Sun Room

WELCOME..

Not only are we at the end of Term 2, we are more than half way through the year! Feels like it is flying by.

We have had an amazing term and I’m so proud of our Sun Room children. You would have noticed how settled they are, how they are growing in confidence and independence and really enjoying their time in Sun Room.

This term we have welcomed Andre, Lachlan and Miller to our room and we are so happy with how well they have transitioned. And we have welcomed Educators Eda and Nicole to Sun Room.

We also said good bye to Jess and are so thankful to all she brought to Sun Room.

And with much sadness we say good bye to Jett.

Jett we will miss your smiles, your laughs and your wonderfully enthusiastic stories about your washing machine! We wish Jett and family all the best for the future

TED AND POLAR..

Our take home bears, Ted and Polar has been so embraced by the children and families and we appreciate all your help and support with this program. When the children share their stories and photos during group time, you can see they are just filled with joy and so proud of what they have accomplished.

This experience is also enhancing their independence, responsibility and turn taking skills. We will continue this program throughout Term 3, so if Ted or Polar haven’t visited you yet, they will soon!

POSITIVITY TREE …

Our positivity tree has been so beneficial for the children. We have loved sharing in conversations about how we could achieve the chosen positive affirmation of the day or helping the children understand just how amazing they are.

We have found that positive thinking is a powerful coping tool for our children and helps to build resilience within them. Children need our guidance to harness a positive mindset. This will set them up with confidence, opportunities for growth and a chance to develop an optimistic “can do” attitude!

JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD…

This term we explored Greece, Japan and Sri Lanka. We learnt many wonderful things about these amazing places in our world.

We extended on our learning with the help of Lainie’s Little Chefs.

With Greece we made Koulourakia which are lemon flavoured biscuits. The children loved watching Lainie use the big cake mixer to mix all our ingredients. They had so much fun making cookie shapes out of the mixture with Lainie’s guidance.

With Japan we made Okonomiyaki.

Okonomiyaki is a Japanese savory pancake containing a variety of ingredients.The name is derived from the word okonomi, meaning "how you like" or "what you like", and yaki meaning "cooked”.

This was a wonderful experience for the children to participate in.

We talked about the flour and the eggs and the vegetables we were using. We had fun stirring and pouring in the ingredients, working on our fine motor abilities and turn taking skills. We ate the pancakes with our lunch and they were delicious!

And with Sri Lanka we made Sarbora - Sago coconut cookies.

Our next stop on our journey around the world is Poland!

DISCOVERING SPACE…

Space, planets, blasting up to the moon… these are all things the children are interested in and we have enjoyed having conversations about the solar system, looking for the moon when playing outside, flying in our imaginary rockets and exploring the several different space experiences within the room to extend on the children’s learning. We connected this learning from children’s interests and paired it with National Simultaneous Storytime. This Storytime happens annually on May 19.

This years story was “Give me some Space!” by Phillip Bunting.

To finish off our discoveries and exploration of Space, Lesley made planets with the children. These are going to look amazing hanging from our roof and have also been an awesome collaborative experience for the children to be involved in….

(From Lesley)

As part of our learning the children created a solar system. Taking turns each child chose a variety of pencils, crayons and textas, adding to our various planets they worked together to create a multi-medium art installation.

As we worked the children discovered and discussed the different aspects of the Milky Way, building on what we already knew as we compared sizes and colours, as well as each planet's surface and weather, referring back to the 'Solar System Song' we had been focusing on during group time.

OUR VISIT TO THE PARK..

We only got one visit in this term but we are so proud of how well the children responded to this awesome learning experience. We danced to music, chased bubbles and played ball games.

We can’t wait to get back there again soon!

AUTUMN THREADING..

I think one of the children’s favourite experiences of this term was our Autumn threading. It was a simple set up. We placed some chopsticks in clay and coloured penne pasta in Autumn colours of brown, yellow, orange and red. The children then used the pasta to thread on to the chopsticks. This experience was working on their fine motor abilities and their hand eye coordination. But even more than that we were enhancing our turn taking skills, patience and also just having lots of fun!

COLOURS..

Colours and colour recognition is something we are working on continuously. You will often see an experience set up to enhance this learning.

We want to provide experiences that not only engage the children’s interest but also promote opportunities for learning new things and setting achievable challenges in a fun and relaxed way.

SUSTAINABILITY, RECYCLING AND OUR WORM FARM..

This term has seen us really embrace our potential with sustainability and see it become positively embedded throughout our program.

A huge thank you to Viktoriya, Caitlyn, Lesley and Eda who are so passionate about this important cause.

Over Term 3, Caitlyn and Eda will be focusing on recycling, Lesley will be watching over our worms and Viktoriya will be looking after our garden beds.

What we would like to achieve with our sustainability education is to empower our children to think and act in ways that meet their immediate needs without jeopardising the potential of future generations to meet their own needs.

LIBRARY INCURSION..

We had Michelle from the library come out and visit us in April and read us several stories. The children were absolutely engaged and loved being part of this experience. Michelle even gave us a teddy bear, Rusty Arnold to keep in our story corner.

MOTHER’S DAY/ SPECIAL PERSON DAY..

One of the highlights of our year so far was our morning tea to celebrate Mother’s Day with our Mums, Grandparents and special people. We absolutely loved welcoming you all into our room and getting the chance to spend some time with you. It was also lovely to see the beautiful interactions between the children and their special person.

We were so lucky with the amazing weather of the day. Just an all round super special day which we all enjoyed.

BIG CHEFS HELP LITTLE CHEFS..

We have started a new and exciting cooking program with the fabulous Field Room. The idea is that the kinder children (Big Chefs) and our Sun Children (Little Chefs) will work together to create something delicious based on our chosen country of the month.

We are all so excited to begin this learning journey together and the benefits for the children will be enormous.

We will see friendships and strong bonds develop and engagement in learning. We will provide a supportive and happy environment with opportunities to learn, teach and play together. We are really looking forward to it.

NAIDOC Week July 2021…

We will be celebrating NAIDOC Week with the children and exploring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples cultural perspectives. Sharing knowledge deepens our understanding of the world in which we live. We are super proud of how we connect and embed indigenous learning throughout our everyday practice.

The theme for NAIDOC Week is “Heal Country”

We will be exploring what this means to us through songs, paintings, stories, sensory experiences our Yarning Circle and our discovery table.

TOILET TRAINING..

We are getting lots of questions about toilet training and here’s the thing…We are totally on board and ready to take this exciting step with you! When you think your child is ready to start toilet training come and have a chat with us.

If we have noticed your child is ready we will come and have a chat with you.

We need to have a consistent approach and work together to support your child through this new experience. During this time we need to all be patient and encouraging…your child is learning a new skill and it’s often a process of trail and error. Every child is different and will enter this stage of learning in their own time.

MOVING INTO TERM 3…

We have so much planned for Term 3.

Over this term we will be focusing on numeracy. What this means for us is having an understanding of numbers and how they are used. We will be focusing on the numbers 1-10 in Chinese and also counting 1-10 in English. We will be looking at concepts such as big and small (size), high and low (height), fast and slow (speed), heavy and light (weight), close and far (distance) and first and last (order).

We always find the children learn best when they are interested in something. Whatever they are interested in we can use and explore maths concepts with them while they play.

We will also be working on our emotional regulation and wellbeing. I have found a lovely collection of stories to help support us. We want to provide the children with tools and support strategies to equip and empower them. The “Wonderful Me” collection by Kirilee Furlong, are books and resources that have been created to help children better understand their emotions, self worth and uniqueness. It will also help build their resilience.

We will be starting with the story “The Hug” This story helps children to see how incredible they are and how they can do things themselves that are special and important. Basically, it allows you to be happy to be yourself and believe in who you are. This story will give us a great platform to further support the development of confidence, resilience, and a strong sense of self.

We will also be introducing the word “Wominjeka” to our morning group time. This means Hello or welcome in the Woiwurrung language of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We will be learning this word and using it with respect, awareness and understanding for our Traditional Owners of this land.

Lina is super passionate about physical fitness and wellbeing. Throughout Term 3 she will be running Lina’s Sport program for the children which will work on the children’s fitness, physical skills and group participation.

We all know physical exercise is good for the mind, body and spirit and we know this program will be of great benefit for the children.

And finally, for those of you who have been following us on our Bird Project…it is happening! A huge thank you to everyone who has sent in photos of birds. We would still love a few more photos for our book, so feel free to keep sending them in through Storypark to myself or Lesley, we really appreciate all your help.

As always, we are here for you. If you have any questions or concerns please let us know. Thank you for your ongoing support and kindness. It’s an absolute privilege for us to be there for your children and we want to continue to work in partnership with you.

We are looking forward to an amazing Term 3!

• Ann-Maree, Caitlyn, Danni, Eda, Lesley, Lina, Nicole and Viktoriya