Nina Marni to all our wonderful little learners and their beautiful families. Welcome to our weekly blog.
| Learning Intention: 1 |
To provide opportunities for children to make new discoveries about and deepen their appreciation of all Jesus’s living beings.
| Why? As part of the Catholic Ethos, we aim to support children to develop a love, respect and appreciation for all of Jesus’s creations. |
Living beings also provide a valuable outlet for children to enquire about and research.
“Focusing on fostering curiosity and exploration of the natural world“
Families are valued and appreciated for their interest and time spent towards each of their childrens learning, curiosities and explorations.
This week children have been greatly invested in our enquiry project of insects and mini living beings which could be found in our outdoor learning space connecting their discoveries to our catholic identity of caring for all god’s living beings.. This enquiry lead the children into exploring insects, beetles and their recent discovery of “Rain Moths”. As the weather begins to cool down and we have been blessed with some rain our mini living beings the rain moths have come out to explore.
The children were very excited to visited the beautiful aquatic living beings in the MUDLA and enjoy some wonderful conversations with these amazing creatures. The wonder still continues about creation.
The children even talked and marked their scribes on insects and lady bugs with their teachers. “Can you draw a lady bug”?
| Learning Intention 2: Sacred symbols are special and important. Why? Doctrinal Insights from the Catholic Tradition that support this Enduring Understanding include:Sacred symbols remind us that God is close to us, and with us.In my Catholic learning environment, I can see many sacred symbols.Candle flames remind us that God is with us.The Bible reminds us of God’s love for us through special stories.The Cross reminds us of Jesus.Water is used for special blessingsSacred symbols are used in my school/ELC and in church celebrations, prayer and liturgy. (CCC1145)Other faith traditions also have sacred symbols The Sign of the Cross is a prayer to God.Doctrinal and Content Elaborations: Doctrinal Insights from the Catholic Tradition that support this Enduring Understanding include:The Sign of the Cross is a prayer with actions and words.The words remind us that God is called Father, Son and Holy Spirit.The actions represent the symbol of the Cross, and that prayer involves our head, heart and body. |
This week our morning prayers have begun with placing all of our sacred symbols on the prayer tray by our little learners. The candle and the cross have been significant symbols throughout our prayer time. The children began their prayer by singing the five finger prayer song along with their teachers.
This week children engaged in reading the story “George looks for God” to simplify this story the teachers used the terms ” George looks for Jesus” so the children were able to gain a better understanding and learning of “who is Jesus?
Open-ended questions , answers and thoughts to ponder were some interesting conversations that enlightened this beautiful prayer group.
Book making Study. – Children will develop an interest for books and an identity that they can make marks and make books that represent their interests.
This week we celebrated the National Simultaneous Story time on Wednesday 21 May. Our little learners joined with the school in reading the 2025 National Simultaneous Story time text – The truck cat written by Deborah Frenkel and illustrated by Danny Snell.
This was such a beautiful moment to observe as the children gathered together as a community joining in listening to this beautiful story. They did not forget to include some wonderful comments about “How wonderful the cat sat in the truck
Children will gain confidence with their mark making tools/ materials and build a connection to picture books.
This week children have been making some wonderful connections to picture books, where the teachers have been reading to the children and the children have been roll modelling with prompts , pictures and lots of interactive conversations.
Children are fast to observe and capture precious moments to share amazing stories with their peers. (fascilitating agency.)
The Early Years Learning Framework ( Being , Belonging and Becoming)
learning outcome 1 – Children have a strong sense of identity – (providing opportunities for children to engage independently with tasks and play.)
(display delight, encouragement and enthusiasm for children’s attempts)
A story about “GUS the Southern Purple Spotted Gudgeon” was read to the children by the teacher. The children were observed interacting with the sea creatures relating to one another their version of the story. The children used their imagination to create the water for the sea creatures to swim.
Community walks around the Holy Family Catholic School. The playground and a beautiful chess board were some interactive moments that the children stoped to enjoy.
Specks of gold for this week.
The wonderful and remarkable hands of play dough , searching for bugs in the sand, building positive and valuable connections with our teachers , enjoying nature, constructing with imagination, building friendships with peers and conversing with their teacher about their amazing days in their classroom (Specks of gold)
Ngaityalya
Hope you all have a relaxing weekend.