simone’s message - reddam house...decorate their fish. using a range of open ended sea themed...

1 REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | LINDFIELD NEWSLETTER 1

Simone’s Message By Mrs Simone Cooke, Principal

1ST SEPTEMBER 2017

Dear Parents,

We have enjoyed another busy week at Reddam Lindfield. In each of our classrooms our

Teachers have been creating wonderful provocations which inspire and support creative

thinking and foster creativity. Hopefully you will have the opportunity to read some of the

documentation the Teachers have placed in their rooms to make learning visible.

As part of our planning process here at Reddam, our Teachers are making daily observations

on your children, with their interests and needs forming the basis of our weekly Provocations.

Our „mind maps of possibility‟ and Provocation boards document the children‟s thoughts and

learning experiences. Our Teachers make this visible through photographs, transcripts, visual

representations such as drawings and sculptures and anecdotal records. These illustrate how

it is the processes rather than the end product which children value most.

As you walk from room to room this week you will see a range of inspiring Provocations, from

Science exploration in Stage 1 to Nature discovery in Stage 2 and Literature and Language

experiences in Stages 3 and 4. Each Provocation has been inspired by our children and used

to extend curiosity, knowledge and wonder. Our Teachers are constantly ensuring a balance

exists between child initiated and teacher directed activities and that each of our children is

extended to reach their full potential as a learner.

We thank our wonderful Teachers at Lindfield for their ongoing commitment to this end.

Father’s Day Breakfast

Please join us next Wednesday 6th September from 8.00am – 9.00am to celebrate Father‟s day

with a delicious Breakfast with your children, before heading off to work. If your child does not

attend on this day please feel free to join us anyway, we would love to see you!

Wishing you all a wonderful Father‟s Day.


Stage 1 By Miss Lauren Separovich

This week we are using our senses to explore the different fruit and vegetables we eat every-

day: Our sense of sight as we observe the different colour and shape of the various foods, our

sense of taste as we explore the texture and flavour of the different foods and our sense of

smell as we identify if the food smells sweet or sour.

We all know fruit and vegetables taste great and are jam-packed with vitamins, minerals and

dietary fibre, but sometimes it is hard to get our children to eat them. Getting your children in-

volved in the process of preparing fruit and vegetables can increase their chances of them

trying the food. Monday the children chopped up some basic fruit and veg which they usually

like to avoid during morning and afternoon tea time.

I was impressed to see the children's willingness to give carrot and capsicum a try. On Wednes-

day we created some healthy avocado dip, the children were all eager to give the dip a

taste after they were involved in the preparation process of scooping the fruit out and mushing

it up to make a paste.

Engaging children in experiences, conversations and routines that promote healthy lifestyles

and good nutrition as well as modelling and reinforcing healthy eating with our children will

create healthy, happy children in the future. It is so important to have healthy eating habits at

a young age, as a healthy diet and lifestyle is essential to a better life.

I'd like to welcome two new children into stage 1 - Viggo and Chloe. Welcome to the Reddam

family we are so pleased to have you join us.

I hope everyone has a great weekend with their beautiful children. Enjoy!


Stage 1 - Tasting Fruit and Vegetables


Stage 2 By Ms Jessica Whitbourn The Monet‟s are having another wonderful week, enjoying activities inside and out!

Parachute Play

Unfortunately Playball wasn‟t on this week, but we took the opportunity to introduce the

children to the joy of playing with our giant parachute. The children listened to the Teacher‟s

instructions about spreading out around the parachute and taking hold of the edge. It took us a

little while to get everyone organised into a good position - one that would enable us to move

the parachute effectively up off the ground. Once organised, we encouraged the children to

pull the parachute up and down and then used it in different ways, through song and dance.

We asked the children to share their ideas about how we could move the parachute together

and encouraged them to have a play under the billowing fabric, as the teachers did their best

to move the huge parachute up and down through the air. There was a lot of laughter and

delight, from children and adults alike! Parachute games encourage cooperative play and

reinforce the importance of rules and boundaries in play, turn taking and sharing of ideas.

Parachute games also help develop children‟s upper body strength, particularly their shoulder

and arm muscles, as well as their hand muscles – the edge can be challenging to hold onto

sometimes! When children work together to make the parachute move, they also refine their

perceptual motor skills and develop a sense of rhythm. Language and social-emotional skills are

developed through song, sharing of enjoyment and listening and following instructions. We will

continue to play with the parachute this week and beyond!

Provocation: Experimenting with incline, speed and direction

This week we thought we‟d do some experiments with speed and direction, using differing

inclines to affect the way our little rolling dinosaurs moved down the wooden planks. This

experience is a great example of how Teachers can help to scaffold, or support and extend,

children‟s understandings about the world, and it‟s something you can do really easily at home

too. So, how fast? How High? Do the rolling dinosaurs go faster or slower if the block tower and

plank incline is made higher? These are the things we tried to „figure out‟ while playing with the

children. It was great to see Toby extend the ply for all of us, borrowing the rainbow pieces and

creating a tunnel for the dinosaurs to go under. This threw up more questions and problems to

be solved – how big did the rainbow pieces need to be and where exactly did they need to be

placed, so that the dinosaurs could roll through without knocking them down? So much

problem solving and experimenting was experienced!


Stage 2


Stage 2/3 By Ms Joselyn Bruzzano What an exciting week we have had! We enthusiastically continued our sea themed journey by

exploring the beach and deep ocean. We explored specific sea creatures, looked at recreating the

beach in a bowl, opened a fishing hole in our room and explored a range of sea themed sensory

experiences.

Beach in a Bowl

There has been a lot of discussion during the week about the beach and about objects collected at the

beach. During a group experience we worked together to create a beach in a bowl. We took turns

adding sand, water, sea shells, and stones into the bowl. After this we added a range of sea creatures to

our beach in a bowl. It was wonderful to see the children taking turns and sharing resources.

During group activities children develop communication skills, confidence in their own abilities,

exchange ideas and learn to listen to ideas of others. Collaborating, sharing and turn taking are essential

life skills. Group experiences offer children the opportunity to develop these essential skills.

Frozen Sea

We created a frozen sea this week which captured the attention of the children. Armed with a range of

sea shells and sea creatures we froze sea themed items in bowls of water. The following day we explored

our creations, taking a closer look using magnifying glasses we looked for objects in the ice. As the ice

melted we noticed changes and collected objects dislodged from the ice.

Fishing Hole

The fishing hole was a popular relaxation spot during the week. We used a car tyre for the hole with blue

fabric to mimic water. The children then added felt fish and using a stick with a magnet attached, the

children tried their luck at fishing. Wow, these fish were very easy to catch! We had children catching

three and four fish in one cast.

Art

This week our art experiences included painting puffer fish using long brushes dipped into yellow and

white paint. We then added googly eyes to our puffer fish and some of the children added glitter to

decorate their fish. Using a range of open ended sea themed objects, we created sculptures with air

drying clay. We manipulated our clay using a range of wooden tools. Some of the children used sea

shells to decorate their sculptures and others used the sea shells to excavate into their clay. Open ended

experiences focus on the process rather than the final product and assist with cognitive development

and creativity. Open ended art is exploratory, unique and individual to each child.


Stage 2/3 - Seaweed Sensory Tub


Stage 2/3 - Painting Puffer Fish


Stage 2/3 - Beach in a Bowl & Fishing Hole


Stage 2/3 - Frozen Sea


Stage 3 &4 By Ms Joanne Matthews

This week the children have been spending a great deal of time on a 'TOP SECRET'

project related to next weekend's celebration so we cannot show you photos of those as

it would spoil the surprise. Suffices to say that we have had enormous fun with buttons

and collage, carefully thinking about how people look and why we love them so much!

Aaron brought in two superhero masks on Wednesday and the children asked if they

could have a go at making their own masks. With an array of collage materials, coloured

pens, fabric, stickers and glitter they created their own characters from their imagination

and made fabulous masks to dress up in. This, of course, ties in beautifully with our

Provocation "Once upon a Time..." as the children imagined themselves as pirates, fairies,

superheroes, princesses and even monsters!

Our Book Week dress up day was a success with many of the Pablo & Picasso children

taking part. Anna came as Lucy the Ladybird and we read the delightful book whilst

Anna sat quietly and didn't give anything away about the story. Lucy decided to pile all

of the bangles and bracelets from the dress up box onto her arms and was a great sport

as everyone giggled at her appearance. "They are very heavy, Miss Joe," she told me.

Miss Angel made some magic salt paintings with the children on Monday which turned

out beautifully. By dropping coloured water onto the salty piles, the colours merged

together into a beautiful rainbow mix and continued to combine until the salt had dried.

It was a popular craft activity.

As an impromptu child led activity the children mad their own crowns and decorated

the with collage and foam shapes before enacting scenes from Cinderella and the

Princess and the Pea with their dress up clothes on and of course their crowns.

Housekeeping

Could you please ensure that your child's locker is emptied of all of his/her artworks and

personal belongings on a daily basis, as the children share lockers and we certainly

wouldn‟t want your child‟s belongings and beautiful artwork to be accidentally mixed up

with someone else‟s. Thank you in advance for your assistance with this.


Stage 3 & 4


Music By Mr Justin Sze Hello everyone!

Stage 1 & 2:

The sounds of the rain and the rain-stick were revisited. After that, we played with the egg-

shakers, which also produced the sound of the rain. Children had to refrain from shaking the

instrument till the word “rain” was sung in the Turkish song, “On my way to Uskuda”. This tested

their inhibitory control and of course... created lots of fun and laughter at the same time!

After a short rest (quiet time), we quickly woke up because there was a “spider on the floor”! That

was the next song we were learning. Our classrooms are very clean, no real spiders. Then the

spider went into my book; Incy Wincy Spider by Keith Chapman & Jack Tickle. Instead of reading

the book, we sang the book together. This book presented lots of opportunities for our little

readers to participate in the story. They “read” the various sounds the animals made. Such

“onomatopoeic” activities are so important in helping children acquire reading skills eventually.

Stage 3:

Our stage 3 children are developing an appropriate response to music. When they hear the slow

music, they stalked around like a cat. When the music was fast, they scampered around like

mice. These actions expanded the vocabulary of the children. Rather than simply to say “crawl”

or “run”, we labelled the movements as “Stalked” and “scampered”. Such activities are

particularly useful for ESL students as they followed the actions of their classmates and sang the

words of the song. Another activity we did with a similar purpose was the animals “marching”

down the street. The kangaroos “hopped”, the snakes “slithered” etc.

We also listened to the sounds made by a dog. This focused listening activity helped children

identify the different sounds made by the same animal. It barked, growled and howled. Then we

learned a song about a dog, “Bow, Wow, Wow”. To make the song really meaningful for the

children, Justin got the names of their pets at home and inserted them as part of the lyrics of the

song. The children enjoyed their personalized version of this song.

Stage 4:

Children at Stage 4 are mastering our “Hickory Dickory Dock” percussion piece. We embellished

it with the triangle, resonator bars, a 2-tone woodblock and a slide whistle to add colour and

enhance the meaning in the musical piece. Wait till you hear them. It‟s impressive!

We then went on to distinguish 2 musical notes with our listening skills. To help the visual learners,

we have printed a “music score” with stars printed on them. There are stars above the line (high

notes) and stars below the line (low notes). Your child should have excitedly shown you their

music score last week. If they haven‟t, it might be still in their bag. If you have a piano or

xylophone at home, you might allow your child to practice/perform this song for you at home.

The high note is C and the lower note is A.

Our children also had time to play a musical singing game “Wolf are you there?”. In this song, the

wolf creatively comes up with activities he/she might be doing in his/her cave. At the end of the

song, the wolf comes out and chases the other children. It was so much fun!


Music


Mandarin

Last week, we started to read two new story books, one of which was a „lift the flap‟

book. The children enjoyed being involved in the story as they opened the flap to re-

veal what was underneath it.

After listening intently to the story, the children further practiced the way they say

“Hello” in Mandarin.

Next week, we will read the books again and continue our topic of „colour‟.

We are then going to transition into learning the names of various fruits and vegetables

in Mandarin, starting with apple and strawberry.


Mandarin


Ballet

simone’s message - reddam house...decorate their fish. using a range of open ended sea themed...

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