Wattle Group

It’s hard to believe we are almost halfway through the year already. Wattle group has grown so much over their time at kinder, and we can’t wait to see what the second half of the year brings.  This term, we introduced the children to Gail the snail. Gail is a puppet to support the children's emotional, social, and language development. She comes from professional development that the entire Livingston staff undertook. The children have responded extremely positively to their new classmate. We have used her to discuss emotions, self-help skills, promote a positive sense of self, and explore and accept differences. As part of the puppet program, we will introduce the children to several other puppets who all have different roles to play. We have Calm Tommy to support the children with self-regulation, Rusty the robot for tone of voice, and Coco the Koala for support and comfort. We will also perform social role play with children puppets. This is a new program at Livingston that we are already seeing a positive response from and are excited to expand and continue.  

Our class mascot, Livingston Koala, has begun to have sleepovers at the Wattle children’s homes. Each week, Livingston will go home with one child from the Wattle group and then return to kinder, where the children share with the group about their time with Livingston. This supports the children's confidence with public speaking, language skills, and sense of community, linking home and kinder. The children are always so thrilled to take Livingston home, and it has been amazing to see how excited they are to share about their adventures. The children continue to extend their social skills and build their peer relationships. At this age, children are continuing to engage in both solitary play and parallel play; however, cooperative play is emerging as the primary play stage. In cooperative play, two or more children are usually working together on a shared project or game, with one child taking the lead. It is important to remember that at this age, cooperative play often occurs between two children, as working with more than one child at a time is a skill many children are still working towards. At this stage, children can be inflexible with the games they want to play and the children they want to play with. This results in us hearing the phrase “no one will play with me.” This often translates to, “I want to play with someone who won’t play the game I want to play,” or “The child I want to play with is playing with someone or something else.” We as educators support children through this challenge by encouraging them to play with a variety of peers or to compromise. As the children continue to develop their social skills, they will begin to engage in cooperative play in larger groups and then begin to engage in more collaborative play where two or more children are working together, all contributing ideas to the play. The collaborative play stage also is where more conflict between peers can arise, and this is where we often step in to support the children to negotiate and resolve conflicts. If you have any concerns about your child’s social development, please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask us questions. Cooking has been a highlight for the children this term and has become a regular part of our program. The children have particularly loved chopping. Cooking has so many benefits for children, as it promotes motor skills, language development, measurement, turn-taking, and encourages children to try new foods. We will continue to incorporate this into our program

and appreciate the families' support in contributing food to the occasional recipe, as this encourages the children to participate and eat the food.  

Lastly, just a few reminders: 

Please ensure your child has weather-appropriate spare clothing in their bags. We have very limited spare clothes at kinder, particularly lacking spare pants. As the children become more independent with packing their bags and changing their clothes, this often results in items from their bags being left on the ground or at kinder. 

Please ensure all items, including their comfort toys, are labelled, as it can be difficult to return them to the right home if they are not. 

We are looking forward to Term 3 and can’t wait to see how the children continue to build their skills at kinder.

Emma, Shannyn, Kath