Reddam ELS Woollahra
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
As the term draws to a close, now is the ideal time to reflect on the months which have passed, and on the considerable growth – both physically and emotionally – of the special young children in the ELS. Belonging is a key component of the Australia Early Years Framework, and one which we take really seriously in the ELS. The sense of a deep connection to place and people is one which we all treasure, and this is particularly so for young children.
Belonging refers to a sense of acceptance within a community, and it is essential for young children's social, emotional, and cognitive development. We hope that each day that your child has arrived here
that he or she has felt part of a very special community, and that the warmth of relationships had made the experience all the more meaningful.
We trust that the inclusive and supportive environment which our teachers work so hard to create in their classes and in the broader school environment helps children to feel valued and respected, and in particular we hope that their individual needs and interests are recognised and supported. I am enormously grateful for the role which all of our teachers have played this term to give the children a sense of belonging here at school. I know that all the teaching staff are ready for a good break and I wish them much happiness during the holidays.
So too I trust that the wonderful admin, cleaning and support staff will have some time to take things a bit easier while the school is closed. We are grateful for all that they have done during the term and know that they will continue to ensure that the campus is well looked after during the holiday break.
We thank you, our parents, for your enthusiastic support of your children, which has deepened the effectiveness of all their experiences at school this past term. By involving yourself in the life of your son or daughter, and by taking a keen interest in their activities, you certainly enrich their schooling experience and also add positivity to the interaction between parents and teachers.
Naturally, we are all here for the benefit of the children and it has been really special to see them grow in confidence throughout the term. The tears which were shed during the first few days seem but a distant memory, to be replaced by confident explorers, enthusiastic learners and creative artists, singers and actors.
We trust that all in the Reddam ELS family will enjoy this time to relax and to spend precious moments with family and friends. In particular, we wish all our families many blessings during this time of spiritual nourishment and cultural celebrations. We look forward to welcoming you back for the next term in a few weeks’ time.
Enjoy your break!
Dee Pitcairn PrincipalHappy Birthday
Reddam House ELS would like to wish a very Happy Birthday to
1 - Jamien Tseng-Ling
2 - Wolf Michael
3 - Karina Zhuang
We had a busy end of term in the Nest. There was a great sense of joy and delight as we started our week off in the Nest, ready to learn and have fun. Sounds of giggles and big smiles filled our classroom.
The children were introduced to the shape of an easter egg, and we used them to dip into paint. We removed the egg shape in the middle once they were dry. The sensory fun continued as the little hands and fingers were joyfully immersed in an easter themed sensory tub.
We are thoroughly enjoying the wonderful warm weather and exploring our outdoor environment as part of our daily programme. Before going outside, we talk about the importance of wearing sunscreen and wearing a hat and always keeping it on. “No hat, no play”. Positive role modelling by wearing hats ourselves, is critical to help the children see and understand the importance of sun safety. Applying sunscreen is also a part of our daily routine and has been very successful. The children are encouraged to use their emerging self-help skills and are encouraged to help rub their sunscreen in. It is so sweet to see the children watch each other. Please assist us by reinforcing sun safety practices at home by applying sunscreen and hats.
“This is the way we wash our hands”. It is important to keep ourselves clean and getting rid of germs in any ways we can. Supporting children to effectively wash their hands has been very successful in our room so far. Practising good hygiene skills is critical and we encourage and role model appropriate hand washing techniques on a daily basis. We wash our hands continuously throughout the day and demonstrate each step of the procedure to the children. Please reinforce good hand washing practices at home so that we can all stay happy and healthy.
We also started our days off creating some beautiful handprints with many different colours. The children were encouraged to fully explore the paint. There was no finished product in mind, just for the children to become creative and to use their hands and paint how they chose, while moving certain ways and mixing colours.
It is unbelievable to think that we have reached the end of Term One already and what a loving and wonderful term it was. It has been great getting to know the children and families as they begin their journey through Reddam ELS.
Term One has been packed with lots of educational activities, all tied in with the children emerging identities and interests with our provocation “Happy Me”. Each day in the Nest we have felt a buzz of happy confident learners exploring the class activities with a string sense of “Autonomy, interdependence and agency” (EYLF 1.2).
It is clear to see that the children are incredibly happy to be a part of our group, which can be seen throughout the day as their little faces light up with contagious smiles and through active engagement through learning and play. The children’s confidence can be seen growing each day as they engage in their daily routine. By now, the children are feeling comfortable and happy playing with each other, and positive play experiences are emerging.
A term of celebrations
It is hard to believe that we are reaching the end of Term One at Reddam ELS. The children in the Fledglings have had a great time becoming familiar with their school environment, settling into our routine, and learning through our play-based experiences.
In Term One, the children had an opportunity to learn a bit more about other cultures, by celebrating their special dates, for example, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Holi Festival, Purim, and Easter.
The Fledglings also celebrated their interests and how confident they were to display them in a group environment. Learning more about animals was a great way to engage them in the experiences promoted throughout the term. In the last weeks of the term, the children also became more interested in colours and shapes which we will continue to explore in Term Two.
We finished this last week of Term One celebrating each day in a different way – dancing, singing, and playing musical instruments. The children also spent time in the Mini Atelier creating colourful paintings for Easter, using feathers. The children enjoyed reading a book about Easter Egg Hunt, counting how many eggs they could find hiding behind the flaps on the pages.
Fostering the children’s interests and needs promotes a respectful learning process, encouraging them to develop the sense of belonging to our school community.
We are looking forward to having a fun and relaxed time in Holiday Care in the next few weeks.
The Early Years Learning Framework V2.0, 2022
Learning Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity. Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect.
Learning Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world. Children respond to diversity with respect.
Learning Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing. Children become strong in their social, emotional and mental wellbeing.
Learning Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners. Children develop a range of learning and thinking skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating.
Learning Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators. Children engage with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts.
Stage Two Easter Celebrations
This term for the Treefrogs in Stage Two, we have been learning about a number of different cultural celebrations. From Holi to Saint Patrick’s Day and now on to Easter! As many children are going away for the Easter break and we have some different activities happening for Holiday Care, there were many conversations surrounding Easter, so we wanted to include these in our provocation work! By linking children’s learning with their socio-cultural environment, we can help to build connections and understanding of the greater world around them.
To begin our time learning about Easter, we read a number of books introducing children to the words, ideas, themes and holiday of Easter, as celebrated by some families in Australia. We have been focusing on the games, eggs, bunnies, and decorations! After reading stories, such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar Easter Surprise by Eric Carle, We’re Going On An Egg Hunt by Laura Hughes, and Bluey Easter, we spoke about how not everyone celebrates Easter with their families or at home and that is okay! Learning about other cultural practices or celebrations helps children to develop an understanding and appreciation for their peers, other cultures and to be open to learning about other cultures in the future too. This can also promote creativity, open-mindedness, critical thinking – does my family celebrate this? do any of my family or friends celebrate in this way?
For our craft activity we painted some Easter eggs! Ella was excited to paint her “eggie!”, and Ethan noted “I like blue and green the most” when deciding which paint colours to use. We used toddler-sized brushes to help the children’s hand grasp and hand-eye coordination. It was sometimes tricky to brush the paint on as the egg would move or spin, making it a problem-solving experience - How can I paint that side? Where should I hold it? What colour is this mixture making? The children were free to use any colours, techniques, and styles they wished, some dipping the eggs into the paint, some covering them in many layers of paint to mix the colours, while others left white spaces to give the eggs “spots”. This was to promote creative development and decision making as they chose to decorate their egg as they liked.
Part two of our easter egg project was to glue on some confetti on to give the eggs texture and dimension to further develop their fine motor skills and creativity! By coming back to our work and turning a craft activity into a project, children can gain a further sense of accomplishment, build on their creative thinking, improve their cognitive development (recognising shape, pattern, colour, cause-andeffect) all while having fun and learning about how easter can be celebrated!
● Outcome 1.3 – Children develop knowledgeable and confident self-identities.
● Outcome 2.2 – Children respond to diversity with respect.
● Outcome 4.1 – Children develop dispositions for learning such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity.
● Outcome 4.3 – Children transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another.
Monster art
In the Stage 3R classroom the floor book is one of our resources that we are using to record the children’s ideas and knowledge about topics of interest. Over the term, the children have enjoyed selfselecting books when transitioning from one experience to another as they wait for all their friends to join them. During this time, they discovered the story ‘What’s under the bed?’ by Joe Fenton and then ‘Olivia and the missing toy’ by Ian Falconer. From asking for these stories to be read numerous times, the children began creating their own play with talk about monsters and hiding from them and then being chased by them. The children were asked the questions “What is a monster?” and their ideas were recorded in our book.
We followed this discussion with a story “The day Louis got eaten” by John Fardell about a little boy rescued by his sister after not one but lots of different strange creatures ate him and each other. In our group times the children were asked to look closely at the illustrations of each strange creature and to use descriptive words about what they could see. Combining the interest of monsters, colour mixing
(painting at the easel) and scissor skills the children were invited to create their own monsters and to create a story about them. We did this by butterfly printing with a choice of colours that they mixed to create the bodies of the strange creatures and then, when dry, the children were offered facial features to cut and paste onto their creatures, thus creating their own version of a monster and, if they wanted to, a story to go with it.
Easter Celebrations
To end our term in Stage 3 we celebrated the colours of Easter after reading the story of Ed’s Egg. We looked at his colourful egg and then went on to decorate some of our own eggs. We painted with pompoms at the easel on large egg shapes and we used stamps and stickers to decorate and cut out our smaller eggs. At the light box the children enjoyed decorating the Easter tree and then taking all the bunnies and egg decorations off to start again. We added colour discs and even cotton reels to the design.
Continuing with our Easter celebrations, we read the story ‘Happy Easter with Curious George’ which talked about painting eggs and going on an egg hunt. The children helped to put together an egg hunt activity with plastic eggs, pom-poms and pink and yellow crinkled paper strips. They enjoyed opening up the eggs to put the pom-poms in and then closing them again. We also enjoyed the story ‘We’re going on an Easter Egg Hunt’. The children recognised that it was just like the musical story we have been learning with Nick in Music, “We’re going on a bear hunt” Finally, to end our last day at school for Term 1, the Easter Bunny left his footprints for us to find and lead us to where the easter eggs were hiding.
We wish everyone a Happy Easter!
EYLF Outcome 1: Children - ∙ develop knowledge and self-confidence through mental processing and skill development. Outcome 2: Children - develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities through community/religious and cultural celebrations. Outcome 3: Children develop - ∙ social and emotional wellbeing through creating and sense of achievement. Outcome 4: Children develop- ∙ creativity, imagination, enthusiasm, confidence and persistence to complete artwork to desired outcome. a range of skills and processes such as problem solving, experimentation and investigation. ∙ learning through connecting people, natural and processed materials. Outcome 5: Children - ∙ interact verbally and nonverbally with others through art and community/cultural/religious events Express ideas and make meaning through arts.
Term 1 is complete, and the children have had an amazing transition into their new spaces in Stage 4 and are really feeling comfortable in their surroundings. They have made connections with their new teachers, made new friends, and connected with their environment as the third teacher.
In Stage 4M, the children have been learning about their favourite things. This has taken us down many avenues; reading favourite stories, investigating our favourite foods, exploring our favourite flowers, and sharing our favourite colours. This week they found out a new favourite thing about each other.
The children listened to the book ‘All My Treasures: A Book of Joy’ by Jo Witek. This story is an exploration of happiness and the true nature of joy. When a girl receives a beautiful porcelain box from her grandmother, she immediately wants something special to put inside it. But what could it be? What does she love best? With a gentle message about the immateriality of happiness, this story reminds us to take pleasure in everyday moments.
There is a question at the end of the book. What is your treasure? The children spent the day discussing this and thinking about their own treasured moments.
The next day, they listened to the story ‘Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge’ by Mem Fox. Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge is a small boy who has a big name - and that's why he likes Miss Nancy Alison Delacourt Cooper, because she has too. So, when he finds Miss Nancy has lost her memory, Wilfrid determines to discover what memories are so he can find it for her. What is a memory? Some of the children wanted to share their memories with the class.
This prompted an invitation for the children to bring in something that they treasure or describe a memory to the class. They sat proudly in front of the class and shared their most treasured moments. This demonstrates the children’s keen sense of Belonging and Being, which are two main parts of our Early Learning Years Framework.
Some children brought in toys which were their favourites because they were given to them by someone special, other children brought in toys that they had since they were babies, some told stories of family holidays which have turned into core memories, and some brought in music boxes as they play their favourite song. These were such intimate moments being shared so generously across the class.
The children then transferred this knowledge and took it to the art table where they created pictures of a treasure chest and drew their own special treasures to put inside.
Thank you all for an amazing Term 1 and we cannot wait to create more core memories with you and your children.
