Early Learning Centre

3-Year-Old Kinder

Teddy Bears Picnic

There has been much interest in playing “picnics” in ELC3 as the children have been setting up small picnic scenes and sharing food, drink, and other items such as flowers. To build on this interest and learning, we had a Teddy Bears’ Picnic last week. Some children brought special stuffed toys from home, and some children chose some teddy bears from the ELC. The children enjoyed setting up tea-parties on picnic rugs for their special guests. Each child was invited to show their Teddy Bear to the group. The children ate morning tea and lunch with their Teddy Bears. 

Mrs Alyssa Cairns, ELC Teacher

4-Year-Old Kinder

Road Safety

It was a wonderful week last week, finding out what the children already know about road safety, listening to their experiences on the road or on their bikes, learning more about the different road signs and making traffic lights and roads from doing arts and crafts.  Children have drawn up pedestrian crossings, drawn the stop sign and made lollipops out of icy pole sticks to use on the roads so they could call out, "Red light, stop!"  "Green light, go," and "Orange light, slow down."  Yes, the police officer dramatic play continues to be very popular and everyone is loving the bike riding experiences at kinder.  

One of the songs the children have learned was Twinkle, twinkle, traffic light, on the corner shining bright. The other favourite was driving the fire truck song, which goes like this… “Hurry, hurry, drive the fire truck…ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!”

We are looking forward to having our ‘Road Safety Incursion’ that will be happening this Friday.

Self-Help Skills and School Readiness

Children are learning to come straight to the mat at the start of the day, so we can greet one another and to conduct a roll call.  We look around to see which friends or teachers are away.  In the morning, the children are introduced to things they need to remember for the day or special activities/events that are expected to happen.  

The children have been practicing how to become more responsible for their own belongings and to pack their own bags at the end of the day.  They have amazed the educators at how fast, efficient and capable they are at doing this all on their own, maybe with a tiny bit of support for some.  We will continue to encourage and nurture this with the help of a checklist so children can tick them off as they complete to pack each item.  

Fine Motor Skills

We have focused more on strengthening the fine motor skills of the children by doing a lot of cutting with scissors. This has been a popular experience and more children are gaining the idea of how to properly hold their scissors.  

Reconciliation Week

During the reconciliation week, the children learnt about the Aboriginal flag, the colours and what they represented.  They had opportunities to recreate their own flags with cut up paper, paint and engage with coloured sensory stones.  We value and acknowledge the Aboriginal people and their culture but we also know that God is the overall creator of the whole world even before Australia and other countries were formed, found, named and lived in.  

Last Week of Term 2

As we reach closer to the last week of term, the children will engage in discussions as to what kind of a last day they would like to have, whether it be a dress up or a dress down day.  We excitedly anticipate our last excursion of the term, visiting the Year 9 students and helping them make ‘blessing bags’ for the less fortunate people in our community.  Children will be encouraged to think about others and ways we can help the homeless and the needy.  

Mrs Amy Hu, ELC Director