First Steps Centre
Kinder Picnic
What a great evening the Kinder picnic was, with so many of our families attending, connecting as classes and as a community. It was such a joy as staff to talk to so many families and hear so many positive moments that have already occurred and to see so many smiles. Thank you to all that attended, it’s feeling like such an incredible start to the year.
Twilight Sports
Next Thursday we have our school twilight sports, the kinder children will be running in a short race at the beginning of the evening. We arrange this by classes, three year olds will run first and then our four year old classes.
All families are invited to arrive at 5PM where there will be a BBQ available. Kinder Races Start 5:30PM
We will collect the children all at once at 5:20pm. We then bring the children down to our starting position and ask that families move to the end of the track and wait in the gazebo- with families whose children are running waiting closest.
Once your child has run their race, we will bring them over to you and ask that you transition away promptly to give the next families the chance to watch their child and to minimise the congestion at the finish line.
Dharug
This week's story time was really interesting as our group of children from different language backgrounds sat down and read with us together. Children’s receptive language always develops ahead of their expressive language in the early years, especially for bilingual children as they process more than one language at the same time. The children listened attentively to the books we read, staying focused for extended periods of time. Although the stories were in English, some children made comments and answered questions in their home language. They demonstrated their ability to make meaning by connecting verbal language, body language, visual display (pictures), and texts.
The children were interested in colourful paper and used it in a variety of artistic activities. They enjoyed trying different combinations of colours and shapes and made requests for any additional materials they wanted. We will follow the children’s interests to explore shapes next week. Have a great weekend!
Gloria and Kristy
Marram
This week we focused on small group and individual learning to work on our children’s individual goals. We offered a new selection of books this week and spent more time reading with the children. We especially enjoyed reading When Penny Was Mum, in which Penny played SWAPS with mum for a day and took care of her. We posed questions to stimulate our children’s thinking and extend their knowledge and vocabulary.
We created our own artworks on special colour-diffusing paper. The children exercised their agency in this creative process by independently selecting and designing an image, drawing it with a black marker, and colouring it in. They practised their fine motor control over small tools by varying the amount of pressure they apply on the pipette dropper to create different effects on the paper. These artworks are now up on display in the room. Please feel free to check them out next week.
Have a great weekend!
Gloria and Kristy
Gawarn
It was a great week in our Gawarn class, with Mardi and jo implementing the program with the support of wonderful relief teachers.
The children engaged deeply in their play, extending their social development- cooperating, negotiating, turn taking and communicating with one another in the blocks, river, art areas and sandpit.
A wonderful moment was working together climbing on the obstacle course. Using our core muscles, planning skills and co-ordination, the children worked carefully to climb over A frames, bridges and planks, all the while engaging their self regulation skills and waiting for an extended period of time. What a great display of maturity and development!
With works occurring in the additional yard space, the children have had the opportunity to observe and discuss what the landscapers have been doing, they have really enjoyed the discussions and shared a lot of prior knowledge and learnt from one another too.
We are looking forward to an incredible week ahead!
Al, Mardi and Jo.
Budja
It was so lovely to see so many of you at our Kinder Picnic on Wednesday afternoon! Thank you for coming along, it was great to have a catch up. This week has been a warm week so the Budja group helped set up a ‘beach’ area in the sandpit where we used a tarp and filled it with some water and added some sea creatures. An ice cream shop was set up next to the beach and lots of conversations were taking place around making orders and teamwork to help make the orders.
During group times, we have explored how a giraffe eats after playing with the safari animals outside. We discovered that a baby giraffe can be as tall as an adult when born. We also had discussions around what animals are native to Australia and look forward to exploring animals further.
The children showed enthusiasm when making tie dyed art works, we had some great conversations around what we saw happening on the colour diffusing paper and watching the primary colours blend into each other to make orange purple and green. Next week we look forward to preparing for Twilight Sports, we will head over to the oval to have a look at the set up and have a practice run. Have an amazing weekend and we will see you all on Monday!
Emily, Carol & Mardi
