October News

Hello to our Nursery Families,

Welcome to Yehara, Lily, Sophia and their families to the nursery room.

As we finished off our focus on nursery rhymes it has led us to exploring symbols. We have introduced a few aboriginal symbols and will add to them over the next few weeks. The children can engage in many ways with these symbols from labelling, using to communicate eg the star symbol to represent the song twinkle twinkle little star, or place them in the tray and make their own picture or story.

We continue to use 'loose parts' in our room which we have combined with our shaker/sensory bottles. We have provided additional empty containers with milk bottle tops, cotton reels, Pom poms threading beads & feathers for the children to make their own shaker/sensory bottles. This provides them opportunities to practise their fine motor skills & hand eye coordination, extend their knowledge of knowing an object still exists even when they can't see it and explore mathematical concepts (size, weight, shape, counting and sorting).

Over the coming weeks we will introduce the celebration of Diwali then Christmas into the nursery. This will be done by providing experiences that allow the children to engage and learn through their senses. What do we 'see', 'hear', 'smell' and 'feel' during these celebrations?

Shannon, Bijal and Priya

In the toddler room, the children have had the opportunity to explore our loose parts area as they have access to a range of processed and natural materials like bark, rocks, pine cones, straws, cotton balls, bottle lids etc. They have been keeping themselves engaged as they use their imagination and creativity to come up with different ideas and different ways to utilize the loose parts. Through this, the children have been able to develop their sense of touch and feel as they are able to feel different textures from smooth to rough.

As we had setup our toddler room with different learning areas such as our home corner turned into a picnic area, our cars mat which was transformed into our new train station, our dinosaur world, reading area and construction area, the children have been showing a lot of interest as they explore and engage in these areas. Our dinosaur world has been a favourite as the children love to scare their friends and educators with the dinosaurs pretending to be making scary sounds. With our train station, we will be creating our own train tunnel by using a cardboard box which the children will be painting. This will extend on their imaginative and creativity skills. Next month, we will be changing the setup of our room where the train station will turn into a truck and diggers area and the home corner picnic area will change into our toddler's bakery. This will extend on the children's interests and enable them to develop new interests.

We have and will also be continuing to focus on the children's physical development by taking part in a range of outdoor activities such as water play, using the obstacle course and engaging in ball games which we will do indoor as well as a group. This will help develop on the children's gross motor skills.

Through our group experiences, the children have started to form great friendships amongst each other as they communicate together, share the toys and wait patiently for each other when one is having a turn at an activity. We will continue to focus on the children's friendships and engage in conversations through group experiences which will encourage the children to talk to each other and support each other through daily experiences.

It has been absolutely great seeing how our toddlers are growing every day, becoming confident and involved learners. They take part in group activities daily, communicate with their friends and educators, are understanding the importance of sharing and developing further on their individual interests and gaining new interests through experiences.

Please remember to label your child's belongings.

If you have any questions, please approach the educators in the room and they will be able to assist you.

Thankyou

Miss Simran, Miss Sukh and Miss Tina 

 Hello families, if I have not already introduced myself, I am Hannah the new leader for the Juniors room with Miss June and Miss Emma. I have had fun getting to know all the children over the last few weeks.

This month we have had 3 main interests in the room: Babies (Mia, Nadia, Lara & Hazel especially), Construction as the children are witnessing the new centre addition being built and animals (Sofija especially who came in talking about her trip to the zoo).We have created 3 new spaces to extend on these interests with our new zoo dramatic play space, Doctors office caring for the babies and we have added to our construction area with the addition of a train table and sandpit with trucks. The children have been loving interacting with these new spaces.

Our educational space has had new puzzles and activities added to develop their colour and shape recognition and work on their fine motor skills.

We have also added a new art shelf to allow for open craft opportunities and responsibility for the children.

Next month I would love to start introducing new educational experiences, working on their letter and number recognition. We will also focus on self-help skills and emotional regulation as they prepare for the new year.

If there is anything your child is currently interested in or any developmental aspects you would like to see your child improve with, please let us know whether it be in person or through Educa which we are now using for their daily reflections and observations. 

Hi everyone,

In term four kindergarten children are focusing on emergent literacy (phonological awareness, phonics, oral language, text awareness) and numeracy skills (sorting, classifying, grouping, comparing).

The children have been involved in small group discussions to share ideas verbally and present their ideas through drawing and writing. The children are exploring ways to communicate to express feelings and ideas, to question, to respond, to learn, to connect, and to interact with others. In small group activities the children are also involved in exploring letter-sound relationships, learning syllables, and listening to rhyming words through games.

Last month the children wondered how the water comes out from the tap. This led them to investigate the problem, become involved in group discussions, draw and write ideas, and design and construct the pipelines. They also had fun testing their constructions and evaluating their work with others.

Kindergarten children will continue to explore and engage in literacy through reading, viewing, listening, speaking, writing and creating in personally meaningful ways.

If you have any questions or concerns about your child, please contact us at any time.

Thank you.

Indri and Sina