It has been a busy few weeks at in the Koala group with Mothers day celebrations and preparations, a visit from Parkdale Library, an excursion to Parkdale Library, weekly playball sessions, photographs with Cheryl and our weekly Bush Kinder session. The weeks are flying by!
Over the last few weeks we have been exploring identity with the children as one of our group goals for this term is to support the children’s self identity and exploration of who they are, looking at their own strengths, interests, similarities and differences. Last term children were beginning to explore differences and similarities in their own play for example children were exploring how our group has both boys and girls, and that we have differing and similar hair colours amongst the group. Building on from this we are intentionally going to explore children’s identity in a way that each child feels respected and loved for who they are, embracing both similarities and differences. One of the outcomes in the Victorian Early Years Learning Framework is that children have a strong sense of identity, and that this sense of who we are is extremely important. We began exploring our identity in Koala group by reading a book “People” at our mat session. This book explored how individuals throughout the world are unique as stated in the story “Each and every one of us different from all the others. Each one a unique individual in his or her own right.” Following this story we had a talk to the children about the things that they had noticed, and how we might be the same and different in our own group or even in our families. The Victorian Early Years Learning Framework states that “children feel welcome and learn well when professionals respect and acknowledge their unique identity.” We fostered this sense of respect and comfort so children were able to share differences and similarities and these were embraced. We then had the children each draw a picture of themselves as seen on the wall. During this process they were encouraged to look in the mirror and provoked to think about what makes them who they are. The children were also asked to tell us about themselves. We supported children when needed, however wanted the children to share what they believed was important about themselves and therefore didn’t have too many guiding questions .We have displayed these on the board without the children’s name and we have also begun reading these out to the children during out mat session, encouraging them to think about who it might be. Through this children are able to explore differences and similarities and we are developing a positive image of each child where one another respects each child for who they are. It has also be a great opportunity to continue learning about each individual child as they enjoying “guessing who” during morning mat time.
The addition of the new water pump has received a lot of attention from the Koala group. The children, despite the chilly weather, have continually sought out this area within their play. We have really enjoyed watching the children being able to use this resource in their own play and have had some great puddles to jump in and mud pits all thanks to the water pump.
Kind Regards,
Ellie and Joanna
