River Room

Hi Families, 

Wow wee! what a busy term we have had. There's been a lot of term projects happening. See for yourself just below. 

____________________________________Term projects ______________________________

Drawing

During this term we've been developing our creative and fine motor skills by drawing. We have explored using different mediums such as crayons, texta, pencils and chalk. The children thoroughly enjoy this exploration as they see the result of placing the drawing medium onto the paper and moving their hand side to side or up and down.  

Cooking with Tanika 

Over the last few months I have been running a cooking program with our River room Children. Our children have thoroughly enjoyed this experience. The children were able to mix, scoop and pour all sorts of new and exciting ingredients , turning dry ingredients to wet ingredients. This exposes our children to both math concepts and and scientific concepts . The stirring , pouring and scooping is also fantastic for their fine motor development. While we read aloud our recipes and ingredients the children point to the ingredients we are using, this is great for our children language development, broadening their vocabulary. Getting our children involved in preparing meals that we share also gives our children a sense of achievement and is great for our children’s confidence. Our children are also learning important life skills through this experience. Play dough is a simple and fun recipe that we make often in the river room, this is a quick and fun activity you can make and use at home with your children . They love getting their hands dirty and this is such a fun sensory activity to explore and use as a family. Cookies have been a big hit, the children love making our chewy ANZAC biscuits and enjoying them as a group for afternoon tea. We love chatting about our biscuits at afternoon tea time, the children show us that they are proud of their efforts and discuss with us how they mixed them at cooking time. We look forward to continuing this program in term 4 and can’t wait to share with you all what we are getting up to in the river kitchen .

Colours 

The children got to explore the three primary colours through a variety of play space opportunities. Can you guess what the three primary colours are?  

We offer the children a variety of sensory bottles for them to experiment and explore with as they shake the bottles to listen for sound or see movement occur from inside the bottle. We couldn't forget about the fun ways to explore with through our arts and crafts activities were the children got to experiment the colours while using different mediums.  

Blue - There was a blue rice sensory tub with photos of blue animals. For the children to develop their curiosity and learn from the feeling of touch. 

Yellow -  The small construction trucks came out along with the sand as this is our yellow sensory play space. The children absolutely love the construction trucks as they were smaller in size, which became easier for their small hands to handle the trucks. 

Yellow ducks were swimming in a pond full of popcorn seeds (which are the colour yellow). This sensory tray play was closely supervised as the children thoroughly enjoy the texture of the seeds. 

Red - There were a red sensory balloons tray that encourages the children to investigate what's inside the balloons as they had to guess which photo it matches. 

Developing our Independence skills 

When children practise self-help skills, it boosts their confidence. Children are naturally inclined to want to do things for themselves. Encouraging each child's self-care, like feeding themselves, reduces their stress and promotes their self-esteem. As part of our room routine we encourage the children to feed themselves via using a spoon or their fingers. We've focusing more on taking our bib off, wiping our own faces nice and clean, putting our dirty bibs and face washers in the dirty bucket, putting our bowls away into the dirty dishes tub and putting away our drink bottles onto the trolley. The children have boosted their own confidences by collecting their jacket or beanie from their lockers and attempting to put it on.  Great work everyone! 

Winter - Ball pit madness 

The ball pit has been our life saver during these cold and wet days of winter. The children love, like they absolutely LOVE playing in the ball pit. Lots of laughter and giggles always fill the room up with joy, all thanks to the ball pit. The ball pit is an fantastic way to release all those extra energy that all the children seem to have when it's an indoor day. The ball pit has become a beautiful place for social interactions as the children would share the ball among their peers or use the balls in a game where they would copy each other. Now the sun is appearing, the rain has stop and the clouds are becoming clear we would be enjoying more of the outdoor environment, unfortunately this means bye bye to the ball pit. 

                                                            Special events occur during term 3                                          

NAIDOC week 4th - 6th of July 

We acknowledge the first nation people and their land in which Haven is located on, as we acknowledge NAIDOC week. Some of the activities we explored with were Australian animals with red sand, rocks, leaves and bark. Pasting an emu with leaves as its feathers. And we decorated our turtle with green and blue playdough to acknowledge the colours of the flag of Torre strait islanders people.  

PJ week         18th - 22nd of July

This week was a fun week for the children (and parents of course) were the children could attend Haven in their Pyjama' s for the whole week. The educators got involved as they participate in wearing their Pyjama' s to work with the children

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Science week        15th - 19th of August

In science week the children got to experiment with Lego volcanoes, Fire works in a jug, lava lamps in a bottle, magnetics with a variety of tin materials and traveling through space as the projector was set up visually displaying different planets in space. 

Book week            22nd - 26th of August

In book week the children took the opportunity to dress up in their favourite book character costumes. 

Father's day afternoon tea             2nd of September

Woah! what a wonderful day we had with the dads, grandads, mums and aunts came in into Haven to celebrate our wonderful dads in our lives. Thank you for everyone who was able to attend. If you couldn't make the fathers day afternoon tea there will be a party/celebration in December for you to attend. 

Grand Final Football week                    19th - 21st of September 

"Football is played with the head. Your feet are just the tool" 

                                                          Incursions occur during term 3                                                    

Librarian incursion          8th of August

Our local librarian from Rowville Library came in to visit us, as Michelle brought in some fabulous books to read with the children. The children thoroughly enjoy the pop out books  and books that make sounds. 

Lizard Wizard reptile encounter       13th of September 

The children got up and close to our Australian animals. Lizard Wizard brought along their scaly creatures such as blue tongue lizard, python snake, long neck turtle and a tiny furry sugar glider. The children were unsure how to interact with the creatures at the beginning, as educators demonstrate to the children how to gently pat the creatures most of the children became comfortable with giving the creatures a pat. 

Well done everyone for taking part in this encounter with the reptiles. 

Teeth of wheels           27th of September 

The children have been learning how to brush their teeth through story books, songs and an fun 2D and 3D model of teeth, all during term 3. Teeth of wheels is an mobile dentist that visit Haven where they get to examine the children's teeth.  

_________________________________What's next? _____________________________

Term projects 

Numbers, washing hands, summer water activities plus wearing our summer hats and Christmas celebrations. 

Special events in term 4 

Space week, Diwali, Halloween, Recycling week, Remembrance Day and December is Christmas time! 

Reminder 

As the days are getting hotter, which means our summer waterplay activities will be happening. Could we ask for all of our families make sure inside your child's bag that they are spare change of clothes. Thank you!

Thank you for reading!

From the River Room Team 

Grace, Cate, Jess, Kayleigh, Tanika and Hayley