नमस्ते ( Namaste – Hello in Hindi ) Families,
Welcome to our week 1 and 2 Blogs!
Learning intention 1: To nurture each child’s wellbeing as they start their journey in preschool and re-connect as a community after the holiday period.
We have been thrilled to welcome new families and welcome back our existing families after the holiday period. It has been wonderful to see children settling in so well, showcasing their existing agency and sense of identity. We are also so happy and blessed to have such and amazing little community here in LDC B.
We have focused on getting to know each child through one-to one and small group and whole group interactions. Group games and music, movement and our speck on gold group times have provided valuable opportunities to learn more about each other and continue with our consistent routine we have here at Holy Family ELC.
Community visits (to the library, log-park, playground, MUDLA, fish farm, school oval, veggie gardens and assembly) have created opportunities to get to know each child’s interests and dispositions. Working together as a team to learn and know what children are currently interested in, what should we do more and less of. Working on our routine everyday making sure we meet each child’s individual needs.
We plan to still try and embed daily community visits, to utilise Holy Family’s rich learning spaces and to support seamless transitions to preschool and reception.
Following on from last term –
Our scheduled Community Visits this term are:
Monday: MUDLA 10:30-11:30
Tuesday: Playground & Library 11-12
Wednesday: Billabongs & Garden beds. 10:30-11:30
Thursday: Oval/Basketball courts 10:30-11:30
Friday: Assembly (AM) Library (PM)
Organisation
You will notice that each child has a dedicated locker space. If you arrive to ELC after 8:30, please support your child to:
- Place bag in locker
- Unpack drink bottle.
Inquiry Project
Continuing from our centre’s beliefs on embedding and making sure we have a diverse and welcoming community. We have used this to start an Inquiry Project for this term. Shifting the focus slightly from belonging in our community here onto the role who is in your community outside of ELC and what do you do with them? As our starting focal point. We discussed what it means to be in a community and who / what that looks like? We were very impressed with the ideas shared from our discussions.
This is what we know:
- Who is in some of our families?
- Teachers and peers of Holy Family ELC
What we want to know:
- How do we get to different countries
- Different jobs and purposes of those in the community
- What is your culture?
- Where do you go with your families on the weekend?
Children’s voice:
Sadie – I see Marni
Philip – Millie I got a Mummy and a Daddy too.
Lawrence – We go to the playground.
Holly – I have a Mummy.
Provocations we did over the past two weeks:
- Watercolour painting
- Group times recognising our names and faces from our name badges.
- Look at different visuals on transport (next week prov – have you been on a plane? How do you get to ELC?)
- Group time exploring photos on our community and what we do as a room.
- Mark making
- Community walks
Bookmaking spotlight – Author Study Mo Willems
This term for our spotlight in book making with the help of Lisa Burman we will be following a similar spotlight to pre school of an author study on Mo Willems. He is a very well known children’s author with the famous Pigeon books being his most known. Over the past two weeks we have been reading these books together ( a very big interest already) with the children. Introducing some contexts and techniques from Mo Willems for the children to use in their own stories.
Speech bubbles and characters being the main two. The children have grasped these techniques with ease ( we knew they would) and we even got the opportunity to start our first book as a room. We are still working on it, but cannot wait to publish and show all of you!!
Weekly focus
- Start reading author text regularly every day at group times (both in person and visually)
- Discuss the author – introducing him (show a picture of him, where he lives, his name)
- Display author and books in our book making environment.
- Book making station always on offer.
- Clear and consistent storage for finished and unfinished books.
- Regular reading and discussions around the authors and the story
- Creating stories in small group experiences
Mentor texts
- Staying on topic or theme for the entire story / book
- Writing on each page of their books
- Children’s published texts
Reminders
- If your child arrives prior to 8:30, please hang their bag on the hooks outside of preschool.
- If it is easier, you can leave your children’s hats here and they will be washed at the end of your child’s week.
- If your child doesn’t have a drink bottle, please let our staff know so we can make sure a cup or spare drink bottle is given to them.
Trajectories:
- Self-portraits
- Group/name games
- Community visits
- More on roles in our community and different transport
- Halloween preparation