Bambini
Bambini (6-18months) is our gateway to learning, many important skills are learnt at this age and we are constantly programming to ensure our children receive the best support to reach their milestones.
We currently have two students in the Bambini room, Jessie and Karen, who are completing their certificates in childcare. You will often see students around the Centre as we are blessed to be able to offer our Centre and resources to help students learn in a positive, high quality service.
Bambini’s current focus is Social Skill and empathy, children are being encouraged to identify different cues from their peers and educators and how to respond to these cues. They are helping their educators to clean up, helping to retrieve comforters for unsettled friends and to play alongside of each other.
Bambini staff are slowly introducing forum time to the children as a transition tool. This helps children to settle after a fun, busy activity into a calmer space for times such as lunch and sleep. Staff sing songs and read books to the children at this time, which helps with their memory recall and language development.
Many Bambini’s are at the magical age where they are gaining the confidence to take some steps, our Educators are working hard to encourage this through different sensory and gross motor activities, which require children to move from one area to another. We love nothing more than seeing the looks of achievement when those steps are taken, and we celebrate right alongside them.
Pikanini
Pikanini has been focusing on Harmony Day celebrations on their program and have done a multitude of related experiences. The children have gained knowledge about different cultures and the need for harmony in our beautiful country. Children have painted people from different backgrounds holding hands, coloured in flags of their heritage and done hand prints in different flag colours as well as reading many stories and listening to different songs.
Pikanini are now focusing on dinosaurs, with many children of this age showing a strong interest in this topic. They have learnt about different types of dinosaurs, done imaginative play with toys and created their own dinosaurs in craft activities.
Children have also been learning about cause and effect, they were all given the opportunity to set up car tracks using large planks in the sandpit and were then given toy cars to see how these planks joined and where they ended up. The children worked out that they could manipulate the setup to move their cars from one area to another.
As this can be an age where many sensory issues can arise, Pikanini educators have been immersing the children in a variety of sensory activities, including (but not limited to) sand dough, playdough, hard and soft pasta play and many, many water-play days on the grass.
Bata
Bata have welcomed their new Room Leaders, Joy Cho and Carissa Tanikoqi. They are already doing fun and exciting new things in the room and are working as an amazing team.
Bata’s ongoing project now is their camping ground, they have set up in the room. Children can roleplay camping in the wilderness, cooking for their friends and encountering ‘wild’ animals.
Bata are also focusing on different subjects each week during their forum time. This week’s topic is weather, children learn about the differences between seasons and the clothes they need to wear as the year goes on. Previous topics have been emotions, harmony week, pets and music/dance. The children will also be focusing on hygiene and handwashing as a transition experience.
During Harmony week the children amazed us with their cultural art skills, making Japanese fans, masks, painting flags and making flowers and decorating people from different cultures. It was fantastic to see so many children dressed up on the day of the Picnic!
Kodomo
Kodomo are heavily focused on their pre-kindy program and are in full swing with their skilling.
Children have been using their fine motor muscle and control in learning to hold scissors correctly and to cut along lines. Using Dianna Rigg resources and paper guides to learn to write letters of the alphabet correctly and focusing on colours and shapes.
Kodomo children have also had a big interest in emotions as they have some friends who are unable to express themselves with words, it has been wonderful to see the engagement and empathy between children when they are identifying each other’s emotions through facial expression and actions.
Koorlongka
We have recently welcomed back Natalie Ralph as our Kindy teacher and she has jumped straight back in to some amazing programmed activities.
The children have an in class ‘Army Hospital’ complete with doctor’s costumes, beds, x-rays, medical tools and even a place for a medical assistant. The children have been having a wonderful time tending to each other and discovering different ways to heal one another, while learning about how the body works at the same time.
Children have been learning different syllables and are working hard on learning to write and identify their names using templates and mirroring.
This week Natalie has introduced Timmy the Teddy to the Koorlongka children. Timmy will be going home with families throughout the year and taking part in family fun. The children will have the opportunity to talk photos and write (with parents help) about all they did with Timmy while he was staying with them.
Minasan
Minasan have also worked on many Harmony Day activities, where students did profiles on their families and cultures and used computers to research different cultures around the world. Their next project will be World Health Day, where they will look at different ways to keep their bodies healthy as well as make many healthy smoothies and juices.
They are currently looking at Slow motion movies, where children are having to guess the outcome based on what happens through the movie before they watch to see who theories were correct. This has prompted thoughts about cause and effect and imaginative skills. Children have also enjoyed researching the power of magnets and making magnetic slime.
As always Minasan have been involved in the afterschool sports and activities and help children with their homework load at the end of the day.
Harmony Picnic
Our Harmony Family Picnic was a wonderful with 57 families joining us to celebrate the event in the Wildspace. There was fun and laughter all around as everyone took part in the bouncy castle, face painting, music, sausage sizzle and other fun activities. Thanks to Jo-Anne and Robyn, all families were given the opportunity to tour the Kindergarten and Pre-Primary classes on the College grounds as they prepare to transition their children into school life next year. A big thank you also to Miss Mel from Happy Feet for an amazing performance with all the children. We value all our families and the time they take to participate in our Centre events, they wouldn’t be the same with you, and we look forward too many more as the year goes on.
Following on from our Harmony Day Picnic, our team celebrated with a ‘Taste of Harmony’, where all staff members cooked a meal from their home lands to share amongst each other. Every staff member bought a plate and we thoroughly enjoyed the food that was made. It was such a wonderful, tasty event, it has been decided that we will continue to do it throughout the year. Food brings everyone together in an amazing wat and it was lovely hearing different stories from when people were growing up, the different cultural experiences and the significance of the food that was bought in.
