My Little Star Early Learning Centre

We all love taking good care of our garden. Educators reinforced the importance of regularly watering and caring for the plants to support healthy growth. We also visited our front yard to check on our newly planted corn, onion, and garlic. We measured the plants to observe their growth and recorded our findings through drawings, which supporting early scientific thinking and documentation skills.

Throwback to our Harmony week when some of our lovely families came and joined us to share their cultures and experiences with our children. Our beautiful educators were very proud to show their tradition clothes, danced and sang along with our children.
This experience was a wonderful opportunity for the children to become familiar with people’s differences and cultures. Sharing culture is a great way to support children’s sense of identity and belonging.

Happy lunar new year from our little stars 🧧🎋✨

Last week was the first week that all children have transitioned from the junior preschool into our room, along with the arrival of new children. Our main goal is to support children to feel valued and to understand that their feelings are important. This is a meaningful way to build positive relationships with educators and new peers, while also helping children become familiar with the room’s routines.
As some children are still finding drop-off time challenging in the early morning, we introduced mirrors and emotion cards to support them in expressing their feelings.
Each child was encouraged to look at themselves in the mirror and choose an emotion card that represented how they were feeling. Most children selected the happy face, while some chose the sad face as they were missing their parents. Later in the day, children were again invited to share their feelings through a creative experience. They were given paper person templates and crayons to draw themselves and show their emotions by adding facial expressions. This allowed children to express their feelings in a meaningful and visual way.

So many lovely activities across our centre during Valentine’s Day ❤️🌹💕✨

To continue supporting children’s sense of belonging to their environment, and with Australia Day approaching, we extended children’s knowledge about the country to which they belong. We provided the children with a map of Australia and the Australian flag, as well as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags.
We began our yarning circle by sharing an Acknowledgement of Country song and using an Aboriginal symbol that represents people sitting together. We then introduced the concepts of a map and a flag, explaining that each country has its own national flag. Throughout the experience, there were many intentional teaching moments.
Children explored the colours of the flags, discussed the meaning of each colour, counted the stars on the Australian flag, and learned about the different states and territories of Australia. We highlighted the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Canberra, where we live and where MLS is located.
Some children became very excited when Queensland was mentioned, as many had visited during the Christmas holidays.
Others shared that they have friends and family living in Victoria and South Australia, particularly in Adelaide.
Children were then invited to draw anything they knew about Australia. Many children chose to draw the Aboriginal flag, demonstrating their growing awareness and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. This experience supported children’s developing sense of identity and belonging, while also providing valuable opportunities to build general knowledge about their country in a meaningful and engaging way.

Today, we gathered outside in the front yard for a special story time session.
Our chosen book was Our Mob, which introduced our children to Aboriginal culture and community life. As we read the story, we explored pictures of Aboriginal people engaging in daily activities such as hunting, fishing, dancing, and making music with the didgeridoo.
Our children compared real images of Aboriginal people with the illustrations in the book and noticed that many had special body paintings. We took a closer look at the artwork in the book and observed that each page was beautifully decorated with dot paintings. This sparked meaningful discussions about Aboriginal art and its unique style. After story time, our children were invited to create their own dot paintings inspired by Aboriginal art.
They used a variety of colours and patterns, showing great creativity and focus.
In the afternoon, the educator introduced different Aboriginal symbols, with a focus on symbols that represent family. Our children were encouraged to copy the symbols onto worksheets and then create their own symbols of choice. They did an amazing job experimenting with shapes and lines and were excited to share and explain their drawings with the educator.
This activity supported children’s cultural awareness, creativity, fine motor skills, and confidence in expressing their ideas through art.

Lots of fun painting and water play from nursery and toddlers ❤️

The month of January has focused on becoming familiar with the new room and developing a strong sense of belonging for our new children. Today, we engaged in group sharing discussions about what we would like to do in MLS and what we enjoy about being in MLS.
Following these conversations, we set up a painting experience in the front garden, where children were invited to draw what was in their minds in a calm and relaxing environment. Some of the ideas shared through their artwork included playing with peers, staying close to teachers, chickens, playing in the sandpit, finding bugs, and many more.
Throughout the day, we offered different small-group experiences, which provided valuable opportunities for children to build relationships with both peers and educators.
These experiences supported children’s sense of belonging, confidence, and connection within the learning environment.

We gathered together in the front yard to enjoy a special story time with the book I’m Australian Too by Mem Fox. As we read through the book together, we explored different pages showcasing well-known cities and landmarks across Australia. Our children were excited to look at real images of places such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Melbourne Ferris wheel, and Brisbane city.
The educator encouraged discussion by asking our children if they had visited any of these cities with their families. This led to meaningful conversations about Australia being a multicultural country, where people from many different parts of the world come together and choose Australia as their home.
Following the story, our children were invited to draw pictures of their families or special people in their lives. They proudly shared their drawings with educators and friends, often adding thoughtful messages for their loved ones. This experience supported children in expressing their sense of identity, belonging, and connection to family and community.