Kindergarten

Field Classroom 4 year old Funded Kindergarten Program

Can you believe that we only have one more term left together. When I really think about it, this year flew and before we know it we will be saying goodbye to the children as they embark on their new journey of Primary School.

Of course, this term had it's moments with Covid coming into play yet again. I just want to thank those of you that stayed home and did the home learning provided. Nonetheless, the children had a few weeks here at kindergarten before they stayed home even though it seems like a life time ago. Term 3 has been a strange one but, of course we've had fun :)

PALS (Social Skills Program. Playing and learning to socialise)

This term we are focusing on social skills through a program called PALS. This program was developed by Early Childhood Teachers and Psychologists to help build and develop children’s social skills and runs for 10 weeks. Over the 10 weeks the children were introduced to a new topic. Each skill is built up on another so that the program gradually progresses to more complex skills, that the children require for competent social interaction. This program is taught through 3 puppets (Kate, Jack and Anna) and shares scenarios that happen within their kindergarten class. After the social story the children are asked a range of prompting questions to get them thinking about what has just happen, why and what can we do to fix the situation.

German

Guten Tag! This term, Kelly and myself created a curriculum program around the language of German. The kindergarten children learnt a range of new words in an interactive way. The topics they explored were:

Hello, goodbye & welcome
Introducing themselves
Numbers up to 10
Colours
Family members

The children really enjoyed this learning and as did we. They were further able to continue building on new understandings of the world in which they live. It was amazing how much the children appeared to show so much interest and curiosity in this language. They are open to new challenges of the topics taught and loved making new discoveries.

Olympics

The children really loved watching the sports live and gained some more insight to what the Olympics is. We learnt all about the Indigenous athletes that are playing for Australia and learnt more about the torch and opening ceremony. The children loved comparing the Tokyo opening ceremony to the one here at Haven. They have also been super interested in the medals and seeing the athletes receive either gold, silver or bronze, with this being said we have been holding our own Olympics and of course they all won their own gold medals. Might I just add, I’d be keeping a close eye on the Brisbane 2032 Olympics as we have some natural born athletes here in the kindergarten room.

We were also lucky to have an incursion with Poppy (Ann-Maree's daughter). Poppy has 2 black belts and has been to Ireland for the World championships. So, you could say she is someone you do not want to mess with. She was meant to go to Japan this year for the world championships again but, of course Covid ruined those plans.

Poppy taught the children stances to protect themselves as well as a group of movements called cutter. She strongly highlighted that karate is only used if you ever need to protect yourself and if you have a belt in karate yourself. The children were so amazed by Poppy and she most certainly had their attention the whole time. Her loud commands did help her. I just might need to borrow a few of them for myself.

Big Chefs Help Little Chefs

Collaborating with Sun room we have continued on with our cooking program. We have so many siblings in this room so it is so heart warming to see them interact and work collaboratively as we cook a dish from our focus Country. This term we visited

Poland
Indonesia
Germany

This program has been so amazing. The children have formed relationships with the younger children and helped them out with the cooking process. They show such so much team work skills as well as being gentle and caring for the Sun room children.

Chicken Hatching Program

Over the past two weeks we have been lucky enough to have the Henny Penny Hatching Program at our kinder. This has been a great educational experience for the children, bringing excitement and joy of watching the eggs hatching and chicks emerging from their shells, in our own classroom! The children were captivated by this learning experiencing. They shared so much happiness which you could tell from the smiles on their faces and conversations with their families, peers and teachers. The children were invited to name the chickens which they loved being apart of. It was definitely sad when we had to say goodbye but, we know they are at a loving home and we love seeing the updates from Samah.