Forest Room

Hello Forest Room Families and Friends, 

Welcome to our Term 1 Newsletter. Since the start of the year, we have observed that most of the children are settled well within the Forest Room environment. We continue providing meaningful interactions to meet the individual needs of the children within the group. We also work closely with our families to ensure that drop-off and transitions are easier for some children. We are able to see positive results during drop-off times. 

We are learning our new friends’ names by building friendships through group games. Children were enjoying the ‘doggy doggy where the bone?’ game. We often encourage children to include their friend's name while asking questions, such as “Ginna, do you have my bone?” 

The room is set up keeping in mind children’s interests. Each learning area helps develop and practice various pro-social behaviours. Such as sharing, helping, displaying empathy, and turn-taking. 

Exploring Different Emotions and Feelings

One of our main focuses in Term 1 is supporting children to regulate their emotions and become strong in their social and emotional wellbeing. We asked the children at the beginning of each group time 'how are we feeling today?' 'What makes us happy or sad?' ‘What do we do when we feel upset/angry, sad?’ To learn and name different emotions, we used the book' The colour monster'. We talked about what different colours stand for. ‘Green is for Calm; Blue is for Sad; Red is for Angry; Yellow is for Happy; Black is for Afraid.’ Children started to use those colours in their daily conversions. Such as, ‘I start feeling red when you take away my train’ ‘I am feeling blue. Because I miss my mummy.’ It was great to see our children able to name emotions and begin to share feelings and thoughts with us. We also set up an emotional check-in table, read more books about emotions, and sing the feelings song to extend this topic. 

Numeracy Focus: Learning Number 1-5

We noticed that children showed interest in numbers and counting objects. Learning numbers 1 to 5 become the main numeracy focus in Term1. We used the song "Five little ducks went out one day" to practice one-to-one corresponding counting skills. We encouraged children to count while pointing to each duck. During group time, we asked children to use puppets while we sing along with the song. In this way, children are not rote counting or memorisation but rather learning and understanding the meaning of numbers. 

Later on, we set up a Numeracy table to encourage children to learn the numbers in visual and say the number names without in order. 

To make learning more fun. We included counting 'Ice Cream scoops' in our numeracy learning. We offered children giant pom-poms and tongs. They can scoop and place their ice cream as they count. 

Literacy Learning 

Our children love reading. They enjoy the whole group and small group Storytime. We often see them spend time reading books by themselves or reading to their friends. They can retell their familiar stories as well, such as 'The colour monster' 'We're going to the bear hunt' and 'Dear Zoo' ‘The Gruffalo’. 

Children also showed interest in identifying their names or some of the letters in their names and the names of their friends.  We often hear them saying 'My name start with E/M/A'. 

Special Events

Chinese New Year (1st February)

In the Forest Room we cleebrated Chinese New Year! We had some children come in thier traditonal Chinese outfits to share with all of us! We also had some pasting where the children made their very own lantern! We had some table top activites where the children could sort the red and yellow items into the correct tubs. We even got to make some yummy Pork Dumplings with Ginna! They were so yummy!

Australia Day (26th  February)

To celebrate Australia Day the children got to make handprints of the differnt flags in Australia like the Aborginal, Torres Straight Islander and the Australian flag.

Be Kind Day (2nd March)

Be kind day was a very special day at haven as we made some beautiful sunflowers to display on the fence outside to remenber Claire as they were her favourtie flower. The children painted a sunflower and then had them out for everyone to see! We also ahd an excursion to the park to have a special picnic, hand paintings and a big run aorund with everyone at Haven! 

St Patrick's day (17th March)

To celebrate St Patricks Day we had a sensory tub where the children could serch for gold coins, rainbows and pots of gold! We also created some beautiful four leaf clovers and also enjoyed a super yummy Fish and Chip lunch!

Harmony Week (21st - 27th March)

To celebrate Harmony week we craeted some beautiful self portraits where the children coloured in a black and white picture of them. We also read some lovely books like "I Am Australian Too" and "Whoever You Are".

Easter (17th April) 

To celebrate easter the children mader some colourful eggs with recyled art items with Tirsh and made a beautiful stained glass window with Jesy! We also had a special visit form the easter bunny who left lots of yummy easter eggs for us to find and eat! In the afternoon we had an easter afternoon tea with some fresh fruit and yummy hot cross buns! 

See you all in Term 2~

Ginna, Lena, Trish, Kristyn, Sikha and Jesy