be crucial. As such, the Reggio Emilia approach, which encourages exploration and discovery, is a wonderful platform from which to launch early learning. The arts provide a wonderful means of expression and many of the opportunities for learning see the children creating beautiful works of art, as they make sense of their world, of the people around them, and of their own feelings. For this reason, art is at the centre of the Reggio approach. Music, drama and physical activities further enhance these experiences, providing a broad, holistic approach to learning. During the course of the year, the teachers will stimulate discussions and discovery through what are known in the Reggio approach as ‘provocations’. These are, as their name implies, ideas or focus areas which are intended to ‘provoke’ further investigation. Because they are so openended, there is no telling where the little
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4TH FEBRUARY 2022 people will go in their explorations, or quite how they will choose to express what they have learned. As the children embrace these open-ended invitations to discover more about the fascinating world in which they live, we look forward to seeing their innate curiosity being fired up. So much of what they experience at this young age is fresh and new to their inquisitive minds, and the broader we can make their horizons so much the better. As Loris Malaguzzi reminds us, “The wider the range of possibilities we offer children, the more intense will be their motivations and the richer their experiences.”
beautiful children who participated in our three monthly lockdown and evacuation process. Both practices were well executed by all and I was particularly proud. Please also follow this link to access our online Uniform Shop Have a happy weekend! Dee Pitcairn Principal
In the ELS we love nothing more than a good celebration and this week it was the turn of our Chinese families who celebrated the New Year. We join with them in trusting that the year ahead will be wonderful in every way, and we hope that they enjoy the celebrations which will continue in the coming days. I would like to thank the staff of the ELS and REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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The Nest (1R)
Kiri Winders, Helena Zhang, Hannah Corrigan and Min Pattarasiritanarat
In the Nest room we love to celebrate the cultures and backgrounds of our families. This week, Teachers Min and Helena decorated our room with some beautiful Chinese lanterns. The children have loved looking up at them and reaching out to touch them, as the light shines through the fabric. It is such a simple thing but it wonderful just watching them as they find wonder and awe in their surroundings. The educators enjoy creating beautiful inspiring spaces for the children to explore, and in which to learn and grow. In early childhood, we think of the environment as the third teacher. We can use it to inspire thought, problem solving, create calming spaces and exciting spaces. Our children have been learning about the Chinese New Year through a Chinese folklore story about a sea creature which Teacher Helena shared with them. The children enjoyed making their own tigers and Chinese fan inspired craft to put on display for all to see. The children have continued to settle in well. Each day we have seen them grow in emotional resilience and confidence. We have been noticing little giggles and babbles as they play alongside each other. It’s been a wonderful week
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The Nest (1R)
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Fledglings (1E)
By Tatiana Botrel, Jane Teh, Marina Moliboga and Nadia Breus
Celebrating Chinese New Year In the Fledglings, we have started the year in full steam. This week our focus of learning and experiences was Chinese New Year. Being a school that welcome all families and their backgrounds, we like to include meaningful celebrations into our program. Understanding how young our Fledglings are, we promoted activities that brought them closer to this celebration. In the Atelier, the children created blossom trees by scrunching crepe paper. We also made paintings to represent the beautiful Chinese tree. We later discovered that blossom trees represent love in China, so it was another good reason to have them in our classroom, as Valentine’s Day is also approaching. Continuing to celebrate Chinese New Year – the Year of the Tiger – we read books with the children that illustrated tigers. The children’s favourite was “The Tiger who Came to Tea” by Judith Kerr. The children had fun listening to all the food that the tiger ate at the girl’s house. In the Atelier, the children created their own tiger, by painting paper plates in orange colour and sticking black stripes on them. The dramatic play area in our classroom was turned into a Chinese restaurant, as the children cooked dumplings and noodles in the bamboo steamer, using chopsticks to pretend to eat them. The children also enjoyed wearing red to school and dancing to traditional Chinese children’s songs. It has been amazing to see the children engaging so beautifully in the activities promoted so early in the year and are looking forward to the many other experiences we will have together. Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world. Children respond to diversity with respect. EYLF, 2009.
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Fledglings (1E)
By Tatiana Botrel, Jane Teh, Marina Moliboga and Nadia Breus
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Stage 2
By Daniella Gosty, Shauna Corry, Sarah Noone, Roberta Sokame and Joyce Matsui
n the EYLF the focus is on Being, Belonging and Becoming. Experiencing belonging is knowing where and with whom you belong and is integral to human existence. Children belong first to a family, a cultural group, a neighbourhood and a wider community. For the children at Reddam, developing a sense of belonging to their school and class is being part of the wider community. While many of the children may have known each other from last year, we have new friends and of course a new classroom with new teachers and routines to become familiar with. We always start our mornings with a “tick tick hello” song to the whole of Stage 2 before we move into our Kookaburra and Tree frog groups. In the Kookaburra class the children have been introduced to a song “Bee bee bumble bee” with a friendly bee joining us to introduce ourselves by name and for our friends to say hello to us. This will be a focused activity in the mornings as the children gain confidence and develop their sense of belonging knowing that they are in the Kookaburra class.
offered a painting activity with sponge shapes of a koala and a wombat and we followed this up with making our own placemats for our morning and lunch time table settings with a selection of Australian animal templates and assorted sponges. The Kookaburra children display their work on the outer wall of the classroom while the Tree Frog group display their work on the wall in the classroom. Please take the time to look at the children’s work as these displays will change as the children continue to work on different projects throughout the year.
Australia – the country we live in Our morning group starts while we sit in a circle, and we say an acknowledgment of country where we thank the indigenous people for sharing their land and we promise to look after the animals. The children were shown the map of Australia where we all live and on it were some of the animals of Australia that the children were familiar with. In the Kookaburra class we read the story ‘Aussie Animals’ by Rod Campbell. The story introduced the children to the kangaroo bouncing, the wombat digging, the cockatoo squawking, the possum scuffling, the platypus splashing, the emu thumping, the kookaburra laughing and the Koala snoring. We followed this up with the story song book of ‘If you’re happy and you know it’ with all the Australian animals and we joined in by doing the actions. For our first art experience, the children were REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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Stage 2
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Stage 3
By Christina Mandalidis, Susan Casey, Jason Corrigan, Sarah Garderner – Ventura and Yuliya Ginis
In the perceptual Atelier we have been building a sense of belonging for the children since they joined the group. We have been building this through the daily circle games that we play. This week we also introduced our morning, lunch and afternoon-tea mats, which aid the children in finding their place at the table as we join together to enjoy meals and conversation. In the classroom group time, mats were added to our routine this week, and the children used their picture cards as a reference to guide them, as they were then invited to find their newly made name mats for group time. This is another step that will become part of our daily routine. The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia is a guide for early childhood educators who work with children from birth to five years. It helps educators to develop early learning programs that are responsive to children’s ideas, interests, strengths and abilities in the context of their families and communities. Children must grow healthy and strong in the early years. They must learn and build success for school and their life ahead. The Framework outlines a vision and an educational approach that promotes wellbeing and learning in a culturally responsive, safe and supportive setting. It describes the early childhood years as a time of belonging, being, and becoming. Belonging is important for children when developing their own identity. Children’s relationships with others – their families, communities, friends, and educators – all help to develop a sense of belonging. Being is about children expressing themselves as individuals and developing their personality, culture, and learning. It is important for children to enjoy their childhood experiences and build relationships and knowledge. Becoming is about the importance of children learning and growing in their childhood and allowing them to understand and build capacities, skills and relationships to be active REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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Stage 3 participants in society. Stemming from this, this term’s provocation will be ‘Connections’. We will be exploring our children’s connections – to themselves, their families, their school and the community. The connection between school and home is an important part of our provocation. If you have any ideas to add to our provocation, we would love for you to share them with us.
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Stage 4
By Jane Pledger, Sandra Carberry, Nina Bergel, Yuliya Ginis and Bri Rees
Over the first few weeks of term the children in 4M have been busy putting their mathematical thinking into action through a range of play-based learning experiences designed to support and extend each child’s understanding of numeracy concepts such as patterns, measurement, space, geometry and number. Piaget suggested that children in the early years need concrete objects, pictures, actions, and symbols to develop a strong understanding of mathematical concepts. In 4M, colourful little penguins that clip easily onto an igloo-inspired tens frame have provided the concrete material children need to develop their mathematical understanding of number and of pattern making. During one-on-one conversations with their teacher, the children used mathematical language to articulate their understanding of number and pattern making.
playdough allows children the opportunity to further develop the dispositions for learning such as persistence, cooperation and confidence. The Early Years Learning Framework highlights the importance of learning experiences which allow children to develop a range of skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating. In Stage 4, learning experiences which allow children to develop a range of mathematical skills and processes are presented to children regularly and are not only educational but a lot of fun.
Elizabeth: “My penguin pattern is white, pink, white, pink.” Noah: “I have ten penguins!” Max: “The penguins are green, yellow, green, yellow.” Daliya: “We need to have the same, pink, red, brown” Lily: “I need more penguins to make the pattern.” Construction play, art experiences and even our daily visits to the outdoor learning environment provide an excellent opportunity to support and extend children’s numeracy development. During morning and afternoon group times, the children in 4M have been highly engaged in singing number songs and reading stories centred around numeracy such as ‘The Doorbell Rang’ by Pat Hutchins and ‘Mr Archimedes’ Bath’ by Pamela Allen. Balancing on and counting the coloured steppingstones, while estimating how long the timer will take to run through, and even dividing and sharing the REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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Stage 4
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Early Learning School Dance & Drama How exciting to be starting 2022 with drama! I’d like to introduce myself to those of you who don’t know me – my name is Laura and I’m so happy to be back face-to-face at Reddam this year During the first couple of weeks in Drama we will be establishing what drama is and for the children to have an understanding of what they do in drama. In the Nest – Stage 2 we started with the parachute and sang our ‘Hello Song’; then we flew like aeroplanes and landed on a “rainbow”. The children were then asked what colour they were sitting on. Next, we did some shaking – fast and slow, starting and stopping, up and down, and we always finished with going under (which they loved!). This week we explored “What is drama?” To help us this week we had a visit from Ballet Bear in Stage 1, 2 and 3. Stage 4 explored these concepts without Ballet Bear to help them. Actors need to be good at copying. We copy different people so we can become that character. Ballet Bear loves to play “Ballet Bear says”. We play games like “Ballet Bear says” in Drama to encourage spatial and body awareness. To play, Ballet Bear called out things like “touch your nose”, “clap your hands”, and “tickle your toes”, and the children were encouraged to copy.
We then explored our emotions. Actors need to be able to show their emotions. We discussed where we show emotions (on our faces). The children showed me (and Ballet Bear) angry, sad, confused, bored, shocked, excited, and happy. Sarah from Stage 3 has a very convincing angry face! We then explored space. Actors need to have good spatial awareness. The children spread into their own space, and then pantomimed being stuck in a box. Stage 2 and 3 started in a very small box, that eventually grew into a big one. Stage 4 started big and became small. Stage 4 were encouraged to use their faces to express how they felt about the box shrinking, and how they would break out when the box was at its smallest. Were they scared to be stuck? Sore? Angry? After breaking out of our box, I called out various pairings for Stage 4 like “touch the floor with only 1 hand and 1 foot”, “put 4 little fingers together”, or “put 2 ears together” to further our work with spatial awareness. We then played “Pass the ball” in Stages 2 and 3, and “What’s the goo for you?” in Stage 4. These are two variations of the same game to encourage imaginative play and spatial awareness. In Stage 2 and 3, an imaginary ball was passed around the circle. The children were
For Stage 2 and up, if Ballet Bear didn’t say “Ballet Bear says…” the children were told not to copy! This caused a lot of giggling – especially in Stage 3. Ballet Bear then wanted to see if we could be different characters. Actors have to be good at pretending. The children became astronauts walking on the moon, superheroes (flying through the woods - suggested by Jack, Stage 3), elephants, and giraffes. We added in, for Stage 3, a “freeze” component, where the children stopped when Ballet Bear stopped! REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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Early Learning School Dance & Drama encouraged to throw the ball in the air and catch it and bounce it on the floor. We then passed an imaginary kitten around the circle. We discussed: how would we hold the kitten? Would we be gentle or rough? In Stage 4, I started with some imaginary magical goo that could be changed into anything! The goo was passed around the circle, and the children were asked “What’s the goo for you?” Some cool suggestions were a butterfly, a crown, a witch, a banana, watermelon, and Elsa. We also spoke about using our imaginations in drama, that the room they are in could be a castle, library, a forest, anything. This week we pretended we were at the beach. We felt the sand and the sun on our face, had an ice cream, bult a sandcastle and dipped our toes in the water. ‘Imagination is the source of all human achievement’. Sir Ken Robinson
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Early Learning School Sport This week in our introductory Physical Education lessons, our Stage 3 and 4 classes focused on locomotive skills, including running, skipping and marching. The students participated in a range of games which not only showed their incredible ability to move and change direction, but also reminded them of the importance of being aware of space and of our friends within this space.
It is so lovely working with Stage 3 and 4 and we really look forward to working with them this year. Great work, Stage 3 and 4! Keep practising your balancing on the weekend.
All of the students arrived bouncing with energy and absolutely loved our introductory game, ‘freeze.’ Students were instructed to move around the hall with a certain locomotive movement and when the music stopped, they practised balancing on one foot. This is not an easy task when moving at full speed and then stopping and the students were very impressive in locating a spot on the ground and using their arms to maintain balance. In the next transition, students were asked to locate a hoop to stand in when the music stopped. Each round a hoop was eliminated, testing the student’s ability to form teams and share the small space within a hoop. It was great to see the sharing abilities of each class, with all members of the class managing to stand together in one hoop in the last round. Super work! Stage 3 then practised their balancing skills further with ropes. Students were very creative in imagining that the ropes were land and the floor was water and managed to walk and run on the ropes without ‘falling in.’ The energy of each class was incredible and there was lots of encouragement provided when a friend or even I stepped off the lines. Stage 4 focused on ball movement in combination with locomotive skills with relay races. Students had to move a large number of balls from one end of the relay course to the other. Students were super keen to complete this task and showed great ability in coordinating movement with holding of one or even two balls. REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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Early Learning School Music Hello Reddam families! I am so excited to be back and once again be writing these updates. I hope everyone has been looking after themselves these last 6 months. I have missed everyone immensely! Our first week back usually means many new faces and it’s important to me that I help every child to build a positive and happy relationship with music. During Term One I want to focus on movement, with beat, rhythm and tempo. In Stages 3 and 4 we began our lesson with our ‘Expression Circle’ – going around the room and asking how everyone is I find helps make the children comfortable and encourages them to express how they are feeling. Some of our familiar faces had many stories to tell! Once we got around our circle, we warmed up our bodies with ‘Hokey Pokey’ – a simple exercise which helps the children focus for the lesson while incorporating coordination and direction. Once our bodies were warm, we moved onto our voices. We started the lesson with some simple ascending scales on ‘LA’, while encouraging correct placement and shape (many children can struggle with this shape as they try to stick their tongue out), before moving onto ‘MA’, with an increasing tempo to activate our articulators. After our voices were warmed up, we sang our favourite and famous ‘Good Morning Song’.
Continuing with our maracas, we sat on the floor and did some beat and rhythm revision with our animals of ‘DOG’, ‘CAT’ and ‘SPIDER’. We first shook out simple syllables, before creating different rhythmic patterns and layering it with stomping. The children were asked to interpret how each pattern would be played and if they could demonstrate it. This is a great little exercise to help build their sense of timing and coordination. To end the lesson, we did revision of ‘Do Re Mi’ which is built around the Solfa scale. We ran through the actions assigned to each note as we progressively sing faster and faster, seeing if the children could keep up. The Stage 2s had a shorter lesson because of our lockdown drill – so we filled it with singing and dancing. We sang through our ‘Good Morning Song’, clapping and moving along, before we moved into our action songs of ‘Wheels on the Bus’ and ‘Open Shut Them’. Using our maracas, we danced and moved to ‘ABCs’ with our layered shaking, stomping and freezing. However, our Stage 2s usually get so excited that the stomping turns into jumping – they found it’s very hard to freeze mid-air! The Fledglings opened our lesson with sing-a
Some children can be shy when it comes to singing in front of others, so to help combat this our first lesson is an easy one. We sang ‘Open Shut Them’ normally and then with our actions reversed (or the silly one as the kids say), and then using our maracas we layered singing, shaking, stomping and freezing to our ABCs, at an increasing tempo. This is also a great icebreaker and gets the kids laughing and smiling as I try to catch them out.
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Early Learning School Music longs, welcoming our new faces as some kids are learning to settle. We sang through ‘Wheels on the Bus’ and ‘Open Shut Them’, before using our castanets to build our fine motor skills and click in time to ‘Twinkle Twinkle’. The castanets are tricky to begin with and many kids use them with two hands as if they’re clapping, but they’ll build that movement soon enough!
start the lesson with our simple songs: ‘Twinkle Twinkle’, ‘Wheels on the Bus’, ‘ABCs’, ‘BINGO’ – all while introducing them to an array of instruments and sounds. We played with maracas and castanets, seeing if we could shake along to ‘The Ants Go Marching’.
Using our maracas, we got everyone up and moving with our ‘ABCs’ before introducing our rhythm ‘CAT’ and ‘DOG’, encouraging the children to shake and stomp in time. Using our maracas and newly found animals, we played ‘Ants Go Marching’ and marched around trying to coordinate our shaking and stomping. I was so happy to see everyone joining in and giving it a go. Our Nest is filled with all brand-new faces! Our first few weeks in The Nest are always spent getting the children comfortable with their new and changing environment. We
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Reddam Early Learning would like to wish a very happy birthday to Capri Miller, Theodore McClenahan and Jude Israelstam who celebrate their special day this week We hope you have a fabulous day!
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