Goodstart Early Learning Bedford Park

Enjoy your long weekend friends! No rain predicted 🌧️

A big thank you to all the mums who could make the time to come over and be part of the Mother’s Day morning and afternoon tea celebrations. Some of the mums couldn’t make it but we do understand and appreciate for trying .Children were all happy engaged and excited to see their mums and reassuring you all they all were happy settled back to their normal routines.

This week in the toddler room, the children were invited to take part in a variety of learning experiences that supported their curiosity, communication, creativity and social development. Across the week, the toddlers explored early literacy, storytelling, sensory play, science, transport, music, movement, playdough and imaginative play.

We continued our focus on early literacy by introducing the letter B. The children explored the sound and shape of the letter through simple rhymes, repetition, songs and meaningful play experiences. This learning was supported through stories and resources connected to words beginning with B, such as bear, baby and book.

Storytelling was a strong part of our week. The children enjoyed many opportunities to listen to stories during group times, with educators using expressive voices, dramatic storytelling and engaging interactions to capture the children’s attention. These moments were especially meaningful as the toddlers became deeply absorbed in the stories, listening carefully, responding with excitement and showing growing enjoyment of books and shared reading experiences.

Our staff here at Bedford Park are always open and eager to learn so we can support your children and give them the quality care that they can.

Bedford staff have taken on a trauma course to the next six months and will undergo training that captures how children’s brains function, the importance of attachment and strategies to support children with trauma backgrounds to upgrade from their current understandings.

today’s learning we practiced some numbers and counting with The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

First thing in the morning, we gathered around the mat to do some action songs and an Acknowledgement of Country, supporting children’s sense of belonging, participation, and group engagement. Then we invited our “puppet friend” – the Hungry Caterpillar – to join us and tell his story, encouraging language development, listening skills, and imagination.

After a fun story time, our little learners were invited to a hands-on activity, where they could sort fruit pictures onto the caterpillar backgrounds for each fruit, promoting early numeracy skills, counting, colour recognition, and problem-solving.

We had 1 apple, 2 pears, 3 plums, etc.

Most of them matched by the background colours, showing their ability to recognise patterns and make connections.

The theme for Earth day 2026 is “Our power, Our Planet”. We invited children to do painting. We offered primary colours green and Blue paints which represents nature, forests and the oceans. The children used paint brush and their tiny hands to help spread painting on a paper.

ANZAC Day is approaching, we took a few minutes today to remember the people who fought in wars for the peace and freedom of our lovely country.
We started our group time by acknowledging the Country with the “Nina Marni” song. Then we shared a story from the book “My Grandad Marched on Anzac Day” along with some facts about this date. Children were highly engaged, asking questions about ANZAC biscuits and the Australian and New Zealand flags. To finish our group time, we listened to “The Last Post”.
They listened attentively to the trumpet while we prepared the table for painting. Children used red paint on their hands to create poppies through hand printing, then added details using black crepe paper. This hands-on activity supported children’s creativity and imagination as they freely explored their own patterns.

Kindy children have been busy learning letters and numbers during this week. This week we are learning letter sound 'H' and 'G'.

13, 14 &15 April:

Numeracy: Subitizing, counting on to build a number: Numbers and hands on learning from this week's educational program. To support children's interest in hands on learning and early numeracy skills, children took turns to match numbers by expressing their understanding about looking at different types of number representations that provides them variety of opportunities to look at, count on, recognise and build numbers they already know or they are working towards to learn more (Learning outcome 3: well-being and 4 involved learners).

Later children have had lots of open-ended opportunities to practice matching numbers, build a number while playing dice game.