November News

Hello Families, I hope you are doing well and excited to read what we have been up too. Including what we have planned for the remainder of the year!

Over the past months we have been learning so much and you may have noticed a slight change in the program format. We are still utilising the curriculum plan, which allows us to write down spontaneous teaching moments and child initiated moments. The other format, allows us to focus on certain topics and learning areas.

A few examples are: Learning about India and its beautiful culture, this linked up with Diwali beautifully. We explored simple phrases in Hindi and Punjabi, this was assisted by the staff which was fantastic. You also might recall seeing the map of India and pinning where your family is from. This was helpful as we used this to show the children where their families are from, the children showed so much enthusiasm when we mentioned their parent's home.

We have explored loads about primary colours, we used lots of sensory experiences to engage the toddlers as we found this was the most effective way to keep the children's interest. We also found lots of songs that and implemented them to our daily routine. The children have developed so much language through all these experiences which is wonderful.

From primary we then moved onto secondary which focused more on experimenting with colours to create new ones. This was so much fun as the children were always involved getting the hands messy with colour!

Recently we have started to explore shapes and how we see and use them in our everyday play. I have found a lovely article on 'The power of shape', if you would like a read of it, I have it displayed with our curriculum.

We have also started to do yoga almost every day, this was inspired by the children needing a physically challenging activity. I found that this was the perfect challenge for balance and concentration.

Over the next month and to the end of the year we will be wrapping up with Christmas excitement such as the Christmas party. I hope you have all enjoyed reading this newsletter and look forward to chatting with you soon.

Thank you Miss Jo and Miss June

We can't believe it almost the end of the year. The children have grown up so much from the little friends we started with this year. They have really come into their own personalities, we have seen friendships form, and strong connections appear. The children have become very independent, and self-sufficient. They also do a wonderful job at looking out for each other during the day.

We have been doing a lot of sensory exploring as well as learning about lifecycles of spiders and ants lately which followed on from an interest. We are spending a lot of time in large groups, especially outside, creating friendships and guiding our younger friends to join in with us. A ball game, just rolling it between each other is a favourite game to play at the moment as well as a find the object kind of game.

We have Welcomed Charlotte and Marlee to the room, and we welcomed Girik back from his long extended holiday. They are settling well, and creating new friendships.

We were also very lucky to be able to celebrate Aanika's 3^rd Birthday. Happy Birthday!!

Miss Tash, Miss Bijal and Miss Amy

Hello, Senior Kindy have had a few unexpected changes over the last few months but our team of educators have worked together to keep the room running smoothly. We welcome Miss Ruth to our room for the rest of the year. We would like to thank the parents and families for bearing with us and being involved and supporting us in our groups learning.

We love all the wonderful books children have been bringing in to share with friends at group time, please keep encouraging your children to share their favourite books with us, we love reading them.

This past month we also welcomed Aaria, Harper, Phoebe and Zoey from Junior Kindy to our room. The garden and looking after our worm farm has been a major focus with our children learning to look after and care for them and reminding us when they need feeding and watering. This has a great opportunity to discuss and compare how we have similar needs to plants and animals and caring for ourselves and our friends.

We have also been looking at emotions and how to recognise these to keep ourselves and our friends healthy and happy.

Construction has always been popular and our construction table with pictures of iconic building from around the world was enjoyed for many weeks. This led to great discussions with the children on where in the world the buildings are located along with which cultures created them.

We have had a few new baby brothers and sisters born recently so our Baby Centre is getting lots of attention with children using the scales to weigh the dolls, looking at numbers and comparing. We have also been dancing and singing, learning our song for the Christmas party. We have some brilliant little singers especially Aaria who leads the way on most practices. The children are all starting to talk about Christmas and this led to Harper wanting to make a Christmas tree with some branches we were painting. I'm sure your child has shown you their great efforts with this activity. We would love help to decorate our tree with any pinecones that you might find, just bring them in and we will find a place for them on our tree.

We would just like to remind parents that toys are discouraged from bringing to Kindy as these are a distraction to the day's activities and also with children moving to Preschool next year where the same applies. Looking forward to the next few weeks with all the Christmas activities for the children to enjoy.

Miss Tracy & Miss Ruth

Hello everyone,

It is hard to believe that we are now in the final term of the year. Spring soon is turning to summer, and please help us to protect your children from the sun by ensuring that their hat is in their bag ready for them to put on. The children are not encouraged to wear spare hats as this is a risk of spreading head lice. Some children are reluctant to wear hats, so you may like to reinforce the reason for this.

Through out October preschoolers had been exploring numbers, letters and shapes using sensory activities such as play dough and collages. They even made their own uncooked play dough and most of them remembered the ingredients we need to make it. The children had contributed and participated in preparing and making materials for all the children to play. They demonstrated a sense of belonging and comfort in their environment.

This month we also celebrated Diwali festival, which children and educators had the opportunity to learn a culture that is related to some of the families in our centre. Preschoolers extended the learning by watching a documentary video from the Discovery Chanel about the traditions of the celebration in India and exploring the Rangoli art. Through exploration of Rangoli art the children learned symbols, patterns, colours and shapes. They also explored the possibilities of using everyday tools such as plates, hanger or wooden spoon to create shapes and patterns. Children had begun to understand how symbols and pattern system work. They used information and communication technologies to access information, investigate ideas and represent their thinking.

Preschoolers always love building things with LEGO, Mobilo or wooden blocks indoors and outdoors. This month we extended their interest by using used boxes to build and create new things. The children were introduced to use sticky tape dispenser by paying attention to safety. After a lot of practice and closed supervision now the children are able to use the dispenser independently with a few children still needing a little help. Through this exploration children were involved in thinking about their ideas, planning their constructions through drawings and small group discussions before building and presenting their ideas and work in a whole group. We would like to thank parents and caregivers who had contributed all the boxes in different sizes into our classroom learning. I'm looking forward to see more creativities coming from our Box CornerJ

Miss Indri & Miss Bec