Niina Marni Preschool children and families and welcome to our week 1 blog.
Learning Intention
To nurture and deepen each child’s innate sense of agency in decision making and routine/ self-help tasks.
Why:
- The sense of agency is defined as the sense of oneself as the agent of one’s own actions. This also allows oneself to feel distinct from others, and contributes to the subjective phenomenon of self-consciousness
- In the approved learning frameworks, agency is defined as being able to make choices and decisions to influence events and to have an impact on one’s world. Supporting children’s agency is about recognising that children have a right to make choices and decisions, and are capable of initiating their own learning.
- Children who have opportunities to effectively assess and manage risk at an early age will be better equipped to deal with risk as an adult. It also creates a learning environment where children can identify their limits, seek help when needed, and supports children to explore, experiment and cope with the unexpected
- There are many benefits to children participating in decision making, such as learning to consider the needs of others, developing
- problem-solving skills and it can increase their commitment to making decisions work
Inquiry project:
Our Place in the World
During morning circle time, children were excited to see the google map to understand and navigate their surroundings.
Key focus:
What is Kuarna land after singing our song
Looking at the Australian Map with a focus on South Australia.
Comments/ideas shared by children
Jason ‘is that google maps?’
Emmy ‘Australia’
Cooper pointed at South Australia ‘There’s a bump’
Livij ‘I’ve been to Melbourne’
Livij: ‘Papua New Guinea is different to our world’
Ryle: ‘my Grandma came from the airport’
Zoe: ‘I go on an aeroplane’
Cooper: ‘I lived in Coogee’
Mikal ‘I went on a train to the city’
Livij: ‘if I drive from that road I can get to your house’
Oliver ‘I walk to school too’
Understandings
-We live in Australia
-Our school is in Parafield Garden
-We can travel in different ways to different places
Numeracy
Learning maths through play.
Children enjoyed exploring mathematical ideas with a range of resources and materials. Developing numeracy skills early gives children an important foundation for their learning and development. Maths at this age includes noticing numbers, shapes, patterns, size, time and measurement.
Nothing without joy – Loris Malaguzzi
Literacy Intentions (our hopes for their learning)
- General sound discrimination and rhyme awareness.
- Matching Rhyming words orally.
- Reading picture books regularly. Children will enjoy a joyful connection to picture books.
- Continue using mark-making tools, such as crayons, textas, pencils, paint, chalk, sand (as they create texts during this process).
- Children will build symbolic functioning, sharing something about the marks they have created.
Construction experiences are gaining increasing popularity in our preschool room. Children are exploring all types of construction materials everyday and amazing everyone around them with their incredible ideas, spatial awareness, shape recognition, problem solving skills and social skills.
Trajectories:
- Continue to explore neighbourhood, Adelaide, and South Australia.
- Community visits.
- Loose parts for construction experiences.
- Matching Rhyming words orally.