Niina Marni wonderful families, welcome to the Week 2 blog!
Despite the extremely hot weather, we have had a wonderful week with lots of new learning experiences and fun activities.
Learning Intention 1
To support new children and families to develop a sense of belonging to the Holy Family Early Years learning environments and to develop relationships within their community.
In supporting this intention, we have been encouraging collaborative play along side individual work so that children find new friendships and strengthen their existing relationships with their peers and teachers. Children have been provided with new bag tags and locker tags with their photos, to build a sense belonging to the preschool room. We have also started to create our Kinship Tree where all family photographs will be displayed, portraying that we all come from different places and backgrounds, but in Preschool, we are one big family and belong together.
To further develop children’s sense of belonging and help build strong connections to the environment around us and the Holy Family community, we have continued engaging in community walks. During our walks, we visited the Mudla, where children observed and watched the fish and turtles and made many curious enquiries about them.
Winnifred – Turtle in the water!
Nirman – Where’s the fish?
Calvin – He doesn’t like this yucky food, so he’s going to find some (pointing at one fish in the tank)
Charlotte – Two turtles!
Gavy – They are turtles
We also visited the log park and the vegetable garden during our community walks where we balanced on the logs, had pretend campfires and searched for insects under logs. We also talked about the different vegetables and how the canteen and the Early Learning Kitchen use them to make our food, and to care for them by not plucking or pulling on them.
Learning Intention 2
To refine and establish a daily routine that supports consistency and predictability for children and educators, yet remains responsive to the needs of the community.
Why?
There have been changes to the rooms, group of children and educators. With this change there are also changes to room routines and expectations. The establishment of predictable routines supports children to understand what to expect in their day and provides a sense of comfort and supports the development of resilience as children are aware of the events in their day, which in turn contributes to children’s ability to self-regulate. When children participate collaboratively in everyday routines, events and experiences that are predictable and consistent, it provides them with a sense of safety and understanding about what will happen next in their day.
Hence, we have been working together to support children to establish a consistent routine throughout the day by working together to complete a visual chart about what is happening ‘now, next and then’ where children are provided a clear vision of what to expect during their day in preschool. Following the children’s interest in weather and the different days, we have started to introduce the days of the week, months of the year, date and weather through songs and visual aids. Children have been enjoying learning these new songs, discussing what the weather is like, and putting up the corresponding cards on the wall.
We have also been sharing the ‘Spec of Gold’ during our end-of-day group time as a part of our daily routine.
Learning Intention 3
To understand that The Sign of the Cross is a prayer to God and that sacred symbols are special and important.
To support this learning intention, we continue to make the Sign of the Cross and sing our prayer song each morning, during our circle time.
Literacy Intentions
To continue to reinforce what a book is, what the different parts of a book are and their importance, and how to take care of books.
During our group times, we have been having a lot of discussions about books. We talked about what a book is for and the parts of a book.
Luca – It is a frog book
Sebastian – It’s a book
Ariana Perre- It is holds the pages together (when shown the spine)
Lawrence, Holly, Sebastian – to read
We have also talked about the importance of visiting the library and what our expectations are, while we are there. Children are learning to understand that it is a quiet space, and that we can read stories, look at books while there, respect the space and put the books back where they belong, when we have finished reading them. During our discussions, children have said the following about expectations at the library:
Ariana Perre- to be quiet
Lawrence – sit nicely
Holly – we don’t run
Sebastian – not ripping pages
As a part of the literacy intention, and recognising the importance of mark making and identifying their own names, children were offered to trace their names. We were amazed at how interested the children were in finding their name from the tray and carefully tracing them with the markers. They were proud of their work as much as we were, and loved doing it.
Additionally, in developing the children’s phonological awareness, which is a precursor for reading and writing later on, we have been singing the phonics songs and learning to be aware of the sounds that correspond with different letters.
Loose-parts construction
This week also saw some very creative constructions in our loose-parts corner where children worked together to design various structures.
Outside play
When outside, children have been playing with boxes, decorating them and using them as means of transportation. They have been balancing on logs, playing run and tag, cooking in the sand pit, engaging in creative play, playing with water and drawing and painting, which help them develop both their gross and fine motor skills.
Learning Trajectories
Introduce the ‘Spec of Gold’ to the new children to encourage them to share about their favourite part of the day or favourite thing to do at preschool
To continue to work on creating the Family Kinship Tree
To continue to discuss about thumbs up and thumbs down choices and be familiar with the ‘Filling and emptying the bucket’ analogy
Reminders:
A kind reminder to please send in a soft/hard copy of your family to complete the Family Tree display, if you haven’t already done so.
Thank you for your continued support this week and we look forward to seeing you next week.