Four year old kindergarten

Firstly we would like to warmly welcome back new families and especially those that are new to the kindergarten. We have 3 four year old groups at the kindergarten- Purple, Orange and Blue and all groups have had a fantastic start to the year. The focus has been for the children on settling into their preschool group , for the children to get to know us and for us to get to know them with the aim of the children to feel a sense of belongingness and connection with their own group and the kindergarten as a whole.

 It is always wonderful to see the children’s progression especially in terms of their emotional and social learning. We are seeing lots of new friendships develop amongst the children, including among children from different groups as we share play spaces. 

Each group's program has been slightly different as we encompass the children’s interests and use observations we make of the children to form learning intentions for individual and groups of children. Some interests that we have incorporated into our programs so far have included: bugs, worms and composting; birds, pets and community roles such as Vets and Hairdressers, space, shopping and many others. 

We are now into the swing of our weekly specialist programs- each group has now commenced borrowing books as part of our visits to the school library and the children are also enjoying weekly PMP sessions in the school gym. The Perceptual Motor Program (PMP) is a movement based program. Children rotate through different stations that build on children’s skills including eye/hand co-ordination, fine motor skills, balance, eye-tracking and motor planning skills. The program is developed with the involvement of the prep teaching team at Oakleigh Primary school as the skills that we are working on the program are important school readiness skills. It is also lots of fun with many children asking when we can do it again.

We also visit the school playground regularly- this is a great opportunity for the children to also work on their motor skills and we know from previous years that familiarity and confidence in using the school playground helps children with the transition to school.

We look forward to getting the 4 year old kindergarten community together for our Welcome Picnic next Friday evening.