LDC B Weekly Blog – Week 9 Term 2 2023

Nina Marni Long Day Care B children and families. Welcome to our week 9 learning reflection.

Learning Intention 1: To support each child to recognise and regulate their emotional states, focusing to develop a strong sense of wellbeing.

Following our intention this week of the Berry Street Education Model. We found out and know that humans are actually hardwired for connections. This involves multiple forms such as emotionally, physically, mentally, and neurologically. As humans we depend on these connections to maintain our wellbeing. So we know as for children it is important and vital that we provide this for all children and use these forms in our daily practice.

Some of the main strategies we have used to help maintain and form these connections are: 

• Preparing our children with life skills such as: optimism, resilience and mindfulness.
• Providing positive education of well-being and happiness in our routine.
• Supporting children to understand and manage their own feelings, thoughts, behaviours and emotions.
• Developing the ability to communicate with empathy, care, and respect.
• Responding appropriately to other people’s feelings.
• Encouraging a sense of agency and desire to interact with others.

Some provocations, experiences and moments we have shared together this week as a class were: 

• Using our mark making station to reflect and draw on different emotions and feelings
• Reading books together, individually and in group times on communities and feelings
• Sensory provocations – to help self regulate
• Practicing our yoga and mediation ( this is a class favourite)

Learning Intention 2:  To nurture each child’s wellbeing as they begin their progression to Pre School.

As some of you may be aware we are reaching the end of the term. We don’t know where that time has gone truly! But this means that some of our friends in LDC B are going to start their new adventure to our pre school room.

Although it may not seem like a big chance as we see our pre school friends and teachers a lot over our days in LDC. It is still going to be a little different with a new learning environment, new faces and a slightly different routine. With this in mind we made this intention to help these children to make sure they all feel safe, supported and heard through this time period.

Why:

• As children approach transitions or a changing in life some may be experiencing certain feelings such as fear, uncertainty and nervousness.
• Being aware of children’s developmental milestones, particularly emotional and social development. This helps us as educators to understand what to expect at different stages of each child lives.
• Having successful transitions helps improve our children’s educational and social outcomes.

ILP’S: TB, ED,HM,BR,TD 

Bookmaking Spotlight Term 2:  ‘What’s your book about?’ – supporting children to choose Themes for their stories and encourage writing.

Focusing on our spotlight for term 2 of book making. This week we continued our focused on working with the children about choosing a theme for their books. Asking questions like

• What is your book about?
• Could you tell me more about your story on the next page?
• Do you need help coming up with and idea of your book?

And noticed what confident and capable authors we have in our room. Children have been doing amazing with using our bookmaking station to create and publish! Amazing books. Children have had such a sense of pride and accomplishment of finishing and showing their books to both peers and educators and we couldn’t be more proud.

Philip – When I am finished I am going to take this book home.

Tahila-Rose – I am an author

Holly – This is my book

Niya – Millie can I make a book?

Some strategies we have used to help with our spotlight this week is

• Story telling – focusing on our emotion books, our author study Matt Cosgrove and potentially a new author study for term 3.
• Reading picture books regularly.
• Creating stories in small group experiences.
• Book making station always on offer.
• Discussion different themes and encouraging children to publish their stories to others.

We have also finished our author study of Matt Cosgrove and have gone down children voice’s for a potential next author study for next term. Some texts include ‘ the very hungry caterpillar’ and ‘ wombat stew’.

Inquiry project: To learn about the communities around us and finding our sense of belonging with each child’s identity through connecting with and learning together as a community.

This term we have started our first inquiry as a room on finding our sense of belonging and where we find this. Children have been invited to share family photos at group time. Thank you so much to the families who brought photos in for our group times and our kinship tree. We can’t wait to share photos of our final project!

Some focus provocations and spontaneous experiences that helped us achieve this intention this week was:

• Looking at photos of our community and seeing familiar faces and memories we have created together
• Grouptimes
• Morning prayer time
• Meal times together
• Story times
• Spending time with our friends from other rooms
• Morning movement
• Having special visits from our big school friends.

We are so happy with how confident and adjusted our friends have been with our new learning environment and finding their own senses of belonging and agency. We know that all our children are unique and special in their own ways and are proud to finish this inquiry with warmth and knowledge of our next adventures and chapters for term 3.

Specks of gold: 

Trajectories:

• To support children’s expression of ideas and identity through mark-making and collaborative art experiences.
• Book making – supporting children to use their writing along with their pictures. Encouraging them to read their books to the educators, other children, and in group times (publishing)
• NAIDOC Week starting next week
• Last week of term 2 next week
• More community visits and combined play to support children moving tore school next term