Learning Across the ELC

From the Head of Junior School and Early Learning

Our Early Learning Centre children are thoroughly enjoying the lovely sunny days we are experiencing. Engaging in a range of outdoor play-based learning experiences they are discovering new ideas, problem-solving, collaborating and thinking creatively. Water and sand pit play are a favourite activity, along with painting outdoors and exploring the nature play garden. This opportunity to learn through playful interactions also fosters the skills needed for communication, turn-taking and negotiation, risk taking and the ability to interact with care and empathy towards others. As our children play, they are making decisions about their interactions, developing a sense of agency and self-advocacy, and the ability to resolve conflicts. They are developing executive functioning skills and resilience while having lots of fun and enjoying learning.

For further information about the benefits of learning through play, and activities for home please visit https://education.nsw.gov.au/early-childhood-education/information-for-parents-and-carers/learning-from-home#sidenavigation_auto Fun ideas include:

Babies:

Reading, talking, telling stories, and singing to help them learn about language, words, and sounds.
Have fun making funny noises, squealing and babbling together (an early form of talk).

Toddlers:

Making collages with paper, scissors, and glue to help your toddler develop fine motor skills and use their creativity. You can use scraps of paper or fabric, dried pasta or cereal, tin foil, pipe-cleaners, ice-cream sticks, buttons or even natural items like feathers, sand and leaves.
Building blanket forts or cubby houses in the home will encourage toddlers to use their imagination and solve problems. Create a blanket fort by hanging a blanket over a table. Large cardboard boxes can be used for cubbyhouses, with holes cut out for windows and doors. You can paint and decorate the cubbyhouse together as a fun activity.
Sports equipment like balls, rope and hoops encourage throwing, catching, jumping, running, and stretching. This develops a toddler’s gross motor skills.

Preschoolers:

Playing games like dress-up, make-believe, hide and seek or I Spy engages your child’s imagination and creativity.
Playing with sensory materials like playdough can develop your child’s fine motor skills. Consider using shape, alphabet, and number cookie cutters to build literacy and numeracy skills. You can also add textured materials like beads, buttons, and pasta shells to playdough to encourage sensory exploration.
Playing board games and sorting puzzles will help children learn to think critically and solve problems.
Ask your child to ‘read’ you a story.

Learnings and Activities in Banksia

Ballet with Ms Tara

This term as an extracurricular activity, we are offering Ballet classes with Ms Tara. These classes run every Tuesday morning from 9am-9.30am. We are in currently in Week 2, and the children are loving ballet! The children’s confidence is booming, and each individual child is expressing their joy and participation among the group. The Ballet classes are giving the children an opportunity to build on their gross motor skills as well as expressing their sense of belonging to the group. The class promotes routine ballet techniques, with plenty of chance for fun and personal interpretation.

Connections with Families and Culture

This fortnights inquiry learning has been on the connections with our families and cultural background within the Banksia Blue class.

The families were encouraged to send through any family photos. These photos could include siblings, grandparents, pets etc. During our late morning gathering, we came together for a 'show and tell', where the children were encouraged to stand up and show the photos . This opened the discussion as to who they could see if the photos, what they were doing, where they were and anything else they wanted to talk about during their sharing time. We looked at the various cultures among the Banksia group and we loved hearing a little insight into family life and things they enjoy doing on the weekends. Family traditions and holidays were recognised, and we were able to see a snapshot into the cultural and religion ceremonies that are celebrated over the year.

To add to our inquiry, the children were given the opportunity to draw their families among pop stick houses. This activity was to extend on the children's fine motor abilities and to assist with numeracy and pre-literacy skills. The children were able to identify the shapes among the houses and it was great to see the observations the children made as to what colour house they had and what colour they would use for their design. It was great to hear an insight into the children's family culture, as we asked questions around what they eat for dinner, what they do on the weekend and discussing any pets that they may have at home.

OUTCOME 1: CHILDREN HAVE A STRONG SENSE OF IDENTITY

Children develop knowledgeable and confident self-identities

OUTCOME 2: CHILDREN ARE CONNECTED WITH AND CONTRIBUTE TO THEIR WORLD Children respond to diversity with respect

Ms Gemma Francis

Banksia Family

The children in Banksia Gold have been creating a ‘Banksia Family’ art piece that is on display in their foyer. Whilst building a sense of belonging to Banksia Gold, the art process is also supporting the children’s sense of identity and enabling educators to learn more about each child. Fine motor skills and pincer grips were used to thread pipe cleaners into the tiny holes of the bottles to make them look like a banksia, Children manipulated scissors to cut around their family pictures. They have explored measurement concepts (long/short, big/small, straight/curved) as they searched the nature garden and play environment to find a stick long enough to hold their bottle in the vase. The children have also been presenting their families to the group at Yarning Time, sharing the names of the people in their families and their relationship (mum/dad/brother/sister/grandma/grandpa etc). They have used positional language to explain who is next to who or sitting on someone's lap or being held in the photos. They explored number, rote counting the number of people in their family. Children shared how their family makes them feel special too, giving us insight into how they are comforted and what they value in relationships.

The presentations have been a great opportunity for us to observe children's confidence in front of the group, as well as their language and communication and how proud they are to share their family with us. We have also been reading 'Just the way we are' by Jessica Shirvington and Claire Robertson to build awareness of the many family dynamics; mum and dad families, single parent families, foster families, same sex families, divorced/separated families in two homes, grandparents living with families, only children, siblings, half/step siblings etc…Each page generated new conversations of similarities and difference but most importantly acceptance of others. The process has also enabled us to talk about concepts of sustainability and recycling plastic bottles to make art. Our Art piece will continue to grow as more children add their families to it.

Ms Ollie Lauder

ELC Teacher

Preschool Shop

This term, the Preschool children have been sharing their ideas about what they want to do while they are here. After much deliberation, they decided they wanted a shop! At group time, Preschool Gold children shared the things they wanted in their shop.

Millie - tea and chocolate and some treats

Paloma - pizza

Eve - cook some eggs

Paloma - and pancakes

Millie - that's delicious

Paloma - I love pancakes with nutella on it

Elicia - and tomatoes

Stevie - my mum loves tomatoes so much

Charlie - and cucumber

Eve - I love pancakes so much

Celine - I love strawberries

In Week 1, the children created their own shop, using puzzles as their computers and selling different food. In Week 2, the children made ice creams and pizza to sell. Children were busy at the drawing table creating all different kinds of ice cream to add to the ice cream stand. They made pizzas with pepperoni, tomato, mushroom and pineapple. Slowly the shop evolved to add a restaurant table and finally, a hotel where some children chose to stay.

What a busy two weeks we have had of creating in Preschool!

Ms Emily Quigley

Preschool Teacher