Reddam ELS Woollahra Week 2 20 October 2023
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
We have probably all struggled to articulate how we are feeling at various stages of our lives, because as we all know from experience, emotions are difficult to pin down, especially when we feel them most powerfully. This is no less true for our young children, who not only experience many of the wide range of emotions which adults do but they also have the added difficulty of a limited vocabulary with which to express themselves.
As such, a recent article which explores the connection between literacy and wellbeing in young children caught my eye. It suggests that by imparting wellbeing skills to children, we not only enhance their future academic performance but also contribute to their emotional and psychological health. In recent years, there has been a growing realisation that children should not only acquire conventional academic, literacy, and numeracy skills to navigate the complexities of the world, but they also need the tools to cultivate a sense of personal contentment and inner harmony.
The Early Years Learning Framework encapsulates this perspective by highlighting two interconnected outcomes: the development of a strong sense of wellbeing (Outcome 3) and effective communication skills (Outcome 5) among children. However, we don’t often consider these outcomes in conjunction with each other.
The EYLF defines literacy as “the capacity, confidence, and disposition to use language in all its forms”. This encompasses reading and writing, as well as talking and listening, viewing, and various modes of creative expression such as music, movement, gesture, storytelling, and dance. Our teachers, who are immersed in the daily experiences of the children in their classes, witness the importance of these skills and are constantly looking for ways to help the children to become adept communicators and literate in multiple domains, including that of wellbeing.
Because they recognise the undeniable importance of child wellbeing, they have prioritised wellbeing literacy, which involves deliberate interventions to assist the children to communicate about their feelings. Through the introduction of amusing cartoon characters or different colours which represent different emotions, the children realise that all people have emotions, which change from day to day, and that this is a normal part of being human. They come to understand that their ups and downs are natural, and they gain the ability to express themselves, which is a powerful tool for future wellbeing and contentment.
Have a happy weekend!
Dee Pitcairn Principal
Happy Birthday Reddam House ELS would like to wish a very Happy Birthday to Georgia Predebon, Zachary Xiao, Ethan Louwrens, Claudia Toutounji, Sophia Toutounji
Nest
As we welcomed this new term in the Nest, the children were eager to come into the classroom and were quick to notice new activities and changes to our environment.
One of the defining features of early childhood environments is that they are designed for engagement. This has great benefits for promoting children’s play and learning. However, it also requires careful thought on our part as teachers too as we need to ensure our learning environment is a palace where children can experience a sense of wonder and deep engagement in play and learning.
One of the ways in which we are constantly engaged is by observing the children’s interests. It is interesting to see how young children experience new situations as they play. They make sense of their world by hearing, touching, seeing, tasting and smelling. When any of the children are offered an unfamiliar object they squeeze it with their hands, feeling the texture. They want to feel it in a variety of ways. They roll it with their fingers and move it around their noses to smell. They listen to sounds it may make. Children are very curious and take delight in learning. They continue to test out their ideas to make sure their information is correct. Often, they will offer their toys to their teacher to see how we might use them. Within all areas of our day we are constantly noticing the children using their senses to explore.
During the year, we have also had the opportunity to engage in many cooking experiences. The children have loved the experience of being a part of the process of making something, that includes all of their senses. At their young age, the Nest children have also taken part in sensory play, using slime, water, sand and nature.
“Childhood is a time to be, to seek and make meaning of the world.” (EYLF, 2009). We learn about our world through our senses and we create relationships with our environment.
The Nest is excited to provoke the children to explore each of their senses, through art, cooking and hands on experiences throughout the term.
Fledglings
As we are fast approaching the end of the year, we wanted to give the children a memorable last school term in 2023. This is not a hard job, when we see the Fledglings naturally having a great time at school, starting to develop connections with their peers, and even teaching and learning from each other as they are constantly improving their communication skills.
Each day, the children are enjoying much more of their peers’ company, transitioning from independent play to parallel play. This is happening because they are discovering their favourite games/toys and spending more time with the children with the same kind of preferences. Another natural reason for this is that they are growing up, and their communication skills are in constant development. They are confidently initiating play, having small chats and learning how to interact with one another.
Contemporary theories and research informed by the Reggio Emilia approach recognise and value the environment as a ‘third teacher’. Behind educators and families, physical spaces hold the potential to influence what and how children learn. In the past weeks we have observed the children wanting to play
together, by running, chasing, nurturing dolls, building blocks and reading stories. By listening to the children’s interests, the teachers can promote a meaningful, healthy, playful and educative environment.
As stated in the Early Years Framework (V2.0, 2022), “play-based learning approaches allow for different types of play and recognise the intentional roles that both children and educators may take in children’s learning. When children play with other children and interact with adults, they create relationships and friendships, test out ideas, challenge each other’s thinking and build new understandings. Play provides both a context (a place or space where children play) and a process (a way of learning and teaching) where children can ask questions, solve problems and engage in critical thinking. Play-based learning provides opportunities for children to learn as they discover, create, improvise and imagine.”
Taking all of this into consideration, in Term Four we aim to explore language through dramatic play to support the children to continue developing their social skills: “Telling stories, creating memories”.
Mini Atelier Table In the very first week of Term Four, the children started to practise cutting skills, using scissors for beginners. Using scissors is great for developing fine motor skills, visual motor control, and using two hands together in a co-ordinated manner. In this first experience, the children explore the tool, trying to understand how it works. The teachers supported the children’s efforts by showing them where to place their fingers: “Fingers on the bottom, thumbs on top; open up the scissors, and chop chop chop”. We will continue to encourage the children to practise this new skill in the next few weeks.
The Mini Atelier was very busy this week, as we also got started in the preparation of the decorations for our Year End Celebration, inspired by one of the children’s favourite book, “What a wonderful World”, by Louis Armstrong. The children used different tones of greens to create the “trees of greens”, painting with sensory brushes.
This was a collaborative work, as the children continued each other’s paintings, requesting more colours, different brushes and moving places to work on a different piece of paper. These textured paintings are looking great, and we are looking forward to sharing them with you in our Documentation Wall.
Stage 2
Our Learning Environment
“There are three teachers of children: adults, other children, and their physical environment.” — Loris Malaguzzi
Term 4 is here and part of the preparation for this term’s learning was to set up the environment for the new provocations. The Tree Frogs are working on ‘Our Big Feelings and Meaningful Relationships’, which we trust will support the children’s interests in expressing themselves and building respectful relationships at school. The Kookaburras are also working on another interest of the children, which is building, resulting in them being provoked to be ‘Little Engineers’ throughout term 4. This means the environment is reflecting both provocations, supporting Stage 2 students to explore diverse forms of learning. According to Loris Malaguzzi, who pioneered the Reggio Emilia approach, the environment is considered a third teacher. For this reason, it should be accessible and inviting to children, so they are able to resource their learning, individually and collectively, through play. The educators in Stage 2 are in
the constant process of critical reflection on how to improve the environment, aiming to support children in the achievement of their learning outcomes.
Various resources, such as puzzles, mats, artistic provocations, books and pads on the topic of feelings have been set up around the room and have already inspired interactions and play among the children. Krishna pointed to the feelings mat and said: ‘Happy.’ Hunter pointed to the angry face on the mat and expressed his own angry face with his body and a grunt. Children also coloured the feelings in their hearts. Some children said they were feeling happy or good. Teddy said his feeling is blue, his favourite colour. Alfie said: ‘My heart is feeling rainbow.’ For the little engineers, besides the block area, filled with diverse resources, the room has received a workbench, so children are able to expand their knowledge regarding the elements of construction and add to imaginative play as children engineer their constructions.
Following the children’s increasing choice in imaginative play, the dramatic area has been transformed into a hair salon. Fifi, Kitana and Indigo had already started using some of the fabrics from our previous laundry area as towels to put on each other’s backs as they pretended to comb and cut each other’s hair. Moreover, last term Nancy brought some play hair salon equipment, such as a hair dryer, and straightening iron and the children were immediately interested in including that in their play, which inspired the creation of ‘Stage 2 Beauty Salon’. The children are able not only to practise their hairstyle skills, but there is also an office area with a pretend laptop and phone to book all the appointments.
Our room received another piece of furniture for the room this term, which is our new cubby house. The cubby house has also added an extra element to the quiet area of the room, supporting children to keep their bodies calm while being able to read books and rest quietly in a specific spot. Children are able to take turns and interact with each other through the window of the cubby house. We hope the new environment inspires a lot of learning in the new term.
‘The learning environment is a place where children can experiment and try out new ideas without fear or failure. It is an atmosphere that builds children’s self-confidence so they dare to take risks. It is an environment that nurtures a love of learning.’ Carol B. Hillman
Stage 3
Art Express The provocation for this term in Stage 3R is entitled “Art Express”. The children’s creativity and interest in using art materials to create has been the reason we will explore this topic more closely. To start us off, we began our journey by looking more closely at ourselves through self-portraits using natural objects such as pinecones, pod seeds, leaves and flowers. Self-portraits provide children with a sense of identity, awareness of who they are in the world, and how they change overtime. For children to define and appreciate the traits that make others unique, they must first have the ability to define their own. This activity connects self-portraits with nature exploration to give children an opportunity to investigate nature in a personal way along with their own sense of self. In the world of art, portraits are an artistic representation of people. They can be created in any media, from traditional oil paintings, to photographs, sculpture, and even mixed media. Portraits can show part figures, usually showing the sitter's head and shoulders, but they can also depict the whole figure.
As the young artists that they are, the children not only created a nature portrait of themselves but were invited to be the artist who created a portrait of their chosen subject. The finalised pieces of art were also photographed, as nature art is ‘transient art’, meaning “moveable art”. Creating a design out of
loose pieces that are not fixed, is to create something that is not permanent. This is the beginning of our journey and only a small window into the world of art. There are many quotes about art and being an artist that can inspire everyone to open their imaginations. However, it not the techniques that make you an artist, it is the process. As Pablo Picasso said, “The important thing is to create.”
The mathematical world of children
Children start learning math the moment they start exploring the world. Each skill – from identifying shapes to counting to finding patterns – builds on what they already know. In our class, the children as a group love to build and the small stacking cubes introduced have been very popular with the building of towers leading to them investigating how many they can put together and how tall they can make them. How far can they reach? Are they as tall as their friends or siblings? How can we make them taller? Last term we created a height chart and now the children identify themselves and their friends on the chart talking about who is taller, who is not as tall and check to see if they are still the same height as they were when we did the chart.
This term 3 large dice were added which has led to an interest in counting with addition, with the recording of these numbers on the white board. Some of our friends in the class have really enjoyed writing large numbers on the board. This has included 10 trillion requested from Milo. This became a research question for Google. We discovered that after you write the number 10 you then add twelve zeros so that it reads as 10 trillion.
EYLF Outcome 4 – Children are confident and involved learners as they create and use representation to organise, record and communicate mathematical ideas and concepts.
Stage 4
Sunflowers- Observational Painting
Welcome to Term 4. In Nina’s class, the children have been embracing the season of spring; in line with the EYLF (Early Years Learning Framework) and NQS (National Quality Standards) guidelines, the children's creative development and their fine motor skills were fostered during our art activity for the first wall documentation. Our first art project is linked to Vincent van Gogh’s famous ‘sunflower' paintings. We listened to the story 'Camille and the Sunflowers: A Story About Vincent van Gogh' by Laurence Anholt; focusing on a short period in Vincent Van Gogh's life, this story is told through the eyes of Camille, the postmaster's son. His family befriends the artist and Vincent paints their portraits. Not only do we learn about Van Gogh's paintings, but we also get an insight into the position of an 'outsider' in society.
We had a big bouquet of sunflowers in our classroom and the children were encouraged to look at it with the intent of painting it. We tend to look more carefully than usual when taking part in such an exercise. We see, truly see, the shapes, the patterns, the perspective and the colours and how all of the details interact. In translating 3D objects to 2D drawings on paper, we practise getting shapes and proportions right, and we try different techniques for showing texture and detail.
Observational drawing is a part of meaningful and authentic early childhood art education. It strengthens memory and helps to develop fine motor skills and spatial understanding as well as encouraging that we are all an artist in ourselves. Please take some time to admire the artwork in our Stage 4 Piazza.
Food Donation ‘One Meal – It makes a difference'
In the last few weeks, families in Reddam ELS have been generously donating food for our project: ‘One Meal – It makes a difference’.
‘One Meal – It Makes a Difference’ is a not-for-profit community organisation that offers food relief services in five areas across greater Sydney. Their mission is to provide healthy nutritious meals and a range of human services to the homeless, destitute, impoverished, and underprivileged people in our community and to assist in advancing their well-being, outlook on life and prospects for future independence – and to do so with strong ethics and integrity.
Our donation boxes had quickly been filled, so this week the children started packing food into small sandwich bags to create 'Mini pantry packs'. We discussed what to put in each bag. The children made sure that they packed a little meal (tuna, baked beans , noodles etc), a drink (cocoa, juice, milk), a
healthy dessert (sultanas, fruit pouch etc) and a treat. If there was still room in the bag, they chose an additional healthy option.
The children were excited about the project and shared their thoughts while packing the bags.
Louis: We also can give them a card to make them feel happy. Because they feel sad because they are down in the street. Mackenzie: One time I gave a poor person some money because she was wearing some raggy clothes and she didn’t have a blanket. Rafferty: One day when I was in the car, I saw someone sleeping in a blanket on the grass. And he didn’t have any food. Louis: Once I saw a man on the street, sitting down with a hat and I gave him some coins.
It’s never too early to start encouraging children to practise giving back to those who are in need. Fostering generosity, and teaching children about the importance of charity at a young age can empower them to make a meaningful impact on the lives of others. Engaging in charitable acts can also have a positive influence on children and help them develop many valuable life skills.
Charity fundraising events create learning opportunities for children of all ages, their parents and the wider community. Charity fundraising events aren’t just about supporting charities. They’re to teach the children about those less fortunate than them, and that there is a lot we can do to get involved and improve their quality of life.
Connecting with Nature
Dance and Drama
Welcome back to the final term of Drama for this year! It was fabulous to see so many bright faces ready to dive back into more fun adventures together. For our first week back, the focus of the Drama lessons
for all ages was to have fun moving our bodies in a theatrical way whilst allowing ourselves to be silly. This week we went to the circus!
We began by talking about what or who we might see at the circus, with a strong focus on clowns. We discussed what we may see a clown wearing when dressed to perform in this setting and then tried on our very own colourful clown wig. All the children from the Nest through to Stage 4 loved getting to interact with this prop. It allowed them to become comfortable with feeling full of fun and behaving a bit silly with their friends. We also used our imagination to put on some invisible clothing items such as big clown shoes and a red clown nose. This helped to engage the children’s minds with thinking about their physicality for the next activity. Along with some circus music playing in the background we spent time exploring different ways of moving around the space. We focused on leading with individual body parts such as our nose, stomach, and elbows. This helped to encourage the exploration of our own bodies’ limits and capabilities in ways that may not feel natural in a day-to-day setting.
We then spent time sitting in the role of the ‘strong person’ at the circus. The children used their imaginations once again to perform the act of lifting an extremely heavy object, holding it above their heads and then returning it to the floor in front of them. This was a good practice of investing in a story or activity that needs to be portrayed to an audience with commitment for them to believe the act being displayed is happening before them.
In Stage 4 we had time to explore one other circus trick – spinning plates. This is when we take a specialised object that gives the illusion of being a regular plate and balance it on a stick whilst it spins around. It is always a great activity to do with the children as they have a fantastic time trying to perfect the skill. It encourages them to take time to focus and understand the activity at hand which is good to come back to after doing such fun imaginative work in a lesson. Watching them discover their ability to do this with the spinning plates in their own time is always such a rewarding moment and it tends to give them a sense of pride when they can master such a tricky skill.
Overall, I was very impressed with the level of fun and commitment all age groups showed with this first lesson back. I look forward to our exploration of new skills and adventures in the weeks to come!
Music
Welcome back to Term 4! It's so nice to see all of the beaming faces again.
In Stage 3 and 4 we began the lesson with a movement warm-up on "Walking Walking", which we pretend to go swim, dry off our body, eat our breakfast and pick up rubbish. With our bodies warm we got our voices ready to sing with our scales on 'LA' and 'Goo Goo Gah', helping strengthen our articulators. With our voices ready, Stage 3 practised our songs for our show case - "Mr Sun" and "You Are My Sunshine" - before moving onto our new song, "I'm A Little Caterpillar" . In Stage 4, we also practised for our graduation - "Mr Sun" and "Be Our Guest" - before singing our new caterpillar song.
"I'm A Little Caterpillar" is our new song which shows us the life cycle of a caterpillar, from an egg all the way to its metamorphosis into a butterfly. With our scarves we start as little eggs until we wiggle and emerge as little caterpillars, crawling around the room. We then eat all the leaves we can find to fill our tummy, ready to turn into a spin ourselves into a chrysalis as we roll on the floor. Finally, we are ready to emerge as a beautiful butterfly, flying and jumping around the room.
This week we used our xylophones to learn the musical alphabet - A to G. Starting at A, I asked the children to tell me a word that began with that letter before finding it on their xylophone. Xylophones are great to help build our fine motor movement, but also our visual-motor integration - connecting our eyes to our hands.
In Stage 2 and The Fledglings we also warmed up our bodies with "Walking Walking" - exploring different ways we can move from crawling, to rolling and jumping. We warmed up our voices on 'MA' before picking up our maracas to sing and dance through "ABC Freeze", helping improve our coordination and
listening. The Fledglings also sang and danced through "I'm A Sleeping Bunny", getting our legs moving as we bounced like little rabbits.
With our maracas away, we picked up our scarves for "I'm A Little Caterpillar" doing our very best to follow all of the various movements. This song is really great for all ages as the level of movement can be slightly altered to cater to their ability. We crawled from little caterpillars, to using our fine motor movement to eat the leaves on the trees. We did our best to roll our bodies as we spin into a cocoon before moving our arms to flap as the butterfly.
Stage 2 sat in a circle and went through our actions for "Mr Sun" before ending the lesson using our xylophones and some colour recognition – during which we sat in pairs and practised our sharing. The Fledglings also ended the lesson with some free play on our xylophones, working to improve our visualmotor integration.
In The Nest, we began the lesson with our hand movements for "Twinkle Twinkle", before picking up our maracas for "ABC Freeze". I love watching the little babies freeze as they put up their hands to stop moving. We went to sleep as "Sleeping Bunnies" before we put our maracas away to dance in "Rock a Bye Bear", still working to improve our bowing.
With our scarves, we also went over our movements for the new "I'm A Little Caterpillar". Focusing on our crawling, walking and doing our best to roll over which is tricky for some of our little body's. To end the lesson, we had some free play on our xylophones while playing along with the music as we connected our beaters to the bells.
Sport
The children were bursting with energy during our sessions this week. Both Stage 3 and 4 are confident with controlling and manipulating their bodies. In our sessions this week we continued to work on the fundamental movement skills of dribbling and kicking.
To warm up our bodies we played a game of ‘Floor is Lava’, where the students had to move around the space mimicking a particular animal before running to the safety of the markers. There were some new additions to this game with the children selecting a gorilla and cheetah, which was very entertaining for the groups.
The body of the session was spent on controlling the ball while dribbling. One of the games we used to help focus on this skill was Cat and Mouse. All of the children had a ball, or a ‘mouse’, and were dribbling it around the space, making sure to not only maintain control of the ball, but to also be mindful of where their friends were to avoid any collisions. I was the ‘cat’ and if after the call was made of ‘Cats coming’ the students did not trap their ‘mouse’ before I got to it, it would be eaten. The level of control was
excellent to see, as the children moved confidently around the space and were very quick to trap their ‘mice’.
We finished up the session with some goal shooting activity stations. Here the children had to use the skills of kicking for a goal and dribbling when moving from station to station. The students were reminded to make sure they kicked with the inside of their foot and not their toe and some students experimented with both techniques.