It has been a busy few months for our Kindy children and lots of fun has been had. Our Kindy children had the wonderful opportunity to spend time with farm animals, through our farm animal incursion.
They loved the furry cuddles and experiencing the different ways that animals looked, ate, moved, sound, and felt. Research shows that animal interactions can actually improve children’s social interaction, reduce stress and anxiety and increase motivation and learning. Animals have long been embraced by educators as a valuable resource in supporting and enriching children’s learning.
Incursions such as these, are so enjoyable for our Kindy children. They absolutely loved interacting with the animals and the farm keepers. It is in moments like these you can see all of the opportunities for learning. The promotion of language development, as our children were full of conversation and questions. They were curious to know the names of the animals, where their home was, did they have any brothers or sisters, and could not wait to physically touch or hold them. Our children were able to learn exciting information through listening, observing, and feeling.
ACECQA believes that learning about empathy, relationships, the environment, and nature are just some of the benefits children receive by caring for animals. Giving our children an opportunity to observe, interact and learn about animals is a valuable part of their education and care experience, enriching their learning about nature, ecology, and relationships.
We also had a visit from our Emergency Services Ambulance. The Emergency Services Facilitators were fantastic and talked to our children about the concepts of an ‘emergency’ and how to identify when an emergency is taking place. They also learned how to identify an emergency service worker, the number to call in an emergency, and the importance of learning their home address. Our class played games, were given a cardboard mobile phone with 000 on it, and had the opportunity to go inside the Ambulance, hear the sirens and ask questions about all the gadgets that they found.
It has been a great few months of big learning for our Kindy children and we look forward to more exciting adventures ahead!
