Reddam Early Learning School Newsletter Vol 22 Issue 32

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

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Belonging for young children is being in a place where they feel comfortable enough to play without having to look over their shoulders seeking approval or dodging disapproval to explore without fear, to redefine their space, and to use materials found around them to create for themselves a sense of order, pattern and structure.”

So said author and early learning specialist, American Bev Bos. I think her sentiments capture perfectly what we in the ELS try to do each day. Creating a space where the children can feel safe, affirmed and encouraged to explore is critical if they are to develop to their full potential. At the same time, we trust that they will be enjoying rich, meaningful relationships, both with their peers and with their teachers.

The ELS classrooms and areas to play are more often than not the first place where children will become aware of their social identity. They will start to realise that they are good at certain things, and that they enjoy some experiences, while not enjoying others

to the same degree. They will also notice that some of their friends are better at certain tasks than they are, while at others they show greater proficiency than their friends do.

This is, after all, the way of life. We are always going to have certain activities which we love doing and are often very good at while there will be others which we will avoid. However, for young children this can be quite a challenge, and a dent to their still developing confidence, especially if they feel less able than those around them.

One of the cornerstones of the Reddam House philosophy of education is that we celebrate and honour the unique individuals who are part of the school. Rather than making comparisons, or trying to turn out a bunch of clones, we love encouraging the children to find their own voices and to develop their own individuality.

One way in which we do this is by avoiding comparison of one child against another. This is particularly pertinent in the ELS environment where children are developing at vastly different rates. While there might be developmental milestones that most parents and teachers might keep an eye on, these should be seen as guidelines, rather than as hard and fast goals to be achieved.

We should celebrate the creativity, new skills learned, willingness to give experiences a try and so on, in each child, not by comparing these to other children but by casting our minds back a few months, or a year, and marvelling at the progress each child has made. If any measurement of progress is to be made, especially in a way which is affirming and positive, this is the best way to do it.

Enjoy your weekend!

Dee Pitcairn Principal

The week started with some heavy rain, so it looked like another week which would be spent indoors. However, we were excited to receive a delivery of new resources to bring the outdoors indoors for our play time.

The children gathered around to help teacher Kiri open up the big boxes. Inside were an assortment of large, coloured foam floor shapes. We set them out in our outdoor classroom area and created our own obstacle course. The children immediately started to climb over them, walk and balance as they walked up an incline and jump off, or stepping over a mounded shape. These provided the perfect rainy day activity of endless play. The children became creative in their organising and positioning of the shapes. We watched with fascination as the children worked together to create their own combinations, pushing the shapes around on the floor, piling or stacking them. Or simply enjoying sitting on a shape and reading a book. Many of the children enjoyed the wedge shape where they would use their balancing skills to walk up the incline and walk back down again. Some children enjoyed lifting the large shape up and carrying it to put it down in another area of the room. Leo and Joshua worked out how to make themselves higher at the window by placing a block by the window sill and standing on it to look out the window. Teddy used one as a chair at the table.

As the week progressed the children became more adventurous with the coloured shapes. They began to construct by piling one on top of another or creating an extended pattern on the floor. This kept the children busy for extended periods of time, as they climbed and walked over the obstacle course. With repetition, we noticed the

With repetition, we noticed the children becoming more and more confident and competent with this. Also, because of the bright colours of the fabric, we took the opportunity to name the colours as we played alongside the children. Throughout this endless play the children benefited from extending their problem solving skills, engaging in team work and social skills, gross motor development, strength balance, creativity, imagination, language and a host of other benefits! These resources have been a wonderful addition to our room.

Sand play was also a very popular activity this week. We set out trays of damp sand into the corner of our classroom and added scoops and various containers and moulds. The children really enjoyed coming and going from this table, as if they had a sand pit in our classroom. The children were able to work alongside each other to explore the sensation of the sand, as they poured sand into the various sizes of containers and creating shapes. The teachers showed the children how to create their own sand castles by loading up the little buckets, patting the sand down and turning it over to create a castle. This then transferred to making a “cake” with the smaller bowls. Of course, the fun part was smashing it down with their little hands! This was repeated over and over with the children learning to build and then smash it down. Also, we had a couple of front loader construction vehicles, which the children navigated around the trays. Leo scooped up a small amount of sand with the front loader, then transferred it from one tray to another, he repeated this several times.

The Nest (1R)

Capri took a different approach and decided she would prefer to hide the vehicle by covering it with sand.

Later in the week, Teacher Kiri introduced some plants from the garden to this sand experience. The children were given the opportunity to smell and feel the texture of the various plants and flowers, before “planting” them in their pretend sand garden. Adding the plants to their experience extended their learning and imagination, providing endless open ended experimentation, creativity and expression.

We also used this selection of flowers and plants as a painting instrument for their art this week. The children were encouraged to place them in paint and then using strokes, tapping and dabbing them against the paper to create a painting. The children were delighted to see the brush strokes and patterns forming onto the paper. Using plants and nature as a tool to express themselves through art is not only a great way to connect with our natural world, but also a wonderful sensory activity which heightens the senses and extends their imagination.

EYLF Outcome 4 Children are confident and involved learners.

Fledglings (1E)

By Tatiana Botrel and Jane Teh,

Over the past few weeks, the children in the Fledglings have enjoyed exploring some mythical characters in the experiences promoted in our classroom. It all started with the children’s interest in unicorns, when they found a toy like that in the Stage 3 classroom. We set up a special corner in the light box with ponies and unicorns, which encouraged the children to explore parallel play while sharing the new toys and taking turns.

Supporting this learning, we read “Little Unicorn learns to dance” by Amber Lily. In this book, the little unicorn interacts with his friends fairy, mermaid and dragon. Talking about these creatures is encouraging the children’s imagination to make up fantasy stories talking about how the characters look, how they move and their special attributes. The teachers have been engaging in nice conversations with the children about what they think of each of these characters:

Vanilla: “Unicorns are so beautiful.”

Harriet: “Mermaid is in the water.”

Remy: “I like fairies.”

Alex: “Scary.” (dragon)

Caleb: “Breath Fire!”

This is all happening in our classroom at the best possible time, as we also got to start learning about Halloween. In preparation for this fun celebration, we started reading “Room on the Broom” by Julia Donaldson. The children adored seeing the witch flying on her broomstick. In the Atelier table, the Fledglings created the most beautiful witch’s hat as they painted paper plates in black colour and then later decorated them with Halloween stickers.

It is great to see the children so excited to learn more about this Fantasy World. Marcella arrived at school one day wearing her sparkly cape and holding a book about unicorns she brought from home. Vanilla comes to school most days with unicorn prints on her clothes. Pip likes wearing her fairy princess dress. Every day is a new learning experience, and we are looking forward to seeing what will come next in the Fledglings.

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 engage with a

By Tatiana Botrel and Jane Teh,

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

Stamping

In Stage Two this term we have been explorers, investigating and imagining different words, ideas and environments. For our most recent art activity, the children explored a new medium, namely double ended stamping markers. This tool allows children to experiment using both the drawing side and the stamping end while filling their paper scene with the icons that they choose. This gives children the freedom to explore, using their creativity, while engaging their problem solving and critical thinking skills. The stencil images provoke creative thinking and acts as a motivator for storytelling and critical thinking as they build connections and representations in their artwork; for example, putting flowers in the grass or bushes, suns and rainbows in the sky.

Through this activity, children were able to recognise and label colours and symbols, build associations and develop their own ways of thinking. By giving children open ended tools and materials such as paper and markers they could choose to stamp in the related white spaces or create something whimsical. Children can gain self confidence and independence through creativity as they make their own decisions such as what colours, shapes, lines to do. This activity also promotes communication as children can label the icons and explain their ways of thinking.

Coby explained, “The stars go in the sky, and I’m gonna put millions of dinosaurs in the bush.”

Callum noted, “I’m adding suns to make it even more beautiful.”

Stanley said, “The dog is walking here!” Jaxtyn was counting, “Look! Two! Look at me, I did two stars!”

Chloe told us “Yay, I did the flowers, and now I can do love hearts!”

Learning outcome 1.2: Children develop their emerging autonomy, inter dependence, resilience and sense of agency

Learning outcome 1.3: Children develop knowledgeable and confident self identities

Learning outcome 4.1 Children develop dispositions for learning such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity

Learning outcome 4.3: Children transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another

Learning outcome 5.3: Children express ideas and make meaning using a range of media

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

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

Colours

Some beautiful mornings unfolded this week during free play. It was great to see all our friends back at school eager to explore our new classroom set up with new toys and activities to stimulate the children.

The Lightbox set up was particularly popular, with the children showing interest in the coloured fruits, as they sorted them into categories of colour, and also the colour resemblance tray. This experience is a matching and sorting game designed to develop visual perception and colour identification skills. It helps refine and advance the child’s colour identification skills into colour discrimination skills, by using the subtle differences in the shades on the colour slides to differentiate.

As we continued to explore with colours at the light box, during group time this week we read ‘The Colour Monster’, by Anna Llenas. This sensitive book encourages young children to open up and discuss how they feel, even when their thoughts are confusing. The ‘colour monster’ is a mixed up mess of feelings! He sorts through his emotions and learns to feel better.

We teach the children to identify colours, numbers, shapes, and letters, but it is equally important to teach about their feelings. The class were very enthusiastic in answering the feeling that each colour represented:

Yellow Happiness

Green Calm

Blue Sad Brown Scared Red Angry

Pink Love

The children were observed discussing the colours while engaging with the colour wheel and resemblance tray:

Matilda: “The colour wheel has all the rainbow colours.”

Marley: “Look at my colour wheel. I used all the colours, I don’t just like pink anymore.”

Phoebe: “I’m going to do two kinds of green.”

Gabriel: “Orange like a mandarin.” “Look at all the colours of yellow.”

Sergio: “I love all the colours.”

Avalon: “Black is the darkest colour.” “Orange comes after pink.”

Emily: “The colour wheel shows darkest to lightest.”

Hunter: “White is light like the paper.”

Coen: “Red is my favourite.”

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

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

This week there was lots of discussion about Halloween, and as always it brought great excitement, planning and fun. We discussed how it is celebrated and what the children will dress up as. Dressing up encourages creative thinking and imagination. The children are invited to dress up next week on Wednesday 2nd November and Thursday 3rd November.

The following are the children’s comments about Halloween, and what they plan to dress up as.

Freyja: “Halloween is when you go to each house to get candy. I’m going to dress up as a witch.”

Jude: “I bought some pumpkins and we’re making a pumpkin village. I’m going to dress up as a vampire.”

Louis: “I’m going to dress up as a wizard.”

Nina: “I dress up and I also get lots of candy. I’ve got a Wonder Woman costume.”

Hector: “I like to trick or treat. I’m going to be a skeleton and I’m going to paint my face.”

Arwen: “I like trick or treating with Noa. I will dress up as a devil and Noa will dress up as a devil too.”

Sabine: “We dress up. I’m going to be a witch.”

Vinnie: “I’m going to dress up at Halloween. I might be a girl vampire.”

Violet: “I like it because you get to dress up. I might be Elsa.”

Clara: “I dress up as Ginny from Harry Potter. I celebrate it down the streets and get lollies.”

Following the children’s interest in this celebration, we read and listened to a variety of Halloween stories. One of the most popular choices was ‘The Whistling Scarecrow’ , a spooky Halloween story! Our Halloween art project was inspired by the children’s interest in this we decided to create a scarecrow. I printed some photos of the scarecrow character as a visual to inspire our creative drawings.

The children first observed, and then used descriptive language, to talk about the characters appearance. They then engaged in a representational drawing experience using textas. There was straw on offer, to provide an added medium to the pictures.

During a group discussion, we talked about the story and the children shared the following comments.

Violet: “I like his face and how it’s doing this.” Violet used actions to demonstrate the scarecrow’s action.

Nina: “I like when he yells ‘Adam’.”

Louis: “I like the ending because it’s scary.”

Vinnie: “I like the picture.”

Clara: “I like his face because there is no eyes.”

Freyja: “I know there is a scarecrow in the story. And I like the scarecrow’s face.”

Arwen: “I like the scarecrow and I like the cat shouting ‘meow’. The scarecrow is right next to him, and he is going to scare the cat.”

Sabine: “I like the ‘boo’ at the end.”

SportThis week in Physical Education, Stage 3 and 4 focused on their ball skills, including rolling, bouncing and catching. We always begin our lessons with a warm up game and we decided to play our favourite this week: stuck in the mud! Stage 4 UNFORTUNATELY had another wet weather wash out. We completed a variation of the famous Joe Wicks ‘Fundamental movement warm up’ in the classroom then moved on to learning and practising a range of ball skills which can all be practised at home with any size ball or even a pair of socks. Firstly, we focused on catching a large balloon which students threw above their heads. This was done extremely well and, as we progressed, we started practising higher throws! We then moved on to bouncing, where students stood in a star position and attempted to bounce the ball and catch it as many times as possible. Some of our Stage 4 students completed this an incredible fifty times! After focusing on bouncing and catching, the students were very eager to practise their rolling skills again. I look forward to next week, where we will be focusing more on our catching, bouncing and even our passing skills. Thanks for another great week, Stage 3 and 4! Fingers crossed for some Monday Sunshine!!

This week in Drama we started on our new topic ‘The Magic Carpet’. We will be flying to new and exciting locations each week on our Magic Carpets but first we needed to find one!

I began the lesson by asking the students, “Would you like to come on an adventure with me?” The answer was yes, so we decided to pack a bag. We went around the circle and each child had a go at packing something. In Stage 2, I prompted the children with questions like, “What should we eat for lunch?” or “What about something to protect us from the sun?” Once our bags were packed, I told the children that we were going to try and find the Cave of Wonders. I had been told by a friend that the way to find the cave was to do silly walks. I asked the children to follow me: stamping, stretching up high on our tippy toes, walking backwards, lifting knees up high.

When Stage 1 and 2 found the cave, we explored inside all together. I asked the children what magical things they had found in the cave. Some suggestions included unicorns, magical wands, ice cream, and monsters! I told the children that I’d found something round and heavy. I asked them to help me carry the object back to pre school. We used our physicality to show how hard the object was to carry, and our faces to show how much effort we had to use. We dusted it off and rolled it out. It was a magic carpet!

We had to test if our magic carpet worked, so we went on a test ride to visit the King in England. When we arrived, we saw Big Ben chiming and copied the shape and sound. Next, we went to Buckingham palace to say, “Good Afternoon your Majesty.” We sat with the King and had afternoon tea, cucumber sandwiches and tea. I asked the children to repeat some descriptive words after me e.g., Marvellous, splendid, wonderful! We then flew to Antarctica to see the animals. James wanted to see the big penguins and Saskia the Polar Bears. It was getting late, so we decided to fly back to school, we rolled up our carpets and put them in our bags ready to use next week.

Stage 3 and 4 were introduced to this week’s fairy tale through a poem called ‘Little Red’. We discussed who the characters are in the story, along with the main ideas, and the sequence of the story. Next, we discussed various versions of the story, introducing a strong female character, Mrs. Hood, her daughter, Little Red, and a wealthy countess, who rented her cottage to them. This gave them the opportunity to explore moral dilemmas and issues to do with status as well as relationships sophisticated concepts for young children. Next, I went into role, put on an apron and hat and became Mrs. Hood, inviting all the children to adopt a collective role and imagine they were Little Red. She asked carefully phrased questions to encourage thoughtful responses: What do you think I should do? Should I allow Little Red to go in the forest alone to visit her grandmother? This stimulated a lot of discussion among the children.’

Next, I asked the children to plan their journey through the forest and imagine the sounds they might hear. Again, I prompted them with questions: If trees could talk, what might they say? The children thought they would echo what Little Red was thinking, whispering “Don’t stray off the path, don’t stray off the path!” (Similar to a sound scape)

One child then put on the red cloak, while the rest became the spiky bushes that Little Red had to push past. I built up the tension: Can you hear footsteps? Two red eyes appear out of the darkness! What do you think happens next? In Stage 4 the children were encouraged to tell their own endings. They loved the excitement of the drama, and it had a positive impact on their understanding of the story.

Another wonderful week of Drama. Well done everyone!

It takes courage to be on stage. It takes confidence to stand up in front of people. This term I want to help build on our confidence, especially for our Stage 4s heading into Kinder next year! Some of our Stage 4s were complete naturals and had no hesitation with being on a microphone.

In Stages 3 and 4 we opened the lesson by exploring the microphone, the amplifier and how it works. To get comfortable, we took a turns at introducing ourselves and how we were feeling.

We warmed up our voices with a scale on ‘LA’, passing the microphone around and taking turns at singing into it. As we settled into the lesson some of the shyer kids warmed up to the mic, and for them we practised just holding It.

With our voices warm, we sang through the new song we’re learning, ‘Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree’, and learnt a spooky new version of “ABCs” “ABC Boo”. Every time they saw the ghost, we replaced the letter with ‘BOO’. Working on our vowel shapes and articulators, we sang through “Apples and Bananas” while passing around the microphone. We revised and refined “Colours of the Wind” and “Here Comes The Sun” with each stage as we lead closer to the end of year.

This week we changed our rhythm animals to ‘CAT’; ‘PUMPKIN’ and ‘CHOCOLATE CANDY’ to break down the sounds in each word to find the rhythm, and express that through movement with ‘STEPPING’, ‘WALKING’ and ‘LIGHT JOG’. To end the lesson, we learnt some simple moves to ‘MONSTER MASH’ and played Musical Spots.

In Stage 2 and The Fledglings we began the lesson with a listening and control exercise with ‘THE SILENT GAME’. We needed to listen and follow instructions while not making a sound, and also control our bodies so as not to shake our instruments. Afterwards we sang through “Johnny’s Hammers” with our counting the Kookaburras also tried to stand in matching groups each time we added a hammer.

We sang through our warm up scales, with The Fledglings all laying on the floor to take themselves to the garden for “The Sunflower Song”. With our maracas in hand, we sang through “The Good Morning Song”; “Apples and Bananas” and also introduced “ABC Boo”. We worked on vocal cues each time we saw the ghost we had a few practice rounds before dancing and freezing to the original. We also used our new ‘CAT’, ‘PUMPKIN’ and ‘CHOCOLATE CANDY’ to break down our sounds and demonstrate through movement.

We were introduced to the ukulele and how it is played by either strumming or plucking. To end the lesson, we had some free play between the ukuleles, Piano Play Mat and crow sounders. Down in The Nest we had a full house! Everyone made their way to the mat as we sang “Open Shut Them” for our warm up, before handing out our maracas for our sing a longs. We used our castanets with “Twinkle Twinkle” to help our fine motor movement; “A Rum Sum Sum” and “Bingo” at an increasing tempi to get our bodies bouncing; which is Olivia and Leo’s favourite. We laid the Play Mat out to stomp on and also brought out the ukuleles to help strengthen our fingers as they plucked away at the strings.

Reddam Early Learning would like to wish a very happy birthday to Henry Hanson, Artie Bond, Freya Lan and Leonie Serra who celebrate their special day this week We hope you have a fabulous day!