Nina Marni to all of our amazing little learners and their lovely Families . Welcome to our Blog for term 3 /week 8
Our moon lanterns were judged this week and Holy Family Early Learning received a beautiful prize. What a wonderful collaboration and team work. The children were very excited to open the prize. We all gathered as a community for the grand reveal.
Learning Intention 1:
To challenge children’s construction skills by providing loose parts and STEM experiences.
Why
- STEM education in early childhood allows children to begin to learn and retain a knowledge base that they can build on as they get older.
- Loose Parts play encourages children to make, create, problem solve and hypothesize. Loose parts have no instructions and no predetermined rules.
- The concept of ‘loose parts’ supports children to become critical thinkers as they use these open- ended materials to plan their work and create whatever they want to without an adult telling them what should be done. It helps children to be imaginative.
- Loose parts give children the freedom to arrange and rearrange, essentially using the parts to create their own rules and designs, which allows the focus of the experience to be on the process rather than the product. Fine motor skills are developed and strengthened when children grasp and pick up small objects.
Children were able to create and construct using their own imagination and initiative. Children learn through exploration and interaction using ideas thoughts verbal and Non verbal communication and interactions. They learn to explore and experiment a variety of materials and mediums understand sizes as well as manage and prevent material balance using all of their different senses.
Learning Intention: 2
To support each child to deepen their understanding of measurement. Encouraging children to use comparative language such as big, medium, and small, as well as the terms bigger and smaller.
Why:
- Children become numerate as they develop the understanding, knowledge, and skills to use mathematics confidently across learning areas and in their lives.
- They develop conceptual understandings, procedural fluency, and adaptive reasoning skills to facilitate transfer of their mathematical knowledge to contexts outside the mathematics classroom and this is supported when the mathematical ideas with which they interact are relevant and meaningful.
- Children are showing interest in sorting, measurements, comparing sizes (taller or shorter, bigger, or smaller) and shapes.
- To support children’s understanding measuring, estimating, sorting, noticing patterns.
- Children construct mathematical ideas from birth through a combination of cognitive development and interaction with their environment.
Children begin to use multiple tools to develop their understanding of measurements such as big, small , tall short and estimate length from long to short. These measurements can be adpted through the use of their hand , fingers learning resources such as blocks , magnetic tiles in a variety of shapes and sizes.
Learning Intention 3
Book making
Weekly focus
- Starting from scratch, what is a book? What is the purpose? Who reads books? Who writes books? What do they look like? Teachers will use information gained about prior knowledge to decide next steps.
Mentor texts
- Explore a range of Mo Williams (Pigeon books) during morning/ Afternoon group times (Term 3)
- discussions and questioning to follow.
- Educators to find moments to read to small groups of children and using these moments as an opportunity for self-regulation and grounding
Children have been engaged this week in the writers workshop using their paper , pencil and utilising chalk boards to initiate story telling and masking mark making. The outdoors and our unique spaces have provided a wonderful opportunity for children to interact and engage in moments of blissful and purposeful learning. Children were even able to tap into their emotions through out the day by marking and clearly identifying them on the chalk board.
Our in-house dining and self serving experience is working wonders for the children at meal times where they are more enaged and willing to try new food as well as learn about the different varieties of nutrtional values.
There has been a little bit of an event change through out our daly routine calendar where the children have been presented with a cue card chart with pictures where they are notified beforehand of what to expect next in their learning coinciding with the routine. The chart consists of now, next and then Children have responded well to this technique and are very positive towards welcoming open ended verbal communication.
Community visits to our unique spaces within the Holy Family Catholic School have been very consistent throughout this week where the children have enjoyed endless moments of joy exploring and extending on their physical gross motor skills. The outdoor learning spaces within our Early learning have also provided the children with opportunity and exposure to expand on their motor skills and balance.
Some specs of gold for this week
Hope you all have a relaxing and wonderful weekend.