Sun Room Curriculum

As term 2 comes to an end let’s take a look back at what we got up to….

Bugs and Insects…

For the first half of term 2 our focus was bugs and insects. Our aim was to engage the children’s senses and curiosity. Our experiences included talking about what bugs look like, what they eat and where they live. We went on a bug hunt and created a poster together with all the bugs we found in our outdoor area. These included snails, butterflies, lady bugs and bees.  The insect song ( Have fun teaching) was a huge hit with the children where we learnt what noises the movements the insects make. 

Pets and Animals…

For the second half of the term our focus was on Pets and Animals. We received so many photos of the children with their pet or their favourite animal from a trip to the Zoo or Aquarium. This created a wonderful opportunity for the children’s learning by fostering observation skills, responsibility and empathy. They also provided beautiful moments where the children could share an experience about their pets. Two stand out learning experiences we had for the children was the Pet Care Station and the “Old Mac Donald” sensory tray. Both these experiences sparked curiosity, and helped develop a basic understanding of animals.

Shapes and Colours…

We focused on Shapes and Colours for the whole term and will continue to create and support opportunities as this learning will be ongoing. This topic was to support the children’s learning through simple, fun and hands on experiences which focused on exploration and recognition. We had so many amazing learning opportunities for the children. They definitely enjoyed painting an assortment of shapes on the easel and having the opportunity to choose and talk about the colours they were using. The children were so engaged in the colour sensory trays where we focused on the colours blue, green, yellow and red, one week at a time. Our focus song was “Shapes are all around” ( Pinkfong) where we discovered a huge range of shapes and were able to relate them to every day objects. 

Superheroes…

A huge interest over this term has been superheroes. We supported this through Spider-Man themed play dough, superhero puzzle, spider man cooking and superhero figurines.

The children were so engaged in these experiences and it was great to see their learning was so supported which we saw highlighted through turn taking, sharing a play space, positive interactions, role playing, creativity and imaginative play.

NAIDOC Week…

We finished off the term by acknowledging NAIDOC week. As we are still supporting our learning on animals we thought this would be a great way to link the two learnings together and focus on Australian Animals whilst also supporting an understanding of what the theme for NAIDOC Week means to Sun Room. The theme for this year is “The Next Generation: Strength, Vision and Legacy”  This is so meaningful as it’s a time for all of us to come together to promote unity and inclusivity. The children enjoyed singing and dancing to Taba Naba and Inanay. Our incursion with Ganga Giri embedded the feeling of how important it is to know that we are all connected to the land. We have also introduced the word “WOMlNJEKA” after our Good Morning song, which means Welcome!