simone’s message by simone cooke, principalthem in books or researching on a computer. joyful...

1 REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER 1

Simone’s Message By Simone Cooke, Principal

“Do Nothing Without Joy” Louis Malaguzzi

A literal buzz of excitement abounded in our classrooms this week as our two year olds ran from

room to room expressing their absolute joy at sampling the fresh honey straight from the hive

and delighting in inspecting the Queen Bee and hearing all about the process of pollination!

There is nothing like hands on, concrete learning to teach new concepts and incite excitement

and joy in learning!

Hands on discovery and active participation is how young children learn best. As you read

through our newsletter you will see the many rich sensory activities our teachers set up each

day to engage the children‟s curiosity and discover the world around them. Cooked spaghetti

play, kinetic sand, dinosaur digs and worm farms all engage the senses and help children to

absorb and consolidate new concepts and ideas far more effectively than just reading about

them in books or researching on a computer.

Joyful engagement in learning promotes a positive attitude towards school from an early age.

Harnessing the natural wonder and curiosity of young children is critical as the attitudes children

gain in their early years has a deep and lasting effects on the mind set which they develop

towards lifelong learning.

Here at Reddam we take seriously our role to educate and inspire the „whole‟ child in mind,

body and soul. Providing children with choices over their learning, offering a range of

inspirational learning activities and providing an inviting and joyful space in which to learn is

part of this process. Watching our children one minute racing around the room in a state of

heightened excitement from their bee experience to the next minute sitting so quietly focused

on their yoga and „mindfulness‟ truly highlights the versatility of young children and highlights

the value of providing a range of joyful opportunities from which they can live, laugh and learn!

31ST MARCH 2017


This week The Nest and Hatchlings were involved in a new painting technique: Tie-dye art!

We recently discovered that baby wipes can be a great resource for art! This week we used

them to make some super easy tie dye art . No need to worry about stains and permanently

dyed finger, everything is completely washable!

To do this artwork we needed to pinch the centre of the baby wipe, hold and twist. We carefully

attached a few rubber bands and used dye watercolours to colour the sections of the baby

wipe. The more we painted into the folds, the more vibrant the colours were. When the

children were done choosing colours and painting the wipes we removed the rubber bands

and gently unfolded the baby wipe and laid on top of two pieces of paper towel until it was

completely dried.

We had a lot of fun making this art work which is now displayed on our documentation wall!

Sensory Tubs

Sensory Tubs are tons of fun. For this weeks tub we decided to use edible ingredients as we are

also talking about the sense of taste. On the first day we played with seeds and farm animals

where the children pretended to be on a farm, feeding the animals and also feeling the texture

of the seeds run through their fingers. On another day we played with coloured spaghetti, we

added a few utensils so the children could pretend they were cooking and this activity kept our

babies more than entertained.

There were hours of learning, exploring, and fun. Children learn best by having "hands on"

experiences with materials, rich sensory experiences are vital to young children's learning.

Stage 1: The Nest & Hatchlings By Gabriela Guimaraes


Stage 1: The Nest & Hatchlings Sensory Tubs


Stage 1: The Nest & Hatchlings Tie-Dye Art


Stage 1: The Nest & Hatchlings Coloured Spaghetti Sensory Tubs


Stage 1: The Nest & Hatchlings Outdoor Play


Stage 1: The Nest & Hatchlings Our Day


As I have already mentioned, in the past few weeks I have been surprised by the

wonderful group engagement taking place during group time and the exploring evident

in our learning stations. Learning stations are structured in order to expose children to

different experiences. Watching the children I have learnt as an Educator that children

absorb more information when exposed to a select few quality activities, supported

by intentional teaching and above of all designed to respect a child‟s individuality.

As the end of Term 1 is approaching and our fun vacation program is about to start, I

have been reflecting about our group interactions. It is clear to see how confident and

comfortable the children are around each other, building strong bonds and feelings. We

are one small family, where we learn from each other and most of all we are

comfortable around each other.

Proceeding with our sensory table activities we have introduced the farm animals and a

new and intriguing material called moon sand. Moon sand is a great sensory material

and can be moulded and shaped as desired. And it is also easy to make! Just mix 8 cups

of flour and 1 cup of baby oil. It was amazing to see the children sitting around the

table, making animal prints and feeling the sand through their little fingers.

This simple yet effective sensory activity supports the children‟s creativity, imagination,

fine motor skills and language development. While exploring this activity they would sing

“Old MacDonald”, make the farm animal sounds, smell the sand and create animal

prints.

“Materials enhance learning when they reflect what is natural and familiar and also

introduce novelty to provoke interest and more complex and increasingly abstract

thinking.”

EYLF

Stage 1: Fledglings By Michele Santos


Stage 1: Fledglings Sensory Table


Stage 1: Fledglings Our Day


Stage 2: Chicks, Sparrows & Robins By Kasia Rymarczyk

Sometimes, in responding to children‟s interests, ideas and questions, we may not be sure in what

direction the learning will go. From an initial idea, learning can travel in so many directions,

gathering its own momentum as it continues. For children, such open-ended learning is important

because of the way it affirms and values their ideas and choices. It is an exciting way to enrich

and inspire children‟s learning and involvement.

Within our Mini Beasts project it may seem that we are jumping from one insect to another,

however there is something more complex in this exploration, something that connects all the

elements together. This connection is something that the children have discovered for themselves

as they realized that all the fabulous insects are busy working all the time in a complex

ecosystem! The ants are working non-stop building and extending on their colony. Earthworms

are digging, improving properties of the soil which in turn helps the plants to grow. Crickets are

singing all night long and the caterpillars are munching on leaves all day but eventually turn into

beautiful butterflies. Bees help flowers to grow and produce delicious honey. For several weeks

the children had been interested in the works of insects, the project has evolved towards

exploring how the insects work in the garden and discovering how really these mini creatures

help our plants to grow. Very exciting!

A warm welcome to our two new Stage 2 classroom members, Caleb and Kai. We wish both

the boys and their families many wonderful moments and memories here at Reddam. This week

was also filled with birthday celebrations, Happy Birthday to Aubrey and Mason!


Stage 2: Making Honey By Kasia Rymarczyk

This week we transformed our Provocation area into an interest area that focuses on the

work of bees.

The children have been particularly interested in how the bees are making

honey. During group discussion we have discovered that many of our children often

have honey for breakfast or as a treat. But where does the honey comes from? and how

is it made? this was the main enquiry coming from the children.

We used technology to watch a video of bees in action where the children could see in

time lapse every detail of bees at work, from collection of pollen to nectar to the

dropping the honey into the beeswax comb.

To extend on the children‟s learning we have added real life resources where children

had an opportunity to observe real honey bees (including the queen and the workers).

They could touch, smell and taste freshly produced organic honey and view large

honeycomb in the special beekeepers frame. By this complex and diverse investigation,

we can now confidently say that we may have some honey production experts in our

class!


Stage 2: Making Honey


Stage 2: Cross Pollination By Holly Lindsay

This week bumble bees have been an area of interest for the children, this developed

from our focus on Mini Beasts. The children have led this extension and have been asking

some interesting questions on 'why?' and 'how?' bees and flowers work together.

We kicked off this exploration with a bumble bee inspired fine motor experience. This

activity was a great way to explain cross pollination to the children.

We started off by creating bumble bee pegs (made from yellow and brown pipe

cleaners). Four coloured place mats were placed around the table with a selection of

'nectar' in the centre of the table. Using the bee pegs the children matched the nectar

with the correct colour.

As well as setting an example of cross pollination this encouraged colour recognition and

strengthened fine motor skills, which links to developing a healthy pincer grip.


Stage 2: Cross Pollination


Stage 2: Coloured Cabbage in the Garden By Eva Lo

Last week we talked about how Earthworms benefit our garden , they help to increase

the quality of soil and nutrition for the plants and flowers to grow. After exploring the

earthworms we let the children put all the worms back to our garden and we decided to

try a fun plant water absorption experiment with white cabbage.

From this experimentation the children are learning how plants absorb water and how

they draw nutrients up through their stems, demonstrated in a very simple, straightforward

and colourful way. This engaging experiment provided the children with a better

understanding of how nature works. During group time the children took turns tasting,

smelling and touching the cabbage leaves. Then we introduced how these cabbage

leaves drink up the colourful water by giving the children a chance to mix the colour

powder and put the leaves in the solution. After 10-15 mins, we can see the coloured

water already travelling up to the cabbage leaves from the bottom. For an extention

activity, we went outside to the garden to gather some soil to create our healthy soil

painting on the paper.

We would love to hear of any interest, experience or knowledge your family has in this

area, and combine it into our program. We value family input so something as simple as

a relevant book or activity would be greatly appreciated.


Stage 2: Coloured Cabbage


DINOSAUR PROVOCATION

Cave Paintings

As an extension to our Dinosaur Provocation the Kookaburra‟s decided to create some

cave paintings. We first looked at the cave paintings on the ipad and decided we

could do that too. White paint on black cardboard made for the most effective

replicas , we decided that using thin brushes with white paint contrasts well together

and we could get some great thin brush strokes. Fine motor skills came into good use as

we concentrated on our paintbrush grips as we manipulated the brush to make these

strokes. The children enjoyed describing their cave paintings to the rest of the class.

Dinosaur Shadow Tracing

We are all interested in shadows and dinosaurs and by accident, we discovered a way

to project the dinosaurs onto the wall. Even though the dinosaurs were small, when

projected onto the wall we were surprised at how large the dinosaur shape would

become . We discovered that if we shortened or lengthened the distance the table sat

from the light that our Dinosaurs grew or diminished in size. Carefully tracing around the

dinosaur shape, we explored a new way to draw dinosaurs onto the paper which was

stuck to the wall. It was a little bit tricky as our own shadows kept getting in the way

and some of us nearly traced ourselves by mistake!

Planting Seeds

When looking at the what Dinosaurs eat we had an interesting discussion about seeds

and growing plants. Some of the children were aware that we needed water and sun

to make the seeds grow! All the group watched with interest as the teacher showed

them how to plant seeds in the soil. "Look at the seeds and how small they are," said

the teacher. The children all had a closer look and picked one up for inspection. We

then took turns to plant the seeds in the soil using the small spades to dig holes first

before putting the seeds in the pots. We are going to visit the seed pots every few days

to see if they have grown. Hopefully we will have some lovely flowers soon!

Stage 3 - Kookaburras By Riina Andrew


Stage 3: Kookaburras Dinosaur Tracing


Stage 3: Kookaburras Planting Seeds


Stage 3: Kookaburras Cave Paintings


DINOSAUR PROVOCATION

This week the Flamingos have been continuing to learn more about Dinosaurs and the

prehistoric world.

Simon planned a really fun dinosaur bone digging activity for us in the sandpit. All the

children went on an adventure around the school searching for dinosaur bones in a bus

made out of cardboard boxes. Once we had made it to the sandpit we all got out of

the bus and used the spades to dig in the sand and find the bones that had been

buried. The children had a wonderful time on their dinosaur adventure and were

wonderful friends as they worked together co operatively to find the bones.

Later in the week we continued studying bones and used some pictures of dinosaur

skeletons to study and then replicate. The children used black cardboard and white

cotton tips to recreate the dinosaur skeleton of their choice. This activity challenged the

children's fine motor development as they held the small cotton bud, put glue on either

end and then placed it on the paper.

Learning Outcome 4.2 Children develop a range of skills and processes such as problem

solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating.

Learning Outcome 4.4 Children resource their own learning through connecting with

people, place, technologies and natural and processed materials.

Stage 3 - Flamingos By Amanda McDonald


Stage 3: Flamingos Dinosaur Dig


Stage 4 - Rosellas By Sue Mayer

How do snakes move?

Jasper, Layla and Audrey K have been fascinated by reptiles, particularly snakes. These fasci-

nating creatures have captured our imaginations and wonder especially how they move.

Asking the question "I wonder how snakes move?" Created a wonderful conversation where

the children expressed their own theories of how effortlessly snakes slide or slither across the

ground.

Layla: " They have little legs that they hide underneath them because they don't want anyone

to see them

Audrey K: "I thought that snakes just have tummies and they slither and they have little toes or

something that help them stand up"

Sarah: "They don't want people stepping on them so they hide"

Jean: "But when the snakes go out from their house they go quite slowly and when the people

see them they don't step on them

Sarah: "When the snakes get out of their home they slither away but then a car comes they

crash into a car and the the car will drive them back to their home"

Derin: "When snakes get out they move"

Snakes don't usually go near cars though

Audrey K: "They live in the jungle"

Sarah: "They live under a rock"

Audrey K: "Or they could be sea snakes and live in the water"

Jean: "When the snakes go into their car then the people can get out of the car and see

snakes crow"

Sarah: " Crawl"

Jean: "Yep, crawl"

When children are respected and valued as competent and capable they have so much

knowledge to share. Exploring this interest further the children wanted to make their own

snakes. Practicing a concertina fold (which is a complex fold to master) to make their snakes

we made a motion that a snake uses to move pushing themselves forward and then bringing

their body towards that forward motion. Exploring their movement further we looked at how

snakes push off objects to get their momentum and found out that the scales under their belly

open and trap dirt to push them forwards. Trying to make the concertina fold took a lot of per-

severance and practice but once mastered there was no stopping the children wanting to do

more.

If any dads have any old ties that are no longer in fashion we would love to have them to sew

and create a snake door stop ready for winter.


Stage 4: Rosellas How Do Snakes Move?


Stage 4: Cockatoos By Bernadette Casey

We delved a little deeper into why we wear masks – to hide who we are or to pretend to be

something else. To complete our investigation on masks and to link to the types of literacy the

children have been exposed to recently, we created super hero profiles. The children have

been using profiles to learn about dinosaurs where print and images are used to portray infor-

mation. This week the children created their own. The children were required to come up with

their own ideas about their superhero names and powers. Some children were able to write

the letters as I verbally spelt them out, others were able to copy the letters and some are work-

ing towards recognising letters. The children are at the stage where they should be beginning

to recognise their written names, write them and beginning to form the shapes of other letters

not in their names.

Furthermore we have been continuing to practice our foundation handwriting. This has been a

big interest of the children, they love learning about things that they will be able to use in „big

school‟ if you would like to help your child with these skills at home there are several ways you

can do so –

Encourage them to use their dominant hand when writing or using tools/utensils.

Some of us are finding writing challenging because we need to develop our fine motor

skills – some play dough fun, building sand castles, trying to put on our own shoes, carry-

ing a light grocery bag – anything that involves gripping or grabbing – can help to devel-

op these muscles so children can hold the pencil correctly, with strength to write.

Finding, recognising and differentiating between numbers and letters in your own envi-

ronment (what number bus do you catch? What is one your number plate? What house

or apartment number do you live in?)

Encouraging your child to write and recognise their name in fun ways – in the sandpit or

the beach, on a fogged up bus window


Stage 4: Cockatoos Masks


Music By Justin Sze

Stage 1:

Our little ones had fun shaking the egg shakers and stopping. The action of stopping

and deliberately keeping silent is very challenging and amusing for the children. This

skill is called the “inhibitory control” and it teaches children to be disciplined through a

fun activity. Another very interesting activity was “Monkey See, Monkey Do”. In this

song, we imitated the actions of the children and included them as the lyrics of the

song. Such imitation helped children tremendously in their Social & Emotional develop-

ment as they learn that their actions are accepted in our class.

Stage 2:

These children took the “Monkey See, Monkey Do” song to the next level... literally.

While the Stage 1 children had limited movements, these little ones could dance, jump,

clap, twist and much more. They also listened and imitated the sounds of the monkey.

It was so funny to watch them! At this stage, they are learning that sometimes, they are

the leaders, i.e. everyone followed their actions/suggestions, at other times, they need

to follow the suggestions of their friends. Once again, there was good social emotional

development going on during this segment of the lesson.

Stage 3

We visited our imaginary musical beach once again. This time, we built a boat! As we

built it, we sang a sea shanty song. Once we had the boat, we pretended to be a pi-

rate and went, “Ah-ha!!” Of course, we had another song to go along with it. But as we

sailed in our big blue boat, we saw a ship with a very loud horn. To simulate the sound

of the horn of the ship, Justin brought a “sho-fa” and blew it. Fortunately, we managed

to steer clear of the big ship. Then, “Merrily We Rolled Along” till we reached the

beach. Once we were at the shore, we got out our beach ball and had a ball of a

time, rolling the ball to one another.

Stage 4

We continue to develop the ability of keeping the steady beat and using the singing

voice in this week‟s lesson. This time, we kept the beat with our feet and stepped to the

following rhythm “I I I Z” as they walked through a forest. At the end of the song, the

sleeping bear awoke and gave everyone a scare. We practiced our singing voices

with the song “Tideo”. The song “Tideo” is specially selected because the melodic pat-

terns consist of predominantly the “minor third”. This is the most singable interval for chil-

dren. I would like to take this opportunity to explain that there are lots of “children mu-

sic” out there. Most of such music are for the purpose of entertaining children but our

selection of songs is primarily for educating children. This rationale was of course not ex-

plained to the children in class. We just simply had lots of fun, singing and making music

together!


Mandarin Class By Sherry Zhu

Since the second week of our lessons, we have been learning the song “Two Tigers”. Af-

ter several weeks listening to the song and using hand movements, most of students

have grasped the rhythm of the song and some students have remembered the lyrics.

Last week, we made a family tree after we learned the main family members and

watched the episode “The Grandpa‟s Little Train” from Peppa Pig. This activity aims to

encourage children to recognize their achievements. The sense of success can help

them build or strengthen their confidence.

The children are becoming more confident in saying the words „red‟, „blue‟, „mother‟,

„father‟, „grandpa‟, „grandma‟ and „dog‟ in Chinese. This week we will start to learn

numbers in Chinese through the use of games to assist the children in memorizing the

words.


Yoga By Kelly Nance

Continuing their adventures into the garden, the children revised mini beast yoga this

week. Each week more children deepen their level of engagement, becoming increas-

ingly settled as they broaden their smiles and stretches.

Stage 1 and 2 took part in a game called, “Yogi says,” selecting a random mini beast

from a card while stage 3 and 4 took a numbered card out of the golden honeycomb,

matching the number to that of a leaf in the middle of the yoga circle, turning it over to

reveal the mini beast pose.

Next week, as it is the final week of term, the children will have a chance to tailor their

yoga lesson within each group, selecting their yoga experiences from those we have

done in the last 6 weeks as a way of consolidating and revisiting what they have

learned.

Love and Peace,

Kelly


Dance By Tess Spiedel-Connolly

THE VALUE OF DANCE

Becoming a skilled dancer takes discipline, focus and perseverance, skills that children

learning dance can use in all aspects of their lives. Providing children with the opportuni-

ty to dance helps to spark their creativity and develop an appreciation for the arts.

As children learn and adjust to the different movements and postures they need to

dance they begin to develop a greater sense of their bodies. Their confidence and self

esteem grows as they become more capable at tackling difficult poses and steps.

Dance fosters a more positive attitude to learning and allows children to explore their

own self expression. Above all else dancing frees the spirit, is joyful and fun!

simone’s message by simone cooke, principalthem in books or researching on a computer. joyful...

Documents