Glen Education Aspendale North

Moments in Time

Kate Warren-Smith, Early Childhood Teacher

Providing children with numerous opportunities to access a variety of materials that promote exploration, creativity and imagination using their unique abilities. In addition, building on children’s motor development, social-emotional skills and cognitive abilities has been paramount in my educational experiences. This is facilitated through open-ended materials that can function in multiple ways impacting children’s sense of imagination, creativity, competence and motor skills development. The construction corner is one of my all-time favorites for allowing children to let their imaginations run wild and create all sorts of structures. The children create farms, schools, houses, shops, boats and even a garage for fixing cars and it enables the implementation of other materials into play extending on their own ideas. Children build, knock down and recreate fostering problem-solving skills, spatial awareness, increased self-esteem and develop new friendships. 

At Glen Aspendale North Kindergarten we provide children with natural play spaces for them to explore, develop a sense of connection to nature and gain a sense of freedom. Our mud patch incorporates gardening tools and natural materials such as flowers, leaves, gum nuts, pinecones and rocks to promote discovery, exploration, spontaneity and imagination. Asha created a cake using mud, tan bark, flowers and leaves. It’s amazing to see Asha extend on her play through adding sand and water and saying that she made “a magic potion, fairy food and science experiments”. 

In addition, Glen ANK integrates learning in natural spaces such as our gardens, worm farms and compost which develops children’s appreciation for the natural environment and their environmental awareness. Robyn attended our kindergarten and did a planting experience with the Wednesday & Thursday group. The Wednesday & Thursday group enjoyed learning about ways to care for their environments, getting their hands dirty when digging and using natural fertilizers essential for the growth of our plants. We uphold children’s interaction with the natural environment in everyday play.