Reddam Early Learning School Newsletter - Woollahra - Issue 22 Vol 3

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER Dee’s Message

11TH FEBRUARY 2022

Dear Parents and Caregivers, With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, love is definitely in the air in the ELS. While some might question the relevance of introducing a topic such as Valentine’s Day in an early learning environment, we are always on the look-out for opportunities to introduce the children to events which are celebrated in their broader environments, especially if these are uplifting and positive – and focused on showing kindness and understanding towards others.

It goes without saying that children who feel loved and cared for by their parents, teachers, and other significant adults, inevitably show enormous long-term benefits. Such children realise that love is not dependent on their successes or achievements but is constant, regardless of circumstances. It leads to improved selfesteem, higher grades further on in school, and more stable relationships with others.

Last week we enjoyed celebrating Chinese New Year, and throughout the year there will be more occasions which we will use to expose the children to the cultures of those around them. We trust that each of these opportunities will open their eyes to the lives of others and will help them to embrace the richness and diversity around them. In a world which is so often polarised around cultural differences, how refreshing it would be to have a new generation of empathetic, understanding individuals.

For this reason, we make the most of opportunities such as Valentine’s Day, to discuss what love is and how we might show it to others. The teachers always enjoy listening to the children discussing the special people in their lives as they busy themselves with making hearts and other decorations to celebrate the occasion. This clearly has nothing to do with an adult conception of Valentine’s Day might be, and everything to do with little people learning how to express their love and

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11TH FEBRUARY 2022

Relationships are a key part of our lives and, as we all know only too well, they can be fraught with challenges. As such, it is never too early to start discussing how we treat others, and how we show affection to them.

Young children are only too aware of what is going on around them, so when they see red roses arriving in their home or hear the chat about Valentine’s Day on Monday, they will have a context by which to understand it.

Not only that, but we hope that they will also be able to contribute to the season of love through their beautiful artistic creations – and through the love and kindness they show to those around them.

Have a great weekend and may your Valentine’s Day be filled with love from kind, special people.

Please also follow this link to access our online Uniform Shop.

Dee Pitcairn Principal REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

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The Nest (1R)

Kiri Winders, Helena Zhang, Hannah Corrigan and Min Pattarasiritanarat

Now that the children are becoming more settled and familiar with their new surroundings, this week in the Nest we extended our environment and discovered new experiences!

Early in the week, we ventured out into our big playground to play! The children were excited to climb up onto the play equipment, crawl through the tunnel and over the lazy bridge. Through extending their environment in this way, the children are engaging in increasingly complex gross motor activities, learning new movement patterns, and learning about safety, boundaries and spatial awareness. We look forward to continuing to provide these play experiences for the children.

Connecting to nature and our natural environment is a wonderful opportunity for learning. This week when it rained, we watched the rain drip down the windows, and sang “rain, rain go away!” The children loved to watch and look out the window at the puddles forming on the ground. We could hear the rain drops at the change table also.

We as educators find it a wonderful talking point with the children as we change their nappies, to help them have a calming and respectful experience. “Can you hear the rain drops?” we ask as we look out the window, at the wet leaves on the trees.

Theodore P was fascinated with the rain drops, as he noticed the sound and started talking about it at bedtime! The children really enjoyed ice sensory play activity this week. Teacher Min had prepared some little fish toys inside ice cubes. We laid them out into trays for the children to explore, feel and discover the little fish toys inside. It was so cute seeing the looks on their little faces when they felt the freezing cold ice! Some wanted to put it in their mouths, and some were a little nervous about this new sensation. Having new experiences extends their cognition as they try to make sense of REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

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The Nest (1R)

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Fledglings (1E)

By Tatiana Botrel, Jane Teh, Marina Moliboga and Nadia Breus

Talking about love…

identity. Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect.

As we finished our celebrations for Chinese New Year, we noticed that the children particularly enjoyed making the blossom trees with the teachers. It was an activity that drew them to the table and caught their attention for some time.

Researching more about the Chinese blossom trees, we discovered that they represent love. How amazing it is to have a beautiful tree to symbolise love? It is the perfect time to talk about love in the Fledglings. With the children settling in and creating strong relationships with the teachers and their peers, it is evident that each day we have been more connected and developing a relationship of trust with each of them.

The Quality Area 5, under the National Quality Standard, is to promote relationships with children that are responsive, respectful and promote children’s sense of security and belonging. Relationships of this kind free up children to explore the environment and engage in play and learning.

Considering all, this week, we started to read books to the children that talked about love.

“Feeling loved” by Trace Moroney and “Guess how much I love you” by Sam McBratney. We also started singing “Skinnamarink”, teaching the children how to make a love heart action with their hands, just like they do with the “Twinkle, Twinkle” song.

In the Atelier, the children explored the official colours of love to create drawings.

They also started to paint their blossom trees using various resources to print the flowers, for example, wooden popsticks, sponges, plastic lids and bubble wrap. These paintings will be displayed in our documentation wall for your appreciation.

Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

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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

As the children develop a sense of belonging in the classroom, it becomes apparent that they are drawn to everything at their eye level. Throughout the room we make the set-up accessible to each of the children, with their interests being the pinnacle of our planning. The little pockets of learning include a book area, a shop area, a lightbox with blocks, a baby area, an office area, and a variety of puzzles on the table. Each of these areas is mindfully set up with the children’s interests under the headings of dramatic, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and literacy in the main room.

Under each heading we begin the year with a variety of toys and activities. As we get to know the children, their personalities and what is successful, we begin to edit the room. The dramatic play area includes ageappropriate toys such as the baby play and the office set-up. They mimic their environments at home where they see family members with home office set-ups.

place that is welcoming, authentic, aesthetically pleasing, culturally representative of community, embraces nature and filled with purposeful materials. The layout of the environment promotes relationships, communication, collaboration, and exploration through play. Materials are thoughtfully added to the environment to promote creativity, thinking and problem-solving skills, questions, experimentation, and open-ended play.

As we immerse ourselves in the term and our provocation of animals, we will purposefully add activities to the tables and encourage the children to explore the drawers of toys which are available on our trolleys.

For the STEM area our light box with clear cubes has become popular with the children. As we extend their learning, we have also added clear shapes for them to extend their building. The cash register develops mathematics as the children become familiar with cash, transactions and generally counting.

Our literacy is present throughout the room with keywords on the wall and an ingrained reading area in two sections – one visible and another where the children are encouraged to take a box from the shelf that contains more books for them to read and look at, with or without support.

The learning environment or classroom plays a key role in the Reggio Emilia approach. Children thrive in environments that are suited to their interests and developmental stages. In the Reggio Emilia approach, the environment is viewed as a 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 and Sarah Garderner – Ventura

In the Stage 3R classroom, the children have a keen interest in sensory experiences.

Sensory activities, in addition to being fun and interesting for young children, encourage children to explore and investigate. Furthermore, these activities support children to use the ‘scientific method’ of observing, forming a hypothesis, experimenting and making conclusions.

Sensory activities also allow children to refine their thresholds for different sensory information, helping their brain to create stronger connections to sensory information and learn which are useful and which can be filtered out. Through sensory play, children can learn to block out the noise, which is not important and focus on the play which is occurring with their peer.

The use of sensory play can assist children with touching, smelling and playing with the texture in an environment with little expectation. As children develop trust and understanding of this texture it helps build positive pathways in the brain to say it is safe to engage with. Other reasons sensory play is beneficial for children include, it helps to build nerve connections in the brain, it encourages the development of motor skills, it supports language development, it encourages ‘scientific thinking’ and problem solving, it can involve mindful activities which are beneficial for all children.

was to finger paint. The children were invited to get messy and use their fingers to paint with! The children are never forced to do an experience so they can come at their leisure and try if they wish.

During the experience the children spoke about how the paint felt. Below are their responses.

Isabelle: It is soft. I make spots with my fingers Kaitlyn: It’s squishy and squiggly Rafael: It’s gooey feeling. It’s fluffy Myka: It’s soft. It’s like gooey aeroplane with a stuck motor Rhys: It cold Over the recent week another sensory experience was set up in the classroom, kinetic sand. This was off the observation of the children enjoying time in the sandpit on the deck, so why not bring the sand inside?

Kinetic sand is another form of sensory play for children and there are so many reasons it is so fabulous First, it is mouldable, so the children can build, sculpt and play with it almost any way

Over the past few weeks the children have been immersed in a range of sensory experiences. The first being playdough. It is such a versatile material and provides numerous benefits to children. The table was set up with wooden utensils, rolling pins, boards and cupcake patties.

The playdough itself not only enhanced the children’s sense of touch, but also their sense of smell as it has had different scents throughout the weeks, such as lavender and peppermint.

To further enhance the children’s sense of touch, their first provocation art experience REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

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Stage 3

By Christina Mandalidis, Susan Casey, Jason Corrigan and Sarah Garderner – Ventura

they can think of. It involves using some great skills along with sensory input: New sensory input which is different from regular sand, fine motor skills (finger strengthening, dexterity, in hand manipulation), bilateral coordination skills (using both hands together to mould and shape) and visual motor skills such as eye-hand coordination.

The children had kinetic sand, eggcups, utensils, scrapers and small castle moulds to create and explore however they chose.

In the coming weeks the children will begin to explore some of their other senses, such as sight and sound.

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Stage 4

By Jane Pledger, Sandra Carberry, Nina Bergel,Yuliya Ginis and Bri Rees

As part of our Provocation in 4D this term we are focusing on developing a strong sense of belonging for each child through celebrating the diversify we share. Fostering a strong sense of belonging for children creates an environment where learning can thrive. Our most recent celebration has been Lunar New Year.

Lunar New Year is the date people following Chinese traditions will celebrate the start of a New Year. It is similar to the Western New Year, however it follows lunar months. The New Year starts on a different date each year because the calendar goes by the cycle of the moon. The first day of Lunar New Year was 1st February this year. This year is The Year of the Tiger. The tiger is a good luck symbol thought to bring strength.

At group time we looked at pictures and discussed how Lunar New Year is celebrated. It is all about spending time with family and friends, feasting on nice foods with symbolic meanings, gift-giving and good wishes. Symbolic food includes dumplings (because they are shaped like silver ingots, a traditional form of currency), rice cakes (signifies cleanliness and purity for good fortune), spring rolls and fortune cookies. On New Year’s Day, elderly and married couples give red pockets to young children with good wishes. Chinese people also pay respects to their elders and to ancestors by lighting incense sticks and making offerings.

creative skills, fine motor and scissor skills.

They are further developing their math skills as they cut out 2D shapes to create a dragon.

EYLF Outcomes: 1.4 Children learning to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect.

2.3 Children respect.

respond

to

diversity

with

4.1 Children develop dispositions for learning such as cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity.

4.4 Children resource their own learning through connecting with people, places, technologies and natural and processed materials.

5.3

Children

express

ideas

and

make

The children expressed an interest in the Chinese dragon, which featured in some of the books and stories we looked at.

Following on from this we watched a clip of the Chinese dragon dance. The children were invited to create their interpretation of a Chinese dragon using a variety of collage materials. They engaged in a guided cutting activity that challenged them to build a picture of a Chinese dragon. They also decorated lanterns. The children are demonstrating and further developing their REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

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Stage 4

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Early Learning School Drama This week in Stage 1 and 2 we explored the theme of Bears with the popular nursery rhyme “Teddy Bear’s Picnic”. We began by discussing bears (what they look like, sound like etc). We used our imagination to walk/ jump/skip through the woods and arrived at our picnic (on the parachute). Stage 2 are very good at following the leader, and we are beginning to introduce walking in rhythms and freezing.

Waiting at our picnic was a stuffed toy (1 per child). There was also ballet bear, who was sitting upright with her back straight, and legs straight and pointy toes. The children did a great job of copying her. The stuffed toys were hungry! We discussed what food might be served at a picnic, and pantomimed eating some of the foods. The stuffed toys then wanted us to put on a show for them. The children lined up the toys so that they were sitting like an audience.

We discussed “What makes a good audience?” The children came up with some great answers including “audiences are quiet”, “audiences clap for you”, and “audiences face the front”. We then showed the toys how good we are at balancing on one leg, touching our toes, making shapes with our bodies like stars and circles, walking like a bear, and touching our noses.

children will build spatial awareness and physical control. Their creative and critical thinking skills will blossom as they play and explore with their friends!

The children began by recapping what we did last week. This included discussing what an audience is, practising our bows, and understanding the term “Freeze”. Next, we spread out around the room, and I asked them to become statues in a museum. I described what I saw as I strolled through this silly ‘museum.’ Next, I announced that I was walking into another room at the museum and watched them all take on new statues. Tommy, Avalon and Bianca from Stage 3 where great at this activity. I continued strolling through the museum announcing new rooms. We went to a magical room, sports room, animal room and planes, trains and automobile room.

After we had been in the automobile room, Edwin from Stage 3 suggested we fly in an aeroplane to the jungle, so we became pilots, steering the aeroplane and arriving in the jungle to explore what was there. When the children come up with on-the-spot ideas, I often explore these ideas to see where they take us, which allows the

We finished by shaking the parachute for the toys. Jackson, Frankie and Maeve in Stage 2 are becoming more and more confident with the parachute and had a huge smile while we were shaking. Everyone practised their bows for the toys and then helped to pack away.

In Stage 3 and 4, over the next two weeks we will be doing an art-themed creative drama lesson. Children will be guided to sing, dance, share stories, and play.

Activities will nurture and enhance each child’s ability to communicate their ideas and feelings. Through movement-based storytelling and guided imagination play, REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

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Early Learning School Drama Next, I invited the children to move about the space in different environments, while encouraging them to use different levels and to engage their senses, by incorporating a lot of colours and textures into each environment. (How does that green grass feel between your toes? Look at all those purple butterflies!) We flowed from one environment to another. These are some of the environment ideas we used: Swimming in a pool of paint.

What colour is it? How does it feel?

Walking on the bright yellow sun. Is it hot?

Playing barefoot in a green, grassy field.

How does it feel?

Lying on a cold, marble floor. Can you slide on it?

Playing in a room of mud. Can you make something out of it?

Well done, Freya and Scarlett in Stage 4, for using mime to explore each environment.

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Early Learning School Sport This week in our Stage 3 and 4 Sport classes the students participated in a range of locomotive activities that focused on the fundamental movement skills of running and leaping. The children played a variety of games which allowed them to show their ability to change locomotion skills and work on their spatial awareness.

In our warm-up game the children moved around the space and were excellent at weaving about the space, whilst at the same time watching out for their friends.

When the whistle blew, they had to mimic the movement of an animal. This activity showed how creative our little friends are; in particular, their impersonation of the wild bear was excellent.

Stage Three played the egg relay where they had to gently run their balls safely up to the nest and back without dropping the ball. It was amazing to see the solid handeye coordination required to pick up and drop the ball and also the students’ ability to slow down quickly when they had to get their eggs into their respective nests. All of the children did a wonderful job moving their arms and keeping their eyes up to help them run swiftly and directly to the respective nests.

Stage Four began working on a new skill for the year, namely leaping. They travelled through an obstacle course to practise this fundamental movement skill by pretending they were in a muddy swamp filled with angry crocodiles. They did an excellent job of progressing this skill by leaping over crocodiles that became closer and closer together and all of the children even gave leaping over Sven, the largest crocodile, a go.

It was amazing to have our little friends again for Sport this week, as their boundless enthusiasm is infectious!

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Early Learning School Music I feel it's so important that music is a positive experience for our kids. It can help build their self-confidence, create bonds with friends and encourage healthy expression.

In Stages 3 and 4 this week, we began the lesson with ‘Around the Circle’ – a.k.a. ‘The Clapping Game’. This always becomes a firm favourite, and even brings out some healthy competition amongst the class. It helps settle and focus the children into the lesson, while we work on patience, reaction and encouraging good sportsmanship.

Once we finished our warm-up, we lined up around the piano to prepare for our scales.

This week we did ascending/descending scales on ‘LA’ and ‘MI’, getting our lips and articulators firing. Many Stage 3 kids struggle with creating the shape for ‘LA’ as they stick their tongue out of their mouth which can produce some hilarious results.

alternating knee slaps and three simple claps - S4 also tried to get our fingers working with clicks.

In our younger years some of our little ones are still settling. To open the lesson, I sang 'Colours of the Wind' from Pocahontas to the children, which is one of my favourites.

In Stage 2 we sang "In The Jungle" and explored different animals you might see in the jungle. We crawled like lions, flew like birds, and swung like monkeys. After singing through our Good Morning Song, we got our actions moving with 'Wheels on the Bus'. In Fledglings and Nest, we swap the 'mummy' and 'daddy' for lady and man as for some it triggers and it's important to keep music a positive experience.

We began gluing our Solfa scale together which creates the foundation of ‘Do Re Mi’ which consists of ‘Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do’ including our actions. Once our voices were all warmed and ready we sang our Good Morning song.

Using maracas, we sang and shook along to 'The Sunflower Song' and 'ABCs'. This is a fun exercise which the children always love as it allows them to freely express themselves as they jump and dance around the room to the music.

Going back to 'Do Re Mi', we revised our actions with the lyrics and sang along with the music. In Stage 4, we organised ourselves into a circle and layered this exercise with marching while we sang and did our actions.

To bring our energy back down, we sat on the floor in a circle and did some simple body percussion patterns, and it's my mission to teach Stage 4 to click for "Three Bear Rap". We introduced "Three Bear rap" with REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

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Early Learning School Music Using our maracas, we shook and stomped along to our 'ABCs', layering it with increasing and increasing tempo and freezes. Keeping our maracas, Stage 2 reviewed our rhythm animals of 'DOG', 'CAT' and 'SPIDER' before marching around the room to each rhythm.

We encouraged our Fledglings to all get up and march along with their friends as we shook to the sky; to the floor; and around in circles. To bring the lesson back down we sang through 'Open Shut Them', and in Stage 2 we began learning the 'Silly Version' which reverses the actions.

In The Nest, after our sing-a-longs we had free play with our maracas, wood sticks, castanets and the keyboard on which the kids loved exploring the different sounds it could make.

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Reddam Early Learning would like to wish a very happy birthday to Romy Rabot and Ren Cook who celebrate their special day this week We hope you have a fabulous day!

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