Kinder 

Kinder room March 2020

We have been busy bee in our Kinder room as a lot of changes have occurred. Here are the few things we have been working on; Building relationship with our new Kinder teacher, learning about self-regulation, building our sense of  responsibilities for our room, Gardening and composting, extending on our Literacy and numeracy skills. 

Community

As our ex pre-kinder teacher becomes our new kinder teacher, we have been building our relationships between educators-children by spending time with each child every day, learning about their interest, skills and needs, engaging in chats with families and becoming familiar.

We held our Teddy Bear picnic where we spoke a lot about why we have teddies, we listened to stories with our teddy and had a nice picnic with teddy bear biscuits in our outdoor yard.

We also had Harmony week where we built awareness on different cultures but also learning how to be a good friend, how to keep someone happy such as sharing, turn taking and listening to our peers' words.

We have also been engaging in birthday celebration and learning about our age and the month children are born in with the help of our calendar.

Self-regulation skills

Self-regulation skill is a slow process to be understood and put in place in children's life. Children aren't as fluent as we are and cannot always put words on their emotions. When children start building up emotions they haven't dealt with, they can get heightened emotions and therefore present some behaviour. Self-regulation is being able to recognise that feeling or emotion, talk it out or transfer that same energy into something else, usually more positive. 

In our kinder room, we are learning self-regulation with colours and putting mood on them. We have posters, books and visual cues to help them build awareness of emotion. We have also introduced an emotion stations where different feelings are on the mirror and children learn how to recognise them and associate them with what they might be feeling. As a result, it allows them to recognise and express that feeling. When children feel heightened emotions we offer different calming strategies/activities such as pushing against the wall, squishing a cushion, using our big loud voice outside or lifting some weights.

Sustainability

We have been learning about gardening as we watch our plants grow, providing them with water, plant food and fertile soil. Children are showing understanding about how to look after the plants by not touching them, watching them and telling the other children to only look. 

With our fruits leftovers, we are now adding them to our compost bin offered by Bunnings when they came out for a visit at our centre. Children are very enthusiastic in having worms and watching them slither in the soil. Children also are building awareness of being conscious about how much fruits they are leaving in their plate and learning about waste.

Literacy and Numeracy

Children have been showing great interest in learning how to write their name or the letters in their name. They are building awareness in recognising letters but also in holding their pens/texters with a tripod grasp. After our lunch time, children sit down on the mat for few minutes where they pair with a peer or on their own to read book and then share it to their other peer.