REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
Dee’s Message Dear Parents and Caregivers, Throughout the year, there are many moments of celebration. Some of these celebrations involve relatively ‘minor’ daily occurrences – a new tooth appearing, a beautiful artwork created, a physical challenge overcome – while other celebrations are more substantial. These are the ones we all look forward to, such as birthdays, anniversaries and other significant events on the calendar. The children in the ELS enjoy their celebrations too, whether a significant moment in their own lives or something they can celebrate in the lives of their friends. We also enjoy highlighting special days to celebrate collectively, such as cultural and religious events, in particular where these can teach us more about other people. Once such event on our country’s calendar took place yesterday, namely Children’s Day. Started in 1988, as a way of celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island children, the occasion has grown over the years, and
5 August 2022 it is held each year on August 4th. This year, the theme for the day was “My Dreaming, My Future”, which is a wonderful way of capturing what we hope for in the lives of all the children of our country. In the ELS, we strive to embed the cultural heritage of our Australian First Nation People, and NAIDOC Week was a perfect opportunity to focus our attention on this aspect of the curriculum, by involving the , children in a variety of creative activities, which draws their attention to the cultural diversity of our country and the need to honour all people. Yesterday’s Children’s Day was yet another reminder of that.
While the Dreaming has a particular relevance in the lives of Aboriginal people, we hope too that all children who pass through the ELS will be inspired to do their own ‘dreaming’. We trust that as they engage with each other and as they explore their own talents and abilities, they will keep looking forward with excitement towards a future which continues to offer new possibilities.
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Each day, the teachers look for ways to do just that. They offer open-ended opportunities for learning and creativity, which allow the children to explore, without any preconceived expectations. And as they so do, the end result is one of excited self-discovery and celebration. Being able to create something beautiful, or to learn a new skill, builds self-esteem while also constantly opening new challenges in the future. How special it is to celebrate life each day in the ELS – and to celebrate the wonderful people with whom we share it. We trust that the dreams which start flickering in these earliest moments of the children’s lives will burn ever brighter in the years to come. Have a happy weekend! Dee Pitcairn Principal
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The Nest (1R) The children had a busy week in the Nest room, exploring the various books, singing songs, participating in our specialist classes and demonstrating an understanding of the world around them through imaginative play. Joshua located the brush and pan set and watched Kiri intently as she swept the floor after morning tea. Suddenly he began to follow her and crouched down and started to help her using his own cleaning utensils. As he supported Kiri, he demonstrated a strong understanding of the purpose of the brush and pan set. Later in the morning he carefully gathered a doll in his arms and held it whilst repeating, “Shhhh” as if he was soothing it. Imaginative play allows adults to observe children’s awareness and knowledge of the world.
As we read the book together, the children are encouraged to identify the animals and attempt the sounds they make. Little Franklin loves the cows and says “moo”. Olivia likes to say ‘Ba Ba’ and Capri and Teddy attempted a doggy sound.
Harlow indicated, using verbal communication and pointing, to the teachers she would like a resource that she was unable to reach. Initially they gave her one bottle and she responded by shaking her head, then placing it on the unit. Then they gave her the remaining one which she happily accepted, after which she grasped the wooden person and with precision and care she successfully placed it within the bottle with ease. She repeated this sequence numerous times. From a young age, children are able to converse with others about their needs using verbal and non-verbal communications as well as facial expressions and hand gestures. This week, the children explored one of our favourite books and song, ‘Old Macdonald had a farm’. During the school holidays our children were introduced to real farm animals during a farm incursion. This was an amazing learning experience for them and sparked their interest in animals and the book.
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The Nest (1R) Extending on this, the children were invited to create an individual piece of art using paints and the footprints of toy animals. The children were given the autonomy to select the animal of their choosing as well as the colour of paint. Next, they placed the animal in and out of the paint and then placed it on the paper. They continued this technique numerous times. As they partook in this experience, they were able to make decisions of the placement of the footprints. Early on in a child's life they can express their preferences through the choices they make when given the opportunity.
they are analysing the risk factors and can recognise what is within their capabilities and seek assistance when required. Furthermore, the more times the children revisit an experience, their confidence increases as does their own self-belief in their abilities to succeed at tasks they have set themselves. Next week we will continue to play with the animals and read more stories and nursery rhymes.
With the blue skies and sun shining again, the children enjoyed the fresh air and outdoor play in the outside area. Over the previous weeks, the children have been developing their strategies and confidence in making their way over the wobbly bridge. As the children revisit the bridge, they can cross it on their feet and using the ropes for assistance and support. Some children have transitioned from crawling along to standing up on their feet and holding an adult’s hand to make their way successfully from one side to the other. Recently, Theodore created a rather loud sound on the fixed equipment by tapping his feet against the metal as he sat down. He revisited this experience along with Capri who was inspired by his actions. Leo was intrigued by the spinning discs which are attached to a rope and children are encouraged to start at one end and use the rope as stability to make it to the other side. This is challenging for the children, therefore Leo thought that he would create a swing by carefully sitting on the disc and created a forward and backwards motion. As children partake in physical activities,
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Fledglings (1E)
By Tatiana Botrel, Jane Teh, Marina Moliboga and Nadia Breus
Light Box Explorations Since the beginning of the term, the children in the Fledglings have been exploring new experiences, as we presented the classroom with more opportunities for social collaboration to work in groups and develop knowledge from communicating with others. This is not only to support the Provocation chosen for this Term – “Chit-Chatting Children” – but also to bring more of the Reggio Emilia approach to our practices, utilising our environment as a teacher. In the light box, we displayed elements of nature and the children engaged with them spontaneously. The teachers joined them to start conversations about the colours of the leaves and flowers, along with their texture, smell, and shapes. This week, we continued to explore the light box; however, the children had the opportunity to discover a new way to engage with light effects, by creating visual arts on the light table. They were excited to see the shadow of the leaves on their paper, as the slides were placed underneath them. The entire table was decorated with nature to inspire the children in their creation. Most of them enjoyed marking the place of the shadows on their paper, by scribbling on top of it or making circles around. These art works are displayed in Documentation Wall, in the ELS piazza.
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Fledglings (1E)
By Tatiana Botrel, Jane Teh, Marina Moliboga and Nadia Breus
Road Signs Since Term Two, the children have been interested in learning all about transport. As this is something that continues very strongly in our group, we extended this project to learn more about road signs. We placed a traffic light next to the car equipment, and it has real lights that alternate between green, yellow and red. These have been a great source of excitement among the children, who enjoy pointing out at the colours. In the Atelier table, the children participated in an experience, exploring the colours of the traffic lights - red, yellow and green. As the children joined the Atelier, the teachers started a conversation about the meaning of these colours, when we are out on the streets: Green - “go, go, go” Yellow – “prepare to stop”, “attention” Red – “stop!” As the children chose their colours, the teachers reminded them what each colour represents. In this activity, the children enjoyed making, or trying to make, circles on their paper, just like the traffic lights are displayed in our classroom. Early Years Learning Framework (2009) references: Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners. Children resource their own learning through connecting with people, place, technologies and natural and processed materials. Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators. Children interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purposes. 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, Sarah Noone, Romy Kaiser , Roberta Sokame and Viviane Zieatter
Commonwealth Games in Stage 2
Celebrating International Friendship Day
The Commonwealth Games bring nations together in a colourful celebration of sport and human performance. Often referred to as the ‘Friendly Games’, the event is renowned for inspiring athletes to compete in the spirit of friendship and fair play. Over the past two weeks we have been talking about the importance of sport and physical activity to help our bodies grow strong and healthy. We have been looking at different types of sports and created our own mini Stage 2 Reddam ELS 2022 games. The children were introduced to Perry the bull, who is the mascot (or as Annie says “a superhero”), who loves to wear lots of bright colours. The children were invited to recreate Perry’s colours with a small square collage activity and to create their own medals of gold, silver or bronze, counting 1, 2, 3 before participating in the Reddam games.
In Stage 2 we always talk about everyone being friends. What does friendship look like? There are 5 school values that we follow in our school and the first one is being kind. Over the past few weeks, we have been talking about kindness and the different ways we show this with our actions to our friends and teachers at school. Two- to three -year-olds are moving to a stage of friendship known as parallel play. For a three -year-old, a friend is usually someone who is engaging in a similar activity. They can begin to understand the concept of taking turns with toys or playground equipment and responding to the feelings of others. These are building blocks for future friendships! By the age of three, some children have a clear idea of who their friends are and can name them. They might look for their friends when they arrive at school and just play with them. Other children at this age might not have friends they can name, but they might be keen to make friends and will be found playing alongside their peers. By four years, most children will be able to tell the difference between ‘my friend’ and other children they know.
"Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi" is a cheer or chant often performed at Australian sporting events and the Fledgling class helped to cheer us all on. We had so much fun as we chose which athletic event we wanted to do. We were athletes, as did some high jumping, long jumping and running. We became gymnasts, as we balanced on the beams, and we joined the aquatic sport team in swimming races. At the end we all proudly wore our medals for great participation. Outcome 3.2 Children take increasing responsibility for their own health and physical wellbeing.
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Stage 2
By Daniella Gosty, Sarah Noone, Romy Kaiser and Viviane Zieatter
Establishing friendships and growing social interactions is also a means for children’s wellbeing to develop. Building conflict resolution skills and developing sympathy and empathy towards others are nurtured through social interactions. Developing respect through acknowledgment of differences and learning to co-operatively play alongside others.
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Stage 3
By Susan Casey, Hannah Corrigan, Emily Hunt and Echo Jia
Sign in station Following on from Term Two’s interest in recognising letters and writing our names, I have also noticed the children showing an interest in wanting to sign themselves in on the forms in their classroom. This week in Stage 3D we added a sign in sheet for the children to complete each morning either independently or with a parent. The children were very eager to participate in this new sign in form.
“Why do you like signing yourself in?” the teacher asked. Marley: “My Mummy does it with me.” Hunter: “I like to do my name.” Phoebe: “I can do my name by myself.” Gabriel: “It has G and I learned to write it.” Matilda: “It makes my Mummy and I so clever.” Avalon: “Because my Mummy signs in with me.” Emily: “I can write my name, my Daddy does it also.” Coen: “I like doing it with Daddy, I look like a teacher.”
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Stage 3
By Susan Casey, Hannah Corrigan, Emily Hunt and Echo Jia
The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia is a guide for early childhood educators who work with children from birth to five years. It helps educators develop early learning programs that are responsive to children’s ideas, interests, strengths, and abilities in the context of their families and communities. Children must grow healthy and strong in the early years. They must learn and build success for school and their life ahead. The Framework outlines a vision and an education approach that promotes wellbeing and learning in a culturally responsive, safe, and supported setting. It describes the early childhood years as a time of belonging, being, and becoming. Belonging is important for children when developing their own identity. Children’s relationships with others – their families, communities, friends, and educators – all help to develop a sense of belonging. Being is about children expressing themselves as individuals and developing their personality, culture, and learning. It is important for children to enjoy their childhood experiences and build relationships and knowledge. Becoming is about the importance of children learning and growing in their childhood and allowing them to understand and build capacities, skills, and relationships to be active participants in society. Signing in maximises learning and development outcomes for every child in relation to their identity, confidence as learners and effectiveness as communicators. Linking to the Early Years Learning Framework: Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators NQS 1.1.2 Each child’s current knowledge, strengths, ideas, culture, abilities, and interests are the foundation of the programme NQS 1.2.1 Educators are deliberate, purposeful, and thoughtful in their decisions and action
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Stage 4
By Jane Pledger, Sandra Carberry, Nina Bergel,Yuliya Ginis and Christina Mandalidis
The Joy of Creative Play In response to the children’s positive engagement with different forms of art – painting, drawing, modelling with clay and kinetic sand, singing and dancing – as well as many children having watched Mary Poppins during the school holidays, this term’s provocation extends on their current fascination for expressing their creativity. “Art does not evolve by itself; the ideas of people change and with them their mode of expression.” – Picasso. At the beginning of the term, the children had the opportunity to express themselves creatively. A masterpiece wouldn’t be complete without the perfect name to go with it. As such, the children openly gave titles that best depict their artwork: Yanni - ‘House of Art’ Scarlett - ‘Flower Power' Luca - 'Slivery Slides' Oscar T - 'Rainbow' Emily - 'Zig Zag‘ Finley - ‘Spooky Gosty’ Oscar He - ‘Rainbow’ Vasia - ‘Swirly' Eva - ‘Real House’ Presley - ‘Magic Flower of Life' Scarlett - 'Swirly Dirly World' Aiya - ‘Rainbow World’ The children joyfully play in our new ‘Stage Creative Art Performances Area’ using their imagination and creativity. This play includes performing their acts, choosing music on the iPad to dance to, making musical pieces with a variety of different musical instruments, singing their original songs, making funny jokes, etc. To extend on that play, I suggested to our children that we could act out stories that we enjoy reading. After reading Emily's book The Wizard of Oz, we planned that we could act out this classic tale. The Wizard of Oz preparation began with our children drawing and writing the characters' names. The children followed the teachers' spelling and visual alphabet chart when writing descriptive words.
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Stage 4 To decorate our performance stage, we used bright colours chosen by children to paint with on black colour paper. We used balloons to print with, and cotton buds to make dots. We then cut out our pictures in different shapes and placed them on the wall to make our stage stand out to WOW everyone. We watched the musical ‘Wizard of Oz’ on the iPad https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=k3B1GCpxzyk “Let the Show begin!” the children called out. They took turns choosing different roles from The Wizard of Oz. Because we had many children who wanted to be Dorothy and dog Toto, we had to make two sessions in the morning and one in the afternoon. What a spectacular and joyful time we had. Well done to all of us! Benefits: “Story acting brings children’s ideas to the group. It gives a compelling reason for children’s storytelling, celebrates children’s ideas and provides an opportunity for the group to create meaning around a text of great interest.” These learning experiences could be linked to Gardner’s theories. He saw the arts and creativity as playing major roles in children’s learning. Children are able to explore many cognitive concepts through play and creative exploration. The principles of Reggio Emilia also remind us that we plan in collaboration with children, and through this, support them to become active members of their communities. Kindly note: If any parents/families/siblings would like to share their art performing talent with the children, please let me know so that we can arrange for this through a ‘Google Meet’ or a video call.
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Stage 4
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DRAMA I’m looking forward to another wonderful term of Drama. Over the next 2-3 weeks in the Nest to Stage 2 we will be doing a feelings-themed creative Drama lesson and in Stages 3 and 4 a Pirate-themed lesson. The children will be guided to sing, dance, share stories, and play. Activities will nurture and enhance each child’s ability to communicate their ideas and feelings. Through movement-based storytelling and guided imagination play, children will build spatial awareness and physical control. Their creative and critical thinking skills will blossom as they play and explore with their friends!
they growled the word ‘anger’. I Invited the children to offer different emotions, while going around the circle. The children moved about the space through different environments, while I encouraged them to vary their levels and to engage their senses. We flowed from one environment to another. I made a little journey through emotions using a forest theme and instrumental music.
In the younger years, everyone formed a circle, and I invited the children to sing and move to the familiar song, ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It’. This tied in nicely with the next activity of reading a book about emotions, Duck and Goose How are you? by Tad Hills. In Stage 2, I read a poem about feelings and the children acted it out. My Feelings Yesterday I felt happy and light. I played outside all day. Today I’m feeling sad and blue. I don’t know what to say. Tomorrow I might feel silly or scared. I might even feel angry. Whatever I’m feeling it’s okay. Cause me feelings are part of me!
Next, we played the ‘Juicy Word Game’. The children stood in a circle. I began by saying an emotion. Everyone then embodied that emotion with full physical and vocal expression at the same time. I said the word HAPPINESS, and everyone smiled, Alfie giggled and opened his arms, and we all said the word ‘happiness’ with light and joy. Next, I said the word ANGER, and everyone clenched their fists and jaws as REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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DRAMA In Stage 3 and 4 over the next two weeks we will be doing a PIRATE-themed creative drama lesson. To begin with, everyone sang and played along to the tune of, “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” If You’re A Pirate And You Know It… Swab the deck! Look for treasure! Walk the plank! Say Ahoy! Be a mermaid! Hoist the sails! Next, we played the popular game ‘Simon Says’, but Pirate Style. Here I gave pirate ship orders and silly suggestions: Swab the deck! Dig for Treasure! Count the stars! Swim like a mermaid! Pull up the anchor! Fly like a parrot! Row the boat! Make a pirate face! etc. For the next activity, I asked the children to stand in a circle. One at a time, they pantomimed handing an invisible object to their neighbour saying, “This is for you.” The receiver took the object and said, “Thank you, I’ve always wanted a … (fill in the blank).” Here I encouraged them to change the shape and weight of the object each time. The receiver got to decide what the item was. Each time we went around the circle, I gave the children a new category that tied into the pirate theme. Examples: Things found under the sea, on a boat, on an island, in a treasure chest, etc. Well done, everyone, another fabulous week of Drama!
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SPORT It was excellent to see all the children after the Holiday Care break. They were bursting with energy and excited to get back into our sports sessions. We played ‘Bulldozers and Builders’ to warm up our bodies at the start of our session. This game has become a strong favourite across all of the classes. With the class divided in two, half are told that they are Builders and the other half are Bulldozers. Cones are scattered around the space, with half being the right way up – the built houses – and the other upside down – the bulldozed houses. When “ready set go” was called, the students from either team had to make sure as many cones as possible were either Built or Bulldozed. It was so interesting to see the children improve their technique with repetition. Many of them are now able to turn over two cones at once, displaying wonderful dexterity. An obstacle course was then set up with some new skills scattered around our space, which we had turned into a lake – or for some of our groups it was lava. Students had to ensure that they didn’t touch the ground and rather had to make their way around the course with strong balancing and focus. Some of the particular favourites were the ice skaters, mimicking the movement of skiing or ice skating. It was lovely to hear quite a few students share their stories about ice skating adventures during the holiday. This particular skill requires significant coordination, strength and balance. The children need to make sure that they use their arms to help propel themselves forward, as well as ensuring that they are always applying pressure down on the skaters so that they don’t leave one behind. This week we also used two foam squares to place on the ground and make a path to the safe area. Students had to step on one of the squares and then place the other in front of them, before stepping on that one and stretching back to retrieve the other; this pattern continued until they got to the end. To finish up our session, we practised passing in pairs. The students have improved so much with their catching and throwing and were able to keep stepping out until there was quite a distance between the pair. Some of the children remembered that if they step forward with their non-dominant foot, they are able to exert more force and the ball is more likely to make it to their partner's chest to be caught.
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MUSIC
The Fledglings opened the lesson with 'Teddy Welcome back to our Reddam families! I Bear' and woke up our bodies before singing hope everyone is excited and ready for Term our scales and counting on 'MA'. With our voic3. es warm, we sang and danced our way through our songs – ‘Wheels on the Bus’, This week in Stage 3 and 4 we opened our les‘Sunflower Song’ and our ABC's. We revisited son with learning ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ in Sign Lan'Do Ri Me' with our actions before ending the guage – exploring the idea of communication lesson with our xylophones playing along to without words. As we learnt the first few signs, 'BINGO'. many of the children were shocked to learn they were ‘singing’ a song. Down in The Nest we began the lesson with our new song 'Teddy Bear Teddy Bear', encouragOur scales were focused on our vowel shapes ing movement with simple actions, before singand sounds before moving into the ‘Good ing 'Wake Up Body'. Using our various instruMorning Song’ and ‘Open Shut Them’. With ments – maracas, castanets, wood sticks – we our maracas we sang firm favourite ‘The Sun- played and danced with our sing-a-longs. flower Song’, but this time we layered it with Some of the children used their wood sticks to some maths equations. We began with one explore various sounds they made around the farmer, and I added a random number of room, while banging the floor, boxes or chairs. farmers and asked the class to count the new To end the lesson, we had some free play with our xylophones, helping our visual-motor coortotal. dination. We began our new term song ‘I am Australian’, which sings about the diversity of what makes up this country. Using our xylophones, we revisited pitch by playing up the scale and our pitch getting higher, then playing back down the scale. In Stage Two we opened the lesson with a new warm up 'Johnny's Hammers', which helps with our coordination and counting as we add more hammer movements each round. We sang our single-note scales on 'MA' before also beginning 'Twinkle Twinkle' in sign. We sang through our sing-a-longs, pretending to be bus drivers zooming around the room; using our maracas in our ABC's and testing out balance in 'I'm A Little Scarecrow'. We took it in turns to play on our xylophones and work on our colour association to end the lesson.
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Reddam Early Learning would like to wish a very happy birthday to Alexander Kannourakis and Cosmo Weinstock-Smit who celebrate their special day this week
We hope you have a fabulous day!
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