‘Living With Pets’ – Safety Talk

Our Philosophy:

We will provide and emergent and responsive curriculum for all children based from the philosophy of the service, provocations of educators and a child’s strength and interests as well as the interest of the group.

We will foster a sense of wonderment of the natural environment and resources as an integral part of children’s learning and support children to become ecologically conscious and to understand the interdependence of all living things.

On Wednesday afternoon a group of our children attended a safety talk with R/1TD and R/1GC in the school titled ‘Living Safely with Pets’.

As we continue to learn through our ‘growth’ inquiry, this talk was a wonderful opportunity for children to learn more about how to take care of living things – themselves and their pets.

We met a beautiful dog called Darcy whose owner taught us how to keep ourselves safe around dogs, including how to approach an unknown dog we would like to pat and what to do when faced with an angry dog.

EARLY YEARS LEARNING FRAMEWORK

Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing.

Moon Lantern Festival

Our Philosophy:

We recognise the role of context and environment in children’s learning and therefore we will extend children’s learning experience into the wider community through connections with the school and wider school community.

Next week, we and the school will be celebrating the Moon Lantern Festival. This includes making lanterns, which will be judged by Mr White (the principal of the school) for a special competition. We will also be attending the Moon Lantern Festival assembly on Friday 13th September.

We have been learning about the Moon Lantern Festival this week.

Today we began to make our lanterns. We used our learning power of creativity to design and make our lanterns. We used materials such as cardboard, paper, pop sticks, patty pans and tissue paper. Some of our friends from 3IB and 3JM in the school came and helped us. We made lanterns of different shapes and colours, including a dragon, lion and fish lantern.

EARLY YEARS LEARNING FRAMEWORK

Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world.

Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners.

Library and Music

We recognise the role of context and environment in children’s learning and therefore we will extend children’s learning experience into the wider community through connections with the school and wider school community.

LIBRARY VISIT

Eamann, Tavae, Omelia and Xavier wanted to visit the library today. We read the book ‘Baa Baa Blue Sheep’ by Tony Wilson. It was a story about sharing, compromise and belonging.

What did you like about the story?

Omelia: I like the blue sheep.

Eamann: the baa baa black sheep.

Tavae: the wool.

Xavier: the black.

The children then chose their own books and read them with each other and Nicole.

MUSIC LESSON

Liam, Shruti, Arielle, Aicha and Tesi attended a music lesson with Mrs Crisp in the school. We learnt about the ti-ti ta rhythm (using the song ‘Cherry Beets’), and practiced different beats with their hands, feet and instruments. We did lots of singing and movement!

EARLY YEARS LEARNING FRAMEWORK

Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners

 

Growth Inquiry: Living Eggs

Our Philosophy: We will foster a sense of wonderment of the natural environment and resources as an integral part of children’s learning and support children to become ecologically conscious and to understand the interdependence of all living things.

Today, we have spent much time observing our eggs. We were engaged in conversations with each other about what we were observing.

PIPPING AND HATCHING

We learnt that pipping is the term used when the baby chicks first cracks the shell.

And that hatching is when the baby chick breaks open the shell and emerges.

It was with great excitement that we saw two chicks hatch from their shells today.

Did you know that you can tell the gender of a baby chick by its colour?

Reflection of what we observed today:

William: They came out.
Omelia: They are two mummy chickens.
Ellara: I hope they are good luck.
Aicha: I think one boy and one girl.

EARLY YEARS LEARNING FRAMEWORK

Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world

Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners

Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators

 

Our Week of Learning – Literacy and Numeracy

We believe children have the right to be supported in their learning in all areas of their development –  physically, cognitively, emotionally, socially and spiritually. We see children’s learning as integrated and connected. Learning is a social practice and through interactions and play experiences children develop their literacy and numeracy skills.

This week we have observed many examples of children’s literacy and numeracy understandings. We will use these observations to plan and program provocations to build and grow our children’s literacy and numeracy.

We do this with the support of the Government of South Australia Department for Education and Child Development Indicators for Literacy and Numeracy in Pre-School. The indicators have been developed to support teachers to extend and enrich every preschool child’s numeracy and literacy learning.

NUMERACY

Indicator: ‘I analyse, read and organise the data in my world’

One of our provocations this week was a table of different seeds and beans for the children to explore. Initially designed as a sensory experience, it also emerged as a wonderful numeracy activity. The bowls of beans and seeds got mixed up over the week and the children began to sort them.

Will

Will: I put the black ones in this bowl

Nicole: Why only black ones?

Will: So they not all mixed up. I’m still working on these.

Nicole: What if I put these in this bowl?  If I put these in here what else would you add?

Will:  Just those ones

Arabella

Indicator: ‘I analyse, read and organise the data in my world’

Arabella joined Will at the sorting table. She had some white beans and put them all in a bowl.

Nicole picked up an orange lentil and asked if Arabella if she would put that in the bowl with the white beans . Arabella said ‘no it’s not white’.

Shruti and Aicha

Indicator: ‘I analyse, read and organise the data in my world’

Nicole: The seeds got all mixed up and now we have to sort them out.

Shruti starts putting some seeds in a bowl.

Nicole: Why are you putting those in there Shruti?

Shruti: These are white

Aicha: I’m putting the white inside

Nicole: What about this bowl?

Aicha:   Black

Nicole: And this bowl is empty, are there any seeds you could put in here?

Aicha:  Orange ones.

Aicha: Look how many I have

Nicole: How many are there?

Aicha started counting. She counted to 13. We counted together demonstrating 1 to 1 correspondence. There were 18 seeds.

Tesi and Arielle

Indicator: ‘I quantify my world’

During outdoor play, Tesi asked for a little basket so she could collect ‘treasure’ Her and Arielle wandered through the yard collecting natural items from the gardens.

Tesi: Look Nicole, this is our first treasure.

Arielle: the second…. more treasure.

Nicole: How many have you found?

Arielle: 2

Tesi:  Let’s find some other…. look treasure.

Arielle:  It’s too big.

Nicole: Let’s look at our treasure.

Tesi: There’s bark and rock

Nicole: How many do you have?

Tesi:  1…2…3…4…5

Nicole: How many pieces of bark do you have?

Arielle: 4

Tesi: And 1 rock. 4 and 1 makes 5.

Tesi: Nicole look more treasure; a leaf

Nicole: A big leaf

Will, Tavae and Tesi

Indicator: “I measure and compare my world”

Indicator: “I quantify my world”

In a patch of our garden, will found a number of feathers of different colours, sizes and textures. Tavae and Tesi were intrigued and together they all collected some of the feathers in a bowl.

Will: There was an emu here

Tavae: I found one. Oh! it’s not going on my hand .

Will: There’s a lot of feathers Tesi. I’m just collecting them.

Tesi: I got one Nicole. It was there. Hey look! Feather!

Will: Guys an emu has maybe been here because these feathers are bigger. Got any more feathers? I been selecting them.

Nicole: How do you think the feathers got here?

Tesi: The birds.

Tesi: I think bird has wings and they can flap their wings and fly.

Aicha: They came from up that tree and then came here.

Will: I don’t know how it got here. They came in the night and I wasn’t here. Maybe the wind got strong and it got colder and the feathers blew off.

Tavae: I think the bird got died.

Arielle: The birds died.

Tarun

Indicator: “I quantify my world”

Tarun spent time matching the number stones to the number cards.

 

Tavae

Indicator: ” I explore and understand my place and space in the world”.

Tavae is very interested in turtles and loves caring for our turtle, ‘Strawberry’. He was drawn to the turtle puzzle and concentrated and persisted for a long time to complete the challenging puzzle. He flipped and rotated puzzle pieces to fit them together.

Tavae: You help me Nicole.

Nicole: You have a go and do the pieces you can and then I will help you if you need me.

Tavae: Look Nicole this big one it go here see? And this one? 

Nicole: What do you think Tavae?

Tavae: I can’t do this.

Nicole:  Let’s try this.

Tavae:  Oh look it does work.

Nicole: Oh but there’s a little gap, they all need to fit together remember.

Tavae:  Hmmm I think this one goes this way, no that way. No. Hey look! It goes this way.

LITERACY

Tesi

Indicator: “I represent my world symbolically”.

Tesi has been learning to write her name. Tesi knows the different letters of her name and can write some of the letters. To scaffold the process of writing her name, we have been using tracing dots to form the letters. Tesi is now drawing the  tracing dots herself to support herself in writing the letters.

Arielle

Indicator: “I engage with texts and make meaning”.

Arielle: I made a book

Nicole: How wonderful! Tell me more about your book.

Arielle: I use the paper to make the book. The book is about me and Tesi.

 

 

 

 

Rainbows and Colour

Our inquiry learning over the last couple of days has focused on colour and rainbows as per our learning program and intentions.

We have been singing some songs about colours and the rainbow during morning group time.

RAINBOW EXPERIMENT

We also went to Home 2 with some friends from the school set up a rainbow experiment for us to do.  We lined up skittles around a plate, added some water and waited and observed.

Liam: It will make a rainbow because all the colours will come out.

Arielle: It will be rainbow colours because I saw it on my iPad.

Tarvae: It’s a circle.

Alana: It’s yellow.

Krisha: Rainbow

Simon: Rainbow. The colours came out.

COLOUR MIXING AND PAINTING

PRAYER

In prayer, we sang our favourite song ‘Rainbow’ by Michael Chinn. We then shared our own special prayers about rainbows.

SPECKS OF GOLD

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Day – Tuesday 6th August and Wednesday 7th August 2019

COLOUR EXPERIMENTS

We have been exploring colours and the colours of the rainbow. We conducted an experiment using different coloured water to see what colours could be made when mixed together. Paper towel is placed in the coloured water which then transfers into the adjacent cup.

Aicha: There’s yellow and blue and red.

Frankie: It’s (the colour) is going up and down.

Liam: You put yellow and blue make green

Will: Yellow and red make orange.

Ambrose: Red.

Arielle: Orange with yellow and red.

Tesi: Purple is blue and red.

COLOUR MIXING

Children have also been mixing primary colours to make secondary colours of orange, green and purple.

BIRDS AND NESTS

We watched the following video about the life cycle of birds. We had a discussion about this story.

Ellara: I found a bird with one eye with Uncle Mark and Lucy. I put it in my new shoe box
Will: birds to lay their eggs to keep them warm.
who would live in it?
Ellara: Birds when they want to get food they fly and get food
Tesi: they eat worms
Shruti: Birds are fly, in the sky.
Aicha : I had a bird at my old house.

Tesi: They eat worms.
Will: There were 6 eggs.
Joel: Then they hatched.

Tavae: The red bird is the daddy.
Liam: Why do birds lay eggs? How do they make eggs?
Will: Why do they have wings?

Some children have been using clay as a language to express their knowledge, understanding and experience of birds and their lifecycle.

Aicha: I make a worm because I need to feed the bird. I making the bird house. I squish, squish.

Olivia: Mine is really squishy. I’m a little bird. Birds eats the worms and they actually lay eggs and they fly and play like that stuff and one I’m a little bird, I like being with the other bird’s.

Aicha: And now I’m going to squish and make a house. The nest. Im going to make a lot of eggs inside and then they crash, I look after them. Nicole, you know at my old house I had a bird but it died.

Olivia: I making a cloud because the birds flies to the cloud.

Aicha: Nicole, this (nest) is like this, a circle.

We watched another video, of a bird hatching. We recorded the children’s comments as they watched the bird.

Tavae: It’s making a door to come out
Krisha: It’s a bird
Will: When it’s in its egg it doesn’t have its feathers yet
Frankie: The eggs wobbles
Aicha: The bird is wobbing the egg to go out
Frankie: It’s getting out
Omelia: A crack
Kanal: Crack
Frankie: It’s hatching
Aicha: It’s getting out.
Xavier: It’s getting out.
Ambrose: A egg.
Olivia: It looks like chicken trying to get out the egg

Tavae: The bird is coming out.
Frankie: It’s a girl.
Aicha: The head has come out.
Liam: It try to crack and it used its beak so it can get out the egg.
Frankie: It stuck
Tavae: It like a monster. The bird got a foot.
Will: The bottom still stck
Aicha: It don’t fly
Frankie: And the feathers make it fly.

NAMES

Some children have been working in small groups with Nicole in Home 2 on identifying and writing their names.

PLAY BASED LEARNING

Using their skills of creativity, curiosity and imagination, our children have engaged with different materials and resources in their play.

PRAYER

SPECKS OF GOLD

EARLY YEARS LEARNING FRAMEWORK

OUTCOME 1: CHILDREN HAVE A STRONG SENSE OF IDENTITY
• Children feel safe, secure, and supported
• Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect

OUTCOME 1: CHILDREN HAVE A STRONG SENSE OF IDENTITY
• Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect

OUTCOME 2: CHILDREN ARE CONNECTED WITH AND CONTRIBUTE TO THEIR WORLD
• Children develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities and an understanding of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities necessary for active community participation

OUTCOME 2: CHILDREN ARE CONNECTED WITH AND CONTRIBUTE TO THEIR WORLD
• Children become aware of fairness

OUTCOME 2: CHILDREN ARE CONNECTED WITH AND CONTRIBUTE TO THEIR WORLD
• Children develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities and an understanding of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities necessary for active community participation

OUTCOME THREE: CHILDREN HAVE A STRONG SENSE OF WELLBEING
• Children take increasing responsibility for their own health and physical wellbeing

OUTCOME 4: CHILDREN ARE CONFIDENT AND INVOLVED LEARNERS
• Children develop dispositions for learning such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity

OUTCOME 4: CHILDREN ARE CONFIDENT AND INVOLVED LEARNERS.

  • Children resource their own learning through connecting with people, place, technologies and natural and processed materials

OUTCOME 4: CHILDREN ARE CONFIDENT AND INVOLVED LEARNERS
• Children develop a range of skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating

OUTCOME 5: CHILDREN ARE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATORS
• Children express ideas and make meaning using a range of media

OUTCOME 5: CHILDREN ARE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATORS
• Children interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purposes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Week in the Life – Alive Catholic Early Care and Learning Parafield Gardens

We have had a wonderful week of fun, adventure, curiosity, friendship and learning.

PLAYGROUND

We moved our bodies and had lots of fun on the playground.

MUSIC AND DANCE

We love to move, dance and sing! This week we have been exploring movement to music through games and improvisation. The children loved playing musical statues, singing nursery rhymes, playing musical chairs and moving like different animals to the music.

PAINTING, DRAWING AND EXPRESSION

Children share lots about their experiences, understandings and interests through drawing, painting and expression. They communicate their understanding of the world and their curiosities. Educators use this knowledge to plan and program provocations that will engage children and contribute to their development as learners and citizens.

SEEDS

Brianna has been saving seeds from different vegetables when cooking. We used our senses to learn more about pumpkin and capsicum seeds. The ELC is contributing to the Spring Fair which will be held at the school in October. We are going to grow some plants to sell at the Spring Fair. We had a discussion about what we should grow and in the end decided on carrots, flowers and strawberries.

SPECKS OF GOLD

Each afternoon, we share our specks of gold. These are the best things about our day. This helps to build an ‘attitude of gratitude’ and a positive mindset.

MINDFULNESS AND PRAYER

During prayer, we have continued to learn the sign of the cross. We have read stories from the bible and prayers from ‘Pray with Me’. We have shared our own prayers of gratitude and sung songs.

In mindfulness, we have continued to practice our ‘rainbow breathing’ and relaxation.

FRIENDSHIP

It is so heart warming to see the many relationships and friendships that are being established between children, thus developing strong emotional and social wellbeing.

COUNTING

Children have been exploring number to 10 this week, including:

  • recognising numbers
  • ordering numbers
  • counting collections of objects
  • matching numerals to collections of objects

Thanks for sharing our learning with us. Please leave a comment for your child if you wish. Happy weekend and we look forward to next week’s learning and wonder.