Waratah Group Term 2, 2022

Waratah News Term 2 2022

The children in Waratah group are very settled and are really enjoying engaging in the program. It has been great meeting with lots of families over the past couple of weeks to touch base on your child’s development and goals we are supporting your child to work towards in the program. If you haven’t had the chance to catch up for a chat yet, let me know and we can make a time.

Hopefully everyone can access the photos on School Stream and see what we have been up to. We have uploaded some Program Experience plans that we write up for some of the experiences we set up. These support us to keep on track and allow us to reflect on experiences before we have them out and not whilst in the moment in the busy room. They detail resources we may need, questions we might ask to prompt thinking, links the Early Years Learning Frameworks and National Quality Standards (EYLF, VEYLDF, NQS ) and a variety of strategies.

We have many strategies that we use with the group and individual children that are embedded in our program. These support children in their independence, all-round development and development of skills in a variety of areas.

Some of the strategies we use are:

• “Show and share box” - to encourage questioning, listening, confidence building.
• “Group time”- respecting others personal space, listening, engaging in conversations, waiting for their turn.
• “Buddy Time" - children are paired the children with another child who they may not usually play or interact with. The children need to stay, play and talk with their buddy for at least 10 minutes. This assists the children with their social interactions, building new relationships and to step out of their comfort zone in a supportive environment.
• "Helper of the Session” -  providing children with the opportunity for autonomy over areas of the program.
• “5-Minute Timers” - support children to manage situations independently and wait for their turn, persevere and stay at an experience.
• “Calming Strategies”- listening to smiling mind, quiet cube, liquid timers, fiddle toys, listen to an audio book.
• “Facilitation” - Facilitating conversations between children in a variety of situations-in play, during snack, during conflict, entering existing play.
• “Role Modelling” - Offering ideas for phrases children could use if they want to join in play, ask someone to stop a particular behaviour, be on their own etc.

Many of these we encourage the children to use independently when appropriate, providing them with tools to start to cope independently in a variety of situations.

Just a reminder to please ensure your child has at least 1 set of spare clothes weather appropriate in their kinder bags.

Thanks

Louise, Tina, Yvonne, Alyson and Tanya