Welcome back to term 3,

This term, our learning will be guided by the Inquiry topic: How do we care for ourselves, our friends, our resources and our world?

In week one, the children have been encouraged to explore a range of open-ended play opportunities to express their ideas and knowledge with new and existing learning materials and play resources. The educators have closely observed how the children have interacted and shared their knowledge in collaboration with those around them. This information will be used to inform future planning for our inquiry.

In the classroom, the children have thoroughly enjoyed exploring our new light room resources. They experimented with making shadows, puppets and investigating the scientific concepts of reflection and refraction whilst moving the torches at different angles in front of the transparent, coloured sensory blocks.

Some children were eager to shared their ideas:

Eva – “It can make a crocodile shadow with the lights.”

Lovenne – “When I put the light in my hand it can look like blood because it’s red.”

Joel – “That glows on the wall. Because it’s like see through but glowing.”

The children have also experimented with loose parts materials that Steve collected from ‘It’s not Garbage’. The children used their imagination to create ‘spinning tops’ (Ryan and Kabir), ‘bracelets’ (Jon and Ojasvi) and ‘music strings’ (Xavier) using items such as CD’s, elastic strings, piping rings and pipe cleaners.

In the outdoor classroom, the children have been exposed to new physical activity equipment. They have used the scooter boards to move around the play space using their developing gross motor strength, balance, control and co-ordination. Resources, such as scooter boards are a safe way for children to expand their energy in a safe way, whilst also capitalising on the existing playground design. The children were also intrigued by the new bike which they helped Steve to build. We look forward to using these bikes in the coming weeks.

We would love any feedback on how your child(ren) care for themselves, their friends, their resources and their world to help support our inquiry over the course of this term.

Thank you in advance.