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REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Dee’s Message Dear Parents and Caregivers, If we think back to the not-too-distant past, it is gratifying to notice the enormous changes which have taken place in learning and education, particularly that of early learning. There was a time when this stage of a child’s education was given scant regard, with all efforts being focused on the more formal phases of primary and secondary education. However, thankfully this has changed, primarily through the efforts of pioneering educationalists who realised just how critical the early years are to lay the foundations for later learning. While the main focus might still be on play, just as it has been in the lives of children for millennia, now there is an acknowledgement that play is a critical tool for learning. No longer is it just an enjoyable pastime to keep little people busy – rather play is the portal through which exploration, creativity and learning takes place.

3 June 2022 One of the central tenets of the Reggio Emilia approach is that children are seen as capable, intelligent and creative. These are not little beings into whom we have to pour our accumulated adult wisdom and knowledge. Rather, they are unique individuals who have enormous potential to learn. As we honour their individuality and try to avoid the temptation to know how best they might learn or develop their skills and knowledge, so we help to expand their horizons beyond even those we might have dreamed of for them. This is captured in the Early Years Learning Framework which reminds us that “Children actively construct their own understandings and contribute to others’ learning. They recognise their agency, capacity to initiate and lead learning, and their rights to participate in decisions that affect them, including their learning.”

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These two sentences capture not only the inherent learning potential of each child, but they also reflect the critical role which others take in their lives. It is a profound truth that children “contribute to others’ learning”. As we watch them interact with each other here in the ELS it is all too apparent how learning is not an isolated process. While there may be moments of individual, isolated moments of discovery, much of the most powerful learning takes place in collaboration with others. As children interact with each other they are often encouraged to step beyond their comfort zones; they enjoy celebrating the success of others; they learn about interpersonal relationships; they prompt their peers to try new things – there are so many benefits to be gained by interacting with each other. Our teachers know this only too well and we trust that as they provide opportunities for self-discovery and happy interactions with each other, so each child’s development as an individual will be richly rewarding and increasingly meaningful. Have a wonderful weekend! Dee Pitcairn Principal

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

The Nest (1R)

Kiri Winders, Helena Zhang, Fiona Liddell and Min Pattarasiritanarat

placed the paints. Some children made markings with their fingers and hands, whereas others used utensils such as spoons, rollers or pompom stampers. In addition, they were developing an awareness of respect of their peers, as they shared the same workspace and resources. (EYLF Outcome 2,4.1 and 5.1)

Every year from 27th May to 3rd June it is National Reconciliation week in Australia. This is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures and achievements. Furthermore, it allows us the opportunity to reflect and explore how everyone can play an important part in achieving reconciliation in Australia. The National Reconciliation Week 2022 theme, “Be Brave. Make Change.”, is a challenge to all Australians – individuals, families, communities, organisations and government – to Be Brave and tackle the unfinished business of reconciliation so we can Make Change for the benefit of all Australians. The children continue to acknowledge that we are on the land of the Gadigal and Birrabirragal people every day, through partaking in our Acknowledgement of Country. During the past week, the children were invited to create both an individual and collaborative piece of artwork using the three colours of the Aboriginal flag: black paper for the background, along with red and yellow paint. They were given autonomy during this experience as we provided the resources, then they made the final decisions about how and where they REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

The Nest (1R) This week we spent some lovely time exploring outdoors. Capri, Atlas, Joshua and Olivia love to climb up to the pirate ship wheel and spin it around and around. They are learning to take turns at the wheel to be in the driver’s seat. It was wonderful to see the children stepping aside for their friend to have a turn.

as she guided and played alongside them. Loris Malaguzzi, who was the founder of the Reggio Emilia philosophy that we follow here at Reddam, believed that children’s development is more effective when teachers become co-learners with the children.

Olivia loves to play with our toy bus, so when a real big bus came along and parked outside, her eyes lit up. She said “bu!” (bus) she was so excited! The other children gathered around to take a look, and we all started to sing “the wheels on the bus go round and round”. Leo, Teddy and Atlas were fascinated to see the workmen digging up the drain with their big shovels. They were digging a big pit. They ventured over with their educators to take a look. We stood back and watched intently as we talked about what the men were doing. The children love to dig and scoop when we participate in sand play. Perhaps we will follow through with some more sand play in the coming days. Capri, Olivia and Leo have been challenging themselves by hanging on the monkey bar. Teacher Helena helped Olivia up to hold on, and they counted 1,2,3,4 …. She held on to 10! Then dropped to the ground with a big smile on her face. We said yay! Next up was Capri. She was determined and strong and so happy, showing a sense of achievement. Leo came running over to join in on the fun too. It was a beautiful morning for exercise and fresh air!

Last week the children really enjoyed our experiment with milk and colouring. Specifically, they enjoyed dipping their hands in the mixture and swirling it around. Continuing on from this interest, we decided to provide a “gloop” sensory experience for them. This involved mixing cornflour and water with food colouring to the water tubs. The children each had a turn to stand side by side at the tubs of gloop with Teacher Min REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

The Nest (1R) All the children enjoyed this experience. They squished their hands in the mixture and lifted their hands out to watch the mixture drip down. Some of the children started to scoop with the little sieves and watch the mixture make patterns on the floor. Here they were adding their own ideas to the experience. Olivia put some in her mouth to taste it. Krishna, who was initially unsure of the messy paint play, showed an interest and dipped his hands in to explore the new texture. He demonstrated his building confidence with new things as he added a small ball to the mix and moved It around. Atlas and Joshua picked up a small paddle from the light box to stir it around and around. Capri loved to tap, tap her hands on top of the liquid. Playing with Gloop is a wonderful texture as it is both thick and runny. It dries on the floor and turns back into powder. The children were able to observe this as they investigated the drips on the floor. Throughout these rich and meaningful enquiry-based experiences, our children are developing their confidence and dispositions for learning. EYLF Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners.

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Fledglings (1E)

By Tatiana Botrel, Jane Teh, Marina Moliboga and Nadia Breus

Reconciliation Week This week it was time for celebrating the reconciliation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians. This celebration is a chance to learn more about the Indigenous heritage of Australia and how we can preserve this knowledge and use it to create respectful relationships between all people. In the Fledglings we make sure to teach the children how to acknowledge the first owners of the land every day in the Morning Circle by teaching the children the following say: “Hello sky / hello land / hello friends / hello I. Thank you to the Gadigal people for allowing us to learn and play on their land.” (And the children say “thank you” in one voice.)

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Fledglings (1E)

Throughout this week we also read several books that highlighted the Aboriginal culture, for example, “Welcome to Country” by Aunty Murphy and Lisa Kennedy and “ABC dreaming” by Warren Brim. This last book had the children mesmerised by the beautiful Aboriginal art illustrated in each page. In the Atelier, the children continued painting the leaves in the colours of the Aboriginal flag to create the new display in the ELS piazza. Throughout this week, the approach regarding Reconciliation Week in the Fledglings was focused on the meaning of the words “respect” and “empathy”. Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity. Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect. EYLF, 2009. Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world. Children respond to diversity with respect. EYLF, 2009.

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Stage 2

By Daniella Gosty, Sarah Noone, Roberta Sokame and Joyce Matsui

Every day in the Stage Two classroom the children sit in a circle in the morning and say an Acknowledgment to Country before we begin our group discussion.

For Reconciliation Week, the Stage 2 Kookaburra and Tree Frog class worked on a collaborative piece of artwork as we recreated the Indigenous flag using our handprints.

“We would like to thank the Indigenous people for sharing their land. We promise to look after it, the animals and the people too. Hello Land, (touch the floor), hello sky (hands up high), hello me (touch hands to body) and hello friends (outstretch arms)”

This week is National Reconciliation Week 27th May-3rd June and it is a time for all Australians to learn about and celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, histories and achievements. All Australians are encouraged to reflect on the part they play on our journey towards achieving reconciliation in Australia. This year’s theme is ‘Be Brave and make change’. We have a new story book titled 'Kookoo Kookaburra’. It is a story from the Dreamtime about Kookoo the kookaburra, kindness and the importance of thinking about how your actions will affect others. Kookoo’s Elder, Uncle Googaguga, tells him “You have two eyes; you have two ears; you only have one mouth – look and listen twice as much as you speak.” The children enjoyed the illustrations as they identified the animals of the Australian bush. Our circle in the morning is just like the aboriginal yarning circle. Yarning circles are a traditional part of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture that have been used for centuries to learn from a collective group, build respectful relationships and to preserve and pass on cultural knowledge. The children were shown the aboriginal flag and as we identified the colours of black, red and yellow, we talked about what they represent. The red being for the land, the yellow for the sky and the black for the people. When we say our Welcome to Country, we all put our hands out to touch the ground and to say, “hello land”. REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Stage 2 Our new teacher, Vivi, shared with the class the song "Head and shoulders, knees and toes - “Balang ganha bungangbu burrami” in Wiradjuri language.

and communities and an emerging understanding of reciprocal rights and responsibilities 2.2 Children respond to diversity with respect

We talked about the indigenous people having many different languages depending on where they come from in Australia. The children watched the video of the song and were able to recognise it through the actions, so we joined in using English and followed the actions to sing with the presenters. In music class, Nick showed us again how to perform the crane dance and we used clapping sticks to add music to the movements. We also explored the alphabet puzzle with indigenous artwork that when completed looks like the rainbow snake from the Dreamtime stories and worked on the indigenous artwork matching game, identifying the colours we could see and the shapes that the art work was created with. We read the story “My Country” and we took a closer look at the Aboriginal flag and its meaning – while we were creating the flag, we spoke to each child about our creation, a flag that symbolises the unity and identity of Aboriginal People: Their black handprints represent the Aboriginal People of Australia. Their yellow handprints represent the sun; the giver of life and protector. Their red handprints represent the red earth; the red ochre (a natural clay earth pigment) used in ceremonies and Aboriginal peoples’ spiritual relation to the land. While we were creating the flag, we spoke to each child about our creation, and a flag that symbolises the unity and identity of Aboriginal People. The children were shown and reminded of the handprints that we did last term for Harmony Day. OUTCOME 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world 2.1 Develop a sense of belonging to groups REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Stage 3

By Susan Casey, Hannah Corrigan, Emily Hunt and Echo Jia

National Reconciliation Week – 27 May to 3 June – is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, culture and achievements. In Stage 3, we took the opportunity to teach our children how we show our respect to acknowledge the first owners of this beautiful land. Each morning, we gather our children together to show our respect and thank the indigenous people for sharing their land, we promise to look after the environment, the animals and the people on this land. This is what we say and do: Hello Land (tough the floor) Hello Sky (hands up to the sky) Hello Me (hug yourself) and Hello Friends (hands out to all your friends)

Each participant speaks, one at a time, is heard and not interrupted. This is a process that involves and develops deep listening, sharing of knowledge and development of higher order thinking skills and establishing rules of respect. There is a yarning stick we got from an aboriginal elder we would pass around in the circle. Our children are encouraged to hold the yarning stick which indicates that is their turn to speak. Everyone is able to take as much time as they need until they have finished. They then pass the yarning stick to the next person. This is also a great way for our children to gain a sense of belonging to our group, and build a positive connection between each other, and the community. In the Yarning Circle, we talked about our families, things that make us happy, things we like to do at Reddam ELS, our holidays, and the sports we like to do. All this discussion gives the children an opportunity to convey and construct messages with purpose and confidence, building on knowledge and understanding of the wider community. We also showed our children some traditional ways of telling stories through drawing, painting, music and dance. They were fascinated by the colourful dot painting, and the aboriginal symbols from the Dreamtime books we read. In the room, there are some pictures in display to inspire our children to create their own stories.

We have also introduced yarning circle in our classroom. In the Yarning Circle process, all participants are provided with an opportunity to have their say in a safe space without judgment. REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Stage 3

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Stage 4

By Jane Pledger, Sandra Carberry, Nina Bergel,Yuliya Ginis and Christina Mandalidis

Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for welcoming me so warmly to Stage 4. It was so nice to see such happy faces and excited children and families upon my return. Over the past week, I used the time with the Stage 4M children to observe their interests, how they move around the classroom and what they like to do. We also created a mind map together where the children discussed the things they liked about the classroom and what they would like to see more of. It’s important for the environment to be based upon the children’s interests. By giving them a say, they a feel a strong sense of belonging and ownership of their space. The furniture in the classroom was moved around, different learning experiences were added, and new routines were formed this week. The children enjoyed the addition of a painting table to the classroom. It is set up with two table-top easels and watercolour paints for the children to freely explore their creativity. There are many benefits of working on an easel: Fine motor: Moving the painting tool from the palette to the easel surface requires focus and control. Cognitive skills: There is a lot to figure out while using an easel, such as how the paint will get on the paper, how the different colours will mix, and how to handle the drips that occur. Social Skills: Children can work across from or next to each other and communicate. Creativity: There is no specific outcome expected when creating at the easel. The artist can choose how much or how little to apply to the surface, creating any desired design.

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Stage 4 The children have also been adjusting to a new morning grouptime routine. This begins each morning with an Acknowledgement to Country. This led to conversations about why we do an Acknowledgement to Country and what it means. The children particularly gravitated to the part of looking after the land and nature. Christina then brought in some natural loose parts to continue with this interest. Loose parts is also an important part of children’s development. This type of play supports invention, divergent thinking, problem solving and offers a sense of wonder to children. They are materials that can be moved, carried, combined, redesigned, lined up and taken apart and put back together in multiple ways. The children used the natural loose parts materials to create anything they wanted. Below are their explanations of what they made: Lily: It’s a smiley face. I did cut off bits for the smile and I did a big rock for the nose. Pinecones for my eyes, sparkly white rocks for the hair and last but not least the baby pinecones I used for eyebrows. Nina: It’s a pattern. I did six lines. Well, I used some rocks and some stumps. Dailya: It’s my mummy. The pinecone is hair and I used nuts on the side for eyes and the rock is for hair too and so are the two little pinecones. The leaves are for the eyelashes. It has a mouth and lips too. Anna: It’s a pattern. I used wood and rocks, shiny rocks, little pinecones and big pinecones. They are in a circle. Maximilian: It’s a moon. I’m putting some rocks in it because the moon has moon rocks. The big rock is a meteor. The moon is being explored by the meteor. Then the moon is extinct. This is Hulk Smash on the moon. Xavier: it’s a person. It’s Spider-Man. The white rocks are his webs. The pinecone is his hair. Noa: I made a flower. I used white sparkly crystals to make the petals and the pebbles are the outside of the petals. The stem is this hard leaf.

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Stage 4

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Early Learning School Drama In Stage 3 and 4 this week we started a discussion about the time in which dragons existed. It was a long time ago and people lived in villages. They didn’t have cars and machines to do all the chores. They generally rode horses, so the jobs which people had were different to ours today. The children chose a job to do in the village. Some suggestions included grooming horses, preparing bread and chopping wood. One child was chosen to go outside to become the Dragon. When this person entered again the villages called out: “The dragon is coming” and froze in a sculpture. The dragon went up to the villagers and breathed fire on them. If a villager moved, laughed or smiled they had to join the dragon and go outside. This game was played until there was only one villager left. The children loved this game, and they were all very good at concentrating to be still! Next the room was transformed into the Dragon’s Lair. The children helped build a dragon cave with a few chairs and some material. I picked one child to be the sleeping dragon in his cave. Keys were to be the treasure that the dragon was guarding. One person was chosen to be the brave knight (they had to show they were brave too) who was going to take the dragon’s treasure. If the sleepy dragon pointed in the direction of the knight, they turned to stone and someone new was chosen to have a turn. If the knight was successful, they had a turn to be the dragon.

The final part of the lesson involved the children working in pairs with my guidance. In pairs, one was the knight and the other the dragon. The dragon had stolen something from the villagers. What had he stolen? A baby? A princess? Their mission was to try and get it back, but how? Some children decided that the knight would offer something in return; some suggested that the dragon really likes eating chocolates and others said that he hasn’t any friends

and he was just lonely. The children had to find an ending that served both the dragon and knight. If their answer was a good one for the dragon and knight, they were allowed to go into the Dragon cave and bring out some treasure as this was where the X was. Once they had all been in, we sat down and showed each other what they got. So now we had some treasure. I guess we should go home to show Grandma? But how would we get back home? We had some great suggestions, but my favourite was to close our eyes and use our imagination, click our heels together and say “There’s no place like home” three times. Once we got back home to Grandma’s I asked the children if that was a dream?........Maybe we should look in our pockets to see? In the Nest, Stage 1 and 2, we went on an adventure filled with nature and weather! The children explored what it was like to move like the wind and rain and grow into beautiful trees and flowers! We also played with sunrises and huge mountains! We finished the lesson telling a story, with the whole class playing the role of all the elements of nature! I bought in leaves so the children could feel the texture and we also used the ribbons to make rainbow shapes and to pretend it was windy and we flew our kites! In Stage 1 Francesca and Alfie did a great job of showing us some fantastic flowers and tremendous trees! From Stage 2, Chloe showed us her wonderful rain and Leonie was a marvellous mighty mountain. Stage 2 also did a great job, especially Hallie, who showed us colourful growing flowers and majestic mountains! Well done, everyone. I look forward to more adventures next week!

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Early Learning School Sport With such cold weather this week it was great for the children to move their bodies to get nice and warm. The sessions started with an old favourite: “builders and bulldozers”. The students were divided up into two groups, with one group having to try and flip any upturned cone the right side up to ‘build them’ and the other group bulldozing any cones that were the right side up. As usual, the children always have a role that they want to play, this week they were very good at accepting that they would get a turn at both jobs so they might just have to be a little patient and wait to do the role that they had their heart set on. For our locomotion focus this week, the children participated in an obstacle course. The first half included balancing on raised platforms which were spaced at irregular intervals. The children used their arms to help manipulate their centre of gravity and line of gravity to help them stay on the platforms. The second stage was a set of five hurdles that the children had to do a two footed jump over. While the first hurdle was a little shorter, the rest of the hurdles were quite challenging. The children were guided to bend their knees and swing their arms back and up to help them get enough height when attempting the higher hurdles. Keeping their feet stuck together with ‘glue’ was a little bit tricky at the start, but the children soon got the hang of it. It was lovely to see the look of satisfaction on their faces when they were able to get over the higher hurdles, after some difficulty in the beginning. To get our hearts beating and our muscles nice and warm we played the “Cat and Mouse” game. Where the ‘mice’ had to run from one end of the space and back without being struck by a ball that was thrown underarm by the ‘cats’ who were sitting on the sidelines. Each child had a go at both roles this week, except for a couple of very quick children who were able to evade the ball every time. REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Early Learning School Music It's Reconciliation Week, which encourages us to learn and acknowledge the traditional owners of Australian land. Indigenous Australians are the oldest civilisation on Earth, dating back over 75,000 years. They used music in much of their storytelling and Dreamtime stories. This week across the stages we looked at how they incorporated music and dance into their storytelling, and some of the instruments they would use. 'The Crane Dance' tells of how birds fly, feed and then celebrate. The actions saw us flapping our arms as the birds fly around looking for a place to land; jumping our feet and spreading our arms to imitate landing; with one arm to be our beak and the other behind our back we ate what food we could find; and then we run and danced to celebrate the meal. We performed this along with traditional Aboriginal music. In Stages 3 and 4 we began the lesson with 'The Silent Game'. Testing the children's listening and self-control, they were asked to perform various tasks with and without maracas, but without making a sound. Keeping our maracas, we sang through our scales - "LA", "Ma Moo Ma Moo" and "Oo oo Ah". The quick change of mouth shapes helps to strengthen the articulators. Once through our scales we sang and shook through our 'ABCs' forward and backwards. We sang the crowd favourite 'Sunflower Song', while trying to encourage new farmers; and then we continued refining our songs for the terms. I was so proud of Cece, who played the farmer for the first time. Stages 3 and 4 also looked at traditional Indigenous instruments; we watched how the didgeridoo is played, then played drums and woodsticks along with the didgeridoo; before dancing 'The Crane Dance' to it. REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Early Learning School Music In Stage 2 and The Fledglings we opened the lesson with 'Wake Up Body', followed by our single note scales; with Stage 2 we added a 5 note ascending scale. With our voices warm, we picked up our castanets and sang through 'Twinkle Twinkle', helping to warm up our fine motor skills. Standing up, we all clicked and stomped along in time as best they could. Using our maracas, we held our castanets in one hand and maracas in the other while we tried to click and shake along to our sing -a-longs, which really challenged our coordination and motor control. We sat in a percussion circle, listening to traditional Indigenous music which we played along too. In Stage 2, we split the class into an instrumental group and dancing group. We took turns at playing instruments and then swapped groups with the dancers.

In The Nest, we opened the lesson with 'Baa Baa' at Olivia's request and 'Wake Up Body'. Using our castanets, we clicked along with our sing-a-longs before we got our maracas and continued to learn ‘The Sunflower Song’, with our actions encouraging the children to stand up and lay back down. I was super happy to see Atlas getting up and down with the movements. Using our woodsticks and drums, we had some free play and played along with traditional Indigenous Music, and also tried to play along with a steady beat.

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER

Reddam Early Learning would like to wish a very happy birthday to

Callum Kirgstein, Cecilia Chen, Pip Joubert, Xander Lamb and Chloe Marshall Teoh who celebrate their special day this week

We hope you have a fabulous day!

REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | WOOLLAHRA NEWSLETTER