Reddam Early Learning School Newsletter Vol 22 Issue 20

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Dee’s Message Dear Parents and Caregivers,

A well-known proverb says that “A sweet friendship refreshes the soul.” We can probably all relate to this wisdom, as we reflect on special friendships which we have enjoyed throughout our lives. There is nothing quite so rewarding as having someone with whom to share life’s ups and downs; in whose company we can be ourselves, without fear of ridicule.

One of the precious aspects of being in an early learning environment is to see children making their first tentative steps towards friendship – both in being a good friend to others and in enjoying the warm glow of being befriended by someone. And yet, as we all know only too well, relationships aren’t always easy to steer our ways through. This is especially so for young children, who are in many ways still the centre of their individual universes, and who are still in the process of learning about others.

1 July 2022 As a result, the teachers spend time most days gently guiding the children through the sometimes-sticky moments of understanding the needs, emotions and actions of others.

What is really special is to see the response from the children as they grow in empathy and as they reach out to their peers with kindness and generosity.

This warm spirit has pervaded the ELS over the past term and for that I am most grateful to the teachers, who show loving care to the children in their classes. To watch them deal sensitively with moments of tension, as they guide the children towards appropriate responses, is truly heart-warming.

I have also appreciated the ongoing dialogue which the teachers, parents and caregivers have had throughout this past term. As we all emerge from the disruptions of the pandemic, there has inevitably been a phase of settling back into routines, which can be unsettling for the children.

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However, through the cooperation of the adults in their lives, these disruptions have been minimised, which has helped the children to have a settled, productive term.

I am grateful too to the administrative, cleaning and support staff, who have handled all the disruptions along the way with a cheerful spirit. They are probably the most grateful of all, that things have returned to a degree of normality, especially after the challenges of the past couple of years.

The children have once again been the exuberant heart of the school. Their smiling faces light up the place and their excitement to learn, explore and create has meant that the ELS can look back on another happy, successful term. I wish all of the children and their families an enjoyable holiday, whether at home, or travelling, or having fun as part of the Holiday Care Programme. The staff and I look forward to welcoming all our families back for the Third Term in a few weeks’ time.

Have a great holiday!

Dee Pitcairn Principal

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The Nest (1R)

Kiri Winders, Helena Zhang, Fiona Liddell and Min Pattarasiritanarat

Winter Wonderland As we are truly entering the peak of winter, the children have continued their exploration of this cool season through various sensory experiences.

What a winter wonderland sensation we had in the Nest room this past week, which included working in collaboration with each other to make a beautiful winter blue dough with white coloured glitter, before exploring the dough using our hands or with cups. The rationale of using the colours blue and white, along with glitter, was to represent the glistening of the frost on a crisp dry blue sky winter’s morning.

To make the playdough we used the following ingredients: 2 cups of plain flour, 1 cup of lukewarm water, 1 tablespoon of oil, 1 tablespoon of cream of tartar and the chosen amount of food colouring to create the desired colour for the dough. On this occasion we did add additional water and flour as it wasn’t the right consistency. I usually find this is the situation most times I make the dough, although it can be rectified through patience and adding little further amounts of each to create the perfect consistency.

The children contributed to making the dough by mixing the flour around the bowl, then kneading the mixture. As each ingredient was scooped into the bowl, the teachers identified the ingredients and counted the amount from zero to three. Once they had completed the task of successfully making the dough, it was time to create and manipulate the dough. Theodore rolled the dough using one hand and created a long cylinder shape, Capri was focused for a vast amount of time as she pulled apart the large piece of dough to create many small pieces and Leo created balls, by placing a small amount in between his two hand and moved his hands in a circular motion. Dough has many benefits for young children including developing their hand

and eye co-ordination as they manipulate the dough. Furthermore, they also gain strength and improve dexterity in their hands and fingers, which are important areas of physical development to support drawing, using scissors, writing and other purposes.

(EYLF Outcome 3) Progressing on with our sensory experiences the children were invited to explore the gloop which is made up of cornflour, water and food colouring of your choosing. As it was part of our winter theme programme, we kept with the blue theme and adding glitter for a shimmering effect. Gloop has an interesting texture as it is hard to grasp in the hand, then suddenly it looks like it is melting as it slowly runs through the gaps in the fingers back to the tray. Some children absolutely adore this sensation, whereas others can find it overwhelming. Even from a young age, they can identify and inform others of their preferences through their actions or facial expressions. The children’s responses are respected, and we will continue to offer these experiences, as when children grow or become familiar with a certain experience their confidence may have grown and they will be willing to try it or

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The Nest (1R) The final winter wonderland extravaganza sensory experience was revisiting the snow from the previous week, although we offered alternative resources to create this scene. We replaced the shaving foam with cotton wool balls; however, we kept the following: tinsel pom poms, artificial snow and glitter. Capri investigated these items by feeling them in her fingers and hands. She was fascinated by the cotton wool, which she began to pull apart, noticing it would make more for the tubs. Whilst undertaking this task she was developing her fine motor skills as she grasped the ball between her two fingers and stretched them apart.

snow before transferring it to an empty cup. As they poured from container to another, they were developing their hand and eye co-ordination. Joshua gathered a paper cup as he decided to use it as a scoop. He placed it on the bottom of the tub and used an ‘along and up’ motion to collect the artificial snow and pom poms. Then he returned them to the tub before repeating this numerous times.

We wish you a lovely weekend and for those who are travelling for the school holiday enjoy and we will see you on your return.

Paper Cups The paper cups have been a keen interest for the duration of the week, as the children have been extending their exploration by incorporating them into their buildings. They constructed towers and watched in anticipation as they carefully placed one cup on the rim of another and waited to see if it would remain or topple. Olivia took a selection of cups and found herself a space on the floor and began to build a tower upwards. As she placed one cup on top of another, it wobbled and fell to the ground. Not deterred by what happened, she picked up the fallen cup and reconsidered her approach and placed the cup on the rim and waited with anticipation to watch if it was secure and stayed in place. Cup building/stacking has many benefits for cognitive development as it targets specific areas of the body and the brain to increase intelligence, problem solving skills and critical thinking. (EYLF Outcome 4.1 and 4.2) Others took a different approach to the cups. They collected a few cups and transported them from the table to the sensory tub which was filled with artificial snow and blue coloured pom poms. Ethan and Olivia began to fill one cup with 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 and Nadia Breus

Celebrating Term Two In Term Two, our provocation was named “The world around us”. The children in the Fledglings were eager to learn about and explore everything that was surrounding them in our daily routine. Having an openended provocation allowed us to go in different directions when the children expressed their interests, week after week.

From engaging with nature, to learning all about transport and then finishing the term going on bear hunts – we can say that the children in the Fledglings had a great time enriching their educational journey.

Right at the beginning of the term, the children enjoyed exploring activities related to nature. We went on a walk to the big playground and collected natural resources that we later used in the Atelier to create visual arts. This also allowed us to celebrate Reconciliation Week, where we used these resources to create decorations for the ELS piazza.

Some children in our classroom became very interested in transport, always requesting to read books related to this subject. Then we started on a new journey, learning all about construction site vehicles, which were the ones that gathered more of the children’s attention. In the Atelier table, the children made fire engine and bus dress-ups, which they used for dramatic play. We played guessing transport sounds games. That made the children very excited, but most of all, they were exposed to beautiful set ups each day, ensuring that they could explore above and beyond all about transport.

“Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?” (Bill Martin Jr), “The Very Cranky Bear” (Nick Bland), “The Everywhere Bear” (Julia Donaldson), and many more.

We shared some facts about bears with the children, displayed photos, and put on videos of real bears in action. The children were mesmerised watching the bears fishing, running and playing with their bear cubs in nature.

Each focus of interest in the classroom brings in a lot of joy, fun times, and new knowledge to the children. Respecting what the children want to learn about makes our planning even more effective and meaningful. We are looking forward to seeing where the children’s lead will take us next term.

Whether at Reddam or holidaying, we wish all the Fledglings families a great school holiday ahead.

Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world. Children develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities and an understanding of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities necessary for active community participation. EYLF, 2009.

Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners. Children develop a range of skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating.

EYLF, 2009.

Then, one day we read “The Terrible Plop” book by Ursula Dubosarsky. And this was the start of a whole new chapter in the Fledglings. The children became very excited whenever they saw the bear on the pages of this book. We started reading different books with bear characters such as, REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

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Fledglings (1E)

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

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Stage 2

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

As we finish the term, we look towards the skills we can introduce in the future.

Extending our vocabulary, especially when describing our emotions, was something that we could introduce at the end of this term to build on in the future. With this in mind, it is great to plan an activity that we can continuously repeat without the children becoming over familiar with it. ‘Sandy boy/ Sandy girl’ is an example of a game on how to identify and teach emotionally relevant words and phrases in a traditional rhyme/ singing and to demonstrate how the teaching of emotional language can easily become part of activities and routines.

When we identify the words and phrases that feature in the traditional ‘Sandy Girl (or Boy)’ song, we can help the children broaden their descriptions of emotions. The words to the song are: See the little Sandy Girl sitting on a stone Crying, weeping, because she’s all alone Stand up Sandy Girl (or child’s name), wipe your tears away Choose a friend who likes to dance, and take them out to play

Tra la la la la la la etc (clapping and dancing) With this activity, it helps to have a ‘stone’ to sit on (a cushion or circle of carpet), a small stool or chair, and a blanket to lie under to help prompt the children to act the words.

The children go in a circle, one child sits in the middle and acts out the lyrics pretending to be crying. Then s/he picks another child and the two dance in the middle of the circle. Then the child who was picked stays in the middle of the circle. The one who had been there initially now joins the circle with all the other children. Then the song is repeated with the same actions.

The children not only learn different emotions but also turn-taking which will strengthen their social cues alongside building their confidence as they become more familiar in the coming term as we explore this new game.

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Stage 2

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Stage 3

By Susan Casey, Hannah Corrigan, Emily Hunt and Echo Jia

This week was our Reddam ELS’s Reflection Journals Review Week. At Stage 3, we invite our families to have a look at their children’s learning journey through the magnificent artwork and documentations, alongside their children. It was so great to see our children explaining those learning moments to their families. We can also see the huge progress our children have made through these 6 months. One of the most significant improvements as evidenced in the reflection journals is our children’s fine motor skills.

Based on the feedback we gathered from our families from the parent-teacher interview and everyday chat, our families would like their children to be able to focus on their pencil grasp and writing their names. Name writing is a complex skill that develops over time. Writing starts with scribbling and drawing, before moving on to forming letters and words. To achieve this, we need to focus on building our children’s fine motor skills.

Fine motor skills involve the use of the smaller muscles of the hands, which are used when completing tasks such as doing up buttons, opening lunch boxes, and using pencils and scissors. Fine motor skill efficiency significantly influences the quality of the task outcome as well as the speed of the task performance. These skills are very important to complete everyday tasks. To enhance our children’s fine motor skills, we intentionally planned a range of art and craft activities (drawing, string painting, collage, balloon painting, and ball painting), sensory activities (playdough, sand tray, and cooking) and construction activities (Lego, Duplo, pegs, and blocks) to enhance our children’s hand muscles, and practise our pincer grip by manipulating small objects, which builds a strong foundation for pencil grasp and writing skills.

This week we encouraged the children to participate in crayon rubbing. We believe that part of a successful pencil grasp is the ability to hold on to a writing tool and work with just the right amount of pressure. This skill comes with children’s experience of using their fingers in a variety of situations and of having good sensory awareness in their hands. The crayon rubbing allows children to experiment with pressure to achieve a result.

All these work samples are put in children’s Reflection Journals for our children and their families to review the learning steps we have taken. We would love to hear some feedbacks from our families in regard to our learning program, as we value our families’ input and involvement.

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Stage 3

By Susan Casey, Hannah Corrigan, Emily Hunt and Echo Jia

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Stage 4

By Jane Pledger, Sandra Carberry, Nina Bergel,Yuliya Ginis and Christina Mandalidis

Representational drawing: self-portrait Representational drawing is the art of drawing realistically. It is making your drawing resemble the real world as closely as possible. This week, the children worked on a representational piece of art: a selfportrait.

how to make the change from negative thoughts and words to those that are positive.

After the story the children held up their selfportraits and said something positive about themselves.

The simple act of drawing plays an important role in a child’s physical, emotional and cognitive development.

Drawing allows children to express emotions, experience autonomy, and build confidence. When children explore facial expressions in self-portraits, they are introduced to the vocabulary of emotions such as happy, sad, and angry, and they begin to develop emotional literacy.

All drawings can show the development of a child’s fine motor skills, observation and focusing skills. A self-portrait can also give an insight into a child’s self-concept. It is a good way for an adult to see a child through that child’s own eyes.

The children were invited to sit at the table to create their unique portraits. They spent some time observing their reflection in the mirror, looking for detail and discussing it with their teacher as they engaged in drawing their representation of themselves.

It is always so interesting and valuable to be present when children are drawing, as to capture the detail that they are representing on paper. These unique, representational self-portraits tell us that the children are confident, observant and curious.

As an extension of this, we read a book, ‘I Think, I Am’ by Louise Hay. Through this book children can learn and understand the powerful idea that they have control over their thoughts and words, and in turn, what happens in their life. From reading this book, we found out the difference between negative thoughts and positive affirmations.

Fun illustrations and simple text demonstrate REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

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Stage 4 Sabine: I’m good at painting.

Hector: I’m good at drawing.

Louis: I’m good at marble run.

Violet: I’m good at painting.

Jude: I’m good at marble run.

Arwen: I am good at building tubes.

Clara: I’m good at drawing.

Nina: I’m good at drawing inside the lines.

Freyja: I’m good at puzzles.

Jett: I sometimes share.

Sofia: I am a good friend.

Henry: I have nice friends. That makes me happy.

Hubert: I’m good at playing with friends.

Oliver: I’m good at giving Mummy a cuddle. I’m helpful.

Samantha: I am good at sharing.

We are looking forward to our Vacation Care Programme, which will run for the next three weeks. We wish you all a lovely weekend.

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Stage 4

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Early Learning School Drama . This week in Drama the children explored how energy is necessary when performing, so we learned how to control and focus that energy. Every stage started with a warm-up called shake-out. We stood in a circle with plenty of room in between each person. The children followed and counted with me whilst shaking out their right hand, left hand, right foot, and left foot for 16, 8, 4, 2, and 1 counts. Alfie, from Stage 2, wanted to do it super-fast it was very funny. James said we looked like scarecrows!

Next, we discussed energy and excitement.

The children named a few things that they get really excited about. Aya in Stage 4 said ballet, Hector said playtime, and Leonie in Stage 2 pointed at me! I explained that this excitement is a good energy that is needed while acting. Nobody wants to see boring actors who look like they are about to fall asleep!

The last exercise we did was called ‘Toy Store’. This is an imagination game. One child is the toymaker and everyone else freezes like their favourite toys. Next, I instructed the toymaker to walk around and turn the toys on and off by pressing each toy’s button, turning its crank, etc. When a toy was turned on, the child had to act like the toy. When it was turned off, the student had to immediately freeze. I demonstrated to Stage 2 and 3 by pretending to be a jack -in-the-box. I crouched into a tight ball and then popped up and down after being turned on. We had some wonderful toys, and this followed on nicely from last week’s wax museum.

Thanks for a wonderful term of Drama. Well done everyone!

In Stage 4, I asked a few children to stand up and give examples of having a lot of energy and then having low or no energy at all. I asked the other children to observe how mannerisms (facial expressions, body movement, voice levels) change as each child goes from high energy to low energy.

In the younger years, we did some movement. I call this running a marathon.

Everyone stands in a circle. I told the group that everyone is about to run a marathon, without moving from their spots (I gave them spots to stand on) in the circle. Here I reminded the children to control their energy so that they did not tire out before the race is over. We started out by pretending that we were behind the starting line and had to warm up first. Everyone followed me in stretching and jumping jacks.

I said, “On your mark, get set, go!” and everyone began running in place. I guided them by having them turn corners, pass cheering fans, swim through a lake, jump over a log, stop for the traffic and finally, cross the finish line.

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Early Learning School Sport The warm-up this week was geared to warm our bodies up and also work on the children’s executive functioning skills. We played a new game called ‘Number Hunt’.

Around the space there were a variety of large foam numbers, and the aim was to move around the space in a particular locomotion style and when told to freeze to listen out for what number was called and then run to the number as quickly as possible. Once at the number as a group the children did that number of star jumps, for example 4 star jumps. We counted out the numbers together as a group and it was excellent to hear the confidence in the students' voices as they counted.

the ‘shark’ through the circle and they thought this was great fun.

We then revisited a game that we played at the start of Term 1 – ‘Beat the Ball’. Very much like ‘Duck Duck Goose’, ‘Beat the Ball’ requires the children to pass to each other and try and get the ball around the entire circle while one of their friends hops around the outside and tries to get there first. As we have been working on passing the ball to our friends, the children have shown immense improvement in their ability to get the ball around the circle without dropping it. They enjoyed the anticipation of watching the ball going around the circle and were very supportive in the event of a dropped ball. Some of the children found hopping on one leg around the circle quite tiring and were very good at simply switching legs to give each leg a bit of a break. Hopping is an excellent way to build up coordination, balance and leg strength but as it is not as easy as running the children need some encouragement to keep trying.

We finished up the session with the new favourite game: ‘Run the Gauntlet’. The children really enjoyed the anticipation of trying to run to a safe platform to make sure they don’t get ‘eaten’ by any of the ‘sharks’ that come rolling through the centre of the circle. Their dynamic balance and agility are really tested in this game. This week the students were given an opportunity to roll REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

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Early Learning School Music This term in Music has flown by again!

In Stages 3 and 4 we started the lesson with our maracas shaking along with our scales 'LA' and the Solfa Scale - before singing our 'Good Morning Song' and each stage’s term song.

With maracas, we marched around the room to our 'ABCs' - trying to shake and stomp in time to the changing tempo.

Adding in singing and walking backwards adds in a fun challenge as they try to coordinate each element.

We put bells around our feet and kept our maracas to continue exploring pitch.

Shaking for high, moving our hips in the middle, and stomping the bell for low. The challenge was to see if they could recognise two pitches at once - shaking high and stomping low.

with 'Twinkle Twinkle', while Stage 2 hopped with our bells to 'Gahloomph'. We wrapped up the lesson with 'Do Re Mi', while The Fledglings continued to learn the actions.

In The Nest, we opened the lesson with our sing-a-longs and action songs using our castanets and maracas. Using the drums and wood sticks, we explored and played along to 'BINGO', before pairing the Play Mat into our marching and moving around the room.

I wish everyone a nice break - see you in Term 3.

We kept our bells on and jumped around the room to 'Gahloomph', holding each jump for 4 beats, a semibreve, while working on our coordination in step-clapping.

To end the lesson, we had a dance party to our firm favourite, the 'Gummi Bear' song we formed a dance circle and the children took it in turns to dance in the centre, showing how they move when they feel happy.

Stage 2 and Fledglings opened the lesson with 'Wake Up Body' followed by our warmup scales. We sang through warm-up songs 'Good Morning Song'; 'Open Shut Them'; 'Sunflower Song' and 'ABCs', layered with freezing and stomping.

We formed a percussion circle to play along with our rhythm animals. The Fledglings had some free play along to 'Bingo', to keep in time with the music. Stage 2 played along to various different beats before we sang through 'Twinkle Twinkle'.

The Fledglings used castanets to click along REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

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Reddam Early Learning would like to wish a very happy birthday to

Harlow Murray, Kaitlin Wong, Charles Woodward, Violet Walter, Rafael Biller, Avalon Andonovski, and Alfred Bond who celebrate their special day this week

We hope you have a fabulous day!

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