REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
Dee’s Message
18TH MARCH 2022
Dear Parents and Caregivers, The Early Years Framework reminds us that “Play provides opportunities for children to learn as they discover, create, improvise and imagine. When children play with other children they create social groups, test out ideas, challenge each other’s thinking and build new understandings.” At the heart of all we do in the ELS is a focus on play. As I watch the teachers and children interacting with each other it often strikes me that even their attitudes towards life and towards each other have a playful, exuberant spirit. And so it should be in an early learning environment. While we are always conscious that underlying this play is also a focus on learning and on preparation for further education, more often than not true learning takes place in the unintended spaces of discovery, exploration and creativity which bubble out of the children each day. While there are many ways to play – and each child has his or her own favourites – one which seems to have an almost universal
appeal is construction play. We might presume, given the often deeply entrenched biases which most of us have, that boys tend more towards this form of play. However, that is most certainly not the case in the ELS, where girls love constructing spaces and placing objects onto each other just as much as the boys do. It is also true that one also only has to leave children alone in a lounge at home with a few large cushions available to see how eager they are to construct their own caves, tunnels and secret compartments. Or watch as children rush eagerly to the beach, ready to build sandcastles, moats and fortresses. Construction play has many benefits apart from just being an enjoyable way to manipulate objects into various forms. As suggested in the extract from the EYLF, it provides an opportunity for children to engage with each other and to build collaboratively, while also learning the important skills of sharing and communicating their vision for the construction.
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They learn about the physical limitations of structures. This not only allows them to learn about such physical properties, but it also helps them through the inevitable collapses and rebuilding processes. Disappointment and success are inextricably linked in construction play, just as they are in life, and these provide invaluable opportunities for us as adults to encourage the children and to applaud their efforts. Of course, there are many other benefits to construction play, such as helping to develop handeye coordination, spatial awareness, figuring out shapes, sequencing and processes, and so on. But mainly, it’s just a whole lot of fun! It was a week of celebrations in the ELS and in many of our families, as we celebrated Purim and St Patrick’s Day. The little people in the ELS love any reason to celebrate and to learn more about different cultures and as such they had a really good time this week. Have a great weekend! Dee Pitcairn Principal
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The Nest (1R) Kiri Winders, Helena Zhang, Min Pattarasiritanarat, Mercy Abilba
This week in the Nest is full of cultural celebration in the Nest. The Jewish festival of Purim was celebrated on Monday with our children arriving in dress up! The Purim festival story is all about triumphing over adversity, unity, family and togetherness. Our children have been overcoming much adversity in their little lives as they adapt to their new environment at school. It has been quite appropriate for us to reflect and celebrate how far they have come in such a short space of time. Outdoor play has been an area in which our littles ones have really been challenging themselves. The children have been so delighted to get out and run around in the fresh air. They are becoming more confident to venture out and try new boundaries or areas to explore. Atlas climbed up straight to the pirate ship wheel and looked back at Kiri with a big smile of achievement. Leo surprised us by walking up the slide from the bottom! Teddy P and Teddy Mc both navigated the wobbly bridge with confidence. Olivia ran around exploring and laughing. Joshua decided to dance, and he was so happy waving his little hands in the air. Alfie climbed through the tunnel and looked back to smile and play peekaboo with Kiri. Capri walked over the wobbly bridge, reaching out to the ropes to support herself. It was amazing to see how our little ones are pushing themselves out of their comfort zones, gaining confidence and learning so much about their boundaries and abilities in the process.
edges in green paint and stamped it onto the page. This was a fun experience as the children really engaged with enthusiasm. They could see the print on the page. As we participated, we took the opportunity to discuss the capsicum, the colour green and St Patrick’s Day. Of course, we all dressed up in the colour green!
St Patrick’s Day was another cultural celebration for us this week!! As green is the colour of the Irish, we decided to teach the children the colour green. Teacher Helena bought along a green capsicum for a touching, feeling, tasting and painting experience! The children were intrigued by the texture and watched Helena closely as she cut open the capsicum. The children were able to touch and look and explore inside the vegetable. Next, they dabbed the 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, Nadia Breus and Abby Lee
Term One is always a term to celebrate diversity, with so many events happening at the beginning of the year. This week we celebrated Purim and St. Patrick’s Day. On Monday, Rivki from Jems, came to school to perform a play about Purim, teaching the children the story of how Queen Esther saved the Jewish people. She chose students to take part in the play and gave them dress ups to wear. In the end, she played games with bubbles and balls with the children, and just before she left, she shared gifts of food with the children mishloach manot - including the traditional biscuit for this celebration, the Hamantaschen (triangular shape biscuit, filled with jam). Celebrating Purim brought a lot of happiness to our classroom, as the children were invited to dress up for the occasion.
“Early childhood is the time when children first become aware of differences among people and start to form opinions and attitudes about these differences. Young children are naturally curious about differences.” (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2018) Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity. Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect. EYLF, 2009.
Then on Thursday we got to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. As the children displayed a greater interest in colours in the last few weeks, we celebrated this date by exploring the adventures of the Leprechaun in finding the golden pot at the end of the rainbow. In the Atelier, the children created artworks with the colours of the rainbow. The idea was to give the children the opportunity to work together on a collaborative piece of art, as we will display this in our documentation wall. We continued to promote sensory activities, and this time, the children painted the paper with their hands. We also made a golden coin pot with the children. This involved different techniques. First the children coloured their cauldron, using black and brown markers. Then we gave them dot stickers to represent the gold coins. The children persevered to peel the sticker off the paper and then stuck it on their artwork. To finalise their piece of art, the children used the rainbow crayons to colour the paper.
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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 Dianna Ortiz
St Patrick’s Day celebrates all things Irish – the heritage and culture of Ireland. Generally, celebrations involve public parades, festivals, céilís and the wearing of green and shamrocks. The children were introduced to our class leprechaun, Finn, who came to share stories about St Patrick’s Day this week. We read the story ‘There was an old lady who Swallowed a Clover’, a story about an old lady who swallows the silliest things. That lovely old lady has returned just in time for St. Patrick's Day. Now she's swallowing items to make the perfect rainbow to hide a pot of gold. As we talked about all things luck-related with the children, along with chasing the gold, the Treefrogs created their own rainbows. This followed the rainbow song we have begun to learn, which helps us to recognise the colours. We pasted the cotton wool and the stripes to help support our hand-eye coordination as we aimed to paste. This activity also helps the children to understand the sensory concept of stickiness. We also read the book ‘Pete the Cat, The Great Leprechaun Chase’. It's St. Patrick's Day, and it's also the grand opening of Pete the Cat's leprechaun catching business. Pete gears up to trap a leprechaun for his friends! But catching a leprechaun is never easy – especially if it’s Clover, who's full of tricks. The children enjoyed the concept and fun of the leprechaun playing tricks as they watched and heard of all the tricks Finn wanted to play as we extended their imaginations. It provided an opportunity for the children to practise and develop their language and social skills. It also boosts the development of problem-solving and selfregulation skills as the children envision the scenarios discussed that Finn may get himself into, and how they can help him out. For each petal on the shamrock, this brings a wish your way; Good health, good luck, and happiness for today and every day – an Irish blessing. REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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Stage 2
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Stage 3
By Echo Jia, Susan Casey, Hannah Corrigan and Emily Hunt
This has been a busy week of celebrations. We began the week by celebrating the Jewish holiday of Purim. The children listened to the story of ‘Purim Play’ by Toni Schotter. It is a noisy, riotous, carnival-like festival, which makes it especially fun for children. Children and grown -ups alike dress up in costume and get ready to party. The story of Purim, of how the Jewish queen of Persia, Esther, saved her people from doom, is told in the book of Esther, (Megillah in Hebrew). On Purim, the Megillah is read aloud in synagogues all over the world, and this is the one time when no-one is discouraged from making noise during the service. In fact, listeners shake their groggers, (Yiddish for ‘noise makers’) every time they hear they name of the villain of the story, Haman. Many communities also stage funny Purim spiels, (Yiddish for ‘plays’) to accompany the reading. In addition to dressing in costume and listening to the Megillah, many families also make hamantaschen, jam-filled triangular cookies, and share these and other treats. We were very excited to then join with Stage Four on the deck to welcome Taryn, the Primary School Hebrew teacher, and Rivki from Jems, as we continue to learn about and celebrate this fun holiday. The children each received a party bag from Rivki which contained individually wrapped Hamantashens. This week the children began to learn a very traditional Irish song in preparation for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day this week. This song, called The Rattlyn Bog, is a song that can help the children to develop their memory recall as with every verse another item is added to the ‘tree, that lives in the hole, and the hole in the bog, and the bog down in the valley-o’. At the atelier this week, the children were invited to create the national emblem of Ireland, a shamrock, which is a three-leaved plant that Saint Patrick used as a metaphor to describe the Christian Holy Trinity. Using a capsicum cut in half and different shades of green paint the children stamped the capsicum onto paper and used their thumb to create the stalk. Some children were even inspired to paint beautiful rainbows. In mythical legend, Ireland’s mischievous little leprechauns hide their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The children enjoyed listening to the book ‘The Adventures of Shamrock Sean’.
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Stage 3
By Christina Mandalidis, Susan Casey, Hannah Corrigan and Sarah Garderner – Ventura
Being very mindful that all of the children and teachers washed their hands thoroughly, the children were invited to the kitchen to watch as Susan demonstrated how to bake her great, great, great grandmother’s traditional Irish brown bread. Adding dry ingredients, white flour, wholemeal flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt in o a bowl, she combined with buttermilk, and kneaded using her hands on the floured tray. In the afternoon the children enjoyed sampling the baked bread while enjoying the Wiggles version of the Rattlyn Bog. .
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Stage 4
By Jane Pledger, Sandra Carberry, Nina Bergel,Yuliya Ginis and Bri Rees
St. Patrick’s Day Over the past term, we have had many celebrations that reflect our culture and the culture of others who live in Australia. In January, we celebrated the love for our country as part of our Australia Day celebrations. In February, Valentine’s Day was a celebration to recognise those whom we love, and Lunar New Year was a fun cultural celebration of fireworks with lions and dragons dancing to bring in the New Year of the Rat. On Monday we celebrated Purim, a Jewish holiday which commemorates the saving of the Jewish people from Haman. Over the past week, the children also learned about St. Patrick’s Day: St. Patrick was a very special man to the people of Ireland and on the 17th of March every year people from all over the world dress in green and pin a special plant called a shamrock on their clothes. This three-leaved plant is thought to bring good luck. The lead-up to St. Patrick’s Day was as exciting as the day itself for many of the children as they searched for clues to see if the cheeky leprechaun was playing tricks on us. As you can imagine, the children were fascinated by this mystical creature! It is believed that he has a pot of gold, which he hides at the end of the rainbow, and if you catch him he will give you his pot of gold.
William: I would buy chocolate. Julian: I would buy a toy Leprechaun. Emily: I’d get ice-cream. Gabriel: I would buy a rainbow car. For their St. Patrick’s Day artwork, the children decided they wanted to make a leprechaun. As technique we used directed drawing. Directed drawing has many learning benefits for pre-schoolers, such as listening and following directions. They learn skills they can translate to their own drawings, which boosts confidence and most importantly they love doing it. Once the drawing was finished, colour was added. The children used oil crayons for the face and the beard, while the big green hat was made with collage. The children were very proud of their creations. Please take some time to admire the Stage 4 artwork displayed in the Piazza and in the classroom.
In our classroom, the children were also engaged in a variety of teacher-guided and independent learning activities during group time and free playtime. We had gold pots that had to be filled by counting golden nuggets, a shamrock matching game, word cards to copy on the white board and a counting gold coin/number puzzle, just to name a few. We wish all the families a weekend with their loved ones.
wonderful
At group time, we discussed what we would do with a pot of gold: Frankie: If I had a pot of gold I would buy a toy baby. Ava: I would make it into a necklace. Alfie: I would make it into special glasses and when I popped them on, I shoot lasers out of them.
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Stage 4
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Early Learning School Dance and Drama The Nest and Stage 1 had fun with parachute time to begin with. I have introduced colour association by pointing at the colours on the parachute and then naming the colour and some objects of the same colour. Sometimes I try to trick the kids by asking something like “Is an apple blue?” and encouraging the children to then agree or disagree with me. Afterwards, the children had a visit from some animals (puppets) from the zoo. Each time we met a new animal, we also made the sound of that animal. We met a tiger (roar), an elephant (brrrr), a badger (dig dig dig), and a koala. The koala wanted lots of cuddles from the children! To finish, I brought in a toy clock that the children could touch, which made sounds and played music. We then revisited and sang ‘Hickory, Dickory, Dock’ using actions and counting the first and second times the clock strikes. Stage 2, 3, and 4 explored the theme of the zoo by first reading a book called ‘Animal Pants’ by Brian Moses and Anja Boretzki. I told the children that I had found the book in the library and was very confused! I thought that animals DIDN’T wear pants! I showed the children various pages of the book and we laughed at how silly penguins looked in fish pants, and frogs in pink pants. I asked the children if they would come to the zoo with me to figure out once and for all if animals wear pants. Danika from Stage 4 reminded us to bring our bags! To get to the zoo, we made a Choo Choo train. In Stage 2, this meant the kids following the leader. Stage 3 and 4 used the parachute as their train, going forwards and backwards around the circle. At the zoo, we walked around to the various enclosures. We checked, with our binoculars, if the animals were wearing pants. For each animal there was an associated puppet. When we got to the tiger enclosure, we noticed the door was open! We crept through the woods, used high knees to get through the quicksand,
jumped with two feet over logs, out one foot in front of the other to go over the narrow bridge and finally ducked under low hanging branches. We found the tiger asleep, but he woke up when he heard us coming and chased us out of his enclosure! Luckily, we were able to confirm that he wasn't wearing pants either. The final animal to visit was the koala. We practised being very gentle and quiet around the sleepy koala. We gave cuddles to the koala, but only if we had soft voices and gentle hands. After their zoo adventure, Stage 2 finished the lesson by singing two verses of Hickory Dickory Dock, using our fine motor skills to crawl our hands up to our heads, and showing the numbers 1 and 2 with our hands. Stage 3 and 4 played a few more zoorelated games. We played Noah’s Ark. The class sat as an audience, facing front with listening ears on. I called up two children at a time and whispered in their ear what animal they should become without telling the audience what they were. The audience were encouraged to guess. Some examples include becoming a frog, a crocodile, a giraffe or a dolphin. After playing Noah’s Ark, I told the children that I was going to go away, and when I came back that I would be a zookeeper. The children love it when the teacher plays a role. As the zookeeper, I told the children that I needed their help cleaning out the enclosures after a long day at the zoo. We played a “follow the zookeeper” game (similar to Simon says). At each enclosure, I prompted the children with cues like “We need to clean this enclosure by jumping up and down three times and touching the floor”. The children followed instructions very well! Fantastic Drama by all the children this week!
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Early Learning School Sport The children were bursting with energy during our sessions this week. Both Stage 3 and 4 are becoming more confident with controlling and manipulating their bodies. In our sessions this week we continued to work on the fundamental movement skills of throwing and catching. We started our session with the much-loved game of ‘Builders and Bulldozers’. The children were able to recall the rules of the game from when they were first introduced to it a few weeks ago. Half of the group were ‘bulldozers’ and the other half ‘builders’. The ’builders’ had to move around the space and make sure as many cones were up the right the right way while at the same time the ‘bulldozers’ were upending them. The children moved around the space confidently and with care, making sure not to run into their friends. It was wonderful to witness the classes hone their spatial awareness and change their pace or direction if they notice one of their friends is in their vicinity.
body creates movement. To round up aiming practice this week we used hoops as ‘lily pads’ and tried to throw our bean bag ‘frogs’ back to their home on the lily pads. In this activity students also had to step forward with their opposite leg in order to make sure that their ‘frog’ arrived safely. We were able to increase the distance of the throw. Here the children were experimenting with throw force and how they had to place their bodies in order for their ‘frog’ to make it to the ‘lily pad’. Our last activity this week for some of the groups was a favourite - ‘the floor is lava’. We are progressing this game to having fewer safe islands for the children to go to when the floor becomes lava. The students have to negotiate with each other at times if they have to share a space, and they coped really well with this task.
Next, we worked on our throwing and catching. The students are working towards stepping forward with their non-dominant leg when they are throwing. This helps them not only to balance, but also to generate sufficient force to get the ball to eventually go further. This was a great opportunity to work individually with students and think with them about which hand felt more comfortable to throw with and then point out which leg they should step forward with. We practised these fundamental movement skills in a variety of ways: first simply throwing to a partner, or in a circle to their other friends, and then increasing the distance of their throws. It was excellent to see some children experimenting with different hands to throw with or different styles to find a technique that they were comfortable with when the distance increased. This experimenting is an important step for students and it helps them to gain confidence and awareness of how their
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Early Learning School Music Music has an interesting and profound effect on our bodies. A physical sound wave is converted through your ear and can have an emotional impact in your body. It can release endorphins, and helps regulated unwanted emotions such as stress and fatigue. It triggers memory and in some people activates parts of their brain to give them goosebumps. In Stage 3 and 4 this week we opened the lesson with our ‘Expression Circle’, this time exploring things that made us feel sad. The children shared different things that make them sad such as friends not sharing with them, missing mum or dad, hurting themselves; but we also explored things which can make us feel happy again. Some answers were dancing, singing, hugs and drawing with friends. We warmed up our voices with our Solfa Scale ascending each time, as well as 5 note scales on LA-twice through, and FA. With our voices relaxed and ready, we sang through our ‘Good Morning Song’. Stage 4 then continued learning ‘Colours of the Wind’ from Disney’s ‘Pocahontas’, while Stage 3 began learning their song for the term, ‘Here Comes The Sun’. It’s amazing to watch how some children connect with music – playing ‘Here Comes The Sun’ for the first time triggered instant swaying, closed eyes and some even to dance ballet!
children to try shake and stomp along too; all while I asked them to move around the room to express various emotions or take on different animal aspects. I asked the children to physically show me how they express such emotions as happiness, sadness, anger, excitement. We also embodied animals such as birds, kangaroos and hippos. This exercise is such an easy tool to help develop their sense of timing, but allows them to use their imagination, build their social confidence and have fun with their peers. Another challenge I want to give to the kids is to learn their ‘ZYXs’ – their ‘ACBs’ backwards! It’s actually surprisingly hard, and none of the teachers could do it. This week we started with ‘Z Y X W V U T’ and sang to the melody; some kids picked up it was the same melody as ‘ABC’, and gave me some weird looks when I said ‘Yep! We’re going to sing it backwards!”. Challenge accepted.
After getting through our practice, we broke out our maracas to sing and shake to our ‘ABCs’ and get our bodies moving. Again, we layered this with stomping, shaking, singing and freezing – it never fails to break out some laughs as we slowly get faster and faster! Still with our maracas, we moved into a variation of ‘Imagination Freeze’ to the song ‘I’m a Gummi Bear’ – which is an absolutely annoying ear worm but the kids LOVE it. It is a catchy song with an easy beat for the REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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Early Learning School Music To end the lesson, we had a quick game of ‘The Floor Is Lava’, helping build their sense of timing by stepping to the beat from the metronome. In the Nest and up to Stage 2, I settled the lesson with ‘Here Comes The Sun’ as all the children made their way to the mat ready for the lesson. We opened again with ‘Wake Up Body’ – familiarity and repetition is good for memory, and even speech development with simple lyrics. In The Nest we had a sing through our usual sing-a-longs, but this time we split them between our piano and musical tracks to give some variety. We used our instruments of bells, maracas and wood sticks to encourage the children to play along. We attempted our ‘Sunflower Song’ to try get those legs working, but it’s still a little tricky for our little babies. After we had our sing-sesh, I introduced the children to our xylophones and gave them some free play as they explored the noises the blocks make. These are great for visualmotor integration and coordination as they use the sticks to hit each block.
which is VERY tricky for the little ones. Many, many tongues were poking out and making some funny sounds – but scales are great to help strengthen the articulators in the mouth to help with speech. Once our voices were warm we sang through our ‘Good Morning Song’ and a variety of our sing-a-longs. We moved through ‘The Sunflower Song’, and Stage 2 continued learning our actions for ‘Do Re Mi’, while The Fledglings went back to the zoo – some of the children still give me funny looks as I run around the room and roll on the floor, but they’re slowly building the confidence to join in! Working on our coordination, we used our bells and ‘Gahloomph’ to do our step-claps along with the beat. Then we tried to shake our hands in time with the music to make our bells ring, before swinging our hips. To end the lesson, I also brought out the xylophones. With the bigger classes it’s good to help teach the children patience and to share their time playing on the instrument. Before introducing letters, I asked the kids if they could identify the colour and play that matching colour.
In The Fledglings and The Nest we did our warm-up scales, but this time with ‘LA’..
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Reddam Early Learning would like to wish a very happy birthday to Adam McCabe who celebrated his special day this week We hope you have a fabulous day!
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