friday 19th feb - reddam house · for valentines day. they were excited about making a special card...

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER 1

Amy’s Message By Amy Goodlace, Principal

Dear Families, As many of you have noticed we have had a busy week in the Early Learning School celebrating Valentine’s Day. The children have enjoyed decorating the Piazza’s with their lovely work and the families have expressed joy at looking at the documentation. I would like to thank the team for all the effort they have put into making this a special celebration in the school and for the children. We have introduced Daily Journals this past week throughout the Early Learning School. The teachers display the journals next to the sign in/sign out sheets for families to peruse over the activities and events of the day. It is important for families to be part of your child’s learning journey and this is a valuable tool that assists us in sharing our days with you. Thank you to all the families that have given us such great feedback .

We are about to launch our new Reddam Early Learning School Facebook page which will show snippets of activities and events at Reddam. This could mean that an image of your child might be used in a posting. We look forward to sharing our educational journey with our families in the near future. Wishing all our families a lovely weekend! Kind regards Amy

19 FEBRUARY 2016


The Nest Old MacDonald By Tatiana Botrel, Lois Ma, Marie Claire Cronin

This week in The Nest our focus was on animals that live on a farm. The children have been enjoying exploring the animals from our little wooden farm, picking them up and making their noises, reorganising them in the barn and walking around the classroom holding them tight.

To support the learning involved in this activity, we have been listening to an audio book called “The Farmyard Jamboree” by Margaret Read MacDonald. The children were mesmerised by the sounds the animals made and loved observing what the baby animals looked like.

In the book corner the children were surprised by familiar pictures of animals in the new books we got this week. With the teacher’s support, they all loved looking at the pictures and singing the “Old MacDonald” nursery rhymes.

Next week our main focus will be on animal sounds, exploring audio books, games and observing the children. Stay tuned!

Placemats

This week the children had a great time making their placemats for meal times. As we continue exploring shaving cream in many ways. This week we sprayed foam all over a textured bath mat with a little bit of paint. It was amazing to observe how the children reacted when touching this mixture for the first time. Some children decided to just watch while others could not get enough. At the end, the children helped Teacher Tati to print the foam on to the paper.


The Nest Old MacDonald By Tatiana Botrel, Lois Ma, Marie Claire Cronin

By using the placemats we are not only aiming to role model table manners but also to help them with the development of self-feeding skills, where they are able to keep their plates, containers and cutlery on top of the table and choose independently what they want to eat (or what they should eat first!). Obviously this is involves a bigger process and we will always respect the children’s needs and individualities before expecting them to just use the placemat. We are slowly introducing them to the group and so far they are quite excited to use them!

Outcome 4 – Children are confident and involved learners.

Children transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another. (EYLF, 2009)

Children develop dispositions for learning such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity. (EYLF, 2009)

Daily Diary

This week we have started our Daily Diary in The Nest. This book is a great way to share with all families the amazing experiences we had on the day. Please feel free to go through it with your child to talk about nice things they have done during their day at Reddam. It is located next to the sign in roll (on top of the lockers cabinet).


The Nest Photo Gallery


Fledglings Garden Discovery By Hannah McCooey, Olivia Binions and Eva Loo

This week we continue our provocation. We are very excited to be learning about our senses and the different ways we can use them in our garden. Within our garden discovery we will delving into a world of hands-on learning experiences, stimulating your children’s imagination and allowing them to make lasting connections with their natural world.

After it becomes evident to the teachers that the children enjoyed the outdoor space and the garden. It was the right choice to persevere and allow the children to learn more about what they were interested in.

EYLF-Learning Outcome 5. Children are effective communicators.

We have been focusing on our book of the week, “Grandmas Garden” by James Madsen.

This book lets us discover the place where magic happens. There are colourful flowers, trees, fruit on the trees and herbs to smell. There are also fairies and other

creatures amongst the garden. This picture book also allows the children to visualize their own special garden.

We talked about what we can see in our garden. Abigail said she can see a “blue” sky with the “sun”, Lilah told us that she can see “grass” in her garden and Remy mentioned that he could see “trees”. We enjoyed listening to the song that goes with the story after reading the book.

Using the colours from the sun (yellow), grass (green) and the bark of the trees (brown), we decided to do some painting on the easel to create our very own gardens. Ori was very excited about his painting and he told us that he had painted lots of “leaves” and talked about them blowing in the wind. Charlotte loved using her hands on her painting while Margarita was doing handprints and saying her picture was a “tree” and her handprints were the “leaves” on the top. Valentine used two paintbrushes to mix the colours on her page.


Fledglings Garden Discovery By Hannah McCooey, Olivia Binions and Eva Loo

We had green play dough on Monday and Thursday morning and we talked about the green being the same colour as the grass outside and when we came outside for our outdoor time we also saw that the green play dough was the same colour as the leaves on the trees.

To continue our garden exploration we had a ‘Garden Sensory Box’. This box was filled with things to feed all our different senses. The soil was made up of salt and paint mixed together for that rough bark texture, beautiful fresh flowers for a lovely smell, some smooth and rough stones and also a spade and some pots to stimulate our fine motor skills too. The children loved this small garden of discovery in their own classroom.

Exploring our real garden on the deck, we collected items of nature that we found in the garden including branches and leaves. Marco and Regina were great helpers holding the container as the children put their findings in a safe place. With our beautiful findings from

the garden we decided to get creative and paint the branches and leaves that the children found. Martin began to paint with his branch and other children did the same. These pieces will be put on display in our classroom as our object of beauty.

Over the coming weeks we will continue to explore this natural world of garden discovery expanding our knowledge of the world we live in.

EYLF-Learning Outcome 1. Children will develop a strong sense of identity.

Daily Reflections

This week we have started our daily reflections. These reflections are a great way for the children and teachers to communicate and share with the parents the wonderful activities that keep us busy throughout the day in The Fledglings classroom. The book can be found on the main bench of our classroom.


Fledglings Photo Gallery


Stage 2 Love is in the air! By Daniella Gosty, Karla Cabezas, Monika Ranjitkar, Helen Wilson and Raquel Rachnitz

We hope you all had a wonderful Valentines with your families.

The children looooooved sharing the love with our celebration of love and friendship for Valentines day. They were excited about making a special card for their parents and talking to us about what love is.

We worked together with the Stage 1 and 3 classes to decorate and piece together a love heart for display. The children were excited seeing photos we took of them sharing a hug with their friends. They are displayed on the Babob tree in the hallway and it has become a interest point for them as they look at and talk about their friends. Jax was so excited to see his photo with Addison that he called over to his friend Maxwell to look with him at the photos. These photo displays create a true sense of belonging as the children see how they connect with each other and their social life at school. EYLF- 2.1 (Children develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities)

Our Wonderful World- Garden Discoveries.

As we introduced the placemats we made for our morning and lunch time table settings, the children were able to identify and discuss the types of fruit and vegetables they used to make the prints

with and they recalled that we looked at the seeds inside them when we cut them open. This lead to the question “What grows from a seed?”

We looked at the book titled “Green and Growing” by Anne Milton. It showed how the roots grow from the seeds and the stems and leaves grow out. A palm seed was brought in that was starting to grow into a palm tree for the children to investigate in real life. The children began to make the connections that an apple seed would grow an apple tree, a pear seed would grow a pear tree and the orange seeds would grow an orange tree.

We have also been busy with the watering cans and watering the plants in the garden. This is the beginning of our focus on how things grow and change. EYLF outcome 2.4 (Children become socially responsible and show respect for the environment)

Friendly Reminders

On arrival can you please ensure that you take your child’s hat out of their bags and place it on top of the bag so that when they go to take it out of their lockers for outside play, they can do this on their own.

EYLF- Outcome 1.2: Develop emerging autonomy, inter-dependence, resilience

and sense of agency


Stage 2 Photo Gallery


Stage 3 “The Day of Love” and “Name recognition” By Nina Bergel, Christina Mandalidis, Susan Casey and Deanne Jacobs

We started the week just as we ended last week: with so much love. It was so lovely to see the children dressed up in red or pink and with little painted love hearts on their faces.

Stage 3 started the provocation “All about me” with name recognition: Young children are highly interested in their own name. It has meaning and value to them – it is personal…

Name recognition is an important skill for pre-schoolers and it is a great way to introduce letter and sounds to the children. Fortunately, there are lots of fun and unintimidating ways to reinforce this concept.

We started with matching the children’s name tags with their photos. The children became familiar with their names and the game could be extended in various ways. The children loved thinking of words which start with the same initial sound as their names. We made up nicknames for all our friends:

Harry Hot, Michael Marshmallow, Sienna Sunshine, Super Sacha, Sophia Star, Evelyn Elephant, Andy Apple, Oliver Octonaut, Telmo Tiger, Jumping Jake, William Walrus. Each day we find more words.

As the week went on the children tried to find words starting with certain sounds.

Whilst having a picnic lunch, William discovered sausages start with the same sound as Sienna’s, Sophia ‘sand Sacha’s name. Straight away all the Children tried to find words starting with the initial sound of food they had in their lunch boxes. This is just another beautiful example of children being involved and curious learners.

During our art sessions we did some more name recognition. The children dot painted their names with different colours for each letter. Through this activity they become more familiar with the letter in their names and also practice their fine motor skills.

It would be great if our Parents could bring in a baby or toddler photo of their children. We could extend our match the name with the photo game.

A friendly reminder:

We are missing some family photos. Please bring in hard copies for us to hang up.

Can you please take the children’s lunch boxes and hats out of their school bags in the morning and place them in their lockers.

Please remember that Reddam is a nut free school. Please ensure that you check all packets for a list of ingredients.


Stage 4 Exploring By Anita Martin, Kristina Rochi, Cheryl Freeman, Jane Pledger & Alissa Turinui

What a fun week we have had in stage 4 this week! Each class has had so much fun exploring the mud kitchen in the back playground and we are so proud of all the children who can already make lemon tea!!! (Yellow water mixed with sand and flowers!) It is definitely a favourite time of day for many of our children to be able to play, re-create and role-play in this space.

Each day we place new materials outdoors for the children to experiment with and it is so interesting to watch how these are used. Owen has had an amazing time with the measuring cups trying to put just the right amount of ingredients into his cooking while Huxley, Max C, Max W and Luca are all very interested in making ‘monster soup’, blending sand with water and any other new materials that can be found.

In the classroom, the children have been developing their artistic talents by creating our ocean life mural. We have been discussing what animals we can find in the ocean and it is clear that our class

may have a penchant for danger! Some of our most popular examples were Sharks (Kim), Puffer Fish (Helena) and the class favourite The Bluebottle. It’s certainly a timely moment to discover how to identify (and avoid) these Sydney inhabitants as they have been ‘visiting’ our nearby beaches as recently as last weekend. We are in the process of learning more about these creatures with the help of the mums and dads!

We must apologise for the extra washing this week due to our water play…. The children have needed several uniform changes after the fun that was shared with the whales in the deep blue ocean (water trough).

A few reminders…

On Mondays we have sport with Spencer so it would be great if you could remember to send your child in appropriate footwear on this day.

The children also get very thirsty so it’s a good idea to bring a water bottle.

See you in the classroom!


Dance By Laura Hudson

Stage 3 Objectives: The children will use their imaginations to be different characters and go on make believe adventures.

Skills learnt this week: Mime

Listening to each other

Activities include: Imagination stretching, packing a picnic, The Mirror Activity/Quick change and Slow Motion Emotion Game, Guided Mimes, The sticky game.

Stage 4 Objectives: Students will learn to work together, build trust, and involve each member in a group performance/activities.

Skills learnt this week: Trusting their friends

Spatial Awareness

Memory Recall

Understanding and being part of a tableau

Activities include: Trust exercises

Group shapes

The Machine

Drama game: Toe-to-Toe


Physical Eduacation By Spencer Clifton

The stage 2 students had another successful week learning about sport, we started off the lesson with a warm up focusing on dynamic movements. This included frog hops, kangaroo jumps, sprints and backwards walking.

Our second activity consisted of a new game called bumper cars focusing on body and spacial awareness, control of movements, balance and co- ordination. The children stepped into the hoops holding them at waist level, once set into position they moved around the exercise area avoiding contact with their friends.

As the game continued it was manipulated to involve locomotor movements and balance, these movements included jumping, standing on one leg, sitting down and standing up

The stage 4 and 3 students had another successful week learning about sport, we started off the lesson with a warm up focusing on dynamic movements. This

included frog hops, kangaroo jumps, sprints and backwards walking.

Our second activity continued on from last week with a game called "statues", the game was manipulated to incorporate locomotor movements aimed at strengthening the core muscles.

After a well deserved water break, we jumped into our third activity for the lesson with a game called "sharks and islands". The game involved the children moving between the islands trying to avoid being tipped by the Sharks, with the game focusing on spatial awareness, dynamic movements, speed change and team work.

friday 19th feb - reddam house · for valentines day. they were excited about making a special card...

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