River Room

What feels like the end is often the beginning.

Now we are at the end of term 4, it's a sad time for us educators as we watch our older river children grow wings as they fly into the sun. But before they do fly away, lets take a dive back into term 4 and all the glory fun learning play space we've been engaging in.   

Term 4

Zoo animals 

We started off the term with exploring zoo animals, as we've heard a few families visiting the zoos in Victoria. The children enjoy identifying the sounds of the animals as they recognise the picture and names of the animal. This excited the children as they love group time, where we read a few zoo books where the children could identify the animal's sound before the name of the animal has been read. The zoo animals exploration lead onto many play spaces where the children got to learn about the animal's habitat.  

Summer waterplay 

Is it summer time or not? Between the hot days and the rainy days, it's hard to keep up. However, when we get the hot days, the water play comes out. The children love water play as it's nice and cool along their skin and the sensation feeling helps bring calmness throughout the body. Or it could simple bring out the excitement where we end up having water absolutely everywhere. hahaha! It's just a fun activity for the children to be engaging in, which comes in a variety of water play experiences. 

Independence skills

Wow wee! Just look at our helpers. The children observe what the educators are doing, so they want to help out by getting their own broom or sponge and begin to mimic the educators action. Building on the child's independence is such a huge deal as they begin to learn about themselves as an individual. Most of the time, they observe what's happening around them, then they would mimic their trusting adults action. We encourage this every child with building on their independence. 

The buddy buddy project 

In this project it invites the two age groups of  river children (1-2 years old) and field children (5 years old) to come together and participate in an art project. We decided to create welcome signs for our grandparents day. The field children came into river room to help decorate the two signs for our grandparents. Mixing the age group together helps support every child with their learning, as the older children help support the younger children with pasting and positioning, this creates a good buddy system.  

Our pram adventures 

Our pram program is a big part of getting the river children out into the local community. Who doesn't enjoy a walk to the park or to the local supermarket? That's what our aim is to get the river children expose to our local community as we come across many trucks, buses, local people walking their dogs, waving hello to locals at the supermarket, and get theopportunity to run, walk and explore at the park. This term we were lucky to see locals racing their motor boat on the lake and an excavator demolishing a house. What exciting things we see as we walk around the local suburb! 

Special events during term 4

Space week

On the week of 4th of October - 10th of October, we acknowledge space week. Through story books and fun play spaces the children were introduce to the sun, moon and the stars which are actually planets that we cannot see from earth. The children love exploring the space rocks, with photos of planets as they all look different. 

Diwali 

On Monday, the 24th of October, and Tuesday, the 25th of October, we acknowledge and celebrated the festive season of lights, called Diwali. On Monday we had chicken curry with rice and  poppadum crackers. We indulge into the culture through food. The children love the poppadum crackers. On Tuesday, we came together as a centre, in the carpark area, where we sprayed and throw water colours over the materials. We also got our chalk out to do some drawing as we celebrated Diwali. 

Grandparents day

On the Friday the 28th of October, Haven invited grandparents and families to join in on our celebration of grandparents day. It was lovely to meet you all and have a chat about how your grandchild is adapting to Haven. Thank you to everyone that came and showed us the community support. 

Halloween week 

On the week of 31st of October - 4th of November, we acknowledge the fun in Halloween. The educators got creative as they introduce fun activities for the children to begin to learn about characters that coralline with Halloween. These characters were spiders, ghosts, skulls and bones,  and even blood goop. Eeekkk!  But never the less, the children enjoy exploring these inviting play spaces. 

Recycling week 

On the week of 7th of November - 11th of November, we acknowledge recycling week. We read books to the children from our special guest, Peppa pig. We sang songs about 'reduce, reuse, recycle' and had a variety of learning through play play spaces such as water scooping of plastic eggs, and feeling the texture between soft plastic and hard plastic. Recycling is important concept that teaches children to care for our environment and the world we live in.

Remembrance day

The 11th of the 11th marks Remembrance Day, we created sensory experiences for our river room that reflected this. The children loved looking at the bright red poppy flowers and squished and rolled their fresh red play dough. On this day, at 11 am we sat as a group outside , turned our nursery rhymes off and took a moment to pay our respects. The children were curious and watched us closely . 

Library visit from Monash 

On Thursday the 17th of November, we had the librarian from Rowville Library came to read some stories to us and the children sat and listened to about 5 stories. They were a little apprehensive when Michelle ( the librarian ) walked in but it didn’t take long before they were engrossed in the big books she had.

Christmas celebration (December)

It's Christmas time! All of our Christmas books, jingles and decorations come out during this festive season. The children have been busy exploring all the fun ways to celebrate Christmas.

Orientations to Sun room

This year we took a different approach for the river room, and other rooms, children to do orientation a little bit differently, then what we have done in the past. During November and December the children had the opportunity to explore the sun room environment, with their familiar educators (river room educators). We organised once a week, on different days, for the children to explore the outdoor environment and indoor environment of sun room. We also had lunch up in the sun room as well as participating in group time in the sun room. Through this process we slowly introduce the new educators to the river children as they begin to bond with them. Everyone love exploring the sun room environment. Can't believe it's this time of year as they majority of river room children are all grown up and ready for their journey to continue as they move through Haven.   

What an amazing year we have had. Thank you to all of the children and families for your endless support. We have love every minute for caring for your child. Sad to say goodbye to our older river children as they will be moving up into sun room next year. However, we do have a few children remaining in the river room for another year of bliss. 

Merry Christmas and have a safe holiday with your family as you welcome in the new year, 2023. 

From the River Room Team 2022

Grace, Cate, Jess, Kayleigh, Tanika and Hayley