Riversdale Early Learning Centre Oxenford

WHAT IS 3A & CONVERSATIONAL READING?

Conversational reading is a 1:1 experience between a child and educator with the overall goal of extending language and learning comprehension. It is where the child is in control and the educator takes the child’s lead whilst reading a book, meaning wherever the child takes the book is where the educator will follow and extend. This allows a child to use their imagination and take control of the book.

3S Strategy!
In Babies 3, we have been working on this strategy called 3S, which means “See, Show, Say”. The “see” step is where the educator will state what they can see either what the child is looking at in the book or something that will help guide the child’s joint attention. For example, “I see a cat” “You are looking at the cat”.
The “show” step is where we will ask the child “can you show me…” allowing the child to use their pointing and gross and fine motor skills. For example “can you show me the cat”, “Can you show me what a cat does”.
The “say” step is for the verbal and upcoming verbal children, where we ask the child to say words or sounds. For example, “can you say cat”, “What does a cat say” whilst looking at the picture in the book.

We have been using this strategy as observations in the room, to show exactly where a child is at regarding comprehension and language, which we will then extend on based on the child’s ability.

Miss Bec from our Babies 3 room recently attended a 3A (Abecedarian Approach) Learning and Development course which ran over a couple of days. It's been really great to see this approach in action across our Babies 3 room - enjoy some pics of Miss Bec learning herself but also sharing these skills with our Babies 3 children.

Our favourite book right now in Babies 3 is 'Good Night Sleep Tight' by Mem Fox

We thank Miss Bec for participating in this opportunity to extend her learning, and also for the explanation above on Conversational Reading and how this concept has been embedded in her practices across the room.

🐰We hope you all enjoyed our Egg-cellent Easter Party yesterday - here's some pics of all the fun and the cutest Easter Bonnet Parade we ever did see!

Thanks to all our Educators who put on this event for our families and children in their rooms this time, and our kitchen for their catering of the event.

We're egg-cited for our Easter Parties today - see you all soon
🐰🐰🐰...remember to grab a coffee on your way in or throughout the event - coffee van near entrance!

🌹🌹🌹Congratulations Mr Andrew & Cara on the safe arrival of beautiful Primrose - she's delightful. Glad to hear that she's being the perfect little angel so far. And a big congratulations to Poppy (Kindy 2 last year) and Violet (Toddler 1 this year) on their baby sister - we hear big sister duties are in full swing. Congratulations are in order also for Mr Pete (maintenance) as Primrose is his 5th grandchild!

We've popped a basket outside Mr Andrew's room, if any of the children would like to draw a picture, make a card or pop a little gift in there for Mr Andrew.🌸🌸🌸

WHEN IS COOKING - NOT JUST COOKING ?
🥚🥚🥚Since the beginning of the year in Kindy 2 we have been exploring real-life lessons. One of the topics that we have been learning about is cooking. Initially this came from children being hesitant with trying new foods, and it quickly developed into a passion for trying all things new when we cook. So we thought it would be a great opportunity to explore different family and world recipes.

🥒🥒🥒Each week we have been cooking new foods which have been motivating the children to try a variety of foods, from rice paper rolls to cookies and now onto Zucchini Slice, the children are getting a lot better with expanding their foot palate.

🫗🫗🫗This week for our cooking class in Kindy 2 we headed outside into our natural environment as the children have been showing a great interest in taking our learning experiences outside. We cooked Zucchini slice, and the children took turns in assisting Miss Sharni with measuring, pouring, and mixing the ingredients into the bowl. As you can see by the children's faces, there were lots of smiles and laughter throughout this experience. Many of the children said, "This is so much fun." and chatted amongst themselves while measuring and stirring the mixture.

🥣🥣🥣We've also seen so much growth in the children's fine motor control and skills as we've been using a variety of skills & different implements in our previous cooking classes. For something new, the children were challenged with cracking eggs, first Miss Sharni demonstrated how to crack the eggs correctly, then some of the children had the opportunity to try for themselves. We did an amazing job to have no eggshells falling into the mixture.

📗📗📗As the year progresses we'll continue exploring new recipes, and will add these into a Kindy 2 Cook Book that each child will be able to take home with them, this will allow the families to have the opportunity to explore these recipes as home.

🧠🧠🧠Cooking is a great play-based approach to learning so many valuable skills; thinking, problem-solving, turn-taking, social skills, creativity, basic maths skills, utilising our senses, and developing a more adventurous palate... and most of all it builds confident little humans who are so proud of their achievements.

💚💚💚We thank Miss Sharni, Miss Ella, and Miss Manuella for supporting the children with this experience, and their commitment to keeping this as an ongoing experience for the children. We also thank them for this content. A shout out to all the parents for their input with submitting recipe ideas. We can't wait to see the Kindy 2 Cook Book at the end of the year!

QKLG Learning Outcomes:
1.1.1: collaborating with children and their families to make them feel welcome and valued
3.2.4: explaining the purpose of safety/rules and instructing children in the safe use of kindergarten equipment
3.2.6: providing learning opportunities for children to practise and show they can follow safety rules
5.3.3: encouraging children to use mathematical language

WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH A BOX?
📦📦📦Our Pre Kindy room turned some simple boxes into pirate ships, rockets, construction towers, boats, and binoculars made with round cardboard cylinders. After seeing the children's interest in some smaller boxes in our room - we put the call out to our families to bring in any recycled boxes / packaging to help further extend on their imaginative box play. The construction component stemmed from their interest in construction and the transporting schema using trucks and objects as they moved them around the pre kindy room.

🏰🚢⚙️Pre Kindy showed great team-work, helping each other to lift and place boxes exactly where their imaginations wanted them to go. This big movement task was also great for building their core muscles for pre-writing. Their social and problem solving skills were certainly on display as they worked together to make these structures. Lots of fun was had when the children tried to climb into the boxes and jump out to surprise each other.

💚💚💚Riversdale thanks Miss Shayla, Miss Maddie and Miss Marie for creating this experience and providing this content. And we thank our families for getting involved by bringing items in from home - the children were so proud to use some of their own items in this activity.

🍃🍃🍃KINDY 1 ON A CLEAN UP MISSION.... After some discussions in class around the importance of keeping the environment clean - we brain-stormed to come up with some strategies that we as a class could put into place. Our brain-storm resulted in a 'pledge to keep Australia clean' which the children all signed. Part of that pledge was trying to re-use as many resources as possible, practice paper recycling and composting in our room ensuring minimal wastage.

Clean Up Australia Day was on Sunday 5th March, and we headed to our local community Park - Gambamora Park on Friday 3rd March and all picked up any rubbish we could find there. The children were very excited and did so well on the day - even wanting to extend their clean-up to pick up rubbish along the street as we headed back to kindy. But we agreed that it was too dangerous to stop because of the traffic.

🌱🌱🌱 As Educators, we feel this excursion was super helpful in promoting positive behaviours within our classroom, the kindy environment, and building a sense of responsibility and the foundations of community involvement.

We hope our community has been enjoying a sparkling clean park thanks to our 'Keep Australia Beautiful Pledge' in Kindy One!

Riversdale thanks Mr Andrew for initiating this mini excursion, providing this content. We also thank all Educators and parents who were involved on the day to make this a success
🌳🌳🌳

This time last Friday we were all about the BBQ and spending time connecting with the children & families of Riversdale... it was a great way to end the week.... thanks to all of you that came along 💚

Hello families, we just wanted to invite you all to contribute to our cook book as well. If you are baking/cooking an awesome dish over the festive season, we'd love you to snap a photo of your child / your family with the dish or cooking it and send through the recipe with the photo to us on email, and we'll add this as your child's special memory at Riversdale, so they can be part of our evolving Cookbooks, and we'd love more Educators to do this as well :)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nP1jud4gRwMKSW19ru-sXaBzLycVxpW-/view?usp=sharing

🦋💕Trigger warning: baby loss 💕🦋
Many of you would be aware that Miss Crystal (Lead Educator in our Kindy 2 room) took her maternity leave a little earlier in preparation for the arrival of her twins. We’d like to congratulate Crystal, Jordan and little Henry (from Kindy 1) on the arrival of their beautiful twin girls and perfect little sisters for Henry. On Tuesday 1st March 2022 they were blessed with; Abigail Anne Lewis Weight: roughly 900 grams Time of arrival 5:01pm and Penelope Judith Lewis Weight: 1.3 kg,Time of arrival 5:05pm. Both Abigail and Penelope spent time in the amazing NICU ward at Gold Coast University Hospital where they were so well cared for by some very talented and nurturing staff 24-7. On Friday 11th March at 11:51pm, little Abigail grew her angel wings after two surgeries and battling so very hard to stay earth side with her family. Abigail got to spend some special family time with her mummy, daddy, big brother and twin sister plus their immediate families. Our heart goes out to Crystal and her family as they continue to travel this journey. They have been well supported by their family, friends, work-mates and the most amazing NICU staff and their broader allied health team. Their resilience, strength and gratitude has been so strong over this time. Little Henry has returned to Kindy 1 and Mr Andrew will be working through this with him. And precious little Penelope is reaching all her little milestones and is expected to head home in the coming weeks – we wish this beautiful family so much love, care and healing throughout their next steps.
Here at Riversdale, we’ve provided a couple of small things to help with the grieving process; You will see a little wooden butterfly up high on the Kindy 1 door. We discussed this with Crystal and Henry, and Henry picked this one out for Abigail. We’ve also ordered some beautiful books to help children deal with loss, and some books for Crystal and Jordan. Plus, we’ve purchased two wooden Butterfly Finger Labyrinth boards. These are amazing calming and mindfulness tools for little minds. We are hoping this will provide Henry with some tranquil time in his room here at Riversdale and at home if he ever wants some quiet space to remember and celebrate his sister Abigail.
🎀🎀
If this post has impacted you or you feel that support would be helpful at this time, please reach out to:

Telephone: 1300 308 307
www.rednosegriefandloss.com.au

Telephone Support Line: 1300 072637
www.sands.org.au

Enquiries: 1300 11 HOPE
www.bearsofhope.org.au

Telephone: 1300 22 4636
https://www.beyondblue.org.au/

*Posted with permission of Crystal and Jordan

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