Niina Marni LDC B children and families, welcome to our week 9 and 10 blog. The last blog for the term! We can’t believe where the time has gone and have certainly created so many amazing memories with our friends and are overwhelmed with the sense of how proud we are of each individual child. Thank you so much to all the families of the LDC B room you have welcomed and supported this new space and team amazingly and we cannot wait for term 4. Exciting things are coming and we cannot wait to share.
For those families who this will be the last LDC B blog for them as their children are taking on a big mile stone and chapter in their life of transitioning up to the Pre School room full time. Know that Archie and myself are so incredibly proud of how bright, brave and bold your children are. We going to miss their smiley faces and contagious laughs, but we know it’s not goodbye and we will still see them everyday in the yard and in their new learning environment. We know they are all going to do amazing things.
Learning Intention: To support children’s understanding of the importance of sun safety and embedding consistent daily sun safe practices across our team and learning environment.
Why:
- Children take increasing responsibility for their own health and physical wellbeing – (Early Years Learning Framework, Learning outcome 3).
- Children show an increasing awareness of healthy lifestyles.
- Children show increasing independence and competence in personal hygiene, care and safety for themselves and others.
- Explaining the time of the days that important for sun protection.
- Showing them the tools, they need to protect their skins in the environment.
- Introducing Sun Smart Protection steps.
- Encouraging children to drink water.
ILP’s: All Children.
What beautiful past few weeks we have had. Warm sunny days with blue sky’s, summer is certainly near and we couldn’t be more happier. Here at Holy Family ELC we have always advocated for outside play and now with the warm weather approaching you will see us outside a lot more. With this in mind we have set an intention of sun safety and embedding a consistent daily practice within our team and learning environment.
Children are becoming more aware of sun safety through multiple provocations and experiences. As a team we wanted our children to understand the importance of applying sunscreen, wearing hats and drinking water for their wellbeing. Watching the cancer council ‘ slip, slop, slam, seek and slide ‘ video was a great visual for children to understand the importance of all these elements and why we need to do them.
A few more areas and provocations we have done are:
To keep their hats on when outside and then transitioning back into our indoor learning environment to their hats in our drink bottle trolley or in our hat basket near our entrance
Playing in shady areas when outside
Water play
When doing group times or trainsitioning from inside to outside or vis vera children are encouraged to have a drink of water
During rest time Archie and children took this moment to rest and cool down with some wet paper towel. The children loved this provocation and certainly used it to its advantage
Eating heathy fruits and veggies in our meals at meal times so our bellies are full and we have lots of energy and motivation to play and explore in the sunshine
We know our children are only little. So we are taking baby steps in this approach and using gentle reminders throughout our day to remind them about their belongings as well as their wellbeing during their time here at Holy Family ELC this summer.
Learning Intention 2: To encourage children’s expression of ideas and identity through collaborative visual art/making experiences and mark making
Why:
- Educators have recently noticed and reflected on children’s interest in box making and mark making and discussed how this supports literacy development and identity expression
- Mark making simply refers to the creation of different patterns, lines, textures and shapes.
- Mark-making is not just about early writing; it is a sensory and physical experience which can be enjoyed by all ages and abilities.
- As well as early writing, mark-making can develop into mathematical representation and creative expression.
- Making marks enables children to develop their hand eye co-ordination and fine motor skills through practicing to hold a tool, deciding what grip suits them best, which hand feels most natural and through making small controlled movements using the tool.
- By giving children the opportunity to explore different mediums of mark making and visual art, it engages them in sensory play and allows them to discover new exciting materials.
- This helps to enhance a child’s critical thinking, brain development and language development, which gives them the ability to build towards more complex learning tasks in the future.
- Cutting and pasting activities for kindergarten children have many benefits. For example, cutting and pasting can help the development of fine motor skills. They can cut images, shapes and drawings and paste them into various shapes.
- Cutting and pasting activities can also be used as creative channels for children’s self-expression.
- Cutting and pasting is an important first skill to master in order for children to then be able to design, ideate and successfully create artwork and objects.
- Cutting and pasting is a necessary skill for many school based activities and will support school preparedness for children.
ILP’s: ALL CHILDREN
Our making continues to be part of our daily rhythm and now stands as an embedded sustainable practice within our program ( potential on going intention and inquiry for next term). Alining with the Holy Family pillar of ecological conservation, using recycled materials is just one way we take responsibility in contributing to a sustainable future. We wonder what other ways we can embed sustainable practices?
Bio glitter
Vegetable food dye
Recycled paper
These are some of the elements and areas we have discussed as a team and decided to start with this school holidays and next term to being more sustainable in our practice – in particular with visual arts. Hopefully by 2025 we are taking steps to be a more natural and eco friendly centre.
Over the past few weeks we have been focusing on creating different medias and resources to help children in furthering their understandings in what we can use for our creations and what is good for the environment. The importance of children understanding sustainability is something we see as a vital element of their learning and with the help from their teachers and visual group times. The children had come up with many discussions on what they think is important and what we can do together as a team.
Children’s voices:
Holly – Pick up rubbish
Sebastian – Put things in the bin
Selena – Use the back of our papers
Adriana – Clean up our mess
Provocations and experiences we have seen this week:
MAKING (box construction)
Herb painting outside
Play dough with natural dye
STEM ( making cloud dough and coloured sand )
Mark making with natural resources
SPECKS OF GOLD:
