Our Bambini room is filled with little babies that brings us so much joy! This year has been super busy for us already. After transitioning a large amount of the children to Pikanini 1, we started doing settling visits with new families. The children and their families are settling in so well despite the challenges we all have been faced with, including face-to-face time restrictions with families. We really appreciate how understanding everyone has been, as we all adjust to these new guidelines.
Skilling
Maria Montessori, a child theorist, believes that experiencing independence is not just a game for children, she says ‘It’s a task they must accomplish in order to grow.’
As the children get older, we encourage them to gain the skills necessary to aim for the next age-appropriate set of developments. This is called skilling. Skilling is a major part of the Bambini room, especially when it comes time to transition to the next room.
Over the past couple of weeks, we have been skilling the children to use a spoon to feed themselves, put their hat on before going outside and washing their own hands with a face washer. In order to ready our children for transitioning some have begun sitting at the table and sleeping on stretcher beds on the floor. They are all gaining so many skills at the moment and it’s amazing to see it all unfold.
KIDDO Program
We’ve recently started a program called Kiddo, and we are including it in our daily practice in Bambini. The program is run by the University of Western Australia, and it provides us with age-appropriate activities to implement physical activity throughout the day. So far, we have been kicking and throwing balls, playing hide and seek with teddy bears and tackling outdoor obstacle courses. The children just love playing outside, they have been practicing their gross motor skills and their social skills, while playing these games together with their educators and friends.
For more information about physical education visit this website. There is a section for parents/carers: https://kiddo.edu.au/
Reading
Over the past couple of weeks, we have noticed many of the children are interested in reading. They have been looking at the pictures in our books, turning the pages one by one, and even recognising familiar objects and repeating their names. We will be extending this by introducing new books that cover the children’s interests and encouraging them to learn the names of the main objects pictured in these books. This basic introduction to books and the skill learned through this will help our babies develop their language and cognitive skills.
