Fourth are the ‘WILL’ skills, which involve intrinsic motivation and drive, grit and perseverance, ‘stick with it’ attitude, etc. The next set of skills which are required are, what she calls, WIGGLE skills: these are meant to convey the importance of physically interacting with the world, as we know that physical and intellectual restlessness/curiosity go hand in hand.
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 1
Third are the ‘WHY’ skills: these are questioning and curiosity, so obvious and necessary in a preschool environment.
Dear Parents and Caregivers, One often reads in the press about the critical skills which will be needed in the future especially in a future which is so rapidly evolving. As such, for educators and parents, the question should constantly be: what can we do to prepare our children as best we can, and what skills can we help them to develop, which will prepare them for their future? It might seem somewhat premature to be speaking of such things at an early learning level, and yet, as paediatrician and author Dr Laura Jana reminds us, it is never too early to start developing these skills. In fact, as she also mentions in a recent article, most early learning teachers are already incorporating most of these skills in their classes. I found her comments regarding the seven skills which will be required most useful and as such I mention them below.
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOLREDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTERWOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
The first she refers to are the ‘ME’ skills: these involve self awareness/self control, impulse control, focus and attention. They involve being in control of one’s own thoughts, feelings, and actions, and incorporate many of the aspects recognised as executive function skills. Then there are the ‘WE’ skills: these are the people skills that in the general sense include skills like communication, cooperation, teamwork, active listening, empathy and perspective taking. In early childhood terms, they are the ‘put your listening ears on, learn to play well with others, and in the same sandbox’ skills so commonly cultivated in preschool.
WHAT IF involves not just asking questions about how the world works but imagining how the world could be. We look forward to seeing the children develop all these various skills in the coming months and years. And equally we look forward to watching them make their mark in the exciting future which awaits them. Have a great weekend!
Instead of the ‘sit still and don’t touch, don’t poke, don’t grab’ approach, WIGGLE Skills recognise the importance of and encourage hands on opportunities for children (and adults!) to physically explore and interact with the world around them to enhance learning (not to mention engagement/motivation/purpose).
The penultimate skill she mentions is that of WOBBLE: this involves intelligent risk taking, resilience, and the ability to failure and adapt. Similar to the well known toys which always remain upright, no matter how much we knock them about, WOBBLE skills will be critical for our children. Finally, there are the WHAT IF skills: these include imagination, innovation, and creativity.
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 2
Dee PrincipalPitcairn
Our story and rhyme for the week was a class favourite “The wheels on the bus”. Our children absolutely love to play with our yellow toy bus, and we naturally start to sing the song as we play. The children love to interact with this song, some singing and some waving their hands. We sang it every day and are learning all the actions. When it comes to the part when we sing, “The Mummy’s on the bus go “sssh sssh sssh” we bring our fore finger up to our mouth. The children love to do this action and it is adorable to watch! Every morning, as Olivia arrived at school, she excitedly said, “Big Bus!” and pointed out the window. This sparked an interest for the other children in the class also to gather with her at the window to look out to see if we could see the school buses lining up on the street.
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
During our outdoor play this fascination continued. On Tuesday there was a big line up of buses taking the Primary children to their sports carnival. All our little friends ran over to the fence to see the action. The educators lifted the children up to give them a better view. Leo discovered his own way to climb up a bit higher to get a look. He climbed onto the ride on toy and his little head was just high enough to see over the fence. We took the opportunity to extend their language and cognition by asking them questions of inquiry about the buses, the driver, the wheels and the children. The children were very interested, watching with intent and occasionally making verbal and non verbal responses. It was a wonderful, spontaneous learning opportunity for all. As an extension of this interest, we added the little animal ride on toys to our outdoor play. The children loved this as they were able to “drive” their own vehicle and create the
The Nest (1R)
The teachers in the Nest make a fun game of “Cheers” with their drink bottles so as to model behaviour and sharing amongst friends. Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellWebeing.look forward to extending on our interest in wheels and motion, and continuing to encourage our little ones to share with one another. It was a wonderful week!
The Nest (1R) movement themselves. We looked at the wheels on the ride on toys to help them make the connection. Many of the children found an interest in driving them into the garden and playing under the trees. For our art activity this week we continued learning about motion and wheels through creating our own wheels paintings. The children were each given a little car to dip into the paint and roll on the paper. This was a highly enjoyable activity for all as they watched the wheels leave track marks on the paper. Outcome 4 Children are confident and involved learners. Another area of focus in the Nest this week was about looking after ourselves and sharing with one another. After coming in from outdoors, our routine is to sit down together to wash our hands and have a big drink of water. We have been teaching the children this routine of sitting down to drink water and wash our hands after play outdoors to encourage healthy habits.
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL
Fledglings (1E)
This week in the Fledglings, we extended the children’s interest in nature, and invited them to create a tree on the light box, inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach. We added the outline of a tree trunk on top of the light table and gave the children the green yoghurt lids from our loose part box. The children gathered around the table and worked collaboratively to add the “leaves” on the tree. Each child engaged in this activity differently some lined up the lids on top of the lines, while others pilled them on top of each other. Children can use loose parts to make, build, experiment and invent. Loose parts have the flexibility to be combined, redesigned, pulled apart and put back together, carried around, manipulated, put into patterns, or used as visual representations for children’s imaginations. Loose parts also invite children to explore and discover, imagine and create, enquire and experiment, play and tinker about as they build on their developmental skills in a supportive learning Whileenvironment.the children engaged in this experience, the teachers were attentively observing their way of interacting with the resources and encouraging them to talk about what they were doing, focusing on some key words, for example, tree, leaf/ leaves and green.
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Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners. Children resource their own learning through connecting with people, place, technologies and natural and processed materials. EYLF, 2009
By Tatiana Botrel, Jane Teh, Marina Moliboga and Nadia Breus Nature Explorations
Fledglings (1E) By Tatiana Botrel, Jane Teh, Marina Moliboga and Nadia Breus
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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.
Dramatic Play In the Fledglings, dramatic play is a big part of our routine. Through this kind of play, the children can express themselves, displaying their knowledge of the world around them. We have recently added new items to our play area a cleaning set and a new kitchen. The children were very excited to use the mop, broom, spray bottle and cloth, pretending to clean the whole classroom. However, the most important learning while engaging with this resource, is that we are sharing the toys and being kind to one another, so everyone can have a turn with these Outcometoys.
Stage
Children’s Day has been run annually since 1988 and is the initiative of SNAICC National Voice for our Children. Children’s Day is important because although most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are thriving and growing up strong in their cultures (with support from their families and communities), a significant number of children continue to face ongoing challenges stemming from colonisation and its effects. This includes discrimination, poverty, systemic removal, intergenerational trauma, dislocation from land and culture, and community disempowerment.
2
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children's Day Thursday 4th August In Stage Two, we were excited to do things a little differently and went into the Stage 3 classroom to watch a short episode of Play School as a large group. To acknowledge and celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day, Play School had collaborated with SNAICC, Koori Curriculum, Reconciliation Australia and the Southwest Aboriginal Land and Sea Council to create ‘Play School’s Yarning and Dreaming’ celebrates Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children. Presented by Miah Madden and Luke Carroll, this episode is a celebration of Australia’s First Nations songs and stories. With special guest presenter, Christine Anu, this Play School special encourages audiences to acknowledge Country and share their hopes and dreams for the future.
Children’s Day is a time for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and communities and all Australians, to celebrate the strengths and culture of our children. It is an opportunity for us to show our support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, as well as learn about the crucial impact that culture, family, and community play in the life of every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child.
By Daniella Gosty, Sarah Noone, Romy Kaiser , Roberta Sokame and Viviane Zieatter
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL
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The children at Reddam learn through embedded learning opportunities throughout the year about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, communities and traditions. We see this in each classroom as the children’s’ Indigenous inspired artwork is found both in the classroom and the art room. We also completed snakes as inspired by the rainbow snake story during NAIDOC week.
1.1 Children feel safe, secure, and supported.
1.2 Children develop their emerging autonomy, inter dependence, resilience and sense of 1.3agency.Children develop knowledgeable and confident self identities.
2.2 Children respond to diversity with respect
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 8 Stage 2
2.1 Children develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities and an understanding of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities necessary for active community participation.
1.4 Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect.
By Daniella Gosty, Sarah Noone, Romy Kaiser and Viviane Zieatter
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 9 Stage 3
Throughout last week and into this week the children were invited to the Atelier to create their very own Yarning Stick. Yarning Sticks were traditionally used by Aboriginal peoples, where the person holding the stick is the one sharing their thoughts, ideas and knowledge with the group. The children displayed great concentration and focus as they used their ever developing fine motor skills to weave their sticks with their choice of wool or ribbon in all different colours. They were then invited to decorate their sticks further by adding items from nature which we found in the playground. Once we have finished our sticks, we will incorporate them into our morning Yarning Circles.
What is Yarning? Put simply, Yarning is about building respectful relationships. The use of a yarning circle (or dialogue circle) is an important process within Aboriginal culture and Torres Strait Islander culture. The yarning circle has been used by Indigenous peoples from around the world for centuries to learn from a collective group, build respectful relationships, and to preserve and pass on cultural Aknowledge.yarningcircle is a harmonious, creative and collaborative way of communicating to: Encourage responsible, respectful and honest interactions between participants, building trusting relationships. Foster accountability and provide a safe place to be heard and to respond. Promote interactions and community connections. We were very excited to welcome Elliot to lead the way as he took his Yarning stick and sat front and centre as he presented his show and tell to his friends. Show and tell is usually the first opportunity young children have to stand up in front of a small group and speak. It is a wonderful introduction to public speaking as children are often given the option of speaking about a topic they know well and are interested in. Speaking about something you love always makes you love it even more! You can help your children to prepare by prepping them with some 'W' questions: Who, what, where, why? There are many benefits of show and tell for children, but here is one:
By Susan Casey, Hannah Corrigan, Emily Hunt and Echo Jia
By Susan Casey, Hannah Corrigan, Emily Hunt and Echo Jia Confidence: Practising public speaking will build confidence in most people. Show and tell is the perfect place to start speaking about something you know and are interested in, and allowing confidence to develop in a safe and familiar environment. Practising public speaking regularly, means it will usually begin to feel easier as you get older. Children will also become more comfortable contributing in class and asking questions.
Holding his Yarning stick, Elliot first led the children in our Acknowledgement to Country. “I brought a book, The Singing Mermaid, I’m going to tell the story. The mermaid was in the water, then she went to the beach, then she went to the cinema. Now there was a man that swallowed fire. Then the mermaid shared a caravan.” Lots of laughing. “I love this book, it’s very hard to read. Then the rain put her in a fish tank, but there was no room to swim. The man showed her the way to get back to Silversands. The at the night time the seagull stole the key and set the mermaid free and they were all happy. That’s the end. I got it from the library. My mam got it for me. It’s special because it’s from the library.” Elliot “Do you have to take it back to the library?” Riley
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Throughout this week the children were invited to the atelier to create something very special indeed. As you know, we have been learning about Indigenous symbols and their meaning over recent weeks, whilst also learning to find our place in our space. To broaden this sense of belonging for the children, we thought it would be a nice way to bring family into our community, as each child is invited to create their own family symbol. Early in the week, I showed the children a symbol that I created to represent my family: a special tree that we like to visit together when I am at home. I then asked the children to think of something that they as a family like to do. At the atelier they found watercolours, a fine nibbed texter and a mini canvas on which to create their symbol. The outcome was quite beautiful: “Me and my brother and my mum. We love to go to the beach together.” Bianca “Daddy and grandma and family playing games. Grandma is the grey one, mommy Jessie is pink, my brother is blue, daddy is orange and grandpa is green.” Chloe “We make dinosaurs together. He is green.” Tommy “Mummy and grandma and Valentine going for a walk.” Valentine “My brother and me do Nintendo.’ Elliot “I love paining with mummy.” Riley “I like to play Zingo with mummy and daddy.” Harlow “I like going to the farm with my family.” Oliver
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 11 Stage 3 By Susan Casey, Hannah Corrigan, Emily Hunt and Echo Jia
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 12 Stage 4
By Jane Pledger, Sandra Carberry, Nina Bergel,Yuliya Ginis and Christina Mandalidis
Creative literacy Through Books
4E’s Term Three provocation for learning was determined by the children’s love of books and storytelling. Books are an essential part of a child’s life. Developing a love of reading is a steppingstone to becoming an enthusiastic learner and a confident reader, writer and speaker. With this confidence and enthusiasm, children can enjoy a fantastic world of learning and exploration. Because of these interests, the provocation for Term Three will be ‘Creative Literacy Through Books.’ The children will learn about books, stories and authors whilst embracing their storytelling abilities. We encourage the children to share their books from home. We love the familiarity of books, as they connect a home to school. Books are calming, an escape to an imaginary world that helps us feel safe and connected. There has been a collective interest in writing words, with some children building sentences. We will extend this through an exploration of familiar stories and fairy tales, as we display visual words and picture prompts, and recreate story scenes. The story baskets have been popular with the children; they have been engaging with these to create their own story scenes. The children have been working on creating the front cover of their favourite book. Some of these work samples can be seen below. We are ready and raring for the Book Week celebrations to begin. We have the shortlist of nominated books on the shelf, and we will be sharing them with our children and families throughout Book Week which commences in the week of Aug 20.
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 13 Stage 4
4. Head tail Hold the steering wheel and sway side to side.
6. Whole body Walk the plank and swim in the ocean. For 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 Examples:theme.
This week in Stage 3 we began our 2 week themed creative drama lesson PIRATES. To begin with, everyone sang and played along to the tune of, “If You’re Happy and You Know It.”
3. Core Distal Imagine you are a sail. Keep your core strong and still. Hold your arms, move in the wind. Zara and Bobby showed us how windy their sails were in the storm.
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 14 DRAMA .
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 was a brain dance. This is a drama technique to warm up different parts of our imagination and bodies. Each child sat down and closed their eyes.
5. Upper lower Grab the anchors and throw them up and down into the ocean floor. Tommy was so strong his wheel started going in circles, so we all helped straighten it up.
Things found under the sea, on a boat, on an island, in a treasure chest, etc. Well done, everyone, on another fabulous week of Drama!
2. Tactile We got out the sunscreen and massaged it all over our bodies.
1. Breathe I asked the children to take 3 deep breaths in and out and imagine they were sailing in the ocean. What could they smell?
SPORT Our sport session this week began with some isolated balancing. In addition to our usual start, of putting our ‘sports shoes on’, filling our lungs with air and ‘putting our sports muscles on’, the students were asked to balance on their tippy toes and raise one leg in the air. They did this with their hands raised high into the air and it took a little bit of practice to become stable. We warmed our bodies up with a game of ‘stuck in the mud’. The students continue to enjoy this game and it is excellent to see them getting better at not just running around in a circle. By changing direction, they make it more difficult to be tagged and they have to engage their peripheral vision a bit more to ensure that there are no Ourcollisions.skillsfocus this week was on kicking. We started by going over the proper technique. The children were taught to place the foot they weren’t kicking with next to the ball, parked like a car, and then to swing their kicking foot through making sure they hit the ball with the inside of their foot. They kicked to their partner, who had to trap the ball in ‘a mouse trap’ with their foot. The children are getting better at understanding that they need to help their friends out by not kicking it with too much power. They are working on collaborating with their friends and doing quite a good job.
Next, we played a much loved game of ‘keepy uppy’, though this time instead of tapping the balloon with our hands the students were using their feet to keep the balloon up. There was quite a focus on foot eye coordination in this task. It was a little challenging for the children to time the kick with the fall of the balloon, but the classes soon figured it out. To consolidate this skill, we played a game of ‘river bank’. The children were divided into two teams, each on their own ‘river bank’. They were divided by a ‘river’ and had to try and keep their ‘river bank’ as clear as possible by kicking any balloons that were on their side over to the other one. The students found this game very enjoyable and did a great job in applying the foot eye coordination practice in a game situation.
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REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL 16 MUSIC In Stages 3 and 4 this week, we began the lesson with ‘The Silent Game’: testing our listening and following instructions while incorporating some letters from the musical alphabet ‘A, B, C, D’. We started some scales on ‘LA’ before reviewing our vowel sounds and putting them into our new song, ‘Apples and Bananas’. This is a fun song which takes us through each of the vowel shapes while singing about some of our favourite fruit. Once our voices were warmed up, we continued learning ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ in Sign, adding in the 2nd half of our hand movePickingments. up our maracas, we sang through our ‘ABCs’ while we marched around the room trying to keep in time with the beat as the tempo increased. We continued to learn the first verse in this term’s song ‘I Am Australian’, which many of the children want to keep singing over and over. The progression of the melody and music creates an inspiring and uplifting feeling which resonates with the kids. Using our bells, we hopped around the room as our imaginary frogs, before working on our timing and coordination with our step claps. Each hop we held for 4 counts equal to our semibreve before we did our best to keep in time and make our bells ring. To end the lesson, we played ‘Musical Statues’ to crowd favourite ‘I’m a Gummi Bear’; this inspired some hilarious dance moves, thanks Oscar!
In Stage 2 we opened our lesson with ‘Johnny’s Hammers’, mixing our counting with our coordination. With our brains awake, we sang ‘Wake Up Body’ to get us moving; we were now ready to focus on the lesson and continue adding a few more Signs for ‘Twinkle Twinkle’. We warmed up our voices with scales on ‘LA’, and then used our maracas to help us keep in time to ‘ABC’. After that we kept the birds away from our farm with ‘I’m a Little Scarecrow’ which helps our coordination and balance. We revisited our rhythm animals quickly before marching around the room to ‘Ants Go Marching’ to different rhythms, while testing out our slow motion and running on the spot. To end the lesson, I let the children have the choice to play with what they were interested in. They had free play over maracas, castanets, crow sounders, the Piano Play Mat and my keyboard, while also learning to share with each other.
MUSIC
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The Fledglings began their lesson with ‘Sleeping Bunnies’, which was beautifully sung by Jane and Tatiana, before learning ‘Johnny’s Hammers’ and waking our bodies with ‘Wake Up Body’. Everyone was so involved the energy in the class was great. Using our maracas, we danced and froze to ‘ABCs’, before using our maracas as a steering wheel and driving around the room on our bus. We continued learning our actions for ‘Do Ri Me’, and we’ve got the first four in the bag. It was even great to see some of the children singing along. Using the Piano Play Mat, we sat in a nice line practising our waiting to have a turn at walking or jumping our way across the play mat. Everyone sat so well which is such an improvement from the first time! To end the lesson, we used our castanets to revisit our rhythm animals as we clicked along. In The Nest, we opened our lesson with our Teddy Bear, as the children made their way to the mat. As we sat, we picked up our maracas for our various sing a longs before bringing in our other instruments for the children to play with. We sang and marched our way around the room with ‘Ants Go Marching’, encouraging our gross motor movements; and used the Piano Play Mat to get our friends up and walking across or crawling for some.
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 18 Reddam Early Learning would like to wish a very happy birthday to Mackenzie Calman, Esther Lawrence, Arjun Bhojwani, William Ryan, Eugene Jeme and Chloe Ly who celebrate their special day this week We hope you have a fabulous day!
