Forest Classroom

Hi Forest families, can you believe another term is over already and we are about to start our last term of the year. Once again term 3 hasn't been what we all had hoped for with Covid still hanging around. Though as educators we are really proud of all the children from the forest room whether learning from home or coming to the Centre. It has been beautiful to see that new friendships have formed with children over these past couple of weeks when we have had limited numbers in the room. We are keeping everything crossed that it isn't too far away that we can soon have everyone back in the room.

With the weather starting to heat up, can we please ensure that the children are attending in appropriate clothes along with spare changes in their bags. On the hotter days we will start to provide water play outside which it always enjoyed by all children. 

Term 4 Events

October

4th - 8th World Space week

11th - 15th Superhero week

29th Halloween 

29th Grandparents day

November

2nd Melbourne cup (centre closed)

4th Diwali

8th - 12th Recycling week

11th Remembrance day

15th - 19th Road safety week

December

24th Christmas eve

25th Christmas day (centre closed)

26th - 27th Boxing day (centre closed)

31st New Years Eve

Group times

We always start our morning group time by acknowledging the country and the land we are on. On July 1st 2021 new boundary lines were put into effect by the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council. This now means we are on Bunurong land. As a result when acknowledging the land in our welcome to country we now say "Welcome to Bunurong Country".

Throughout this term we have been learning 3 new songs to sing being:  "I am Australian", "You've got a friend in me" and "The monkey dance".

We have learnt Auslan to go with I am Australian and You've got a friend in me while learning interactive dance moves to go with monkey dance.

I have attached the links for the songs:

"I am Australian"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc10S0sBNyI 

"You've got a friend in me"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hG-2tQtdlE 

Colour Monster

This book 'The Colour monster' has been a huge hit and was such a big focus for the Forest room throughout term 3. We started out reading this in our group times but then it quickly expanded to table top activities and art work. This book is all about emotions and helping children to identify their emotions through each emotion being represented in a different colours. Happy = yellow, Sad = blue, Calm = green, Angry = red, Loved = pink and Scared = black. In the book it goes through how our emotions don't work well when they are all mixed up. Along with this it talks about each emotion individually and how they might feel within your body such as red feeling like a fire. This book has helped all the children to identify how they might be feeling and how they can learn to self regulate their emotions. We have had lots of conversations around different ways we can bring ourselves back to happy and calm mood when we might be feeling angry or sad. this includes: talking to a teacher or friends, taking some deep breathes and having 5 minutes in a calm area. We have had extremely positive feedback from parents with this story helping children at home express how they are feeling and begin conversations around certain topics such as lockdowns and grief.

Term events 

Looking back on term 3 some events we celebrated included:

Pyjama week

During this week we invited children and educators to wear their favourite pair of pyjamas and raise money for children in foster care.

Dental Health Week

During dental health week we had conversations around healthy teeth, foods and the importance of brushing daily. To follow on from this week, we set up an activity where each child got the opportunity to clean a set of teeth being able to see how much area needed to be covered and brushed.

National Science Week

Throughout science week, we discovered different types of experiments that showed the different reactions when mixing two or more ingredients or elements together. The experiments we completed were: mixing skittles with water creating a rainbow, volcano's made out of vinegar and bicarb soda, rain clouds with shaving cream and food dye, goop out of corn flour and water and finally dancing milk seeing how milk and food dye reacts to dishwashing liquid. 

Book Week

Throughout this week, we invited children to come dressed up as there favourite characters from a book and bring in the book to share with their class. Each educator in the room also chose their favourite children's story to read on a day.

Footy colours day 

What fun we had on footy day! We loved seeing the children come dressed up in their teams footy colours. Along with this I think It is safe to say we all loved our time over at the park with the whole centre. The children were busy running around, kicking the footballs and engaging with each other. We then enjoyed a footy theme lunch being hot dogs, party pies and sausage rolls to which all the children had big smiles and very full tummies.

R U OK? Day

This day is all about starting a conversation with others asking if they are ok and how are they going. Throughout this day we had conversations with children around making sure we check in on our friends along with being kind and friendly towards everyone. On this day we stayed together with the field room and completed a collective art piece. We painted a big piece of paper yellow and then talked to each child about how they were feeling on this day then writing this onto the painting. 

Other events we have enjoyed were:

Jeans for Jeans day

Daffodil day

Crazy hair day

Haven Olympics

While the Tokyo Olympics were running we tried to make this event as exciting and educational as possible. It was such a special time to share with the children through reading stories and watching live events at groups times, holding our own opening ceremony, incorporating Olympic themes into out artwork and participating in our very own Haven Olympic Games. These games involved every child getting the opportunity to participate in new sports such as hurdles, basketball, gymnastics and shot put. We then held our own media presentation where every children got given a medal to take-home. 

Magnetic play

Throughout this term, collectively one of the children's biggest interests have been the magnetic tiles. Magnetics give children the opportunity to build, create and use their imagination for countless opportunities and new constructions.

Magnetics help children build their gross and fine motor skills along with problem solving capabilities, when picking up and placing the magnetic tiles on top and around each other to create towers and small worlds.

By having the magnetics set up on the mat it also assists with developing children's social skills such as cooperation, communication sharing their ideas while helping out their peers.