Welcome to our July Newsletter.... Who is loving the REVAMP?
The flooring is looking amazing!
Who wants to know what the next stage will be?
Upcoming Events
25 July Anase Stories @9:30am - Kindy Class
14 August Centre Closed - Ekka Show Day
Educator Long Service Leave
Miss Zubaida is off on long service leave. Miss Tracy will be working with Miss Jo and Miss Anastazia. Most of you may have met Miss Tracy - she was working alongside Miss Indri prior to her foot operation.
Nursery News
We have reached mid-July already! Boy has the year flown by. I'd like to take the opportunity to introduce myself as the new Lead Educator in the Nursery. My name is Tenneal and I look forward to building a respectful and meaningful relationship with you all.
You may notice now our room has been through some beautiful changes, the children have responded and adjusted very well to being seated at the table for mealtimes rather than the highchairs.
As we celebrated NAIDOC Week last week and the children were provided with various experiences throughout the week such as symbol drawing in the tub of sand and Aboriginal musical instruments, movement and dance. We will be continuing educational experiences like these daily.
We will also be continuing the explore our motor skills, balance and hand-eye coordination as some of us have began to walk.
Please don't hesitate to come and see either myself or Miss Ruth if there is anything you would like us to focus on particularly for you child.
Until next time.
Miss Tenneal, Miss Ruth & Miss Sukh
Toddler News
Hello Everyone,
Once again welcome to toddlers. Time is flying and we are here in July. As time goes on, our toddlers are growing in every aspect of their learning journey.
In our toddler room, we are exploring emergency services such as police, doctor's ,ambulance and fire trucks. Children are learning so many different things and we will continue our learning in these topics. A special visit from the ambulance was a great experience for our toddlers.
As a part of our National Simultaneous Story time, Reconciliation week and NAIDOC week, we focused on literacy and language. Children participated in reading books daily, which helped to extend their vocabulary.
We will continue our learning journey by adding different topics to our program according to our children's interest. Don't forget any concerns or suggestions are always welcome.
That's it for this time, more to come next month with so much fun.
Thanks
Miss Anu and Miss June.
Juniors News
Hello to our Junior's Families,
Firstly, we would like to say a big welcome to Layla, Sunny and Tessa, we are excited to have you join us on our Journey.
The last few months, we had an exciting educational week such as national simultaneous story time and reconciliation week.
We read Alpacas with Maraca's book with the children during story time, this engaged children to listen and respond to sounds and patterns in speech, stories and rhymes in context. Children learnt simple easy rhyming words like Cat, Hat, Mat, Rat,Bat.
As part of Reconciliation week we read the "Sorry Sorry" book to the children to understand the feelings. We also introduced some indigenous music "Taba Naba "song with action (Torres Strait Islanders), as well as the Aboriginal song "Inanay" and the children loved the music.
The children have been learning about seasons (especially about winter), also about big construction vehicles and other different types of vehicles. The children will learn road safety as part of our extended learning on vehicles. We will be introducing more fine motor activities to develop children's small muscle development by means of play-dough, threading, drawing and holding the scissors in the correct way.
We are planning to extend the knowledge of our children on every aspect of their learning journey.
That's all from juniors for now but more to come soon.
Miss Mai, Miss Bijal and Miss Grace
Junior Kindy News
We've made it! It's halfway through the year and so far, we have experienced so many amazing things, and gained a few more skills. In our room we have seen big changes to family units as they are expanding, the children have loved sharing their experiences with us and it's wonderful to see how they are managing with this. Seeing how they are taking too becoming the older sibling, new responsibilities and how they might need support too.We have also experienced saying goodbye to a few friends over the weeks past. This was a bit hard for a few friends to cope with as they had to experience their environments without their friends. This really showcases how strong the friendships in our Junior Kindy room are.
We been learning so much over the past weeks for example exploring the Indigenous culture more, we have been focusing on embedding more into our program and into our daily routine. The children are quite familiar with yarns and this is a space where the children are able share their stories and here the children have gained a few skills such as turn taking, respecting one another by listening and asking questions. We have also been developing our skills of Dadirri which is about deep listening.
Deep listening describes the processes of deep and respectful listening to build community—a way of encouraging people to explore and learn from the ancient heritage of Aboriginal culture, knowledge and understanding. Dadirri a word from the Ngan'gikurunggurr and Ngen'giwumirri languages of the Aboriginal people of the Daly River region, 220 kilometres south of Darwin, NT.
We have been exploring symbols in many forms, a few families have expressed their interest in how we are supporting children's alphabetical and numerical recognition. Through our play based approach we have been exploring lines and symbols such as letters and numbers with playdough, loose parts (pebbles, rocks, sticks, feathers, yarning wool). The children have also been using their name plates as a visual reminder of where their belongings are. Most children can recognize letters that form their name as well as make sense of their name.
We are continuing to encourage children to dress independently, we always support children and respect the time it takes to go through this process as each child needs are different.
As we continue on this journey of learning we need to remember that process is far more important than the end result.
"Anything that is worth teaching can be presented in many different ways. These multiple ways can make use of our multiple intelligences."- Howard Gardner an American psychologist
Miss Jo, Miss Anastazia, Miss Tracy & Miss Zubaida
Kindy News
Hello everyone,
Welcome to Term 3! Yes, it's halfway through the year 2019 and soon Kindergarten children will be off to Prep year. Last month kindergarten children were involved in exploring animals, their habitats (ocean, ice pole, desert and rainforest) and important things (air, food, water, sun and shelter) to keep living things alive. Children used technology (tablet, printer, digital camera) to help them to learn about animals and their habitats, used tools and materials to make animal collages and animal puppets, used songs and music to move like animals and involved in group discussions to share ideas, thoughts and ask questions. Through these explorations children were learning to share knowledge about animal habitats with others, observe and describe the characteristics of living things, exhibit curiosity, interest and willingness in learning new things and having new experiences, ask questions and make predictions based on observations and personal experiences in the environment, problem solve, manipulate equipment and real-life tools (sticky tape dispenser, scissors) with increasing competence and use descriptive language to become independent communicators.
Last month children showed an interest in making a barbeque in home corner. This interest had lead children to use literacy and numeracy in everyday situations such as counting chicken skewers they made, problem solve how many plates or cups were needed if there're three children coming to the BBQ party, finding the right container for Salt and Pepper or reading recipe books . The BBQ play was also a great way for children to strengthen their fine motor muscles and control as they manipulated everyday tools such as tongs and chopsticks and used play dough in the play. Through this imaginative play children learned to express their ideas creatively to make meaning of the world around them.
In term 3 children will focus in learning literacy, numeracy, shapes and colours through small group games with 2-3 children involve and other fun activities. Kindergarten children will start to practice writing their names using dot letters to trace and other fun ways. Please feel free to encourage your child to practice the skill at home, but only if your child is willing to do it. If you decide for your child to practice writing her/his name at home, please encourage your child to write the capital letter only for the first letter of their name, e.g. Indri, Josie, Tammy.
If you have any questions or concerns about your child, please don't hesitate to contact us at any time.
Indri and Josie