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Early Learners

Dear Families of the Early Learners Room. We have been following on from the beginning of the year's learning subjects such as, our environment and the world we live in. Our Early Learners have been very busy over the Winter months learning about what sustains us. Themes such as "Country Life", “Farming" and "Healthy Eating". The children engaged in a variety of similar themed activities including reading stories, picture card matching, farm scene discovery, sensory and auditory activities, rhymes, songs and educational video clips. The children created art with finger painting activities, where we focused on specific colours, textures, and techniques to create familiar farm animals.

Early Learners also participated in a special classroom incursion where they were given the opportunity to meet a 7-day old chick. Each child was able to gently touch its soft downy feathers and were delighted and amazed by the tweeting sounds coming from the little chicken- this incursion allowed the children to engage in learning about farm animals through a close encounter. Every opportunity of interacting with animals also helps strengthen children's empathetic and caring skills while connecting with living creatures that form part of our natural environment.

During NAIDOC week we engaged in several activities where we acknowledged the traditional owners of the land including listening to cultural music, decorating our own boomerangs and artworks. We dedicated the rest of July to extending on our learning about where our food comes from. We participated in activities such as planting and taking care of our own herbs and vegetables as we touched base on the concepts of conservation, recycling, and sustainability. We had so much fun playing with mini recycling bins, getting familiar with symbols and recyclable objects while creating with repurposed materials.

Early Learners have enjoyed taking part in our Kidi Kingdom calendar events such as Crazy Costume Day, Teddy Bear’s Picnic Day and Pyjama Day! In August we have been focusing on literature, the alphabet, storybook favourites, and famous nursery rhymes. We loved all of your awesome book week costumes. If you have any questions or requests regarding your child’s learning and routines or any concerns, please feel free to have a chat with myself, leave messages in your communication book or contact management via centre email.

Thank you, Miss Chrystle and Miss Jazarna.

Junior Early Years

Welcome Junior Early Years to our centre newsletter. Over these winter months, we have explored many different topics related to the interests of the children such as "birds," then we extended that interest with "things that fly." We also recognised, investigated and celebrated special days as well as centre events such as NAIDOC week, The Olympic Games and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day. In NAIDOC Week, we introduced a daily "welcome to country" in our group times to build a foundation for future education on Indigenous topics.

We have extended the children's interest in books, literature, and our community by going on fun-filled excursions to our local library and exploring our local environments and park on our Naturescape walks.

We created our own 'Mini-Olympics' with the children participating in games like running races, hurdles, gymnastics, shotput and more to not only celebrate the Olympic Games but to support and promote our children's gross and fine motor development. We would love to say a big happy birthday to our Juniors Early Years that have celebrated their birthday over the last few months.

Warmest Regards, Miss Sarah, Miss Brooke and Miss Madison.

Early Years

Dear Families of the Early Years Room. This month we have been learning and exploring our wonderful Sea life following on from some of the children's interest in animals. The children have been excited about our themed room 'at the beach' and are learning how to fish! This is extending their hand-eye coordination skills.

We have also been working on self-soothing, as most of you know drop offs can be hard so we are focusing on the child’s interests and building friendships. We are glad to see everyone are settling in nicely.

During NAIDOC week the Early Years celebrated by learning how to throw the boomerang, practicing the song “TabaNaba” with the actions and words. The children responded wonderfully and really enjoyed this beautiful song. There have been many milestones achieved this month, with the children’s toileting, self-help and exploration of new things. Of which we are excited to extend and then share with you all in the following months. If you have any questions or ideas for the next month’s interest and/or your children’s milestones, please feel free to speak with one of your educators.

Thank you, Miss Taneeka, Miss Raquel and Miss Anum.

Senior Early Years

Welcome to the Senior Early Years room! During the last few months, we have been exploring who we are, all about our heritage and different aspects of our culture. This has helped us to understand each other and encouraged Being, Belonging and Becoming.

The children have been exploring different ways to read and write their names. Investigating the first letter of their name and the sounds of each letter. During these months the children have been celebrating and paying respects to different Cultural events, for example the children got to learn about the people of our land on NAIDOC day and then enjoying creative art activities. During the first week of the Olympics, the children got to enjoy activities that evolve around the Olympic games. Practicing their large motor development and coordination skills, ready for the opportunity to become future Olympians themselves!

Please feel free to email in photos of your child at the park, shopping, any activity, to share during Yarn time, I have found that each child has a feeling of pride and is beginning to develop skills for public speaking. This is seen when they build up their confidence, while talking about something that they are enthusiastic about. Can I also have a Family Photo Please!

Please send in your child's hat as Miss Shiree will be using puff paint to write their names on it! A great way of encouraging name recognition and developing responsibility for their own belongings.

Stay Safe, Miss Jo and Miss Katelyn.

Pre-Prep

Welcome to Pre - Prep Winter edition, it has been an amazing past few months of learning and helping the children have a smooth transition to Big School. We have been very interested in different Science Experiments and explored the "Surface tension of water" we did: The Magical Milk, The Lava Lamp, Tornado Bottle, Giant Bubbles, Grass Head, Sink or Float and currently we are exploring Living and Non- living things while also ensuring to look after our Community Garden every day.

The Children have enjoyed making pizza and doing edible fruit craft. We are having a lot of fun exploring with our five senses. We continued playing with “Visual Perception” activities as visual perception is an important skill that must be developed during the first years of a child’s life. Visual perception is important for a child to learn so they are able to interpret and understand their environment. Children must have well-developed visual skills to learn to: read, write and do mathematics. Over the next month we will be focusing on the children’s individual interests, creating a learning environment and activities based around this. We will keep reinforcing our ongoing Objective’s for this year: Reading the calendar, recording the weather, days of the week, name recognition, ABC’s letter sounds (Phonetics: Short and long vowels), Counting, recognizing numbers, Sorting, Sequence, association of number to quantity, measurement, patience problem - solving skills. Recycled material and sorting exercises stimulate logic analytical thinking. We are developing observation and listening skills through story books and ‘Show and Tell’. This builds the children’s confidence to speak in front of their peers, ask and answer questions. We learned about Aboriginal culture with some beautiful dreamtime story books and arts and crafts. We are all very excited about upcoming events to complete our last year before School. We are all looking forward to Graduation Day, Christmas and a wonderful new year.

Kind Regards, Miss Maritza and Miss Sandy.

Before and After School Care / Vacation Care

Welcome to Before, After School and Vacation Care! During The last school holidays the children went to Time Zone, Parks, Movies, and the Historical Museum. At the Historical Museum the children enjoyed looking at old homes learning how they used to print paper and how the children learnt at school. The children had a little army museum where they looked at the photos of medals that had been earnt.

The Schoolies have been enjoying painting and having more time outside, The Schoolies will continue to do more painting and cooking as they have shown great interest on these topics. I also want to encourage the schoolies to have a say on what they would like to do this term.

Thank you, Miss Jo.

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/