REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
Dee’s Message
17 June 2022
Dear Parents and Caregivers, It is probably true that most of us prefer a degree of predictability and routine to our lives. While there is always room for spontaneity and the excitement of stepping out beyond our daily tasks, there is no doubt that structure and routine gives our lives a solid framework from which to launch our daily activities. This is no less so for young children, who can often find change overwhelming, especially as they are still in the process of making sense of a complex world. The Early Years Learning Framework has as its first outcome the focus on a “sense of identity” for children and listed right at the top of how we might help them achieve this is that they should feel “safe, secure and supported”. One way of doing this is to “use effective routines to help make predicted transitions smoothly”.
Most parents can think of a moment where one of these “predicted transitions” hasn’t gone all that smoothly for their child – breaking away from play to have a bath, or leaving a friend’s house to return home, or getting into the car early in the morning to go to school. Being able to move from one activity to another can often create tension and unhappiness, and as such, using routines can be a useful form of scaffolding to help children through these moments of transition in their daily activities. Routines and rituals are part of all of our lives, so much so that most of us don’t even notice them anymore. However, these still have to be learned by children. They are, as one person has said, “a powerful way of using gestures, actions and behaviour to bring positive energy and intention to our daily rhythms.”
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Throughout the day in the ELS, the teachers use rituals and routine to give the children a sense of predictability and structure. From their arrival each morning, through their greeting songs, Acknowledgement of Country, mealtimes, and the myriad other activities, the children are given a framework in which they can feel “secure and supported”. In addition, they are helped through the transition moments, as they move from one activity to another, or as they prepare for their Music, Drama and Sports lessons. They start to realise that there will still be time to return to a pleasurable activity in which they were engrossed, and that there are other enjoyable moments awaiting them ahead. Routines, rituals and predictability thus become the bedrock against which spontaneity and new activities can develop. Have a great weekend! Dee Pitcairn Principal
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The Nest (1R) Kiri Winders, Helena Zhang, Fiona Liddell and Min Pattarasiritanarat
Learning about eating healthy food We started our week with some delicious hot porridge after coming in from the frosty cold morning. The children loved the hot porridge and especially the stewed apple and berries puree. We talked about our food and the different types of healthy food that we eat each day and how it is so good and healthy for our bodies. The children were also very interested in our fruit puzzle. A group of children gathered around the puzzle taking turns to place the coloured fruit pieces into the correct, placeholder. Atlas took joy in saying the word “Apple!” as he picked up the apple piece. Robbie, Capri, Krishna and Teddy also enjoyed picking up the pieces and attempting to place them onto the puzzle. As we did this, we took the opportunity again to talk about the different fruits and their colours, helping to extend their language and cognitive skill whist they manipulated the pieces. To extend this interest, we set out a fruit sensory experience, where the children got to learn and investigate the fruit a little closer. Teacher Helena passed around a large red apple and pear for the children to touch and smell. She then chopped the apple up in front of them. “I wonder what’s inside the apple?” she said, sparking their interest and enquiry. They all took turns to hold and smell the fruit as it was passed around the table. The children were all highly engaged with this activity. The best part was of course to eat the apple and pear at the end. Yum! Perhaps next week we will do some baking with our delicious apples.
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The Nest (1R) Outdoor Ball Play The children have really taken an interest in ball play, and we have noticed that they love to roll the balls down the slide in our play area. This week, we extended on this idea by taking a large tunnel outdoors along with some small balls. The children each had a turn one by one to drop the balls down the tube. Leo, Olivia, Teddy and Joshua were particularly delighted to see the balls drop down and roll out the bottom! Teddy took his balls and then tried to roll them up into the big slide, shouting with delight when they rolled back down again. The children then proceeded to climb into the tunnel themselves and experience the joy of crawling through to the other side. There were many smiles of delight and achievement as they navigated the same path as the balls.
which included moving closer to the edge of the parachute, tilting his head towards the ground, whilst closing his eyes and smiling. Next, we threw the small balls on the top and lifted and lowered the parachute to watch the balls roll around on it. Again, it gave the children an opportunity to observe and explore their ideas, with the balls, motion, wind and gravity. These types of games not only offer challenge, intrigue, and surprise to our children’s learning, but they also teach children to play alongside each other collaboratively as they learn about the world around them. EYLF Learning Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners.
Parachute Play On Tuesday and Thursday, we extended these ideas by introducing the large colourful parachute to their outdoor play. The children observed that the parachute was laid on the ground. Sheer excitement appeared across their faces; they quickly made the way to that specific location. Theodore immediately lay down on the parachute, as did Kiri, so we used our imaginations to pretend we were swimming! This inspired other friends to join in the fun and they also began to roll around on top. Next, they were invited to go underneath the parachute, as the teachers held the handles and lifted it up and down, which caused a wind sensation. The children eagerly went underneath the parachute and waited for the material to touch their heads. For some, they excitedly made their way from one side to the other, a route they repeated numerous times. Whilst underneath the parachute, they were developing their spatial awareness as they weaved between one another in a particular area without making contact with another person. Joshua indicated that he enjoyed this sensation through his actions 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
invited everyone to participate, by placing their wooden stick into the corresponding cup. We are looking forward to announcing the name of the bear next week. Having the teddy bear mascot in the classroom will allow each child to feel a sense of belonging, taking the bear on their own adventures with their families. Supporting this activity, we have been reading the book by Julia Donaldson, “The Everywhere Bear”. In this book, the Class One Mascot goes to different places as it gets lost around the city, trying to find its way back to school.
“Research shows children are much more likely to reach their full potential in life when their family and education and care service work together. These benefits are evident when families and educators exchange information regularly and collaborate on consistent approaches to daily routines, child development and learning.” (NQS – Quality Area 6)
There are several benefits when introducing a class mascot to the group; however, in the Fledglings, our focus will be giving the children the opportunity to develop social skills as well as a little sense of responsibility by looking after our teddy bear in their homes. We will keep a diary with photos and stories of their personal adventures, and we will keep this diary available for exploration in the book corner. Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity. Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect. EYLF, 2009.
In the Fledglings, we find a way to include the families in our weekly program as much as we can. Sometimes, even a simple conversation in the mornings can be enough to give us insights to add in our program. This week, we invited all families from the Fledglings and our school community to participate in our new election to choose the name for our Fledglings teddy bear mascot. The Stage 1E teachers chose a name each so we could have the election of the favourite one: Lucy, Berry, Honey and Bobo. Throughout the week, we displayed the names on the documentation wall and REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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Fledglings (1E)
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Stage 2
By Daniella Gosty, Sarah Noone, Romy Kaiser, Roberta Sokame and Vivianne Zeatier
Playdough is a wonderful sensory and learning experience for children. As your child shapes the playdough into a ball or a snake, they're thinking creatively. The squeezing, pinching, and pulling movements also strengthen your child's hand muscles and develop fine motor skills. As we are exploring the provocation of the five sense it became obvious that playdough would be a very important object within our exploration. The advantages of playdough include developing fine motor skills, being a calming action for children, encouraging creativity, enhancing hand-eye coordination, improving social skills, supporting literacy and numeracy, and it promotes playtime. The sensory benefits of playdough are endless. It is hand strengthening where the children are squishing, smashing, pushing, pulling, twisting, cutting… all the fun of playdough. Just the basic act of playing with playdough builds those hands muscles. Playdough also comes in a variety of different consistencies some of which require more strength than others to manipulate, making it easy to meet individual needs. We added some scents to our playdough to encourage the discussion of the colour, texture and smell about the individual pieces of playdough which they each had in their hands. The children were asked, ‘What colour is it?” ‘What do you think it smells like?” and ‘How does it feel in your hands?”. This type of open discussion helps their socioemotional skills as playdough provides a lot of open-ended opportunities for children to experience independent and cooperative play. In both styles of play, children are exploring abilities, life experiences, and emotions. During play with others (either as we speak as a group or as the children speak with each other) the children are learning about cooperation, collaboration, self-control, and friendships.
or their sensory experiences, they are expanding their vocabulary. As we ask your child questions they are learning to listen. There are so many ways children learn comprehension, listening, and communication skills through playing with playdough. As we extended the experience, the scented playdough enabled the children to touch, smell and interact with a food item in a playful and non-threatening way. • 4.2 Children develop a range of skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating. • 4.4 Children resource their own learning through connecting with people, place, technologies and natural and processed materials. • 5.1 Children interact verbally and nonverbally with others for a range of purposes. • 5.2 Children engage with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts.
As children discuss what they are creating, REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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Stage 2
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Stage 3
By Susan Casey, Hannah Corrigan, Emily Hunt and Echo Jia
As we continue to explore our provocation of ‘Our World’ this term, the children were overheard singing an old favourite song, ‘Tell Me The Continents’, which helps the children identify the continents. Combining the song with a continent puzzle the children learned to identify not only the name of the continents, but also their location. As an extension of this, the children were invited to recreate their own world globe using the Montessori world puzzle.
We have wonderful new resources which encourage the correct letter formation. These new sign-in sheets will become a part of the children’s daily routine as they sign into school each morning. If strong foundations are in place and practised, writing and completing more detailed fine motor activities will be easier in Stage Four.
The children selected one continent at a time, placing it on their page and tracing around each puzzle piece. They then chose different coloured pencils to colour in the individual continents, trying really hard to stay in the lines and displaying appropriate use of their drawing tools. The children used a shadowing technique to rub a crayon or to use the nib of a pencil on its side, which is a bit tricky, to represent the oceans and continents. There was fantastic focus and concentration as the children worked through each step to create their world globe and named the continents as they worked on each one. Song: Tell me the continents, Tell me the continents, Tell me if you can North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. What about Australia? Don’t forget Antarctica Tell me the continents, Tell me the continents, Tell me if you can! We are currently observing some important milestones and have noticed that one particular milestone, ‘writing’, is steadily developing. As we approach the end of Term Two, we are encouraging the children to use the small muscles in their hands to aid them in holding their pencil correctly in order to write their name. We are consolidating our name-writing skills, concentrating on the awareness of using uppercase at the beginning of our name and lowercase letters throughout.
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Stage 3
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Stage 4
By Jane Pledger, Sandra Carberry, Nina Bergel,Yuliya Ginis and Christina Mandalidis
The Stage 4M children have noticed a drop in temperature and a change in the weather. There were an array of discussions and comments about the weather when the children have been outside. Maximilian: It is cold and windy. The wind blew my balloon. Noa: It’s sunny but it’s still cold. Daliya: Look at all the leaves on the ground. Lily: Look at the tree. That’s where all the leaves have come down from. Oscar: Maybe the wind made them come down. Annabelle: The wind is blowing the leaves off the tree. Look! Hunter: It also just blew a stick off. Austin: The tree’s leaves are almost gone. Stop it, wind! Noa; It’s because it’s been autumn and winter, that’s why the leaves are falling. Elizabeth: There are some leaves on the trees. Just not much.
Not only did the children observe the weather but they also noticed how the nature surrounding them has been impacted by the weather, in particular the tree in the front playground. The children observed the tree from many different angles, heights and distances.
Lily: The ground. Nina: And the roots. This led to this week’s current provocation artwork. The children were each given a canvas and took time over the week to recreate the big tree in either autumn or winter. They were given an array of materials to choose from and to use, such as markers, pencils, watercolours, paint and nature collage.
In the classroom the children also explored themes of weather and seasons. On the table were two worksheets, which the children were able to sort and classify in two categories: clothes to wear when it’s hot and clothes to wear when it’s cold. The children coloured in the clothes, then challenged their fine motor skills and coordination as they cut around the clothes. The children then had to make the choice of which clothes should be worn in each season and they stuck them to that side of the paper.
Back upstairs in the classroom, the children investigated all the different parts that make up a tree. They learned that the tree has roots beneath the soil, along with a trunk, branches, twigs and, of course, leaves. The children learned the process of how a tree survives, using photosynthesis. They watched two videos, one on why leaves change colours and fall off the trees and the other a song on photosynthesis. They also learned about deciduous and evergreen trees, connecting the natural world and the weather. Christina: Where does the tree get its energy from? Anna: From the sun. Where does the tree get its water form? REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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Stage 4
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Early Learning School Drama This week in Drama it was all about partner work and camping. I began the lesson explaining that in Drama we can work on our own, as a team and in pairs. In Stage 3 and 4 I asked the children if they had ever felt alone or scared when they had to read out loud, go on the stage or sing a song. I explained that you will never be alone in acting. There will always be the audience, or another actor on stage or offstage with you. We then discussed scene partners and how it takes two people to have a conversation. Stage 2, 3 and 4 started with the “Sticky Game” warm-up. Stage 2 did this all together and Stage 3 and 4 I split into pairs. I got all the children to stand back-toback with their partner. I then told the children to walk around the room together as if there was honey or glue or their backs, so they had to stick and stay together. They were not allowed to split, separate or come off their partner. We repeated this with different body parts including hands, elbow, knees, heads etc. The next part of the lesson was all about Focus and Mirror. Stage 2 and 3 copied my actions. I chose one child to copy, and we all copied their moves. Leonie was rocking side to side, so we all started doing that; Scott stood like a solider, very still with his arms by his side, so we copied that and then he stood to attention. Hallie thought this was funny. Next, I got the children to hold hands with one other person and explained that it is partner work, rather than doing it all together. In Stage 4 I divided the group up into partners, making sure that each person worked with a different partner. I tapped one person on the shoulder, and they were the “Leader” and the other person was the “Follower”. When I called out “Action!” the Leaders had to move very slowly while the followers pretended that they were in a mirror and they copied their exact moves. When I called out “Switch” the
children had to swap roles and the Followers had a turn being leaders. I reminded the students to copy every little detail, including what hand they moved, were they smiling, how fast or slow were they moving, were all fingers straight, was their knee bent? Summer and Hayley performed theirs for us and we watched as the audience, giving them a big clap once they had finished. We then played a game called “Your Majesty”. I selected one child to become the Queen/King and then I chose another child to tiptoe behind the “King or Queen”. The child I chose to tiptoe had to say, “Your Majesty” in a silly, disguised, different voice. The King had three guesses to guess who it was! Jet had a very funny voice and Lily changed the range of her voice. We then put our imagination hats on. I chose two children. I asked them to pick an animal they would like to act out together. They had to become an animal together and act it out side by side as a mime. No sounds were allowed. I explained that we had to use our bodies to become these animals. I then asked the other children to guess what animal they were. If we didn't guess it, I then allowed the performing children to add sound effects or noises. The Babies, Stage 1 and 2 continued on the camping adventure. I brought in a camp torch, and everyone had a turn turning it on and off. We also sang different campfire songs including “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree”. We explored different animals we might see when camping and became these animals by using our bodies. We then sang the song “Alice is a Camel”. The children crawled around being camels and horses. Amanda hopped like a kangaroo and Alfie flew like a Kookaburra. We even had a visit from my new family member, my Guinea Pig. All the children are getting much more confident and comfortable with different animal puppets. Well, done!
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Early Learning School Sport This week the children were full of energy at our sport session. They are getting so confident with moving their bodies. The sessions began with the numbers game, where the children moved around the space in a number of locomotion styles and when they heard the command 'stop' a number was also called out. They had to make a group of that number in a hoop that was placed around the space. We advanced the game by calling out a number of body parts, for example, a group of '3 noses'. We then transitioned to an old favourite of ‘stuck in the mud’. The children have this game down pat and it is excellent to see the improvement in their peripheral vision. They are very good at identifying a friend who needs to be freed from the 'mud'. The children are also building up some excellent dodging skills, and they are able to change direction fairly quickly while still maintaining their balance. The children were introduced to some new equipment: a hoop with a modifiable height. They practised their overarm and underarm throwing and all children transitioned through both of these styles. There were a variety of hoop heights available for the students, so they were able to experiment with their force projection. The children continued to work on their technique by trying to step forward with the opposite foot to their throwing arm, allowing them to generate more force and supporting their stability when they are throwing.
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Early Learning School Music In Stages 3 and 4, we began our lesson with our warm-up scales but we did them as our animal sounds. Giraffes were popular this week, but they don’t make sounds as they don’t have voice boxes! We roared like tigers; mooed as cows; woofed like dogs to names a few. We sang over 5 note scales; in thirds; descending and held notes. After singing through our ‘Good Morning Song’, Stage 3 also warmed up with ‘Open Shut Them’ before picking up our maracas to shake to our ‘ABCs’; which they danced and moved around the room to. In Stage 4, we marched in a circle while singing, each time getting faster and then switching it up to sing and walk in reverse – ‘ZYXs’. Some kids found it quite a challenge to shake and walk backwards. We went out to the garden with our farmers for ‘The Sunflower Song’ to burn off some energy before putting our maracas away to revise ‘Do Re Mi’ and our songs for the term. With Stage 3, we have been adding in key changes, so the melody gets higher and higher, much like we do with our scales. I’m so proud of how quickly Stage 4 have picked up ‘Colours of the Wind’ – they sound beautiful. With our instruments and voices away, we took out our whiteboards to learn of our new musical note – ‘QUAVER’, which is equal to half a beat. We first revised our ‘CROTCHET’, ‘MINIM’ and ‘SEMIBREVE’, and their note values before adding our new note. We clapped out each note and their value, before I then gave them each note in a random order and asked if they could draw the note from memory. Many of the kid worked together to correct each other’s work which was very cute to watch.
In The Fledglings we opened the lesson with ‘Wake Up Body’, finding different parts on our body before moving into our warm-up scales. Stage 2 went straight into their scales, and 5 note ascending scales before singing our ‘Good Morning Song’. With our voices warmer, we picked up our castanets in one hand and revised our rhythm animals – asking the children to click along in time to each animal, working those fine motor movements. Many of The Fledglings used two hands to click, while some used one and I tried to get them to alternate hands. Stage 2 we used one hand, and then we swapped to use our other to make sure we were working both sides. Keeping with our castanets, we clicked along with ‘Twinkle Twinkle’. To really make our brains work, we tried to use our castanets and maracas at the same time for ‘I’m a Little Scare Crow’ and ‘ABCs’. The children really enjoy these layered songs as we get faster and faster and add in our freezes, but some are still working on trying to shake and click at the same time which proves tricky for even some teachers! Stage 2 put their maracas away and revised their actions for ‘Do Re Mi’. The Fledglings held onto their instruments to sing and dance through ‘The Sunflower Song’. To end the lesson, the Fledglings had some free play with our instruments around the world. In Stage 2 we tried to make a percussion circle, splitting into groups 1, 2 and 3 with bells, cymbals and tambourines. At first, we all played together, and then tried to have groups play their instruments alone, before all joining in again. Stage 2 then also had some free play on our instruments from around the world.
Using the Play Mat, the children took turns to stand up and stomp out their notes. In Stage 3 we kept it simple and stomped 4 easy crotchets. With Stage 4 I gave them minims or semibreves to also stomp. REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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Early Learning School Down in the Nest we sang ‘Wake Up Body’ to open the lesson – exploring some of the major parts of our body, followed by our ‘Good Morning Song’ at various tempi. We got our actions on with ‘Open Shut Them’, before picking up our castanets to click along to ‘Twinkle Twinkle’. Using our castanets, maracas and wood sticks, the bubs played and bobbed along to our various songs before we tried to get everyone moving with ‘The Sunflower Song’. We also explored our various instruments with group play time on the floor. The babies love to explore all the various instruments and how they all make different sounds. I also laid the keyboard on the floor, and if they had the confidence, encouraged them to come and play. Leo quickly found the buttons that made all the different sounds and was fascinated by the speakers.
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Reddam Early Learning would like to wish a very happy birthday to Jack Harries, Scott Ilkin, Elliot Lim, Edwyn Nessick, Freya Keatinge and Annabel McMicking who celebrate their special day this week
We hope you have a fabulous day!
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