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Early Learners

Hello and Welcome to our Winter / Spring Newsletter for the Early Learners Room.

Firstly, I would like to re-introduce myself to our current and new families, My name is Miss Rachael and I am so grateful to be able to educate your children to reach their milestones.

Recently in the Early Learners Room we have been focusing on sensory play and building connections with the children. Sensory play is important for brain development as it can strengthen sensory related synapses and functions, build better connections, and develop children's fine and gross motor skills as they interact.

Clicking on the website below you can find some amazing sensory activities to do at home with your little ones.

https://littlelearningclub.com/sensory-activities-6-12-months/

We have focused a lot on building relationships with the children through our love of music and singing. Singing helps the children develop language skills to encourage them to talk and express their emotions.

Thank You, Miss Rachael, Miss Talia and Miss Harman.

Junior Early Years

Dear Families of the Junior Early Years Room,

We have been very busy with many fun and exciting activities in our room over the past couple of months! During these months we celebrated many events such as best friend day, crazy costume day, NAIDOC week, mini-Olympics, Teddy Bear’s Picnic and Pyjama Day.

During this pandemic our number one priority was to keep children safe and cared for. We encourage children to wash their hands all the time and the centre has taken some steps to provide a safe environment for children. During this time, we focused on the environment, we increased children’s learning in gardening and nature as their interest grew. Gardening is very important for children, by gardening they can improve motor skills, developing stem skills, cognitive and social skills, object control skills and body management skills.

The children really enjoyed participating in sensory and colour activities. The children mixed whipped cream and food colour for colour mixing. Along with this, children made play dough with the help of educators, mixing in the colour of their own choice to create their Playdough. We also did a science experiment where the children created rain with blue colour and shaving cream.

In the upcoming months we look forward to focusing on numbers, colours, shapes and animal names. This will increase children’s language skills and vocabulary. We are also excited for upcoming events to celebrate and plan some fun activities. I would like to say thank you to all our families ongoing patience and support.

Below is a link to Sensory activities and ideas that you can do at home.

https://busytoddler.com/sensory-activities/

Thank you, Miss Puneet, Miss Astrid, Miss Sapphire and Miss Tommi.

Early Years

Hello, and Welcome to this month's newsletter for the Early Years classroom.

I would like to welcome all the new families to our classroom, and thank all of our existing Kidi Kingdom families. It has been a busy and fun filled month of learning, exploring and creating in the classroom. The children have been learning about and exploring health and wellbeing, the importance of hand washing, hygiene practices and sun safety.

Group time has been a great success, the children have been focusing on counting, colour recognition, singing songs and listening to stories each day.

We have continued on with learning about recycling, teaching children to care for the environment is a learning experience that is an important part of growing up. It gives them skills in patience, respect and empathy, also teaching them valuable lessons about sustainability, encouraging a cleaner and brighter future.

We have been learning about energy conservation and saving resources through recycling, turning recyclable items into art and craft. We would love any recyclable materials you may throw out at home as we can turn these items into something amazing.

In the month of July, we have celebrated Naidoc week, Naidoc week is a time to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture and achievements. During this time the children participated in many different activities and experiences including dance and music, rock and leaf painting as well as observing and exploring Indigenous Australian flags.

In the link below you can find some amazing activities.

https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/popular-nursery-rhymes-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-languages

Our Teddy Bear picnic was a great success. The children enjoyed a delicious picnic under the shade of a tree with their teddy bears.

Last but not least we celebrated Pyjama Day, it was lovely to see both Educators and children dressed in their favourite Pj's.

Thank you, Miss Bec and Miss Sonya.

Pre-Prep

Welcome Families of the Pre-Preproom.

In the Pre-Prep room, the children have been working well towards extending on their school readiness skills each morning. Children will continue each day engaging in literacy and numeracy learning experiences, which includes writing their names, numbers, drawing skills, and reciting letter sounds twice a day as recommended by the local primary school. We are also giving the children opportunities for one-on-one time with the Pre-Prep teachers to assess their learning and provide some extra support in their learning needs.

Lots of exciting craft projects are also planned for the next few weeks using our recycled resources, as we are encouraging the children to learn and explore sustainability practices.

We have also begun to collect bread tags and talk about this with the children. We have learnt that bread tags are used to make wheelchairs, and so we have registered our centre to be a collection point for bread tags in our community. We encourage all families to please help us by collecting your bread tags and placing them in our small yellow wheelie bin near the front door of the centre. We will send these off to the central office for "Bread tags for wheelchairs". Thank you.

Below is a great kids spot link for activities at home with children;

https://www.kidspot.com.au/parenting/things-to-do

Thank you and stay safe, Miss Antonietta and Miss Simone.

Before and After School Care / Vacation Care

Hello and Welcome to all our Before and After School Care children and families.

What amazing couple of months we have had here at Kidi Kingdom Coomera Before and After school care. Our relationships have flourished and we have been working on ensuring our school commitments with homework are met. Please keep in mind we have our September Vacation Care Program coming up soon and the last Vacation Care was very popular due to the great excursions and outdoor experiences on offer. If you would like to enroll, please see our Centre Manager, Sarah as vacancies are limited.

Thank you, Miss Naila.

Young children whose parents read them five books a day enter kindergarten having heard about 1.4 million more words than kids who were never read to.

This "million-word gap" could be one key in explaining differences in vocabulary and reading development, said Jessica Logan, lead author of the study and assistant professor of educational studies at The Ohio State University. Even kids who are read only one book a day will hear about 290,000 more words by age 5 than those who don't regularly read books with a parent or caregiver. "Kids who hear more vocabulary words are going to be better prepared to see those words in print when they enter school," said Logan, a member of Ohio State's Crane Centre for Early Childhood Research and Policy. "They are likely to pick up reading skills more quickly and easily." The study appears online in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioural Paediatrics and will be published in a future print edition.

Logan said the idea for this research came from one of her earlier studies, which found that about one-fourth of children in a national sample were never read to and another fourth were seldom read to (once or twice weekly). "The fact that we had so many parents who said they never or seldom read to their kids was pretty shocking to us. We wanted to figure out what that might mean for their kids," Logan said.

The researchers collaborated with the Columbus Metropolitan Library, which identified the 100 most circulated books for both board books (targeting infants and toddlers) and picture books (targeting pre-schoolers). Logan and her colleagues randomly selected 30 books from both lists and counted how many words were in each book. They found that board books contained an average of 140 words, while picture books contained an average of 228 words. With that information, the researchers calculated how many words a child would hear from birth through his or her 5th birthday at different levels of reading. They assumed that kids would be read board books through their 3rd birthday and picture books the next two years, and that every reading session (except for one category) would include one book. They also assumed that parents who reported never reading to their kids actually read one book to their children every other month.

Based on these calculations, here's how many words kids would have heard by the time they were 5 years old: Never read to, 4,662 words; 1-2 times per week, 63,570 words; 3-5 times per week, 169,520 words; daily, 296,660 words; and five books a day, 1,483,300 words.

"The word gap of more than 1 million words between children raised in a literacy-rich environment and those who were never read to is striking," Logan said. The word gap examined in this research isn't the only type kids may face. A controversial 1992 study suggested that children growing up in poverty hear about 30 million fewer words in conversation by age 3 than those from more privileged backgrounds. Other studies since then suggest this 30-million-word gap may be much smaller or even non-existent, Logan said.

The vocabulary word gap in this study is different from the conversational word gap and may have different implications for children, she said. "This isn't about everyday communication. The words kids hear in books are going to be much more complex, difficult words than they hear just talking to their parents and others in the home," she said. For instance, a children’s book may be about penguins in Antarctica – introducing words and concepts that are unlikely to come up in everyday conversation. "The words kids hear from books may have special importance in learning to read", she said.

Logan said the million-word gap found in this study is likely to be conservative. Parents will often talk about the book they're reading with their children or add elements if they have read the story many times. This "extra-textual" talk will reinforce new vocabulary words that kids are hearing and may introduce even more words. The results of this study highlight the importance of reading to children. "Exposure to vocabulary is good for all kids. Parents can get access to books that are appropriate for their children at the local library," Logan said.

Source: news.osu.edu (2019, April 04). A 'million-word gap' Retrieved from https://news.osu.edu/a-million-word-gap-for-children-who-arent-read-to-at-home/