Reddam Early Learning School Woollahra Newsletter Vol 22 Issue 6

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER Dee’s Message Dear Parents and Caregivers, The well-known saying of ‘Healthy body, healthy mind’ couldn’t be more critical than in a school environment. Research has shown how important diet is when it comes to learning – inevitably those who eat and drink healthily perform better and have longer attention spans than those who rely on processed foods and those with added sugar.

While we as adults might know this, of course, we also know that there is nothing quite so magnetic to a young child’s desires as the multi-coloured, delicious looking candies and snacks which line the checkout aisles in a supermarket! For this reason, it is never too early to start speaking to children about good food choices and why certain foods are only there for special treats, or to be avoided completely.

The ELS classroom provides an ideal situation for the children to learn more about and discuss various foods. The teachers often talk with them about why certain foodstuffs are good for us and why others aren’t. They also remind the children that if they want to grow

4 MARCH 2022 up to be big and strong and be able to participate in fun-filled activities, they need to eat and drink healthily to have the energy to do just that.

As the Early Learning Framework reminds us: “Good nutrition is essential to healthy living and enables children to be active participants in play. Early childhood settings provide many opportunities for children to experience a range of healthy foods and to learn about food choices from educators and other children.”

Discussions about nutrition can open wonderful doors of discovery, especially if the children are invited to become part of the process of growing vegetables, herbs and fruit at home. Involving them in the process of using these in meals helps them to see the progression from earth to table, and hopefully inspires them to make healthy choices throughout their lives.

There is something wonderfully grounding about firstly planting, and then harvesting, products from one’s own garden.

Involving the children in the outdoor processes and then in the kitchen opens the door to very special discussions about food, healthy eating and strong bodies. Of course, it also gives us a reason to spend precious time together, while laying solid foundations for their lives.

This also reminds us that Reddam House does not allow any NUT PRODUCTS or NUTS onto campus. Parents are asked to refrain from sending nut spreads such as 'Nutella' and whole nuts to school in their children's lunch boxes. Our staff in the ELS are particularly vigilant because of the age of our children and check the children's lunch boxes daily and have been asked to remove any nut products from children's lunch boxes. We have a large group of children who are highly allergic (across the Stages) to any form of nut/s and nut products and who risk the chance of going into anaphylaxis shock. We ask all parents to be respectful of this policy as this is governed by NSW School Law. Have a great weekend!

Dee Pitcairn

The Nest (1R)

Kiri Winders, Helena Zhang, and Min Pattarasiritanarat

It was a very rainy week this week, with lots of puddles and rain for the children to experience as they make their way to and from school this week. We may not have been able to get out much, but we did not let the rain stand in our way from having a ton of fun in the Nest!

We started our week with a wonderful sports lesson with Teacher Rama. She had a large bag of balls and hoops that the children were fascinated with. The children love to pick up the balls and throw them into the big net. Olivia and Leo had big smiles, as they showed their excitement as they participated. Little Alfie was so enthusiastic as he placed his yellow ball into the net. The children really love the sports class and are learning so much from hand-eye coordination, gross motor skills, balance, colour identification and even language!

Teacher Rama sings songs to the children as they engage in the range of activities.

We noticed that the children are loving pulling things out of containers or shelves and placing them back in. The thrill of finding something inside a container or small space is shown on their face as they sometimes hold the item up to show their teacher or throw it on the ground with a look of satisfaction or wonder. From an adult’s perspective this can be frustrating especially at home when your little toddler is “messing” things up all the time! But this is all very normal at this stage of their development as they learn to transfer and modify their environment and become aware of their ability to change the world around them. By doing this, they gain a sense of independence. They are also learning to coordinate their limbs, and to sort and identify objects.

By trial and error, they understand which object would fit where. They learn the difference between big and small, and this improves their orientation skills. As the children grow, we will gently guide them to look after their environment, by putting things back again at pack away time. But for now, we recognise the importance of this repetitive normal toddler behaviour as an important part of their developmental learning.

The children were also involved in a painting and craft activity that reflected the natural world around them. We started with a sensory experience introducing the children to a variety of organic elements of different textures, found in nature, soft round stones, leaves of the tree, bark, flowers, sticks etc.

The children were very curious to touch and feel these various objects and interact with them. We then offered the children the chance to paint with some beautiful flower petals. They all enjoyed this process, squishing their hands into the textures as well as experimenting with the brush strokes. We will display their art works in the entrance foyer for all our parents to see.

We look forward to another wonderful week next week, hopefully with more dry weather to play outdoors!

The Nest (1R)

Fledglings (1E)

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

Grace and Courtesy As we reached past the half mark of Term One, we started to observe a few achievements in our Fledglings group. These achievements are the result of a consistent approach we use in our classroom, promoting a respectful environment.

Children, as little as our Fledglings, can slowly become responsible for small tasks in their daily routine and we are very happy to share with you a few of these tasks.

Every day, we asked the children to pack away the toys they were playing with and to then join us for group time. At times, this could be easily dismissed by the group as they were too involved in an activity. As the weeks went by, we could observe the children becoming very proud to support their group in maintaining an organised and respectful environment, prior to joining their teacher in the circle.

Children are also becoming responsible towards their belongings (overseen by their teachers) ensuring they access their lockers to pick up or pack away their hats, water bottles, shoes, sleeping comforters. All lockers have the children’s names and their photos for their easy identification, and they mostly look enthusiastically to show us that they have done it “all by themselves”!

In the classroom, we often talk to the children about using their quiet voices, walking feet and gentle hands. Throughout their Reddam ELS experience, these are things that they will continue to be encouraged to do in the other Stages as well.

We could give you many more examples that illustrates some of the values we foster in our school, but the most important thing is to

always promote a respectful environment to our children, remembering that they are little, but they are also very capable.

Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity. Children develop their emerging autonomy, inter-dependence, resilience and sense of agency. EYLF, 2009.

Fledglings (1E)

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

Stage 2

By Daniella Gosty, Shauna Corry, Sarah Noone, Roberta Sokame and Joyce Matsui

The importance of dramatic play – following the children’s interests The baby play area in the Stage 2 classroom has been an area of interest to many of the children. The children have taken on the role of being a caregiver as they work on putting nappies on the babies, feeding, cuddling, and patting them to sleep. They are always excited to see a “real” baby come into the school. Teddy, Luis and Saskia came rushing over to James’ new baby in the Treefrog class to look at him and excitedly said, “The baby is sleeping”. After a few minutes of admiring this new addition to the world, they went over to the play babies and took on the caregiving roles. When children make believe, the teachers might ask, “Is your baby hungry? What are you going to do?”

As an extension to this, we moved some of the babies outside, setting up a sensory baby washing area in the trough with sponges for squeezing and scoops for pouring water over the babies as they washed them to make then clean. This dramatic form of play is an important part of children’s development where the children can take on different roles and enact reallife experiences. It helps to build self-worth by giving a child a sense of his or her own abilities and to feel good about themselves.

They use props and make-believe to deepen their understandings about the world. As they pretend, they are working on their language skills, social skills, and cognitive thinking with opportunities for fine and gross motor development. When children pretend, they recall and re-create experiences. To do this, they need to form mental images. For some of the children, they are recalling what they see at home with younger siblings and for others it is being

mum or dad and taking on the adult role of carer.

Stage 2 To extend this even further, with help from our families, we brought in photos of the children that include when they were babies to create a display of images. This is all part of the stages of self-awareness – Stage 4 (2 to 3 Years): The Ups and Downs of Object Permanence. On the road to full self-awareness, toddlers begin to identify the image they see in the mirror or in a photograph as “self” but still frequently revert to seeing the image as an odd third-person version of self. As the children share these images with their friends, they may say, “ I see me” or they may say their own name, while identifying themselves as a third person. Stage 4 (“permanence”) comes slowly. “They appear to still oscillate between an awareness of the self and an awareness of seeing someone else facing them. (The Five Stages of Self-Awareness Explain What Babies See in the Mirror - that's a mirror (Level 1), there's a person in it (Level 2), that person is me (Level 3), that person is going to be me forever (Level 4), and everyone else can see it (Level 5) By Joshua A. Krisch.) This opens up opportunities for discussions on what they can do now they are big.

Outcome 1 – Children have a strong sense of identity – learn to interact in relation to others, as they engage in and contribute to shared play experiences.

Outcome 5 – Children are effective communicators – They begin to use language to engage in play to imagine and create roles, scripts and ideas.

Stage 3

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

Sense of Light and Colour The children in 3R have been learning about ‘Sensory Sensations’ for their provocation this term. They are continuing with their sense of touch by using the playdough, but they have also begun investigating things they can see.

A light area was set up at the front of the classroom.

There is a light panel with translucent colourful blocks, torches, reflective surfaces and a jellyfish that changes colour. This area sparked an interest in colour.

Learning colours is a huge aspect of the preschool curriculum and there are so many great books and resources on it. You can talk about colours just about anywhere you are! The idea of mixing two colours to form a new colour is somewhat of a complex concept for children. While it may be easier to understand that red and white make pink, it’s just not as easy to remember that blue and red make purple. Whenever we do colour mixing with young children, we try to make the process of learning one that is memorable. If we engage their senses in the process, then it becomes an even greater tool.

For group time, the children learned about colours. This came off an interest observed last week as the children noticed the colours changing in the jellyfish tank, as well as how many rainbow colours they are all using in their drawings. First, they looked at primary colours. Christina held up a card with the three primary colours on it: red, yellow and blue. The reason these are called primary colours is because you can mix them to

make a new colour and they are the principal colours. Christina then explained secondary colours. These are the colours that come from mixing primary colours together, such as orange, purple and green.

They played a song game to further investigate and recognise the colours. It’s called ‘Trick or Tree.’

Trick or tree, jamboree Can you find it?

Trick or tree, jamboree All find (say one colour: red, blue, yellow, green, purple or orange) The children then had to go and find that correlating colour and bring it back to the mat.

The children took this newfound colour mixing knowledge to the painting table. On the table was a palette with the three primary colours. They were asked what secondary colour they wanted to make and then if they could remember what two colours they needed to mix to create that colour. Their right hand was painted with one primary colour and their left hand was painted with another primary colour. They placed each coloured hand on the paper to make a print. Next, they rubbed their hands together, mixing the colours. When they opened them back up, they discovered that they had made a secondary colour! Then they printed this hand on their paper too. They have learned that yellow + blue = green, yellow + red = orange and blue + red = purple. During the experience the children spoke about their discoveries, using their skills and processes, such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating.

Stage 3

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

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Stage 4

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

Building a sense of belonging As we continue to delve deeper into our termly provocation “Building a sense of belonging”, we are exploring our sense of identity through multi-sensory name writing, portrait drawing and our current project, an “All about me” bag containing items from home.

Children learn about themselves and construct their own identity within the context of their families and their connection with school. This mini project will build the bridge between the two. We will invite each child to shine a light on their interests in the home setting.

As our children bring in their decorated “all about me” bags to share with their friends, each child will be invited to participate in a show and tell to talk about the contents of their bag.

Show and Tell builds confidence, pride and self-esteem, language and communication skills, and active listening skills. The process of preparing a show and tell encourages children to consider the importance of each special item and appreciate its significance in different ways.

Stage 4

Early Learning School DRAMA This week in Drama we continued to travel in our amazing time machine. This week’s prompt question for both Stage 3 and 4 was “What is the first letter of your name?” I was so impressed at how many students knew their first letter. I even pushed Stage 4 by asking if they could spell their first name!

To start this week, we recreated our time machine shapes and sounds. It was a little bit bumpy and rocky, but we made it all the way to Egypt. I told Stage 3 and 4 that I had forgotten what the pyramids looked like and asked them to make the shape with their bodies. In Stage 2, they copied my pyramid pose. I told the children that the blocks needed to rebuild the pyramid were very heavy and asked them to show me their muscles. In Stage 4 we have started to talk about mime: using our actions and not our words. I asked the children to mime picking up a heavy block and carrying it over to the broken pyramid. There were lots of convincing heavy faces and body positions.

After fixing the broken pyramid, we noticed that one of the other pyramids was open!

We decided to go inside but didn’t know what to expect. We started by sneaking, and then came across a whole series of booby-traps. We had to crawl through the tunnel, jump over the lava, tiptoe on the narrow pathway, and walk backward to the final opening.

When we got to the main part of the pyramid, we sat down and had a look at some hieroglyphs. Stage 3 sang the alphabet song with me, and then we noticed that the Egyptians used pictures instead of letters for their alphabet! I tried to sing the alphabet saying the names of the pictures instead of the letters. This caused a lot of giggles!! In Stage 2 and 3, we made

the shapes of some of the hieroglyphs with our bodies. Then, in Stage 3 and 4, we had to decipher a message. I asked the children to find certain pictures on the hieroglyph chart, and in Stage 4 asked them to write the letters underneath the pictures. We saw that the secret message said, “Look Out!” We were so scared by the message that we ran out of the pyramid .

Once we were out safely, I told the children about the mummies that may have been in the pyramid. I asked the children in Stage 3 and 4 to line up along the wall and show me a mummy pose. I had to explain that this wasn’t like Mummy at home!! We then played a stop/start game, played in the same way as red-light green light. I told the children that they had to mime, and I encouraged light feet. I told them that I would face away, but if I heard any noise I would turn around. When I was looking at them, they had to freeze. If they didn’t make any noise, I wouldn’t turn around and they could “get me”. The children did very well at sneaking up on me. When they tipped me, I chased them back to the starting line.

In the Nest and Stage 1 this week we began by singing Hickory Dickory Dock. We sang about the mouse and made sure to tick tock with our heads at the end of the song.

I’m impressed with how much more movement Stage 1 have! We love to play peekaboo underneath the parachute. We finished by having a visit from the mouse, who also loves to play peekaboo.

Well done everyone!

Early Learning School Drama

Early Learning School Sport It was a fun-packed class this week with our Stage 3 and 4 students. It is extra important to get our children moving their bodies when they are spending more time indoors, with this very wet weather we have been having.

We added a new element to our warm-up this week when we played the ‘find the weather’ game. Students were able to work on their executive functioning skills when they had to first listen to what weather symbol had been said and then look around the space to find the corresponding symbol. Students used a variety of locomotion techniques to move around the space before a symbol was called out. A favourite technique was to move around the room like a bear, balancing on feet and hands to move. It is important for our children's shoulder girdle development that they bear weight on their shoulders, as this helps to strengthen their posture.

We have been working on rolling the ball in previous sessions and this week we progressed this skill to rolling the ball through a tunnel made by our friends’ legs, when we played our ‘Thomas and the tunnel’ game. There was a lot of cooperation and teamwork needed and by the end of this activity our students had picked up the cause and effect of the task. If they bounced the ball or ‘Thomas’ it always got stuck in the tunnel, but when they aimed and rolled ‘Thomas’ they were successful in making it to the end of the line.

To further build on our hand-eye coordination, the children were given a blown-up balloon and had to tap it in the air in a game of ‘Keepy uppy’. They were very excited to play this game and many of them told me stories of where else they had played this game. The aim was to tap the balloon in the air and not let it touch the ‘lava’ for 10 touches. Some students were able to do 20 touches, and impressively were able to count to 20 as well. This activity further developed the students' spatial awareness as they had to keep an eye on where three things were in the space: themselves, their balloon and their friends. They all excelled in this element of the activity as they managed to manoeuvre safely around the space.

Reddam Early Learning would like to wish a very happy birthday to Lily Bortolotti, Phoebe Wang, Joshua Dery, Lindsey Qian and Maison Ruan who celebrate their special day this week We hope you have a fabulous day!