Glen Education Edithvale
Caring for our Baby Bunnies: Respect and Responsiblity
Term 2 at Glen Edithvale brought us our rabbit rearing program with Animals on the Move, a 4-week farm Incursion from Gembrook. The intention of the project is to engage children and educators with a hands-on experience as we become kind safe and responsible, which is linked to our termly planning cycle. Stormy and her four, one-day old bunnies arrived to us. We used science and nature to investigate their habitat, food needs, weekly growth cycle, our responsibilities, and their physical features.
As a community name suggestions were located on a large poster in the foyer with families and friends contributing until we finalized the four names – Chocolate Smoothie, Stormy Wheel, Lightning McQueen and Spiderman.
We researched through RSPCA what foods bunnies can eat, what they can sometimes eat and what they cannot eat and used our communication portal Kinderloop to ask families to please donate small items of food as we work together as a responsible community to link home and kindergarten together.
We regularly sat in a circle with our rabbits hopping around to these foods, adjusting our voice, touch and gestures to show kindness and safety.
To extend on our learning experiences, imaginative play areas were set up, books and music including songs “Little bunny Foo Foo”, “Bunny Hop” and Rabbit Yoga.
The children enjoyed studying and drawing the rabbits as they enhance their fine motor skills, becoming storytellers.
When the rabbits leave us next week, we will be discussing family pets, with families emailing our service pictures which we share in a mat time experience engaging children’s communication skills and enhancing their confidence in a holistic approach.
Our experiences are shared with families in a variety of ways – through our reflection book located near our sign in dresser where families are encouraged to see their child’s voice, through individual portfolios where educator share their observations of children’s learning, in our foyer and classroom displays and through Kinderloop.