Dear Parents and Caregivers, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” We can probably all recognise the familiar style of Dr Seuss, the storyteller whose playful words have inspired children throughout the world for so many years. Perhaps we can think back to our own childhoods of a Dr Seuss story which captured our imaginations. Yet the simplicity of his words belies a great wisdom in his stories. This particular quote reminds us of the importance of exposing young children to reading as early as possible. It reminds us of the power of reading: more reading leads to greater knowledge, which in turn opens the doors to an exciting life of opportunities. This surely is what we all hope for as we dream of a wonderful future for our children. It is a reminder too of the importance of celebrating books, stories and words, just as we did during Book Week. Apart from the obvious joy inherent in stories, there is the added benefit of growing each child’s vocabulary. The more extensive a child’s vocabulary, the more effectively he or she is able to communicate. While that communication might initially be limited to the spoken and heard word, it is not long before it transfers itself to the read and written Recenttoo.research published in the Early Education and Development journal in the United States found that children with stronger vocabulary skills displayed more positive engagement with their teachers and peers. Researchers pointed out that “a small change in children’s skills and experiences” early on can “improve or impair” their chance of academic success Welong-term.canprobably all attest to the fact that children love playing with words. There are those special moments when a word seems to catch the imagination of a child and all we hear for days on end is that word being repeated.
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EARLY LEARNING SCHOOLREDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTERWOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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Then there are also those almost magical instances when a child suddenly understands the shapes of letters which make up words on a page, and the spoken becomes one with the written. Someone once said that “Words, like flowers, have their colours too.” They bring interest to our lives and have the power to transport us to wonderful places. This was so evident during this past week, as the children in the ELS revelled in the opportunity to listen to stories and explore the characters in them. We hope that the colours and sounds of words continue to inspire the children for all of their lives.
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Enjoy your weekend! Dee PrincipalPitcairn
Book Week supports our provocation for this term. On Wednesday and Thursday, the children were invited to dress up as a character from their favourite storybook. It was such a delight to see them come to school all dressed up, many of them with a smile and a look on their face showing that they knew it was something special. Many of the children bought along their favourite book to read and we enjoyed reading them together as a class.
The children also enjoyed our non fiction sea animal flap book which we read at story time. The children were invited to open the flaps or hold one of our sea animal figurines from our sea animal table. This was an introduction for them to the develop an awareness of the creatures found in the sea. The favourite sea creatures are of course the shark and the whale with big teeth, with many of our little ones being fascinated with them. Later in the week we followed up this interest by painting our very own star fish.
Teacher Min created some star fish utensils using some musical cymbals and pop sticks. The children absolutely enjoyed exploring the colours and shapes these utensils made by stamping and twirling and dabbing to make their very own star fish
This week was an exciting week, as it was the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book Week, which is an opportunity to invite and immerse the children with books, reading and examining illustrations. Even at this very young age group it is evident that they absolutely adore books and being read to. Often, we watch the children as they spend time in our book corner, pulling books of the shelves and poring through the pages, or asking an educator to read to them.
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The children continued to explore our provocation, ‘Under the Sea’ by using the story ‘Commotion in the Ocean’ by Giles Andrea and expressing themselves by dancing and moving using ribbons, scarves whilst listening to an array of ocean music.
Bookscreations.and illustrations are a wonderful tool to support children developing a deeper understanding of the world around them and supporting the enhancement of their Readingimagination.inearly years promotes every aspect of a child’s development including social and emotional wellbeing as well as communication and language. As the children spend time reading with family members or teachers at school, they are fostering a trusting relationship and a sense of belonging in their community and environment. Also, it promotes language development, encourages original thinking, and enhances their speech and communication skills. Books with rhyme and repetition support the extension of their vocabulary and memory and allow them to be active participate in the book reading as they can predict what will happen next. Furthermore, they help the children to understand concepts, apply logic and develop judgement skills. We will continue reading and exploring our many books in our classroom to encourage this wonderful learning and language development.
The Nest (1R)
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 4 The Nest (1R)
5 The Nest (1R)
Each year at Reddam ELS, we bring children and books together by celebrating Book Week. The theme of Book Week 2022 encourages children to explore “Dreaming with eyes open…” offering an exciting invitation with a world full of possibilities. The Fledglings are very fond of reading books and the story time is one of their favourite activities. Children sit in a circle and listen to the teacher with great attention and joy. We are very enthusiastic about reading new books and books that we have already read many times, and the children are very happy to ask to read them again and again, helping the teacher, as they know these books by heart. In the Fledglings, we are encouraged to pick up a book, read something new, get lost in something familiar, listen, touch, see and feel a story, of something seen, or not seen, and to "Dream with your eyes open…". A magical tale about reaching for dreams “How to Catch a Star” by Oliver Jeffers is one of our choices of book. Once there was a boy, and that boy loved stars very much. So much that he decided to catch one of his very own. But how? It is enough to make a boy want to give up! Yet sometimes we discover things aren't where, or what, we expect them to be. It is a story about big dreams and unexpected discoveries. At the atelier, our children enjoyed painting and making their own special stars with star cookie stamps and sparkling sequence. We also created a ‘how to catch a star’ sensory tub, where the Fledglings children used tongs to catch the star hiding in the blue rice/ space.
To celebrate Book Week, another favourite book the Fledglings love is "The Very Busy Spider" by Eric Carle. "The Very Busy Spider" is about a spider that spends all day spinning her web. One by one, the animals of the nearby farm try to distract her, yet the busy little spider keeps diligently at her work. When she is done, she is able to show everyone that not only is her creation quite beautiful, but it is also quite useful! The children were invited not only to read this wonderful story, but to create a mini performance. The teachers selected the animal puppets from this book and prepared a frame so that the web could spin. Each child had a great opportunity to play the role of the very busy spider spinning her web, as well as being the animals of the nearby farm, trying to distract our busy Wespider.would like to thank the parents and family members who came to read with us or who sent some of their children’s most loved books to share with the group this week. It was such a pleasure to share this wonderful time and the children absolutely loved having you come in and spend this quality time.
Fledglings (1E)
Celebrating Book Week
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By Tatiana Botrel, Jane Teh, Marina Moliboga and Nadia Breus
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 7 Fledglings (1E) By Tatiana Botrel, Jane Teh, Marina Moliboga and Nadia Breus
By Daniella Gosty, Sarah Noone, Romy Kaiser , Roberta Sokame and Viviane Zieatter
Dreaming with eyes wide open Book Week is a time to celebrate the love of reading and is a way of inspiring children’s imagination through books. Telling stories is as old as time and reading books aloud to children stimulates their imagination and expands their understanding of the world. It helps them to develop language and listening skills and prepares them to understand the written word.
‘Dreaming with eyes wide open’ is the theme of Book Week in 2022. This is an opportunity to escape into another world where you can be anything you want to be!
Children are effective communicators 5 1 Children interact verbally and non verbally with others for a range of purposes. 2 Children engage with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts.
The beautiful artwork in the poster for this year was created by author illustrator Jasmine Seymour who is a Dharug woman. Her artworks were the inspiration for creating a display of butterflies and birds of wonderful colours to ignite our imaginations. Our dress up day for Book Week was so much fun. We had an array of characters. The children were excited to have their parents read to the class one of their favourite books. This was also a great opportunity for sharing in each other’s culture through our families reading in French/English and Mandarin/English to the Earlyclass.Years
Learning Framework outcome 5:
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Our Under construction provocation has begun, with the children focusing their attention to the shape of things. Learning shapes not only helps children to identify and organise visual information, but it helps them learn skills in other curriculum areas including reading, math, and science. For example, an early step in understanding numbers and letters is to recognise their shape. We read the story “Bears love squares” by Carl Hart and Edward Underwood and identified the different shapes in the book. The question was asked of the group what shapes they like. Some of the answers included: Cosmo likes hexagons, Halle the yellow star, Teddy the harbour bridge (arch), Claire a square, Sophie a circle, Annie a rectangle. Claire went on to tell us that a circle has no corners. During our lunch times we asked the children to tell us what shapes they might see in their lunch boxes. Teddy identified the cheese as a “circle”, and Claire helped him identify his strawberry as “triangle”. Luis said, “My strawberry is a triangle too.” Cosmo also identified the cheese in his box as “triangle”, Annabel said her sandwich was a “rectangle”. Riyaan said his sandwich was a “triangle” and the Seaweed pieces were also the shape of a “rectangle”. Saskia said her sandwich was “square”. Isabelle also had a triangle omelette and Halle found a “rectangle” shape in her lunch box. We’re going on a shape hunt in our outside group time the children were invited to go on a shape hunt. Using a picture of a square, a circle and triangle we went round the yard singing to the tune of “We’re going on a bear hunt”. symbols and pattern systems work. There was a lot of excitement as shapes were being found throughout the playground circles and squares in the sandpit were discovered by Leonie, Rochelle, and Claire. In the castle area, Maeve, Lily Mei, Isabelle, Milo, Hudson and Halle were excited at how many squares they could find. James found the biggest triangle on the deck (our reading tent). Open your eyes and you will discover that there are shapes everywhere!
By Daniella Gosty, Sarah Noone, Romy Kaiser and Viviane Zieatter
Under Construction The Shape of Things
Outcome 2 Children are connected with and contribute to their world Outcome 4 Children are confident and involved learners 4.3 Children transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another Outcome 5 Children are effective communicators 5.4 Children begin to understand how symbols and pattern systems work.
Continuing to explore with shapes the children were given an assortment of objects of different shapes to press on the paint then print the shape they like on their paper. We have also had the shape templates with textas available at the drawing table and the children worked on drawing and colouring in different shapes.
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REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 10 Stage 2 By Daniella Gosty, Sarah Noone, Romy Kaiser and Viviane Zieatter
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 11 Stage 3
By Susan Casey, Hannah Corrigan, Emily Hunt and Echo Jia
This week in Stage 3, we brought our children and books together, as we celebrated Book Week. Children’s literature is a powerful resource that teachers can use to help children enjoy their known world and then travel beyond to explore the unfamiliar. This early literacy benefits children even they are not able to read. Children are able to adapt their language through listening, looking and touching at this early age. If children are able to read one book a day, they would have nearly 50 books experience this term, which would help our children to build a better language foundation for their further learning. Reading to our children can improve and develop their vocabulary, phonological awareness, comprehension and imagination skills and understanding of literature and writing. It can also help to develop curiosity, motivation and language skills and it promotes and encourages lifelong readers. Another huge benefit of reading stories is that it can support bonding and strengthen the positive connection. In stage 3, we read our stories through different media, such as traditional printed text, feltboard, short video, CD. We encourage our children to ask questions at the end of the story to extend on their thinking, and we also invited our children to re tell the stories through drawing, drama play and using props. We are very grateful to have many families who offered to share some of their favourite storybooks with the rest of the class. At Reddam, we strongly value and appreciate our families’ participation. Family is our children’s first teacher, and as such, our families’ engagement not only benefits their own children’s learning, but it also helps to extend on our learning program for the whole class. Parent involvement helps to create a very positive experience for our children to connect their home environment and the school environment. It helps our children to build a sense of belonging and a strong sense of confidence as well.
Dress Up Day for Book Week was another great moment of this exciting week We are amazed by our children’s enthusiasm for books!
From the Early Years Learning Framework
“Literacy is the capacity, confidence and disposition to use language in all its forms. Literacy incorporates a range of modes of communication including music, movement, dance, story telling, visual arts, media and drama, as well as talking, listening, viewing, reading and writing. Contemporary texts include electronic and print based media.”
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 12 Stage 3 By Susan Casey, Hannah Corrigan, Emily Hunt and Echo Jia
By Jane Pledger, Sandra Carberry, Nina Bergel,Yuliya Ginis and Christina Mandalidis
Storytime is part of our daily routine and we read numerous books to the children throughout the Thereday.are also scheduled times, such as before and during rest time or before transitions, when the children are invited to ‘read’ a book by themselves or with a friend.
The importance of reading for children cannot be underestimated. Reading for pleasure can benefit a child's education, social and cognitive development, their well being, and their mental health. Early reading with children also helps them learn to speak, interact, bond with others, and read early themselves. The more reading children do, the more quickly they will develop as readers.
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“Dreaming with eyes open…”
This week, we celebrated children's literature with the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book Week. The theme for Book Week 2022 is "Dreaming with eyes open...". The CBCA Book Week is a fantastic event that promotes the joy reading can bring to young minds!
Our children were introduced to the Book Week poster and artwork which was designed by Jasmine Seymore. All Stage 4 classes were involved in the beautiful Book Week display. Jane's and Sandra's classes felt inspired by the birds on the poster, so they made clay rainbow birds. Christina's class was inspired by the title and wanted to make dream catchers. Nina's class designed a bush tree and Yuliya’s group added an indigenous perspective.
Stage Four hopes that you will pop by the hallway, to see how busy our children have been, and explore our "country" interactive landscape.
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Alfie: ‘Winnie the Pooh'. He flies a kite. And 'Trucks' because in that books are trucks and I love the big one.
Gisele: ‘Up the Creek’ because I like reading it by myself because I know how to read it all by myself.
Tatum: ‘Spiderman’ because I like Spiderman because he shoots webs.
Frankie: My favourite book is called ‘Germs’ and I love it because I can see the germs.
Emily: My slide book because it has princesses.
In Nina’s class, all the children brought in one of their favourite books. They proudly introduced their book to their friends, and they explained why they chose that book:
As an extension, the children were invited to draw a picture of their chosen books. Using markers and crayons, they drew the book's front cover and back cover. We also added a photograph of themselves to appear as if they were reading their creation. This offered an exciting pop art visual element to their creation
Julian: I like this book because I know what it’s called: ‘Tiger Days’.
We wish all our families a great weekend filled with many beautiful stories to read.
Ava: ‘Coco Chanel’ because she makes dresses.
Billy: ‘Ninja’ because I like the swords.
Luca: ‘LEGO CITY’ because it has reading in it.
William: 'Give a Moose a Muffin' because it is funny. And 'The Great Barrier Reef’ because I read it all the time at home.
Gabriel: ‘When I’m big’. I like that book there is a little dinosaur who she is going to be when she is bigger.
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER Stage 4
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 16 DRAMA .
like everyday folk despite what you’ve been told. We don’t have long white whiskers nor are we very old. We don’t go round in trailing robes except on special days; those pointed hats are stylish but out of the usual way. I like to wear my Levi’s, roar
on my feet. I’m part of a new generation of wizard girls, we’re cool! No one dares to mess with me Female wizards rule!
This week in Stages 3 and 4 we had a visit from the Wizard of Shoes. After playing with the parachute, the children hid underneath. When the parachute was pulled off I had transformed into the Wizard of Shoes. I explained to the children that I owned many pairs of shoes, but that I often got confused about what each shoe did. I brought out many different pairs of shoes, and the children helped me to decide what each one was called and what they were used for. I read a poem about me, the Wizard of Shoes. What did Wizardsthink?look up and down the street motorbike, Doc Martens
they
on my Ducatti
Once the machine was fixed, the children were asked to walk through the machine. Some children were scared but were happy to go through with a partner. Well done to Violet in Stage 4 for being brave enough to have a go at the machine with her friend Freya. I also incorporated sounds and actions to make it more interesting. Some of the children were keen to be the leader and do the sounds and actions too. Once they popped out of the machine, they had to tell the audience what shoes the machine had made them, and then show us how they worked. We had running shoes, shoes that walked on water, rainbow unicorn sparkly shoes, and flying shoes, just to name a few. Annabel’s running shoes (Stage 4) were very fast. Nina’s Stage 4 class came up with a name for me as wizard. It ended up being “Mrs. Wizard of Wonderful Shoes”. I thought this was very creative!
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 17 DRAMA .
Next, we discussed what stories had wizards in them. They all said Harry Potter. So, we played an action game based on wizards and Hogwarts. They were then challenged by the wizard! I told them that I have a fabulous shoe making machine, but that it’s broken and needs experts to help fix it. I asked if the children were experts, and they all answered YES! (Lucky me!) I showed them the machine. They had to turn on their imagination eyes to see it because it’s invisible, you see. They then helped me to fix it, suggesting the use of sticky tape, cement, hammers and nails, glue, and paper. Thanks for the help, Avalon and Valentine, who showed me what parts of my machine were broken!
The main section of the session this week was a fundamental movement skills obstacle course. Six stations, with a different focus at each, were set up around the space and the children moved around independently. Some new skills that were introduced were throwing a small ball at a target to knock down the cups. The children really enjoyed this station, and they began to challenge themselves by standing further and further away from the stacked cups. The class was reminded to step forward with their non dominant foot when they threw the ball, this aids with generating more force and helps the children to balance. Another fundamental movement skill practised was jumping with two feet together. This was done by asking the children to jump along a path created by alternating two flat markers, which they jumped on as usual, and then one raised platform. The children were shown that using their arms to propel them upwards and bending their knees helped them to get sufficient height to land safely on the raised platform. This was a difficult skill in the beginning, but the children experimented and with great focus they were all able to be successful.
SPORT Our sports session began this week with a new warm up. Four different coloured cones were placed around the space and the children were asked to move around in a variety of locomotion styles such as moving like a bear or hopping on one leg. The class had to keep an eye on me as when I said ‘stop’ I raised a cone in the air that matched one that was in the space and the children had to run as quickly as they could to get there. This warm up not only got the muscles moving but worked on the children’s executive skills and decision making.
We finished our session off with a game of ‘run the gauntlet’, which the classes always enjoy.
The children each stand on top of a low platform in a circle and two ‘hungry sharks’ (balls) called Vanessa and Phoebe try to take a bite out of them as they run from one platform to another. If Vanessa or Phoebe make contact with the children's legs when they are rolled through the space, they need to hop to safety. The anticipation of being gobbled is always hilarious and the children love to cheekily challenge these ‘hungry sharks’.
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In The Next we also began our lesson with some very slow movements to “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” to get our arms moving before picking up our maracas, ready for our sing a longs and taking special requests. We got almost everyone up and moving for “Ants Go Marching”, as we shook and marched our way around the room, while adding in a ‘freeze/ stop’ to test who had their listening ears on. To close the lesson, the little ones explored using drums, clapping sticks and wooden scraper blocks.
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In Music with Stages 3 and 4, we opened the lesson with the Solfa scale and our boppy new vowel warm up “Apples and Bananas”. Because we’re half way through Term 3, we revised some previous songs in our repertoire; ‘Do Re Mi’ with actions and ‘Colours of the Wind’ with Stage 3 revising ‘Here Comes The Sun’. We continued to learn the lyrics for “I Am Australian” which the children have been loving singing and it’s sounding so fantastic; and we continued to refine our signs for ‘Twinkle Twinkle’. In Stage 4 we ran through the song once, and for the second time I played and they signed, mostly without my help! I was very impressed. Using our maracas, we revised some of our rhythm animals, shaking and stomping them out before marching around the room to “Ants Go Marching” to changing rhythms and dynamics. To end the lesson, I gave the kids free play between The Play Mat, my keyboard, some of our usual instruments and various instruments from around the world. They’re always fascinated by the traditional Chinese Rattle Drum.
MUSIC
In Stage 2 and the Fledglings we began the lesson with “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”, getting our listening ears on and ready for music. We sang through our warm up scales and counting, with Stage 2 adding an ascending and descending scale before moving into “The Good Morning Song” and “Open Shut Them”; with Stage 2 also adding the reverse actions. The Fledglings sang and danced through “Do Re Mi” with some of the actions we’ve learnt so far all helping with our coordination, timing and motor movements. With our maracas, we continued some of our other morning sing a longs with “ABCs” and “The Sunflower Song”; and Stage 2 sang through their layered “ABCs” and “Apples and Bananas”.
Putting our maracas aside and using our imaginations, we hopped around the room as little frogs to get our gross motor movement going before trying to work on our step clap coordination. Stage 2 continued refining the movements for “Twinkle Twinkle”. Both Stages ended the lesson with a drumming and clapping stick circle to “Taba Naba”, a traditional Torres Strait Islander song which sings about going down to the reef to catch fish.
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 20 Reddam Early Learning would like to wish a very happy birthday to Lyla Botrel, Elizabeth Oxman, Chloe Dong, Coen Dong, Hannah Webb, Rhys Xu, Zoe Downey, Hunter Gradwell, Benjamin Meher-Homji and Maeve Michael who celebrate their special day this week We hope you have a fabulous day!
