Early Learning

King's Community

At King’s Early Learning Centre we love being part of a K-12 School! This term our two 4-year-old groups have started some transition activities, joining in with children they will be attending school with next year. The Possum and Echidna groups have loved visiting the School Library with Mrs Nield, exploring the playgrounds, and saying hello to the Year 7’s calves. We have also visited the gym, and had a very competitive game of tug of war with some senior students! In the end, our Kinder children were too strong for the senior students and they got over the line.

We always appreciate having older students come to visit us at Kinder, and we are thankful to have Elliana from the senior school completing her workplace learning with us.

We were also very grateful to have the Year 9's and some of their teachers come to Kinder to help spread our big delivery of bark! It is wonderful for our younger children to see the example of older students working together and using their time to help others.

In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive'.

Acts 20:35

Beth Parker

Head of Early Learning

Echidnas

The Echidna Group have been interested in shapes this term, so we all went on a Shape Hunt around the School grounds to find where shapes might be hiding. We took our clip boards and record sheets so we could mark each time we found a shape. We recorded mostly rectangles and a lot of circles and squares. Sometimes we found shapes hiding inside other shapes! We even found shapes hiding in our lunch boxes back at Kinder. "Shapes are everywhere!" said Liam.

This week we had a special visit from the Resonsible Pet Ownership program; Barbara and her dog Tucker taught us how to be safe around dogs. This includes our own pet dogs! 70% of dog attacks occur in our homes or that of a family member or friend, so it's important for us to understand what dogs might be communicating to us and how they might be feeling. Barbara showed us how to ask first before we approach a dog for a pat. 

Next, we walk towards the dog in a curved line, or a "banana walk", so the dog doesn't feel threatened. We then tuck our thumb under our fingers and offer our closed hand to the dog to sniff as we introduce ourselves. Then we can safely pat, but always down the dog's back. Tucker got lots of pats from his new friends! We went to the library and Mrs. Nield read us a story called "What's Up, Pup?" This book also helped us understand dog body language and how we can tell what a dog might be saying to us. Dogs have lots of changing feelings, just like we do!

August is Larneuk time in the Gariwerd calendar; this means "Nesting Bird Season".

There has been a busy Crow gathering twigs from a tree in our Kinder yard; the children thought it must be building a nest somewhere nearby. We watched a time lapse film of a clever Weaver Bird building a nest with dry grass. "That's so awesome!" said James.

The Echidna Group constructed their own nests from clay, sticks, matchsticks and wool. Some children made sure no Snakes or other predators could get into their nests. Others made ladders and seats for the Birds to use. Jack made two beautiful Birds to sit inside his nest! The Echidna Group have begun finding out about the Bird life cycle and sharing Indigenous storytelling about Birds as we celebrate this fascinating time in God's nature.

Sian Duggan 

Early Learning Teacher

Possums Repair Shop

Our latest adventures in the repair shop have taught us about kintsugi! Kintsugi (金継ぎ, "golden joinery"), also known as kintsukuroi (金繕い, "golden repair"), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. We used PVA glue and gold mica dust. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. This philosophy reminds us of God’s deep love for us. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love - not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins (1 John 4:9-10).

Beth Parker

Head of Early Learning