Reddam ELS Woollahra Newsletter Vol 23 Issue 1

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL

WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Dee’s Message

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Welcome back to all in the Reddam House ELS family. We trust that you had a really happy and relaxing break and that this year is going to be wonderful in every way. The staff and I are excited for all that the year holds in store for the school – and in particular for the boys and girls who fill its classrooms, corridors and play areas with such joy.

We extend a very special welcome to all the families who join us for the first time. We really do hope that the warmth of the welcome from the broader ELS community will ensure that you feel part of our very special family in no time at all. We trust that this will be a happy time for you and for your son or daughter, and that you will use every opportunity to become involved in the life of the school.

During the course of the year there are a number of celebratory events and occasions during which the children are able to show you what they have learned. We would love

to see you at the school, as the children take great pride in being able to ‘host’ you in their space and show off all that they have achieved.

A number of children have already been enjoying a multitude of enriching activities, before the rest of the children arrived this week, as they were fortunate to be part of the Holiday Care programme. Once again, the teachers came up with some creative and enjoyable activities for the children to enjoy, and by all accounts they had a fantastic time immersing themselves fully in these. My thanks to all those involved in the Holiday Care programme, for making such a powerful impact in the lives of the children and for providing such a fun-filled experience for the children.

Here in the ELS, we have embraced the Reggio Emilia approach to early learning, as it provides a wonderful opportunity for the children to explore, create and learn, based on where their interests take them.

As founder of the Reggio Emilia approach, Loris Malaguzzi, reminds us, education must be a collaboration between the children and their teachers, if it is to have a long-lasting, significant impact.

This is illustrated in his statement that “Learning and teaching should not stand on opposite banks and just watch the river flow by; instead, they should embark together on a journey down the water. Through an active, reciprocal exchange, teaching can strengthen learning and how to learn.”

The teachers and I look forward to this “journey down the water” with the children this year. We have no doubt that it will be a rich, happy and fulfilling journey and that as we reflect on it in eleven months’ time we will realise just how wonderful it has been.

Have a happy weekend!

Dee Pitcairn Principal

The Nest (1R)

Hannah Corrigan, Min Pattharasiritanarat, Chloe Grimes and Helena Zhang

We have had a wonderful start to our year in The Nest.

The children are taking their time settling and enjoying exploring the classroom environment and familiarising themselves with our daily routine and forming relationships with their teachers and peers.

During the first week the children were invited to the Mini Atelier where they were met with a blank piece of paper and the opportunity to create a piece of artwork.

Children are naturally curious. From the minute they gain control of their limbs they work to put themselves out into the world to see how it all works. They explore, observe and imitate, trying to figure out how to control themselves and their environments. This unrestricted exploration helps children form connections in their brains.

Art is a natural activity to support this. Freedom to manipulate the paint in an organic and instructed way allows for exploration and experimentation. Painting can help children communicate their emotions; they can express themselves without the use of words. It's not only fun, buteducational too.

During the second week the children were offered indigenous engraved stamps. A jellyfish, a turtle, the sun and a starfish. The children were shown the technique of putting the stamp in the paint and stamping it on the paper. As the children worked on their painting,some decided to use their hands to feel the paint and create fingerprints and handprints on the paper too. Some children looked at the stamp and realised the picture didn’t show so we talked about maybe having to add more paint or push harder on the paper.

We had some cooked spaghetti in our classroom for the children to explore. Sensory experiences open the door to so many learning opportunities such as imaginative play, language exploration, coordination, and fine motor development. It allows for freedom to explore and discover their world around them.

Welcome to the year of the rabbit. A celebration for many cultures, including Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Malaysian and Korean communities, Lunar New Year 2023 sees lots of exciting events like parades, lion dancing, lanterns, markets and lots of delicious food. The children were invited to do some red painting this week and with the help of the teachers we will turn them into lanterns to display in our room. We also listened to the song about the ‘Chinese Dancinglion’.

At any time, please feel free to share with us any celebrations, festivals and traditions that are a part of your family. We embrace cultural diversity in our school and love to incorporate it into our programme throughout the year.

Settling into a new environment is both an exciting and challenging time for children and families. It is also emotional as it is the first major transition in a child’s life. When going through transitions children take time figuring out their new setting and learn from their new experiences.

“Strong, capable, and resilient, rich with wonder and knowledge. Every child brings with a deep curiosity and potential and this innate curiosity drives their interest to understand their world and their place within it.”

- Loris Malaguzzi, Reggio Emilia’s Educational Philosophy, 2007.

The Nest (1R)

Fledglings (1E)

By Tatiana Botrel, Jane Teh, Vivianne Zeaiter and Joyce Matsui

We would like to extend a warm welcome to each of our families in the Fledglings (1E). It has been a wonderful start to our learning journey, building new relationships with teachers and friends and exploring the classroom and outdoor environment.

"Experiencing belonging – knowing where and with whom you belong is integral to human existence." Early Years Learning Framework (p7, 2009)

During early childhood, a child’s sense of belonging can relate to how safe and comfortable a child is in the setting, while having a sense of trustful and respectful relationships with their teachers and peers. When a child has a sense of belonging, they are more confident, feel more secure, be more creative and more likely to explore the world of learning. In the Fledglings room, our primary focus is on building a sense of safety and security as the foundation of belonging to our group.

Although there were some tears at drop-off over the first few days, throughout the day the children settled into their new environment comfortably and they started to become more familiar to the room daily routines and with all the different activities. The children engaged in many sensory experiences such as blowing bubbles, playdough, and water play. These experiences not only help them to strengthen their fine motor skills, but it also helps them release their emotions and feel calmer and more relaxed.

The Fledglings were given the time and opportunity to explore and investigate their new environment and form relationships with their teachers and peers. Our teachers are quickly identifying favourite interests that appeal to each child and these include: stacking activities, loose parts, kitchen, dolls play, singing and reading books. There is a lot of curiosity and interest in our group time

routines as we learn to sit in a group and sing

“Tick-Tock”, our good morning and goodbye song, naming each child and teachers. We loved hearing and learning each other’s names. It is lovely to see how quickly many children follow the routines and directions and have already become familiar with waiting to be called for handwashing before meals.

During outdoor play, the children were delighted to discover the deck, as they walked around the big open space. Some friends spent time at the sandpit, while others repeatedly explored the slide, crawling through the tunnel and holding a teacher’s hand to test their physical abilities at the climbing equipment.

In the lead-up to the Lunar New Year, the children were invited to the Mini Atelier to create lanterns for the celebration. They spread yellow paint over the red paper, some using the paintbrushes, while others were happy to use their fingers. Then we sat around the table observing Tatiana folding the paper in half and cutting few slits on each paper before rolling it onto a lantern. We are proud of our creation that we hung on the wall.

Early Years Learning Outcomes

· Outcome1: Children have a strong sense of identity

· Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world

· Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing

· Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners

· Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.

Fledglings (1E)

Stage 2

By Sarah Noone and Echo Jia

Over the first two weeks, our children have become more familiar with the Stage 2 routines, and we are so proud of how well they have adapted to the new learning environment and started to build connections with their teachers and peers. At Reddam ELS, we strongly believe in our family input and respect the unique values and cultures of children, families, teachers and the community. These also help our children to build their confidence, a strong sense of belonging and a strong bond with others.

As Lunar New Year is approaching, a few of our teachers and some of our children shared their family experiences of how they celebrated this wonderful cultural event. We took the opportunity to introduce it the rest of the group through stories, music and dance, and small discussion. As a group, we read the story “Maisy’s Chinese New Year” by Lucy Cousins and “The Great Race” by Emily Hiles. “Maisy’s Chinese New Year”, talks about how Maisy celebrates the Lunar New Year with her friends – the red pockets with money, the delicious feast, the fireworks and the dragon dance. “The Great Race” introduces the 12 zodiac animals, and how each animal earned its place in the Chinese zodiac. Each year in the lunar calendar is represented by different animals. 2023 is the Year of Rabbit.

At the atelier, we invited our children to make the rabbit print with the sponges or decorate the night sky with white and yellow paint, along with glitter to symbolise the firecrackers and fireworks as one of the traditional celebrations for this great festival. We also created a group collaborative project to decorate a lantern that all the children were invited to participate in. We also enjoyed playing New Year music and had a ribbon dance.

“Participating in cultural and artistic experiences are necessary for building children’s understanding, not only of their own culture but other cultures, as it provides opportunities to broaden their horizons and

learn from other culture and artistic traditions. Thus, contributing towards mutual understanding and appreciation of diversity” –UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

It is very important for our young children to learn and understand the different ways in which other people and other cultures celebrate. Learning such as this raises the children's awareness and acceptance of what, how and why other people celebrate. It puts our own cultural identity and celebrations into context and increases the children's knowledge about other cultures. Building positive connections is important at the beginning of the year to help our childrengain a sense of belonging, by celebrating their culture.

Stage 3

By Susan Casey, Daniella Gosty, Emily Hunt and Fiona Liddell

During the previous couple of weeks, we welcomed back our returning families to Stage 3, after a lovely holiday break. In addition, we embraced new children and families joining our school community atReddam.

“In early childhood settings children develop a sense of belonging when they feel accepted, develop attachments and trust those that care for them.” (Early Years Learning Framework, p.20)

The children have been reconnecting with their peers from their previous year and establishing new connections, whilst forming trusting relationship with their new teachers. In supporting their settling process, we have a predictable routine and have provided an array of opportunities for them to have a sense of belonging, including wearing their school uniform, bringing their water bottles and singing our welcome songs to become familiar with everyone’s name.

Some of our families celebrated Lunar New Year on Saturday 21st January. To develop an understanding and awareness of this occasion the classes explored various resources including songs, books and also decorated an array of lanterns. Furthermore, they created a Chinese dragon using various media and learning a song, ‘Chinese Dragon’. To make the dragon, it was completed in several stages over the course of a few days. The first section of the process invited them to paint a paper plate using red paint, they were offered the choice of either a large or small sized plate. After they had selected their size, they began painting with concentration. Theodore ensured he had covered the entire surface, by dabbing his paint brush within the groves of the circumference.

Once everyone had the opportunity to partake in this experience, we placed the plates to dry. Next, they retrieved their dried paper plate and were provided with a range of media to design and decorate the plate

which became the body of dragon. As the children partook in this experience, they took various approaches to attach the paper or patty pans to their plate. Many children were taking the approach of spreading the glue upon the paint, then attached the chosen resource by placing it over the glue and pressing down to ensure it would remain in their selected position. Whereas Rafael took his time examining the collagematerials available to him before making a final decision. Once he had gathered his collection, he pressed them one at a time over the top of glue stick before considering where to place it on his plate. When confident with his decision, he then placed it on his desired location and using his finger, pressed down with force to ensure it would attach. As Cosmo designed the body of his dragon, he grasped the orange pastel and informed Fiona, “These are the eyes.” then proceeded to draw the mouth. Once everyone had completed their contribution, they were all placed alongside one another to make one dragon.

In addition, Aaron taught his class a song that he sung during the celebration of Lunar New Year.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to you all

We are singing

We are dancing

Happy New Year to you all

Stage 3 Photo Gallery

Stage 4

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

Exploring Celebrations and Building a Sense of Belonging in Stage Four

We are excited to introduce our first of four provocations for the year. In Term One we will be exploring ‘Knowing me, knowing you’. The first term is centred around building a sense of belonging for our children and families. We will be getting to know you and building connections through many learning invitations. We are lucky to have a wonderfully diverse group of children and families this year. Term One is a great starting point to celebrate the diversity we share.

Our learning space has been meaningfully arranged to celebrate Lunar New Year for the first two weeks of the term, showcasing learning invitations, group time discussions, creative projects, and guided learning Each child was invited to paint a large paper lantern with liquid watercolours. The lanterns were hung in the hallway during this time. Collage items were offered in the second week for dragon making.

The children expressed an interest in a Chinese dragon cutting activity. The children were encouraged to follow a visual prompt of a dragon containing a collection of shapes. Each child had to cut out the corresponding shapes then cut and stick the shapes to paper to match the visual prompt.

EYLF Outcomes:

1.4 Children learning to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect.

2.3 Children respond to diversity with respect.

4.1 Children develop dispositions for learning such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesizing, researching and investigation.

4.4 Children resource their own learning through connecting with people, places, technologies and natural and processed materials.

Music

Welcome back Reddam families!

It’s so nice to see our familiar faces, and some new ones inthe ELS.

Down in The Nest it is filled with all new faces, so we started off by introducing them to the scarves, maracas and castanets. Once they were a little more confident, we started with some movement using the scarves and “Wheels on the Bus”. We used our maracas whiling singing and bopping along to the ‘ABCs’; and our castanets and scarves we used in ‘Twinkle Twinkle’, while learning to use our fine motor skills to click the instruments.

In Stage 3 and 4 we opened the lesson with a new warm up ‘fireworks’. We pretended our scarves were fireworks we had to send flying into the sky. We used our scarves to show the movement of pitch; we sang ‘UP’ or ‘DOWN’ over the scale following the direction, while waving them to the ground or in the sky. Using our maracas and scarves, we sang and worked on shaking in time with ‘ABCs’, we also worked on our coordination by taking in turns at shaking our maraca, and our scarf. We layered this with adding stomps and a game of musical freeze.

Still with our maracas, we learnt a new movement song “Walking Walking”, in which the children had to follow the movements in the song – walking; hopping; running and tiptoeing. Afterwards we sang and danced through the crowd favourite “The Sunflower Song”.

With our maracas we revised some of our rhythm animals. We started off by shaking with our maracas, before layering and adding in our stomping feet. Each child then performed the rhythm back for the class.

In Stage 2 and The Fledglings we also opened the lesson with our ‘fireworks’, trying to throw them in the sky as high as we could encouraging them to imitate the sound of them exploding. We warmed up our voices on a simple ‘MA’ sound with our counting before

dancing with our scarves in “The Good Morning Song”. Using our scarves, we sang through ‘Wheels on the Bus’, using them to create our actions with swishing wipers; or doors opening and shutting.

With our maracas we sang through our ‘ABCs’ and froze when the music stopped; and we also learnt the new movement for “Walking Walking”. We replaced the hopping for stomps as some of our legs aren’t quite up to hopping yet! They had their best listening ears on for when they had to freeze.

With some new friends, we learnt “The Sunflower Song” in both stages; and Stage 2 ended the lesson with looking at our ‘CAT’, ‘DOG’ and ‘SPIDER’ animals.

Reddam Early Learning

would like to wish a very happy birthday to Hugo Colebatch and Bobby Caon who celebrate their special day this week

We hope you have a fabulous day!