debbie’s message€¦ · this week the play dough, car parks, keys and cars were the best tools...

1 REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | LINDFIELD NEWSLETTER 1

Debbie’s Message By Debbie Zerbst, Principal This week I have been thinking about the special relationships we develop with the children at

our school. I am very proud of our practices and know that all our teachers work hard to create

respectful and equitable relationships with our children, our families and each other too.

These are some of the things we think about while we plan and prepare our program. We

always try to ensure that:

We interact with our children in a way that encourages them to express themselves and

their opinions

We support children to develop self-reliance and self-esteem

We provide positive guidance and encouraged acceptable behaviours

We create a relaxed and warm environment that builds secure relationships and supports

each child sense of belonging

We use our routines and everyday experiences as opportunities to engage children in

conversation and learning

We maintain the dignity and rights of each child

We always try to respond to the distress some children experience when they have to

adapt to new places, new people and unfamiliar routines

We want to develop relationships that free children to explore the environment and to

engage in play and learning

To enhance and deepen the teachers’ understanding of your child, we want to open up the

month of July for ―Sharing is Caring Conversations ― with your child’s teacher. Each room

leader will be sending out an email in a few weeks to explain how and when this will occur.

Have a wonderful weekend and a kind reminder that Reddam ELS Lindfield is closed this

Monday 12th June, for the Queen’s Birthday Public Holiday. We look forward to seeing you all

back on Tuesday.

9TH JUNE 2017


Stage 1– Da Vincis By Miss Lauren

Welcome back to another week in the Da Vinci room.

As you all know, we had our magical Night in the Light Spectacular last Wednesday.

The children had been preparing some features to display on our walls for the

night. On Monday we participated in a group art project where we placed a long

sheet of paper on the ground and used different textured paintbrushes to spread

colour on the paper, the children enjoyed using their hands to mix the paint to create

new colours. We used this sheet to cut out rainbow butterflies and stars to feature in our

room. On Tuesday and Wednesday we created paintings filled with stars and planets

to look like the night sky. We created this effect using spiky balls and rolling them in a

tray with white paint and then added some sparkles to make more stars to fill our

galaxies.

Our Vivid-inspired spectacular was a celebration of light, luminous colour and fun. It

was a magical celebration to bring our community together along with our children,

parents and staff. We had a lot of fun activities organised for the night including

luminous slime, colour mixing play dough, face painting and an exciting jumping

castle. We enjoyed delicious treats including jelly, hot chocolate, popcorn and

marshmallow sticks which we toasted over a hot fire.

I hope all of you had a special time with your loved ones and thank you for all

participating in the event. We cannot wait until our next celebration.

We have been reading the story "Commotion in the Ocean" this week, exploring a

colourful cast of sea creatures. To extend on the children’s interest in the book, we

participated in a gluing activity where we selected from various sea animals in the

story and stuck them on our own beautiful ocean.

Lauren , Rujita ,Ella and Natalie.


Stage 1 - Creating an Ocean


Stage 1 - Night of Lights


Stage 2 - Monets By Miss Leonie

What a wonderful evening we had last Wednesday, thank you so much to all of you

who were able to come and enjoy some time with your family, some nibbles and drinks

and some glowing craft. The toasted marshmallows and hot chocolates were just the

trick on such a crisp and cold evening. What a way to bring in winter!

When is a toy car more than a toy car?

This week in the Monets room we have welcomed two new friends, Kyran and Lucas.

Joshua and Ailing began a couple of weeks ago also. While the transition away from

the home and into school is always a little bit tricky emotionally, we are really confident

that everyone will feel settled and secure in no time. Using all of your children’s interests

from home helps us to plan enticing activities that help each child to feel secure,

connected to home and excited about being here and connecting with their teachers

and peers.

This week the play dough, car parks, keys and cars were the best tools for settling our

new friends, and our old friends . Any transitional objects that provides comfort for

anyone of our children and connects them to a secure base is supported by us . It is

the secure base of human development that we are drawn to celebrating in the early

childhood classroom - where transitional objects not only bridge the connection from

home to school - but allow for the emergence of a child’s inherent sense of self –

supported, respected and honoured by early childhood educators, which — according

to psychologist Abraham Maslow — ―matters more than anything else in the world.‖


Stage 2 - Connection


Stage 2/3 - Dalis By Miss Joselyn Dramatic Play-Dali Cafe

Due to the children’s interests in dramatic play, this week we transformed our home corner area into the

Dali Cafe offering a range of new resources for the children to explore. Unstructured dramatic or pretend

play offers children the opportunity to develop a wide range of skills. It assists children to explore their

identity, learning about themselves and the world around them, their likes/dislikes, interests and abilities.

Children can also develop important communication skills and social and emotional skills. They achieve

this by collaborating with others, learning the art of turn taking and sharing recourses as well as ideas,

negotiating with one another which encourages them to listen to and consider others’ perspectives. They

learn to read social cues, as well as recognise and regulate emotions.

It was extremely exciting to see the children in our Dali Cafe taking turns when using the resources and

negotiating through different dramatic play roles. Some of the children placed orders at the cafe counter

and then pretended to pay using play money at the till, whilst others took orders pretending to be waiters

at the table. We also had children pretending to prepare drinks in the Dali Cafe’s kitchen, using the kettle

and coffee machine to fill the orders. Baby chinos seemed to be a very popular selection from the menu

with children ordering extra marshmallows! Following on from the Dali Cafe we decided to make our own

real baby chinos. We placed milk into a manual milk frother and took turns frothing the milk. It was

exciting to see the milk change, becoming bubbly and frothy. We then carefully tipped the milk into

cups, sprinkled coco on top, added marshmallows, and then it was finally time to taste our baby chinos!

We saw smiles all around with lots of requests for top ups.

Sustainability

As part of our long term sustainability focus in the Dali room, we have been learning about the natural

environment through planting experiences. This week our focus has shifted to caring for our environment

through sustainable practices, which includes recycling, reusing and repurposing items and not wasting

the resources we have. We offered the children a range of materials such as cardboard off-cuts, plastic

bottle tops, corks, cardboard rolls and bubble wrap off-cuts, to explore, experiment and to create with.

It was interesting to see the children deep in discussion about how the materials can be used, most of the

items such as the cardboard rolls and bubble wrap were repurposed, fashioned into paint stampers. The

cardboard off-cuts were used in art experiences, used as spatulas to scoop the paint and spread it across

the page.

We endeavour to embed sustainable practices into our program on a daily basis. We have been talking

to the children about what it means not to waste resources, not wasting water and only using what we

need, using only one paper towel when drying our hands and turning lights off when leaving a room. We

will continue these discussions and explore other aspects of sustainable practices in the future.


Stage 2/3 - Dali Cafe


Stage 2/3 - Sustainability Practice


Stage 3 & 4 - Pablos & Picassos By Miss Pauline It has been great having Julietta in our Room this week. Julietta is studying Early Childhood and

is doing her work placement at our school. She has been in the Nest/ Fledging group over the

past few months and is very familiar with the children and our school. Angel will be doing her

work placement over the next few weeks and we look forward to having her in our room on the

extra days.

We've had a great start this past week, on our excursion to Lucy's house! Lucy's family is having

a house built in Treatts Road, and have invited the children in our Stage to visit as it is in walking

distance from our school. There was so much learning taking place in our short excursion.

The children walked up the shared driveway, watching for cars that might come down the

driveway. We greeted the Security Man at the top of the driveway. Walking along the sidewalk,

we crossed the street at the zebra crossing. Shortly after crossing the street, we saw Ausgrid

trucks working on the power lines. The children watched for a while, sharing their ideas of why

they were working on the lines. Lucy was an excellent tour guide and told us all about her

neighbours as we walked past their houses. Arriving at Lucy's house, the builders were busy

putting a huge wooden beam in the garage. The children watched from a safe distance. We

continued to walk along the outside of the house and discussed what we thought each room

was going to be. Walking onto the tennis court, the children asked to have a run and play

running games. When leaving the building site, we thanked the builders and walked back to

school.

Along our shared driveway, Tilly noticed the concrete edging along the side, and decided to

walk along it. The other children followed. What a great balancing activity! Kavya had brought

her scooter to school that morning, and shared it with the other children. They had turns going

down the driveway to school on her scooter. We are looking forward to visiting Lucy's house

regularly to see how the building changes and develops into her new house!

If you have not filled in an excursion permission note, please do. There are some available at

the sign in/out sheet table. As our group has grown over the past few months, and we have

more staff in the room, we will be introducing smaller group times by dividing the children into

Stage 3 and Stage 4 groups. If you have any questions regarding the smaller group times please

speak to one of us. Have a great long weekend! Keep warm!

Pauline, Jo and Angel


Stage 3 & 4 - Excursion


Stage 3 & 4 - Exploration


Music By Mr Justin Stage 1 & 2:

The song, ―Hokey-pokey‖ is a great song to teach children different parts of the body.

We put our right hand in, then our right foot, our head etc. The babies did a simplified

version of the song while the bigger children really got into it... putting ―your whole self

in‖!

Next, we used the egg shakers to keep the steady beat. The steady beat is something

which (surprising for many of us) takes a long time for children to understand. Yet, it is

most fundamental to all music making.

Last week, we had a rhyme about wiggling and stopping and I’d explained the

importance of the inhibitory control (the ability for children to stop an activity). This week,

we extended this concept with a song which employed twirling and swirling scarves

and... stopping! This fun activity teaches children self-control and discipline in a fun way!

Stage 3

We got into our cars but... we couldn’t find the car keys! We jingled the bells and

pretended those were car keys. Hiding the ―keys‖ as part of the song teaches our

children ―object permanence‖. They don’t see the ―keys‖ for a while, and it appears

again at the appropriate time in the song. Children learn that they don’t see mummy/

daddy for a while, and when the time is right, mummy and daddy will appear again!

We finally found our car keys and got moving. We drove down a bumpy road, a winding

road, a stee[ slope up and down etc. We have lots of fun pretending to drive through

those different roads. When we got to the train station, there were new rhymes and songs

about the train. Some children remembered the songs we were singing and were

pleasantly surprised we had other new songs about trains!

Stage 4

―Ohio!‖ ―Konijiwa!‖ Children in Stage 4 learnt how people in Japan greeted each other.

―Ohio‖ means ―good morning‖ and ―konijiwa‖ means ―good afternoon‖. Then we

played a Japanese early childhood game. This game required one child to close his/her

eyes and when a selected friend sings, ―What is my name?‖ without looking, the child

guesses the friend’s name. This ability to guess the name simply by listening to the quality

of the voice is also how musicians identify different musical instruments just by listening.

Musicians use the word ―timbre‖ to describe the quality of sound made by each

instrument. Each person’s voice has a different ―timbre‖ as well.

―Starlight, Star bright, first star I see tonight!‖ We sang this bitonal song once again and

children raised their hands on the high note and put their hands down on the low note.

When children demonstrate an understanding of the difference between the higher and

lower note (there are only two different pitches in this song!) then we went on the play on

the glockenspiels. If your child plays the piano at home, ask them to play this tune on the

piano. The notes are G and E. Enjoy the music!


Music


Yoga By Miss Kelly

Revisiting colour yoga this week, the children had the opportunity to explore primary colours and

mixing them to create change and additional colours of purple, orange, and green. Becoming

familiar with the poses and movements within their bodies, many of the Reddam children are

requiring less and less assistance and direction to come into poses, including Stage 1 who are

taking on the challenge to do more simple versions with increasing independence.

By revisiting a yoga lesson from the week prior the children are familiar with the flow, poses, and

expectations, allowing enough time to add something extra or attempt a trickier version of a

pose to challenge bodies and minds. This week, I turned myself into a large rainbow at the end of

exploring colours and the children crawled under the "rainbow." Crawling in a four-point position

facilitates sensory integration as well as gross motor, fine motor, and visual motor development,

making it an undervalued tool in brain and body development. Along with strengthening the

body the mechanics of crawling stimulate different areas of the brain vital to learning, the

movement helps stimulate and organise neurons facilitating the bring to

control cognitive processes such as comprehension, concentration, and memory. For the

experience of crawling under the "rainbow" I invited the children to go at their own selected

time, a teacher was not going to arrange an order, I explained I trusted them to make their own

judgment that was respectful of their own body, their friend's bodies and also mine, to share and

negotiate the space in way that was thoughtful to themselves within the context of a group,

promoting self-care and compassion towards others.

Finishing in quiet time, the Reddam children gazed through a kaleidoscope. When observing the

shifting colour some children noted they saw "magic," "fireworks" and "rainbows."

Love and Peace,

Kelly


Yoga


Munch & Move Getting active each day

Being physically active is not just about going for a jog, exercising, playing a sport or

doing an activity – it is about getting as much movement into our everyday lives as

possible. This includes walking to and from local places, using the stairs instead of the lift,

playing outdoors, gardening, doing household chores and generally being active in as

many ways as possible!

Early Childhood (up to 5 years) is an important time for your child’s physical

development. This is a period of rapid physical development when basic movement skills

are developed (e.g. balancing, walking, running, jumping, throwing and catching).

Toddlers (1 to 3 years) and preschoolers (3 to 5 years) should be active every day for at

least three hours, spread throughout the day. Children enjoy being active and especially

love it when other family members join in! So make sure you allow time in your day to get

active with your children.

Why being active is important

Active children are more likely to be active adults, and enjoy better overall health and

wellbeing.

Being active allows children to:

• Grow and develop strong bones and muscles

• Gain more confidence

• Meet new friends

• Develop new skills

• Sleep better at night

• Maintain a healthy weight

• Reduce the risk of illness and disease

The benefits of active play go beyond the physical, and include the development of

social and language skills, as well as brain development.

Fundamental Movement Skills

There are 12 fundamental movement skills (FMS) that form the building blocks children

need to enjoy participating in games and sports throughout their lives.

The 12 fundamental movement skills are:

• Catching

• Running

• Leaping

• Kicking

• Hopping

• Striking a stationary ball

• Overarm throwing

• Bouncing

• Underarm rolling

• Side sliding

• Galloping

• Jumping

Children need to practice and develop these skills as they do not naturally learn them as

part of their normal growth and development.


Drama By Miss Laura The Nest/ Fledglings

The children will participate in a teacher lead adventure using props and music involving dinosaurs,

animals and a safari hunt

Skills learnt this week:

Using the props to create shapes and patterns

Moving their body to the rhythm of the music

Call and respond

Following direction

Balancing

Listening and responding to the teacher

Activities include:

Used pom poms to walk like a dinosaur

Went on an African safari

Listening to sounds of African animals

Creating their own sound to go with an action

Teacher led improvisation

Stage 2

Objectives:

To children will use their imaginations to go through the magical wardrobe, discovering a fantasy world

behind it. They will each take on the role of being a fantasy character and develop a whole group

improvisation.

Skills learnt this week:

Improvisation and creativity

Taking on the role of a fantasy character through a group improvisation

Working Together

Portraying facial expressions and body gestures

Activities include:

Using their imagination to go through a Magical Wardrobe (like Narnia)

Discussed what a wardrobe is and usually has inside and what the wardrobe looks like

Teacher in Role as a Witch from fantasy world. The children gave the witch character a name then the

children thought of their own fantasy names

The children go on an adventure with the witch. They travel on their broom to the first destination to get

home ―Rise rise, right up high, just as high as a butterfly‖. The aim is to get something from each place

they visit so they can go back home. A pearl from the sea; Breath of a dragon; hair of a unicorn, sugar

drop from the fairy and a golden egg from the giant

Stage 3 & 4

The children will become spies and work together to find the secret item, trying to solve the clues along the

way. Skills learnt this week:

Creating a character

Working as a team

Call and respond

Using their senses

Following direction

Listening and responding to the teacher

Activities include:

Each child chose their spy name then discussed what a spy is and what their mission was

Used props and costumes to disguise themselves

TIR as secret Agent Red Snake guiding the children on a mission

Using magnifying glasses the children had to try and find any clues that would lead to the Secret item.

Music accompanied this to add to the drama

The children worked together to do the obstacle course. First was the bubble wrap they had to walk over

without popping, describing in one word what it felt like, second was to crawl under and step over the

lazers (string attached to furniture in the room) and finally a message that was written with invisible ink

(baking powder and water) that they had to uncover using magical paint (food colouring and water).

Next they found some x-ray vision glasses that led them to the footprints where they completed the mission.

The children discussed whom the footprints might belong to

Picture Postcard


Drama


Mandarin By Miss Sherry

We have watched the episode ―Secret‖ of Peppa Pig for two weeks. Most of the children

have understood the content of the story. The story relates to our learning materials and

they have since grasped the specific words of last lesson, such as ―one, two, three‖,

―open‖, ―what is this?‖ and names of family members. This week we have extended our

learning by learning the names for shapes and fruit.

Stage 2 children continued to practice the song, ―Two Tigers‖, this week. Stage 3 and

Stage 4 children have begun to learn the lyrics to a new song ―Looking for Friends‖.

As for the story book, I have started to read two new books—One is ―What is the

Transport?‖ which shows the shape of a form of transport and students need to guess

what it is, then the reader turns to another page and the transport can be seen clearly.

The other book is ―All Kinds of Kisses‖. which talks about what happens on a farm. In the

evening, all families snuggle up with their little ones, and offer them warmth and love with

a kiss. When we read those two books, we can mimic the sound of each transport or

animal.


Mandarin


Ballet

debbie’s message€¦ · this week the play dough, car parks, keys and cars were the best tools...

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