Category: Koalas

Koala Newsletter Item

Koalas

Koalas

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Who can believe that we are already into our fourth week of term one. The initial weeks of kindergarten have been full of excitement, discovery and curiosity in the Koala group. The staggered sessions within the first week were a great opportunity for children to settle into their environment and allowed us as Educators to really get to know each individual child. We are finding out children’s interests with many of the Koala’s gravitating toward the Art experiences wanting to paint, draw and collage! We have also seen great collaborative creations within the block area, where children have been working together to construct differing structures and then enjoying this as smaller groups. The children are also loving their outdoor play environment and the multitude of affordances offered in our beautiful grounds.

During first term we will be focusing on developing relationships within the group, educators developing relationships with children and children developing relationships with their peers. Last week we explored with children what a community is, and how communities are groups of people who look after and care for one another. We discussed that we can be part of differing communities and that Elonera Preschool and the Koala group is a community that we all belong too. In Koala’s we want children to know that not only do we as educators look after and care for them but they care for one another too.  Being part of a community can support children’s sense of safety and security within the environment and provide children with a happy and safe environment to learn in.

One of the sessions we had a whole group discussion recapping what a community was and also looking at how we can make the koala group a happy community. Using this as the guiding question, with support the children were able to explore elements needed for respectful relationships and interactions. The children highlighted key elements for positive relationships such as “Caring” “working together” “taking turns”.  In koala group we will support children to engage in these behaviours. Through learning experiences in the coming weeks we will build upon and extend this learning and look more closely at friendships and community.  This learning experience directly links to the Victorian Early Years Learning Framework outcome Community where children are supported to “ develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities and an understanding of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities necessary for active civic participation”.

Ellie and Jo

Koalas

Koalas

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Who can believe that we are approaching the end of the 2017 year! These last few weeks have been super busy in Koala group with preparations beginning for our end of year celebration and Christmas! Many of the children in addition to attending Kinder have been visiting their Primary Schools engaging in transition
sessions showing excitement about this next learning journey.

Amongst other community events such as the twilight market, PJ day, one of the highlights was when we attended our last excursion for the year to the Collingwood Children’s farm. The children had the opportunity to get up close with many of the differing animals and this was a very interactive and hands on experience. The children showed respect for the animals and enjoyed this shared learning experience with their peers, parent helpers and teachers. Thankyou to all those parents who offered to help at our two excursions this was greatly appreciated, and these events cannot run without your support!

From the beginning of this term I have been able to observe the Koala children engaging in bigger and varying social groups during their play. Often we have observed half of the children or more engaging in a joint game on the mat or outside together. The children are enjoying longer periods of independent and uninterrupted play where they are extending their friendships and interacting and playing together. As a teacher this has been rewarding to watch as I can see the children feel a strong sense of belonging within the environment, they have developed strong social skills, they are showing independence, and can make safe choices within the environment. As the children happily work with one another I can see that they have established life long friendships that will continue.

As this is the last newsletter for the year I would like to extend my thanks to the Elonera community for their support, and welcoming me into the Kinder this year. I have felt extremely supported and privileged to be a member of Elonera Preschool and the warm, inviting and friendly community that it is. I look forward to sharing he last few weeks with the Koala group and families and wish everyone a Merry Christmas and happy holidays and see you next year!

Koalas

Koalas

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The children settled back into their first few weeks of term 4 with ease and we have had the opportunity to make the most of some sunshine and the new outside renovations. Many of the children acknowledging and noticing the changes!

At the beginning of last term and continuing into this term, children will have the chance to take home Nellie and Lou, the koala group mascots. The children have been patient in waiting for their turn, as this has been a progressive process over the weeks. The children are able to take Nellie and Lou home for a week and experience each child’s home environment. The children then can share with the whole group what they did with Nellie and Lou at a mat time. Those children who have taken Nellie and Lou home have shown confidence in sharing in front of their peers and also thoroughly enjoyed this experience. This also acted as an extension to the “Me Bag” learning experience that we did in term one. Nellie and Lou as a learning experience supports the children to;

  • Demonstrate their sense of belonging and comfort in their environments.
  • Engage in enjoyable reciprocal interactions using verbal and non-verbal language.
  • Contribute their experiences in large group discussions.
  • Are independent communicators who initiate Standard Australian English and home language conversations, and demonstrate the ability to meet the listener’s needs.

Last week the Koala children attended their first big excursion to the Melbourne Museum. The day started with a lot of excitement as we all jumped onto the bus to head into the city.  Whilst at the museum we had the opportunity to explore the Bugs exhibition, the dinosaur walk, the forest walk and the marine life exhibition. Following these self guided tours we spent some time outside in the sunshine as a whole group enjoying our lunch and a play on the playground. We finished the day off with a structured program run by the Museum “Bugs, Bugs, Bugs”.  The children enjoyed the interactive nature of this program. This excursion to the Museum supported children to;

  • Explore another community environment outside of Parkdale, and to support children to show respect for differing settings.
  • The children over the year have shown an interest in bugs and insects so this worked toward supporting and extending their learning and interest in this area.
  • Children were able to build on their real life experiences of developing an understanding of how to be safe outside of the Elonera Preschool Environment.
  • The Museum allowed children to explore independently and therefore the children were being supported to develop dispositions for learning such as curiosity, inquiry, investigating, enthusiasm and imagination.
  • This excursion was as a whole group, with the assistance of children’s families. This worked toward building children’s sense of belonging to our community group.
Koalas

Koalas

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As we reach the end of Term 3 we reflect on what an eventful, exciting and lively term it has been. Over the last week and continuing over the next few weeks I will begin preparing Transition to School Statements for individual children. This is a process that involves the children, families and educators and provides in-depth information to school teachers so that they can support children’s learning further. I have already begun spending time with individual children to begin compiling their section, and families have received their sections to be completed.

Heading into term 4 the Koala group have already got to exciting excursions to look forward to; Melbourne Museum on the 16th of October where we will be viewing the Bugs Bugs Bugs exhibition and also exploring other displays at the mueseum. A few weeks later we will then be heading to the Collingwood Children’s Farm! The opportunity to have such amazing excursions incorporated into our program is great and we look forward to sharing all the learning that occurs at both of these next term.

We finished term 3 with our last Bush Kinder session for the year. It is without a doubt that the Koala children will miss their weekly BK session. The group have continued to show a great sense of curiosity, wonder, imagination and responsibility within this environment. As Early Child Educators we recognise that children need the opportunity to engage with the natural environment freely and the Bush Kinder environment at Braeside Park has been ideal learning space for us to provide children. Children are natural learners and in this environment they have had the opportunity to splash in mud puddles, create teepees using sticks, roll on the grass, explore the terrain, find bugs and insects, go on bush walks, use natural materials as they wish, climb trees and much more. All of these are invaluable learning opportunities’ that supporting children’s learning and development. This week I asked children what they have enjoyed best about Bush Kinder with these being a few of the responses that really captures the simplicity of the learning environment how often these learning experiences are the most appreciated.

  • “climbing trees”
  • “We can climb on stuff”
  • “Balancing on the logs”
  • “Explore and find good stuff”

As Bush Kinder concludes I would like to take the opportunity to thank Jo and Gina for their support and assistance in the running of the program. Their knowledge, ideas and experience have worked toward creating a great Bush Kinder program and I am extremely appreciative of this.

Koalas

Koalas

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This term is certainly proving to be another busy one, with the weeks once again flying by. The koala group have settled back into the program and routines and we are seeing differing interests emerging. This term the Koala children are enjoying their weekly yoga sessions with Kathryn, and this has worked nicely alongside the introduction of the “Alert Program” in providing children with differing tools and strategies to help connect and become more in tune with their bodies and manage their emotions in effective ways. Over the last few weeks we have had several excursions and incursions, the children ventured to Parktone Primary School last Wednesday, and we also welcomed Bunning’s to Elonera for a craft activity with the children. Late in August we will also be heading to the Parkdale Library. These incursions and excursions allow the children to connect with differing community groups and also support various learning areas.

On Thursday the 3rd of August the children went on an exploration walk at Bush Kinder. Prior to this we had completed a shorter walk that the children really enjoyed and responded to. Therefore we wanted to extend upon this by changing the length of the walk and the location that this would occur at. We began the morning with drop off at the visitor centre, here the children had an opportunity to have another exploration of some of the wildlife at the park through the displays. Once all of the children arrived we set off. The children have become accustomed to the routine of walking when at bush kinder. We use the analogy of a sandwich to ensure that the children are safe. We know that we Jo and Ellie are the bread with Jo at the front and Ellie at the back. Then the children are the ingredients in the middle of the sandwich and we don’t leave the sandwich when we are walking. This is supporting the children to demonstrate spatial awareness and orient themselves in differing environments so that they are safe. The children have shown that they are competent in being safe in this environment and have been able to recognise the guidelines in place to ensure their safety. Jo led the children on the walk. Along the way the children were able to observe differing scenery and wildlife to what we have seen on our BK days. This supported the children to be curious and express wonder and interest in the environment. At times throughout the walk the children noticed areas that they wanted to explore further and one of these spots had an amazing tree log that the children were all able to climb on. Here the children showed that they were able to combine gross and fine motor movement as they climbed and jumped. The children were also taking considered risks within this environment unfamiliar with the surroundings. The children also showed cooperation and collaboration with one another enjoying this experience as a whole group. The children were able to engage in a shared play experience and it supported our sense of belonging as a group. The children walked for an extended period of time, and it was an enjoyable experience with the children showing confidence in their physical development. We will continue to progress the walks to longer lengths of time over the next few weeks, so that we can explore other areas of the park with the children.

At the beginning of term we introduced the children to the famous artist Vincent Van Gogh who was well known for his many paintings, one of these being the “Starry Night”. Each child was able to create their own Starry Night on a foil background, using cotton tips to paint and replicate the swirly patterns created by Van Gogh. Over the term we have provided the children with differing mediums for their artworks and this was another way of extending their use of resources to foster their creativity. The Arts as a learning area can support children in many ways and works toward “the development of the whole child” (Woodruff, Bolen & Thomas 2014, p. 3). The Victorian Early Years Learning framework highlights that we need to support children to use the creative arts such as drawing, painting, sculpture, drama, dance to express ideas and make meaning. Therefore providing children with experiences where they can explore differing art mediums can allow us to support this. To support children’s social skills and collaboration we then created a group “Starry Night” that children were able to work at over a period of time. The children used strips of paper to act like a collage and worked together in smaller groups to create another masterpiece. This artwork also encouraged children to persist and the process of progression as it was something that took several sessions to complete. Over the next few weeks we hope to look at differing artists and explore other mediums with the children.

Koalas

Koalas

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Term 2 was certainly a busy one with the weeks flying by and we are now heading into term 3 after a school holiday break. Over the holidays I have been working at a school holiday program in my hometown of Torquay. I think that this is a great way to build upon my skills in a different setting and provides with me an opportunity to collaborate and build connections with other educators also. This is an important part of the teaching profession and as an educator I encourage learning relationships amongst children and therefore do this myself.

In the last week of term the Koala group were introduced to the “Alert Program’ by Melanie a local Preschool Field Officer from connections. This program is focused upon emotional regulation using sensory integration. The use of a metaphor of an engine is used to encourage the children to think about their arousal states for example “Fast speed” is “revved up red” and ”Just Right White”. This approach then looks at encouraging children to have their bodies in an ideal state appropriate to the learning environment. The visual element is age appropriate and appeals to the children in a simple way. We will continue to use and explore the Alert Program and incorporate this into mat times and everyday interactions with the children. The children responded to the initial introduction of this approach and I am looking forward to implementing this into my own everyday practice. We also hope that this will tie in well with the introduction of Yoga this term in providing further strategies for the children to be able to connect with their bodies.

Late into term 3 the Koala children were showing a strong interest toward all things AFL football. The children had been requesting footy anthems to be played every session and Jo and myself reflected on where we could take this interest further. We decided to use this interest as a basis for a collaborative art project, with the children making their own football oval. The children have also been able to put their fine motor skills to work cutting up all the football logos and using these to create a ladder. We hope to encourage the children to take responsibility for changing the football ladder weekly, using this as a learning opportunity around numeracy exploring different placing and numbers.

Looking forward to a busy and fun term 3!

Koala Group

Koalas

Koalas

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It has been a busy past month at in the Koala group with Parkdale Library Visiting, an excursion to Parkdale primary, weekly playball sessions, photographs with Cheryl, dentist check ups, St John Vianney’s and our weekly Bush Kinder session. The weeks are flying by!

Two of our group goals this term are to support the children to interact verbally to express their feelings and ideas with others, and to continue to encourage children to develop their social skills such as respecting one another, sharing and turn taking. To support these goals we explored through discussion and emotion cards what feelings were and what makes us feel certain emotions at kinder and other environments. We are also encouraging children to notice that we can also express ourselves through our body language for example our facial expressions and that often we can tell how a person is feeling not just from what they say but what how they look. We used emotion cards to support this as the children were able to recognise from visuals what that emotion card was. We chose three emotions to discuss with the children Angry, Happy and Sad. The discussion was guided by questions such as “what things make you feel happy, sad and angry?” and “what are some things that we can do if we are feeling angry or sad”. Within the kinder environment we are encouraging children and questioning them when they make choices “how would that make the other person feel” and working toward recognising these emotions and fostering choices that create positive feelings amongst the children in the group.

Over reconciliation week we shared with the children Aunt Annies story “Sorry Sorry” . This is a story about Indigenous people and how they felt when white settlers came to Australia. It touches on how they felt during this period of time and how long after the white people said sorry and how we to this day continue to say sorry and remember what happened in Australia’s past. We discussed with the children during the story how we think the people would have felt and how the story made us feel. This followed on from our emotion exploration and encouraged the children to think deeply. The children also explored how Indigenous peoples lived and their ways of living. From this each child created a mosaic hand representing the colours of the Indigenous flag. The children were also asked the question “What does sorry mean to you” and their words are displayed with their hands on the wall.

Over the last few weeks I have engaged in some short personal development sessions, these have been online based and provided me with more insight and learning into supporting children with challenging behaviour, constructing creative spaces and supporting self regulation. Each time that I engage in these I take away different learning and approaches to my own teaching. One of the most common questions as an EC is WHY and moving forward I am constantly reflecting on Why I am doing what I am doing and how this is supporting the children’s learning best.

Kind Regards Ellie
Koala Update

Koala Update

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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

Koalas Update

Koalas Update

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The children were very excited and energetic as they have begun to settle back into kinder life after a lovely two week holiday. We have already had a very busy first two weeks preparing for the upcoming Mother’s day and settling back into the transitions and routines of kinder.

In Koala group we have begun our Bush Kinder program heading out to the beautiful Braeside Park every Thursday for our session. Our last day of Term the children were able to have an orientation session as an introduction to what would be occurring throughout terms two and three. Despite the unfamiliar environment and conditions the children settled onto the bush kinder “tarp” that now takes place as the “mat”. To bring some familiarity to this program we followed our normal morning routine of our welcoming song and seeing who was here so that the children could see that this was still kinder and that they felt comfortable and secure. The weather in true Melbourne form was a mix of wind, light rain and some sunshine and was a really great opportunity to test out our bush kinder clothing as the children turned up in gumboots, beanies, wet weather jackets and warm clothes and an abundance of excitement. During the session and leading up to Bush Kinder we have had many discussions with the children about different things that are important for our safety at bush kinder and we are continuing to explore these learning’s with the children through discussions and in their play. During our Bush Kinder sessions children have used the opens spaces to run, move and walk freely encouraging them to explore their environments confidently and safely. The children have also shows creativity, imagination and curiosity in that we have not taken any resources out with us. Despite not having any resources the children have established many differing games for example the children found a stick that resembled a broomstick and used this to ride around the environment. The children have also had many opportunities to take risks for example the children have shown a lot of interest in climbing trees. The children have also found many differing bugs and insects; this has allowed us to explore how we can respect other living things and their environments and also shows their sense of wonder and interest in this new environment. The children are really enjoying this environment and we can wait to share all the learning that occurs throughout the term.

Over the coming few weeks we will be exploring identity with the children and what makes us who we are. We will also continue to support children’s social skills and encouraging children to interact verbally to express their feelings and ideas with others.

Elonera Pre School
P. 9580 2193
85 Davey St. Parkdale, VIC