Reddam Early Learning School Newsletter - Woollahra Vol 22 Issue 4 by Reddam House Sydney

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER Dee’s Message

18TH FEBRUARY 2022

Dear Parents and Caregivers, Children’s book writer, Richard Scarry, said that “It’s a precious thing to be communicating to children, helping them to discover the gift of language and thought.” While I entirely agree with his sentiments, if there is one word which I would change it would be that we communicate ‘with’ children and not ‘to’ them – for as we all know only too well, our conversations with children are far more than just talking ‘to’ them. Of course, while their language might be in its formative stages, communication is about so much more than only words. From their earliest smiles, we learn to read their emotions from their facial expressions, tears and physical actions. And they do the same with us. Babies and young children are incredibly adept at picking up what makes us happy, or what disappoints us. They soon learn what elicits a favourable response and what produces a frown, or even worse.

This topic of conversation and how best to converse with children remains one of the integral parts of early childhood development. As we are reminded in the Early Years Framework: “Communication is crucial to belonging, being and becoming. From birth children communicate with others using gestures, sounds, language and assisted communication. They are social beings who are intrinsically motivated to exchange ideas, thoughts, questions and feelings, and to use a range of tools and media, including music, dance and drama, to express themselves, connect with others and extend their learning.” The teachers also realise that each child develops language competency at a different rate to that of his or her peers. It is really important to celebrate the language acquisition milestones for each child, rather than trying to compare them to other children. After all, we are all unique and this isn’t about a race to the finish line.

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18TH FEBRUARY 2022 One group of educational researchers at the University of Washington use the term ‘parentese’ to describe a form of language which they believe provides the best type of communication between adults and children. In their research they found that talking slowly and clearly, with exaggerated vowels and intonation, helps children to understand what is being said – and also to mimic that language as they develop their own set of communication skills. This is not to be confused with ‘baby-talk’, with all its unique baby words, nonsense sounds, and made-up phrases. Rather, it is conventional language but with emphases placed on words and a slower, more pronounced way of speaking. This also makes it easier to transition to more formal, grammatically correct language as the children grow older – and it respects the potential of each child to use language far more effectively than we might even believe possible! Have a great weekend! Dee Pitcairn Principal REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

The Nest (1R)

Kiri Winders, Helena Zhang, Hannah Corrigan and Min Pattarasiritanarat

This week we celebrated Valentine’s Day and the theme of love. It was so lovely to see all the children arrive in their pink on Monday. Little Olivia arrived in her pretty ballet dress. Teacher Kiri asked her if she would like to do some dancing and she nodded. We put some ballerina music on and danced around to the music. The other children enjoyed this too! Music and dancing were a feature this week as we are getting into the rhythm of having the music and dancing specialist classes. The children are still getting used to the teachers joining us in the room. At Music lesson, the children are in awe of Teacher Nick and tend to sit and watch wide eyed staying close to their educators at the beginning of the class. They are happy to sit back on the comfort of their teacher’s knee and observe him. Teacher Nick gently encourages the children to join in by passing them a bell or a shaker, and he gets down onto their level on the floor. Little by little the children reach out, or smile and clap, demonstrating they are feeling safer to explore and join in. By the end of the lesson, they are on their feet and dancing around, shaking the bells and shakers. Every week we notice their confidence emerging. We look forward to later in the year when they are confident to sing and dance freely without reservation! Teacher Rama is our sports teacher. She arrived this week with her big bag filled with sports equipment. The children were all so excited to see the coloured balls! She rolled them to each of the children and sang a song about the colours teaching them not only hand-eye coordination but learning about colour too! There were many huge smiles as they were handed their very own balls. Next, she bought out some little soft animal toys and guided the children to put them on their arms and toes and heads, so as to teach them about their different body parts. REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

The Nest (1R)

Kiri Winders, Helena Zhang, Hannah Corrigan and Min Pattarasiritanarat

Throughout the week we extended on this interest by playing ball outside under the big trees. We rolled the balls around, passing to one another and sitting on the ground, while helping the children to learn to roll to one another. Playing with balls can provide lots of developmental benefits for children. Ball play builds hand-eye coordination, gross and fine motor skills, spatial awareness, grasping skills, problem-solving skills, balance, and even language and social skills. Throughout the year, ball play will be an ongoing activity for the children. As it was our special week of love for Valentine’s Day, we decorated the Nest room with lots of pink and created a heart tree for the parents to write love notes to the children. We read the notes to the children. We know they understand the message on some level. We will put these messages in their books so later on, when they are older, they will be able to read the message from their mum and dad. The children all participated in some love heart paintings which we have displayed in our foyer. EYLF Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing.

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The Nest (1R)

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Fledglings (1E)

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

Celebrating Love in the Fledglings

Lucia – “mummy”

We like to call February the month of Love… It is a time during which we are helping the children to settle in their new school environment, and it is also time to celebrate St. Valentine.

Harriet – “fish”

In our group times, we have been talking about love in all shapes and forms, ever since we celebrated Chinese New Year and we discovered that the beautiful blossom trees represented love in China. We read books where characters displayed love towards their family, friends, animals and other favourite things in the world. We also started singing a song at circle time which encouraged the children to learn the action for a love heart shape with their fingers, just like they do the “diamond” when they sing the twinkle-twinkle:

Charlie – “Yep”

Marcella – “Mamma” Caleb – “Mummy, daddy”

Group time is taking shape, as children start to understand our routine better. They are becoming more participative and attentive to the activities offered while we sit around the mat in a circle. Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing. Children become strong in their social and emotional wellbeing. EYLF, 2009.

Skinnamarinky dinky dink / Skinnamarinky do / I love you / Skinnamarinky dinky dink / Skinnamarinky do / I love you / I love you in the morning / And in / the afternoon / I love you in the evening / Underneath the moon / Skinnamarinky dinky dink / Skinnamarinky do / I love you (I love you) In the Atelier, the children participated in sensory activities exploring the colours of love – red and pink. They had a great time touching shaving cream and feeling its soft and wet texture. Sensory activity is a great resource to encourage the development of social, physical, cognitive, emotional and language skills. We had a great time celebrating love this week, wearing red/pink to school and then dancing to romantic songs. The children created Valentine’s Day cards for their families, and at group time they expressed things they loved: Zoe – “mummy, daddy” Levi – “da”

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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

Cultural and community celebrations Gung hey Fat Choy – Happy Chinese New Year. We all love to celebrate, and the Chinese New Year, or Lunar New Year, is one of our favourite celebrations where we get to see the dragons and lions come out to dance. The Kookaburras made a dragon together as a group with a collage activity and we sang the song “See the Lion Dance and Prance”. The Tree frogs made lucky red envelopes and we read lots of stories about this festival.

them to become aware of the past, present and future. Personal experiences help children make sense of the temporal concepts. At school we help to celebrate with the birthday song The Earth Goes Round the Sun. The Earth goes round the sun, The Earth goes round the sun, round and round and round and round the Earth goes round the sun, And then (name of the Birthday child) was one, Repeat song.

Will you be my Valentine? As we celebrated Valentine’s Day, we talked about who we love and of course mummies and daddies were at the top of the list. The children were taught a new song: “Will you be my Valentine, my Valentine my Valentine? Will you be my Valentine? Because I love you? We turned this song into a fun game just like the ‘Jump, jump Josie’ game that we have been playing where we handed a love heart to a friend, to be our Valentine and have a jump with. This game gave the children the opportunity to say their friends’ names in the class and continues to encourage the sense of belonging that we have in our community, in this case our Stage 2 Kookaburra class. The Earth goes around the sun. Birthday celebrations are important for young children, as it is their one special day of the year to celebrate growth. A birthday is a milestone, and it represents a year that had gone by and that the child has grown a year older. The celebration goes beyond fun. Through this dramatic play and discussion, children develop a sense of time. Growing up is an experience meaningful to young children, so this birthday activity helps REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Stage 2

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Stage 3

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

Dr Maria Montessori’s Practical Life activities provide many benefits to children: independence, skill development, and coordination are just a few. But arguably the most important benefit is the feeling of satisfaction and success they get when they master an activity. Practical Life activities are purposeful tasks that simulate the activities involved in everyday life. Often called ‘family work,’ typical Practical Life activities include sweeping, dusting, and food preparation. The purpose and aim of Practical Life exercises is to help children develop coordination of movement, gain independence, adapt to their society, and develop the ability to concentrate.

as we can always clean up any mistake! This week we extended upon this lesson by pouring coloured green water. It is truly mesmerising to see how such a simple activity can have such a calming effect on the children, as they repeat it over and over until they have mastered the task. Celebrating Valentine’s Day this week the children listened to the book, ‘In my Heart’, by Jo Witek:

Through the repetition of Practical Life activities, children learn to develop their gross and fine motor skills, problem solve effectively, and establish a strong sense of self by actively contributing to their world. The child observes these activities within their world and gains knowledge of them through experience using Practical Life materials in the prepared environment of the Montessori classroom. Practical Life activities are culture specific and provide children with the opportunity to develop a sense of being and belonging by participating in the activities of daily life. Throughout the term the chidden will gradually be introduced to different Practical Life materials. With this in mind, recently the children were introduced to the Dry Pouring activity. Before they began, we introduced the language of funnel, silver sand, spout or lip, handle and transfer. Then they watched as I demonstrated how to transfer the material, holding the jug using two hands, from one jug to the other, using the spout or the lip as a guide as to where to pour from. The idea behind Dry Pouring is to make the daily task of transferring a material or liquid from one vessel into another something that is inviting rather than daunting, and indirectly the exercise will assist fine motor and problemsolving skills, too. The children also understood the need to take our time; there is no rush in this activity, and it is ok if you spill, REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Stage 3

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

Sometimes my heart feels like a big yellow star, shiny and bright. I smile from ear tio ear and twirl around so fast, I feel as if I could take off in the sky. This is when my heart is happy. At the Atelier the children were invited to create a Valentines artwork as they expressed who they love and why! “My mum always plays with me, she also drops me off.” Valentine “My daddy plays with me.” Riley “My mummy always snuggles me.” Bianca “My mummy and daddy play games with me.” Elliot “I love Thomas Rogers, because he plays with me.” Edwin “I like mommy and Adele and daddy and Edward.” Tommy “I love Edwin a lot.” Olly “Mummy, I love her.’ Harlow

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Stage 3

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

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Stage 4

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

Love is in the air This week was all about LOVE. Every February, we celebrate Valentine's Day by giving flowers, candy, and cards to those we love. We do this in honour of St. Valentine. You may be wondering "Who is St. Valentine"? There are many legends about St. Valentine. One legend is that Valentine was an imprisoned man who fell in love with his jailor's daughter. He sent the first 'valentine' to his love when he wrote her a letter and signed it 'Your Valentine'. These words are still used on cards today. Perhaps we'll never know the true identity and story behind the man named St. Valentine, but this much is for sure...February has been the month to celebrate love for a long time, dating way back to the Middle Ages.

how special it is to feel love, warmth and security. We explored that a hug, a smile, being calm and patient are everyday signs of love. We agreed that when we feel loved we have a healthy self-esteem, become free to love others and engage within the world with less fear. After reading the story, we further reflected on our own feelings of love as I posed the question “What is love?” Here are the children’s comments: Alfie: Love is kiss. Luca: You love everyone in the world, and I have so many friends play with. Frankie: Love is giving Mummy presents. Gisele: Love when people cry, and you give them cuddles.

Here at Reddam ELS, we also celebrated Valentine’s Day, and the children were invited to wear red and pink clothing. In the classroom, the children could choose from a variety of Valentine’s Day-related activities which covered most learning areas. We had love heart counting puzzles, heart colouring and cutting activities, tracing worksheets and many fun and hands-on activities. In the lead-up to Valentine' s Day, we asked the children what they would like to create for their expression of love. The children answered straight away: “A love heart”. For their artwork, the children in Nina’s group could choose from a variety of paper pieces to create a beautiful love heart collage. A benefit of making collages is that it helps to strengthen children’s fine motor skills plus it's a great hand-eye activity. To extend on our creative expression, during group time, we read the book “When I’m feeling loved”, by Trace Maloney. This book further promoted the opportunity to discuss REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Stage 4

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

Julian: Love is giving Mummy flowers. Ava: Love is helping people. Ren: Love is my dog. Gabriel: Love is helping people. Zoe: Love is hugging and kissing. The children's Valentine’s Day creations and photographs can be admired on display in our Stage Four Piazza. We wish all the families weekend filled with love.

wonderful

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Early Learning School Drama This week in Drama our focus was Bears, Bears, Bears! In Stage 1 and 2 we started the lesson by recapping the skills we have learnt so far and we explored the theme of Bears, extending on our ideas from last week. We began by singing our hello song on the parachute and discussing the colours. This led us nicely into our next activity of using the ribbons to dance to the song ‘I can sing a rainbow’. The children loved dancing with the colourful ribbons, creating rainbow shapes and pretending to paint a rainbow. Frankie had a great idea and wanted to put all the ribbons together, so we all gathered in a circle and held our ribbons out to create a big rainbow. Next, we revisited the bear in a box, as we extended on our ideas from last week. We used our hands to push ourselves down, like we were the box in the box. I pretended to wind the box up while singing the song and on the count of 3 they popped out of the box. They all gave me quite a shock. We tried it twice, once with noise and once without noise. We got a few giggles as they thought it was funny to surprise me! Stage 3 and 4 explored the theme of bears in a few different ways. We started the lesson with reading the book “A Beginner’s Guide to Bear Spotting” by Michelle Robinson and David Roberts. The book explains two different types of bears: black and brown bears, and what to do if you find one in the wild. We then decided to go on our own bear hunt! First, we needed to pack an imaginary bag. The children came up with ideas on what we might need. Some suggestions included hats, sunscreen, food, water, jumpers, and binoculars. We used the popular song “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” as a backing for our hunt. Avalon and Elliot from Stage 3 knew all the words!

lake (splish, splash) to try and find a bear. I always try to encourage the children to say the words with me. Oh no! We came across a big black bear… I asked the children what we do when we see a black bear, to test their memories. The book told us that when we see a black bear, we need to back away slowly. Oh no! We came across a big brown bear… Again, I asked the children what we should do. The book told us we need to lie down and stay very still if we see a brown bear. We then saw both a brown and black bear at the same time! Stage 4 were very excited to spray the bears with pepper spray. We then had to run away! The children tested their memories by remembering where each location was in the room without my help and going back through them in order. After the bear hunt adventure, there was a lovely picnic waiting for us. The children each had a stuffed toy to enjoy the picnic with. We pantomimed eating some food, and then put on a show for our toys. Stage 4 showed off their balancing skills, by doing balancing tricks with their eyes closed! We discussed “what makes a good audience?” and “what makes a good performer?” At the end of our show, we bowed to show the audience we were done, and the audience erupted in applause!

We mimed spotting and then going through the long grass (swish, swash), through the mud (squelch, squelch), and through the REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Early Learning School Sport Stage 3 and 4 were full of energy at Sport this week. They had all brought their sports shoes, big lungs and sports muscles along to the sessions and were nice and comfortable with their environment. This week, our sessions focused on the fundamental movement skills of hopping and jumping and the children participated in a range of activities that allowed them to work on their teamwork and listening skills. The children were introduced to a new warm-up game called Builders and Bulldozer and were placed into two teams. When the whistle blew, they had to run around the space and either turn the cones upside down if they were on the bulldozer team, or the right side up if they were a builder. When the whistle blew again it was time to see which team had the most cones right way up. It was very interesting to see some groups think laterally and collect the cones, putting them in a more difficult space for the other team to flip over. We then moved to our locomotion focus of hopping, where the children pretended that they were frogs hopping along a line of lily pads in a very muddy swamp. The children really enjoyed keeping their feet clear of the muddy swamp. After our little frogs completed their lily pad jumping, they turned into flamingos and practised hopping on one leg while playing hopscotch with a partner. The children were encouraged to alternate the leg that they were hopping on and even though they found their non-dominant leg a little wobbly it was still very fun. Our little friends finished up the session with a game of spaceman freeze. The focus in this game is to try and maintain control of their bodies when pretending to be a spaceman slowly walking in space, which is not so easy when they are changing from running around the space at full speed.

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Early Learning School Music Did you know that on average we breathe 22,000 times per day? It happens automatically and without us even having to think about it. This week in Stage 3 and 4 we began the lesson with a conscious breathing exercise – Diaphragmatic Breathing (DB) or Belly Breathing. DB is a very efficient way of breathing, especially when singing. It allows for bigger and deeper breaths; absorbs more oxygen into the blood; lowers the heart rate and blood pressure; and helps to promote relaxation. It's also a great way to assist breathing for meditation or relaxation exercises. We started by calmly laying on our backs; bending our knees; placing our hands on our bellies and chests; and trying to make our stomachs rise and fall with each breath. After feeling relaxed and ready for the lesson, the children stood up and formed a line around the piano ready for our scales. This week we sang 'FA' and RE', both ascending and descending, before attempting to glue our Solfa scale together with a call and response.

Song' before finding our way to the mat. To end the lesson, we played 'The Silent Game' to test our listening and help work on our fine motor movements for clicking. The children have to listen to the instruction and then perform it without making a sound. In Stage 2 down to The Nest we opened the lesson with “Remember Me” as the children made their way to the floor/mat ready for the lesson. In Stages 2 and The Fledglings we started the lesson with some single note scales on ‘MA’ with counting. Some of our little ones are too shy to talk or are still learning the basics – so creating easy shapes helps get them speaking. Once our voices were a bit more warm and ready, we sang through our “Good Morning Song” at an increasing tempo, encouraging the children to clap and join in. To get our bodies moving we sang through “Wheels on the Bus” with our actions, before picking up our maracas and singing our ‘ABCs’. We layered this again with our shaking, stomping and freeing – testing the kid’s listening and response timing.

Once our voices were warm, we sang through our Good Morning Song (GMS), “Open Shut Them”, and continued refining "Do Re Mi" with our actions – slowly increasing the tempo each time as the children become more comfortable and confident. Using our maracas, we did some simple shaking and marching to 'DOG', 'CAT and 'SPIDER' before moving into finding the beat in 'Incy Wincy Spider'. We layered this with freezes to test our control and reaction time, before moving it into 'Imagination Freeze'; asking the children to freeze/express themselves as animals, objects or feelings. This week we explored various animals and feelings such as excited, sad and scared. Keeping our maracas, we had a sing and dance through 'The Sunflower

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Early Learning School Music While we were up and moving with our maracas we introduced and went through the movements for “The Sunflower Song”. The Stage 2 children love it when the teachers use a spray bottle filled with water to water the plants. We quickly grow tall and are bouncing around the room shaking along to the music. Putting our maracas down and continuing our movement, we introduced “We’re Going To The Zoo” – a childhood favourite of mine and a hilarious activity which gets the children marching around the room to the beat and acting out all the animals we come across. The teacher’s favourite is the seals as they roll around on the floor – but we also see monkeys, elephants, giraffes and rhinos. To end the lesson, Stage 2 began learning “He Is The Music Man”, while The Fledglings sang through “Open Shut Them” and “Twinkle Twinkle”. Our babies in The Nest sang through a few of our favourites an also tried to introduce “The Sunflower Song”. At the beginning of the year, the focus is to just get the little ones moving and confident to join in. We pulled out some bells and maracas which we shook along to “Twinkle Twinkle”, before encouraging everyone up and walking to “The Ants Go Marching”.

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Reddam Early Learning would like to wish a very happy birthday to Jacob Luo,Theodore Rosen,Hunter Thompson,Isabella Stesel,Louis Johnson, Charlie Yu who celebrate their special day this week We hope you have a fabulous day!

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER