Reddam Early Learning School Newsletter Vol 22 Issue 31

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOLREDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTERWOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Dee’s Message

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

The term has started off in a positive, warm and affirming manner in the ELS, with the children straight back into their routines after the short break. Their happy sounds permeated the building this past week, and it was another reminder of how importantitisthatthechildrenhavea spacein which they can feel content and cared for.

We are all emotional beings. It is this which allows us to feel loved, safe and understood – and to show the same to others. It is the bedrock of every relationship and of our very being. From the earliest stages of our lives, as we try to make sense of the complexity of everything around us, our emotions play a fundamental role in shaping the person we become.

Just as our emotions can be positive and affirming, so too we know that all too often they are also confusing and potentially destructive.

For this reason, it is all the more important that we assist our children to navigate their way through the often-confusing tangleofemotionstheywillface.

In their earliest days, long before selfregulation of emotions and behaviour is possible, babies and young children rely heavily on what has been termed coregulation. The ‘scaffolding’ provided by parents, teachers and other significant adults at this stage of a child’s life is critical, as it helps to establish a solid foundation on which future emotional and social developmentcanbebuilt.

Co-regulation can be regarded as “The ability to regulate through the comfort of another” and the “warm and responsive interactions that provide the support, coaching and modelling to children to understand, express and modulate their thoughts,feelingsandbehaviours.”

I am grateful every day as I see these interactions playing out in the ELS in the relationships betweenthechildrenandtheirteachers.

As one writer has put it, “Children who feel a strong sense of trust and connection with their educator or care provider can behave more authentically. When children are stressed, their primary caregiver provides a buffer and helps the child to regulate their behaviour. Educators also gain an intimate understanding of the varying personalities and tempera-mentsofthechildrenintheircare.”

As the children move from co-regulation to self-regulation, they are able to do so in an environ-ment in which they feel supported. By sharing the load of emotional and social development and then gradually releasing it as the children gain confidence in their own abilities, relation-ships and emotions, we help to develop children who are secure in themselves and, we trust, on the path to becoming well-rounded, content and emotionally secureindividuals.

May you have a safe Diwali. May the divine light of Diwali fill your life with prosperity, peace andgoodhealth.

Haveahappyweekend!

Dee Pitcairn Principal

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING

The Nest (1R)

“It’s raining it’s pouring the old man is snoring!” This was the theme song that started our week on Monday morning! What a lot of water! It didn’t deter the children though. Instead, the rain became a source of fascination for the children as they gathered by the window to look out at all the big puddles and the rain smashing down. “Drip drip”, “splash splash” and “puddle” were all words that the children verbalised.

Monday was also the perfect day to bring the outdoors inside, with our Playball session!

Teacher Rama bought along some small portable soccer nets that she placed on either side of the room. She spilled out her large bag of soccer balls, much to the children’s delight! They quickly ran to pick one up for ‘kick a ball’. Teacher Rama demonstrated how to kick the ball into the net. Teddy and Leo were super enthusiastic about this. Other children were more interested in the net, and they crawled inside. We played Humpty Dumpty sat on a ball! Joshua and Harlow loved this, taking a ball and sitting on it using their balancing skills. Next, Teacher Rama bought out some little ribbons and bubbles! The children were able to “Pop” the bubbles with their ribbon. Frankie was delighted, as he reached up high to catch the bubble and said “Bubble!”

Florence clapped her hands and laughed saying “Hurrah!”

This week, we explored our natural world. Kiri bought in some flowers from her garden to add to our play dough experience. Each child was given their own board, play dough, flowers and petals to create their very own pretend garden. Kiri demonstrated poking her finger in to make a hole and putting the flower stem inside. Some children followed suit, while others were happy to explore, touch, feel pull the petals and mould their creations with their hands. It was a very calming and creative activity for all.

Bubble Play has also been a real interest for our nest children this term. We often bring them out to our play environment as a way to help our younger children settle into our classroom. But it’s not only them that get enjoyment from the bubble play. It seems that the fascination with bubbles is universal as all our children join in on the fun. They watch them with wide eyes as they reach out their little hands try to catch them. When they ‘pop’, the children laugh or look surprised. Bubble play has provided endless play opportunities for us. Outdoors the children love to chase them in the wind, and watch them fly up, up and away!

Indoors we often use them during our music and dance session to add to the sensory experience. We have added them to our sensory tubs for water play, also adding sieves and other utensils.

It is an activity that children of all stages in their development can enjoy. It promotes eye tracking, tactile stimulation, hand-eye coordination, fine and gross motor skills, and early speech, as they make a “puh” sound to blow them.

Nest (1R)

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Fledglings (1E)

By Tatiana Botrel, Jane Teh, Marina Moliboga and Nadia Breus Imagine! – Unicorns

Over the past few weeks, during Holiday Care, the Fledglings had the chance to engage with some fantasy world toys, such as ponies and unicorns, when they visited a Stage 3 classroom. Some of our students displayed such a big interest in this kind of play that they didn’t want to leave that class. Ella said, “But I love them!” as she expressed her wish to stay to play longer. Pip looked at the unicorns and said, “It’s beautiful!”, as she observed them carefully. Vanilla asked, “The princess will be here too?”

It is not only recently that the Fledglings have enjoyed this kind of play, however. Pretend play has always been a big part of the children’s routine. Every morning, Nora runs to the dress up box and chooses one of the animal capes to wear or the bug hats. Wolf also enjoys playing with the bug hats, as well as the animal puppets. The difference now is that the children are becoming more verbal and the interactions between peers are increasing each day. Children are quickly moving on from solitary play to parallel play, and some children are even trying associate play – when they play together, when they talk to each other and when they try to cooperate in play. Cruz and Hattie initiate games together often throughout our routine, copying each other’s actions and genuinely having fun together. Levi enjoys playing peek-a-boo games with Lucia and Caleb, while having the best giggles. Harriet and Vanilla hold hands while they are playing and they like to look after each other, fixing their hair, dancing, and playing chasing games. Charlie and Zoe enjoy copying each other’s actions and hugging each other.

The children have been working their magic

in the Atelier, inspired by the book “Thelma, the Unicorn” by Aaron Blabey. In this story Thelma - a lovely horse - wants to become a unicorn, and her life changes completely when this finally happens. The children enjoyed the reading and creating a beautiful glittery unicorn painting in the Atelier. As this has been such a big interest in the group, we also made unicorn horns using glue to stick ribbons, sequins, and glitter to the paper cone shape, making it as beautiful as Thelma’s one.

We will continue to promote this learning about the Fantasy World in the next few weeks, validating the children’s emerging interest.

Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners. Children develop dispositions for learning such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity. Children resource their own learning through connecting with people, place, technologies and natural and processed materials.

Fledglings (1E)

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

By Daniella Gosty, Sarah Noone, Romy Kaiser and Viviane Zieatter

Marble Painting

The main advantage of painting with marbles for children is that it's an activity that helps work on hand-eye coordination. The children can be seen to use their hands to tilt the shallow tray and strategically manoeuvre it, so the marbles evenly disperse the paint onto the paper.

Marble art is also a process art. It nurtures social and emotional health, reinforcing such skills as relaxation, focus, self-esteem, and emotional sharing. It helps to build such cognitive skills as comparison, prediction, planning and problemsolving throughout the classroom where they continue it into their worlds and beyond.

Painting and colour mixing supports children's personal, social, and emotional development by providing opportunities to show curiosity, develop new skills, develop confidence and autonomy, make choices and sometimes become involved for long periods of time.

The children had fun watching the balls go around, side to side, backwards and forwards in the shallow tray, while adding language to their vocabulary and helping them learn concepts of positions. Marble painting also explores paint texture, as it develops fine motor and gross motor control. It is also a sensory experience with the skill being balance and it helps develop colour skills as the children watch the colours mix across the page in front of their eyes.

Outcome 2: Children become aware of fairness, by having to wait for their turn, and watching their peers participate.

Outcome 3: Children take responsibility for their own health and physical wellbeing by combining gross and fine motor movement and balance to achieve these wonderful patterns.

EARLY

Children had to roll the marbles in paint and pick them up, dropping them onto the paper in the bowl, then picking up the bowl and moving it around to make the marbles move.

Outcome 4: Children develop a range of skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating. All of these skills were involved in our artwork, the children naming two primary colours, and then predicting what colour they would make once mixed together, then having to put it into practice to get the result.

Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators, by responding verbally and nonverbally to what they see (watching the colours mix and change colour), hear (the clinking of the marbles as they move around), touch and feel (how the paint feels, and how it makes the marbles feel).

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA

By Daniella Gosty, Sarah Noone, Romy Kaiser and Viviane Zieatter

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

Observation is a way to connect with children, to discover their connections to others and to their environment. Children who feel cared for, safe, and secure interact with others and engage in their world to learn. They are more likely to gain skills, and to do better as they enter school. For this reason, week one of each term is used to observe and reflect upon the interests of the children in the group, what they have enjoyed learning about and how this can be extended upon.

Colour mixing is always one of my favourite units to teach! Learning colours is a huge aspect of the pre-school curriculum and there are so many great books and resources on it. You can talk about colours just about anywhere you are! The idea of mixing two colours to form a new colour is somewhat of a complex concept for pre-schoolers. While it may be easier to understand that red and white make pink, it’s just not as easy to remember that blue and red make purple. Whenever I do colour mixing with children, I try to make the process of learning one that is memorable. If we engage their senses in the process, then it becomes an even greater tool. We spoke to begin with about primary colours and how they mix to make our secondary colours. To begin this process the children were invited to use droppers with each of the primary colours and combine them with another to make a new colour. Not only were they using their fine motor skills to draw the coloured water into the dropper and then release it into the clear water, but they were using their investigative minds to see what they might accomplish.

As the children have been engrossed with colour mixing experience and given how enthusiastically the children have embraced this topic, it felt the natural progression for our learning experience and provocation for Term Four should be focused on science and experimentation. “I have done this experiment before Susan.” Edwyn “I love experiments.” Valentine

REDDAM EARLY

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

Science, directly and indirectly, influences all aspects of everyday life, from the food we eat to the way we get around, science is everywhere. Once you begin to see all the opportunities to learn, the relationship between science and critical-thinking skills become apparent.

Beginning when children are very young, science helps shape their development. As they learn to ask questions, make predictions, observe, test, and then communicate their findings, they are developing critical science skills.

Children should learn about science because:

Science helps children develop key life skills, including an ability to communicate, remain organised and focused, and even form their own opinions based on observation. Science also helps children develop their senses and overall awareness.

Children are hands-on learners, and the world around them provides so many natural opportunities. That is why you should never underestimate the power of learning through play. Interacting with their environment will support their intellectual development.

Children are primed for learning, and what they learn while they’re young can impact their interests later in life. Studies have shown that students begin to develop an interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) during the elementary years. Having an interest and knowledge in these subject areas provides future career opportunities.

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

We welcome any family input, ideas, books, experiments or experiences.

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” - W.B. Yeats.

This week, the children embraced a new science experiment on the light box, Musical Glasses. This is an easy one for you to try at home and one which the children have loved to engage with. Here is what you will need:

• 5 or more drinking glasses or glass bottles

• Water

• Wooden stick such as a pencil. I used a xylophone stick

Instructions:

1. Line the glasses up next to each other and fill them with different amounts of water. The first should have just a little water while the last should be almost full. The ones in between should have slightly more than the last.

2. Hit the glass with the least amount of water and observe the sound, then hit the glass with the most water. Which makes the higher sound?

3. Hit the other glasses and see what noise they make. See if you can get a tune going by hitting the glasses in a certain order.

What's happening?

Each of the glasses will have a different tone when hit with the pencil. The glass with the most water will have the lowest tone while the glass with the least water will have the highest. Small vibrations are made when you hit the glass, which creates sound waves that travel through the water. More water means slower vibrations and a deeper tone.

REDDAM

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

Cooper Park – Here we come!

The day was finally HERE! Our Cooper Park Connecting to Nature Programme. It was time to embark on our much-anticipated bush walk and exploration! First, we crossed the road, pressing the lights, looking left and then right before waiting for the green walk signal allowing us to safely cross the road. Down the winding path, just by Holy Cross School before reaching the Zebra Crossing.

Here we stopped to observe the black and white markings, looking and listening and walking across the safe part of the road. We waved at the cars who stopped as a thank you.

Next, it was through the grassy reserve before reaching the stairs and reading the sign COOPER PARK ENTRY! Down the stairs we went. As we reached the bottom …. wow! it was still, it was silent, it was beautiful!

Before going off to explore, we talked again about our rules and expectations of keeping our bodies safe, but also being mindful to protect the nature we were in. It was then time for exploring.

Here we went left, then we went right, as there was so much to see, explore, and discover! These were the children’s reflections of their favourite moment:

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Sienna: I liked best when I was climbing up on the rock.

William: I saw a crocodile and I fed it. It had a really flat mouth and round tail.

Tatum: I liked climbing and rocks and fishing.

Billy: I like jumping from the rock and fishing in the water and climbing.

Ren: I loved going to the bush.

Emily: I liked when I was fishing.

Zoe: When I was finding good hiding good spots with Sienna.

Frankie: I like when I was fishing and climbing the rocks.

Skye: I liked best when I was going down the squishy rock. There were two sides of rock and I saw a spider on there.

Gabriel: That I played with Reni.

Nature play has so many developmental and learning benefits. It is unstructured, child-led play where our children resource their own learning and it promotes a more abstract way of thinking. It further provides children with a broad sensory activity, allowing them to feel, taste, touch, hear and smell the natural environment around them.

When children explore and discover the wonders of the natural world, they work on their cognitive, physical, social and emotional development. Playing in nature provokes an interest in nature, sustainable living and the environment. Children who spend time in nature are more active and less prone to stress and anxiety.

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING

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Over the past week in Physical Education, Stage 3 and 4 focused on their locomotor movements and balance skills. They were introduced to a new member of the PE Staff, Mr. Yoni Charlupski, who has joined the department.

We always begin our lessons with a warmup game, so we decided to play a new favourite this week; ‘River, Bank!’ Both Stage 3 and 4 absolutely loved this game and were very keen when they were introduced to our new variation, which we decided to call; ‘River, Bank, Bridge’.

We then moved on to balances and practising a range of two legged and single leg balances which can all be practised at home with the use of any animal to mimic. Our Stage 3 students got to practise some obstacle course movements whilst balancing beanbags under the chin and on top of their heads all whilst performing locomotor skills such as running, jogging, walking and galloping.

Unfortunately, Stage 4 had a washout of being outside on Monday with these unprecedented weather conditions. The boys and girls were impeccable with their listening skills, working in their classrooms and participating in Cosmic Yoga - ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’.

I look forward to next week, where we will be focusing more on our catching, bouncing and even extending our passing skills. Thanks for another great week, Stage 3 and 4!

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It’s wonderful to be back for our final term of Drama this year. This term we will be exploring lots of different fairy tales. This week was all about animals and pigs!

In Stage 1 and 2 we began by looking at the pictures in the book of ‘Old McDonald’. The children helped to identify what animals were there, what noises they make and if they would be found on a farm or not. This was a nice introduction to the song ‘Old Macdonald had a farm’. Vanilla loved the song and was bopping to the beat. Well done, Zoe, who was clapping along and Amanda for mooing like a cow. After shaking our parachute, we then danced to ‘Good morning farm animals’. Charlie loved the tractor and Ella showed us her best pig snort. Next, we formed a circle around the hula hoop and held hands up high to establish a house with a roof. The children worked together to act out the first part of the story. I pretended I was the wolf and blew the house down. On the third time I blew the house down the children showed me their muscles and how strong they were so the wolf couldn’t blow it down. Well done to Olivia in the Nest, who stood high on her tippy toes to show us the brick house. To finish I showed everyone the letter P on a piece of paper, and we made the sound of the letter as well as named things starting with P. We even used our bodies to make the P shape.

Stage 3 and 4 started with a vocal warm up "boom chicka boom" using our normal voice, lowand high-pitched voices. Our physical warm up this week was a game "What's the time Mr Wolf?". Noah and Hector had a turn being the wolf. I then asked the children to name different words with the letter P. Freya said Puppet and Frankie said Pig! We then used our bodies to make different objects and shapes, including the letter P, such as Straw, Bricks, Pigs, Wolves and Houses. Jet showed us how to be a brick and Alfie and Luca had a turn being the wolf!

Stage 4 did a ‘following the leader’ occupational mime exercise using the characters and objects in the story. I split the group into 4 groups: Straw pigs, Stick pigs, Bricks pigs and Wolves. One group would mime different actions e.g. being a pig or building the house or the house falling, and everyone had to copy! We then told the story this way. When the children heard their group words, they had to act them out. Well, done Annabel and Lily who used their bodies and followed the leaders very well!

Stage 3 and 4 worked together to re-tell the story. As a group we became all the different objects and characters. We learnt to use our bodies and voices in different ways to do this. The children changed some parts of the story, including what the houses were made of. Dalilah suggested donuts, Julian wanted a house to be made of hot dogs and Gabrielle suggested concrete for the strong house. The ending was also changed in some groups. One group wanted to be friends with the wolf as they thought he was lonely. Another wanted to call 000 to help the wolf.

It was such a fun lesson and was great to be back after the holidays. I wonder which fairy tale story we will do next week?

Welcome back to Term 4! I am so proud of the things the children have learnt so far, and this term I hope to keep building on that while also building their confidence as some of them move into Kindergarten!

This week in Stage 3 and 4, we opened the lesson with signing “Twinkle Twinkle”, followed by our using castanets for continued fine motor movement with our vocal warm-ups on the Solfa Scale with variations of ‘DO’, ‘ME’ and ‘SO’. With our voices warm, we sang through the “Good Morning Song” and revised some of the songs we have been learning this year – “Colours of the Wind”; “Do Re Mi”; and “I Am Australian”, to which we have started adding simple actions. Watching the how some of the children sing and connect with “Colours of the Wind” is really beautiful. Stage 3 sang through “Here Comes the Sun”, as well as “The Sunflower Song”, with our simple equations to get everyone moving and dancing around the room.

With some of our classes looking at nature and heading to The Bush this term, we are learning a new warm-up song “Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree” – hopefully they will see one the next time they are there! Thinking about our spatial awareness and using "Ants Go Marching", the children created a circle and held hands to create 'tunnels'. Then they took turns to be an ant weaving in and out of the tunnels. When the ant passed, the other children 'closed the tunnel' as they marched on their spot to the beat.

In Stage 2 and The Fledglings, we opened the lesson with a motor movement warm up, "Hokey Pokey", which helps us learn our left to right, with The Fledglings also singing “Wake Up Body”.

To warm up our voices we did our counting and singing on 'DA'. We sang "Johnny's Hammers" to help our coordination and counting, then pretended our maracas were our steering wheels as we zoomed around the room on our buses for “Wheels on the Bus”. We revised and continued our actions for “Do Re Mi” and The Fledglings went into the gardens as our sunflowers.

To end the lesson, we wore our bells and pretended to be frogs hopping around the room before working on our coordination with step claps. Using the spots, we pretended they were lily pads and took turns at jumping across the pond; some of our frogs’ friends missed the lily pads, but luckily, they could swim!

In The Nest, we opened the lesson with “Wake Up Body”, helping find our chin, nose and heads. Using our instruments, we sang through our sing-a-longs with our weekly requests from Olivia, but we encouraged our babies who can stand to get up and move their legs to the music as well.

The Nest have been practising “Sleeping Bunnies”, so we tried to lay on the floor pretending to be asleep before waking up and bouncing or bobbing on the spot with our instruments.

We used our castanets in “BINGO” to do our best to click along. In “Ants Go Marching”, we took our maracas and marched around the room for those who are confident with their walking –and then used the Piano Play Mat to practise our stomping, but Harlow was still pretending to be a sleeping bunny on the mat.

Reddam Early Learning would like to wish a very happy birthday to Luka Asken, Ethan Louwerns, Samantha Min, Claudia Toutounji and Sophia Toutounji who celebrate their special day this week We hope you have a fabulous day!

REDDAM