REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
Dee’s Message
4 November 2022
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
It was a week of strange and wonderful characters and creatures in the ELS, as the children made the most of the opportunity to dress up on Wednesday and Thursday for our own little celebration of Halloween. Young children are only too aware of the events taking place in the broader spheres of their families and communities, so events such as Halloween are a definite cause for intrigue and excitement. During the course of the past couple of weeks, the teachers have been exploring this ancient celebration with the children and they have used it as a launchpad for creativity among the children, who made all sorts of fantastical Halloween-inspired artworks. Then there was the dressing up – surely the most exciting aspect of Halloween, especially for the children, who never need a second invitation to imagine themselves as some sort of fantasy creature or personality.
early learning environments, as it opens wonderful open-ended opportunities for children to explore their own interests at that time through the guise of another person. Putting on someone else’s clothes, or adopting the persona of another individual, sets their creativity on fire, which is so evident if we just spend a few moments watching them disappear into the adventures of firefighters, princesses, super-heroes and characters from their favourite TV shows or movies.
The ability to slip into another character’s persona is an important part of a child’s development. It is far more than simply putting on a costume. The costume is merely the conduit to a far larger world of ‘becoming’ another person, often taking on that character’s mannerisms and speech, and even creating imaginary situations for the character.
Dress-up play has long been promoted in REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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Psychologists refer to this as part of the Theory of Mind, which explains how we learn in what way others are likely to act and think in certain situations. We are social beings, and we will spend all of our lives interacting with each other – as a result, being able to understand how the beliefs, emotions and intentions of others create their personalities helps us to navigate our way through relationships. Pretend play is one way of providing opportunities for young children to move beyond their own personalities and to take on the characteristics of another person. They intuitively learn about seeing things from a different perspective, and how to respond to situations far different to their own daily lives by seeing through the eyes of another. So, while ghosts, bats and spiders might be the images we normally associate with Halloween, the event provided an opportunity for the children to go far beyond that. In their own dressing up, and in the enjoyment they had from seeing what their friends had dressed up as, it really was a thoroughly engaging, fun-filled week.
Have a great weekend! Dee Pitcairn Principal
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The Nest (1R) Happy Halloween to all our Nest family! What fun we had getting into the spirit of this festival which has now become a part of Australian culture. We heard about some of our children’s outings to their first trick or treating experience, and it was so great to see our little ones all dressed up in their outfits for Halloween on Wednesday and Thursday! It was amazing to see how the little ones react to their own costume and the costumes of their classmates. Little Harlow came in in her Dorothy outfit, complete with her puppy Toto in a basket! She knew this was a special outfit as she showed us her shoes. She looked down at them and said “shoes” then looked up for recognition and smiled. Teddy in his skeleton outfit immediately took to Harlow’s Toto and wanted it for himself. Teacher Kiri guided him. ‘That’s Harlow’s. Would you like a pat?” Harlow passed him the basket with the dog in it, and Teddy said “ta”. It was such a sweet moment. This is something we have been really working on in the Nest lately – teaching the children to wait for their turn, ask, share and say “ta”. It was so lovely to see this learning taking place without much guidance as the children shared with one another. Social skills are a huge part of our learning as the children become aware of others’ needs. Over time, the variety and complexity of ways in which children connect and participate with others increases. Our younger children participate through smiling, crying and making sounds to communicate. Our older toddlers participate through more complex gestures, passing a toy and waiting rather than grabbing. They develop understandings about others and that their actions and responses affect others experience. EYLF Learning Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world. Teacher Min carved out a large pumpkin, lit it up and put it on display in our entrance foyer. The children absolutely loved this! We darkened the room and the children gathered around. One by one, each child was given the opportunity to be lifted up to look up closely. The children were fascinated with the glowing lights and the pumpkin face. There was a lot of wide eyes and verbal expression of wonder. ‘Wow’ said Teddy. “Oooh,” said Frankie as he reached out to touch. Leo opened the lid to see what was inside. Capri said, ‘Pumpkin’. Harlow said, “What’s that?” as she touched the pumpkin with curiosity. The children have started to become interested in little bugs and creatures that they spot during their outdoors play. So it followed that for our Halloween Art this week we created our very own spider art. Each of the children was given a print out of a spider to dab the paint on to make it their own. We sang one of our favourite songs as we painted “Incy Wincy Spider”. Outdoors we ventured out to explore under the trees with some little magnifying glasses. This intrigued some of our children as they were able to see the difference between looking through the magnified glass and not. Krishna was particularly interested in rummaging under the trees to find little twigs and acorns to investigate under the glass. Leo, Olivia and Joshua watched some little ants climb up the trunk of a tree. Perhaps we will look into bugs more next week. Also outdoors on Tuesday we took the opportunity to venture out into the warm spring wind. It was so much fun running around and watching the trees sway and the leaves fall. We took out some coloured scarves to wave around in the wind and dance freely, as we watched the fabric blow and ripple in an overall sensory experience. Capri, Florence and Harlow really delighted in this. Other activities we engaged in while in the reading room involved a broom and witches ….. Puzzle activities were of high interest this week, as well as playdough every day. It was a magical, wonderous week in the Nest! REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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The Nest (1R)
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Fledglings (1E) By Tatiana Botrel and Jane Teh,
Secret Garden
Halloween
As the Fledglings’ interest in the mythical characters continues to grow, this week the children participated in more activities that promoted their learning about fairies and witches.
Halloween is always a fun date to celebrate with the children. This year was even better, as witches turned into a big interest in the Fledglings.
The children explored a Secret Garden loose parts tray, where they created a pathway for the fairies to get to their special door, using twigs, rocks and tree stumps. While engaging in this activity, the children were mesmerised by the fairies and their houses, and all the nature surrounding them. The children had conversations with their teachers about how the fairies move around – do they fly or walk? In the Atelier table, the children started to colour in their fairy doors, using markers. We provoked the children’s imaginations by asking them how the fairies could come and visit them in the Fledglings. Making the fairy doors sparked the possibility that the fairies could use them to come and visit us. This was a great opportunity to work with the children
We explored the book “Room on the Broom” by Julia Donaldson, which brought a lot of excitement to our group. The children enjoyed practising the witch’s laugh and pretending to fly on broom sticks around our classroom. More than that, we created spells all day long, just like in the book. In the Atelier, the children created their witch’s hat and their magic wand, using lots of magical glitter. Throughout the day, the children used the wand to practise their spells, using their imagination to play. Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world. Children respond to diversity with respect. EYLF, 2009
Reddam’s 5 values: Kind Words, Gentle Hands, Good Manners, Warm Hearts and Respect. We have been using this language with the children so they can become familiar with the concept of respecting the school environment and their peers. Through this creative and joyful conversation, children are reminded that the fairies are very little and fragile and that’s the reason why we need to care for them and for each other in the Fledglings. 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. EYLF, 2009. . REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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Stage 2
By Daniella Gosty, Sarah Noone, Romy Kaiser and Viviane Zieatter
Over the years, Halloween in Australia has become a community event where houses are decorated in spider webs with spiders, bats and skeleton bones added. Pumpkins are carved with faces, and we all get to dress up wearing whatever we like (often a scary costume) when we go trick-or-treating. In Stage 2, this ancient celebration which originated from Ireland (and not America as you would think) is celebrated with lots of stories, fun activities and a dress-up day. The Kookaburra class enjoyed the story telling of a “Walk in a dark wood”, a story told by the teacher with drawings. The children became actively involved in the storytelling using torches to shine on the creatures in the story. At the end they were then invited to create their own woods with natural materials and googly eyes. When they finished their art work, they were asked to turn on their imaginations as they were invited to come on a walk in the dark, dark, woods and encouraged to finish off the sentence, “I went walking in the dark woods and what did I see? I saw a ……. looking at me”. Who was in the woods? Were they being watched? What were they doing? Where were they going? Please take the time to read who was watching us in our “spooktacular” wall. The Tree Frog class loved reading the story “Room on a Broom” by Julia Donaldson and created their own broom sticks for flying around using beads for threading.
Stories included ‘The Wee Wicked Witch’ and ‘Trick or Treat on Spooky Street’ by Janine Scott and ‘Five little pumpkins’ by Marybeth Butler, which showed funny images of a few of the most favourite characters we often see in Halloween, such as the skeletons and the pumpkins. We made our own Halloween bags using coloured markers that we then took with us to trick or treat into the Stage 3 classroom. The children came dressed as witches, ghosts, dinosaurs, scarecrows, princesses and superheroes. We had a dance party with flashing lights as we danced to “Thriller‟, “Ghost Busters”, “Monster Mash‟ and many other potion - and magical-songs, all on our spider’s web that was spun on our classroom floor created with masking tape. Celebration days like this bring joy in a creative and fun way to our classroom. We thoroughly enjoyed this past week. We hope you all had a GHOUHLISSSSH and WICKED Halloween! EYLF Outcome 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 Children respond to diversity with respect. Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators. Children express ideas and make meaning using a range of media.
During group time, the children were also introduced to many other stories including ‘The Meg and Mog’ series by Helen Nicoll and Jan Pieńkowski. Meg is a witch who lives with her cat, Mog, and Owl and we enjoyed reading about their adventures. We also read “Scary night” by Lesley Gibbes about three friends who set out on a journey: Hare with hat, Cat with a cake and Pig with Parcel. But where were they going in the dead of the night, tip-toe creeping in the pale moonlight? It was a mystery! REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER
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Stage 2
By Daniella Gosty, Sarah Noone, Romy Kaiser and Viviane Zieatter
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Stage 3
By Susan Casey, Hannah Corrigan, Emily Hunt and Echo Jia
On arrivals every day this week, our children in Stage 3 were so excited to share all their Halloween experiences with their peers and teachers. Halloween is such a great time for our children to go out there to express themselves, building connections with others, and getting involved in the community. Rhys – I go to the shop to buy some toy. I go to the party, they have lots of toys, some dinosaurs, some zombies, they are so scary, because it is so dark. Myka – I went Trick or Treat with my friend, my sister and my baby sister too. Isabelle – I went to the Halloween Party, and I saw a man dressed up as the Captain Hook, and a boy, a kid is Peter Pan; and I saw a lady and a girl, they are from Minions. Kaitlyn – I go to Trick or Treat with my sister, mummy and daddy. We see sharks, and the shark is trying to bite my finger. Rafael – I am making purple potion. Julieanna – I am a scary and mean witch. Getting dressed up gives our children a chance to act out other identities, embodying a character they connect with or strive to be. It sparks creativity and imagination. Organising social events, such as Halloween parties with familiar family members and friends fosters a sense of belonging and identity, giving our children a sense of their place in the world. Going “Trick or Treating” within the neighbourhood is a great way for our children to extend their social connection, meeting new people, and actively participating in the community within a safe, and friendly environment. In Stage 3, we listen to our children’s voices, and as such we could see that there was a huge interest in the witches, wizard, and the cat. So we revisited the story, ‘Room on the Broom’ by Julia Donaldson. We also decided to make a potion together and used all the different things we could found in the room – sea dust, unicorn tears, flowers, twigs, leaves, volcano dust, moon dust, and fairy power. We created a Happy Potion, that is going to bring Happiness to each of us every day. If we ever feel sad, we can come to stir the potion, and say our magic spell – “Ibbty, Zabbty, Boo” – which will make us feel better again.
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Stage 3
By Susan Casey, Hannah Corrigan, Emily Hunt and Echo Jia
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Stage 4
By Jane Pledger, Sandra Carberry, Nina Bergel,Yuliya Ginis and Christina Mandalidis
The Class 4R children have been actively involved in planting seeds and watching them grow. Throughout this experience, the children have been given various opportunities to learn about ways in which they can be both socially responsible for and show respect to the environment. The science experience of growing a broad bean seed was a comprehensive learning opportunity for the children. They learned about preparing (germinating) the seeds by dampening a paper towel with water, wrapping the seed inside it and placing it in a plastic sealed bag. The children decorated paper cups that were used as pots to plant the bean seeds into. The children took their bean seed home to care for, observe and document growth and change.
In addition to the broad bean seed growing experience, we also planted Italian parsley, thyme, coriander, lettuce, tomato and cucumber seeds in the greenhouse, which gave the children the opportunity to use their sensory skills by observing, smelling and touching. Gardening allows children to learn about the world around them in a fresh and practical way. It involves concepts that include biology, science, engineering and maths and sparks both conversation and the understanding of cause and effect. Additionally, it promotes sustainability in the world we live in. We have been reading books, looking at the labels and using the plants for inspiration to create our own art masterpieces. The children have also been participating in other gardening-related activities that support their learning. These include making pumpkin cookies, playing plants matching memory games, drawing pictures, writing descriptive words, participating in related science experiments, show and tell and having discussions. As our greenhouse garden grows, ‘we are increasingly able to embed sustainability into our everyday routine, allowing the children to become more and more connected to their environment and care for the natural world.’ (EYLF 2.4, p29)
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Stage 4
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Sport This week in Physical Education Stage 3 and 4 focused on their dodging and spatial awareness. As always, we began our lessons with a warmup game, and decided to musical statues! Stage 4 had obviously been working hard on their prayers for sunshine as we had our first outdoor session for the term. We completed a variety of relays using dodging as the main focus. We played a game of ‘River, Bank, Bridge’ to work on our listening and movement using jumping as the primary focus. This was done extremely well and as we progressed, with Yoni getting faster with the commands, it really tested our focus! Our main game this week was Octopus Tag. A student started as the octopus whilst the others were left as fish who had to cross the ocean path to get to the other side without getting caught and becoming seaweed. Teamwork, evasion and listening are really important elements as the students move into Stage 4 or Kindergarten next year. I look forward to next week, when we will be focusing more on our catching, bouncing and our ball dribbling skills. Thanks for another Stage 3 and 4!
great
week,
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Drama This week in Drama we all enjoyed a spooky spectacular Halloween lesson! A witch’s hat was the stimulus for each class. In Stage 1, the children showed me their witch’s laugh that they had been practising with their teachers. Next, we warmed up our bodies to the popular song "Shake them skeleton bone". Everyone got up and we all shook our hands, feet, heads and bodies. Then we all made a big circle for ‘Ring around the Pumpkin’. Vanilla showed us her best wolf sound and Zoe walked like a zombie. We then went on a Halloween adventure. I had spiders, scarves, capes and wings. All the children had to jump over the spiders, fly like a bat, make a spell like a witch with the scarves, become zombies and howl like wolves. Well done, Stage 1 – you all used different levels and responded to the activity really well!
In Stage 2 I wore the hat to begin with and asked the children to copy me and put on their witch’s hat and do a cackle. This led nicely into discussing Halloween. I said some terrifying tongue twisters and we sat in a circle learning and copying these. Well done, Marlo and Maeve, for giving this a go and remembering some! Here are two of them: Seven spindly spiders spin spooky silk speedily Owl’s hoot haughtily Next was our Halloween game – a take on ‘The witch is coming’. I called out different Halloween objects and we became these objects. We even had props for different parts of the room. Some included pumpkins – making ourselves small; witches cave – making potions; jumping over spiders; hanging upside down like bats; goo – being very still; and howling like wolves. Hallie showed us how high she could jump, and Hudson howled loudly like a wolf! We then made our picture post card. I called out something to do with Halloween and using our bodies we created it. For example – Haunted House, Witch’s House. We had to freeze as a character, then on “Action” come to life. James was a witch with a big hat and flew around! Saskia was a bat flying in the night. In Stage 3 and 4 I placed the hat in the middle of the circle and asked one of the children to put it on and become a witch and we all copied what they did. Next, we began a discussion about Halloween and learnt some tongue twisters. We practised our post cards: I gave them the title of the Haunted house and they took it in turns to be a character or an object. Next, we brought the characters to life by doing a little improvisation, staying as the characters from the picture but adding a sound to create a soundscape like we did last week. Ashleigh was a scary cat and Harvey was a spider, who showed us how he spun his web. Some of the Stage 4 classes did some storytelling, as they made up their own spooky stories.
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Music The countdown is on for our end of year celebrations! In both stages we started rehearsing for our end of year celebrations, from practising walking into the room, lining up and singing through our songs. In Stages 3 and 4 this week, we began with our scales and using our microphone again. I was so happy to see this week that the children held and used the microphone without hesitation! For Halloween, we sang some spooky scales on ‘Ooo’ and ‘Oh’ pretending we are little ghosts. Stage 4 continued with our microphone, singing “The Good Morning Song” and “ABC Boo” and passing the microphone whenever the ghost appeared! We practiced “Twinkle Twinkle” with sign; we learnt the second verse to “Kookaburra in the Old Gum Tree” with some simple actions; and revised “I Am Australian”. Stage 3 also practised “Here Comes The Sun” and “Going to the Zoo”, which we also practised on the deck with S3. Stage 4 ended their lesson with a game of 'Musical Spots' and some free play with our 'Instruments of the World'. Stage 2 and The Fledglings began the lesson with 'Wake Up Body' before warming up our voices with our spooky singing and counting. With our maracas we sang a Halloween version of "The Sunflower Song" and "I'm a Little Scarecrow" – practising our coordination and movement. With our maracas we sang through "ABC Boo" and imagined we were driving our buses around the room. Stage 2 continued "Twinkle Twinkle" with sign, while our Fledglings used our castanets to help improve our fine motor movement. To end the lesson we had some free play with our ‘Instruments of the World’ and on my keyboard. In The Nest we opened the lesson with 'Wake Up Body' before getting out our instruments ready for our sing-a-longs. With everyone at different stages of development, we always encourage every child to do as much as they can – we have confident walkers, and then some not so much; but many of them move or dance to the music in their own way. With our maracas in hand, they took the hands of the teachers and marched around the room like ants before coming back to the mat and ending the lesson with our instruments and free play.
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Connecting with Nature
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Reddam Early Learning would like to wish a very happy birthday to Austin Lu and Daliya Fisch who celebrate their special day this week
We hope you have a fabulous day!
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