Samanthas Childcare and Kindergarten Glen Iris

ow in confidence to explore and learn. For us, partnerships with families is extremely important for children’s learning outcomes and we work together to promote a consistency between the home environment and our Nursery. The Nursery program provides the scaffolding for a child’s learning throughout their lives and we recognise this important developmental stage of each individual child, creating environments which foster this learning. Toddler - 15 places
Our Toddler room is led by a team of qualified educators, who have created a safe, warm and positive learning environment for children. Our educators pride themselves on teamwork and reflective practices, offering a fun, age appropriate program planned with developmental goals such as independence skills, language development and toilet training. Creativity is explored with arts are crafts, and motor development is promoted with creative movement and dance. We offer an extracurricular physical activity program ‘Sports 4 Kinders’, who visit each fortnight. This program teaches sportsmanship, and promotes motor skills, strength and balance. Our outdoor play area offers a safe opportunity to explore these developing skills. Our large veranda allows us to enjoy outdoor play in any weather. The Toddler room program promotes sustainably with the children actively involved in planting, maintaining and harvesting vegetable gardens and observing and feeding the wildlife, which visit the native flora surrounding our yard. Our Toddler children are encouraged to connect with their community and the world around them. We implemented outdoor sleeping as part of our ongoing program, as educators reflect on the benefits of this practice we have observed the decrease of incidents of illness, and have found the children fall asleep faster and for longer. The children embraced this routine and are encouraged to have a voice in planning decisions such as this, as we follow a philosophy of child led play and play based learning.

3 Year Old Kinder - 20 places
Our 3 Year Old Kinder is a time full of exploration and discovery. Our program is delivered by qualified educators including an Early Childhood Teacher (ECT) and the program, which is both an intentional and play based curriculum, offers a learning approach that engages active young minds. Our educators aim to provide children with rich and meaningful learning experiences that will allow children to naturally develop and have the opportunity to guide their own learning. Our routine allows time for individual play/learning, small group play/learning and large group sessions. Singing, movement, music, dramatic play, painting, creating, designing, experimenting and building are just some ways the children in our 3 Year Old Kinder room will learn and grow. In the 3 Year Old Kinder room children will be provided with opportunities to learn to become more self-reliant, engage positivity with other children, express their emotions and strengthen their thinking and communication skills. While we aim to deliver a program that intentionally support children’s developmental milestones we also believe that through self-guided play, inquiry, exploration, discussion and investigation, children can develop their own authentic selves.

4 Year Old Kinder - 20 places
We offer a funded 4 year old kinder program run by a Bachelor qualified Early Childhood Teacher. In the long day care setting, families are able to experience everything a sessional Kindergarten has to offer, with the added benefit of extended hours to suit busy and working families. Our Kinder room operates by using a combination of planned and spontaneous experiences that are teacher and child initiated. We foster social and emotional skills through collaboration and build confidence and resilience by challenging them and encouraging independence. We embrace their creativity by incorporating art, music, drama and dance throughout the program and create positive dispositions for learning by being responsive to their natural curiosity. We investigate world issues, celebrate diversity and value family input, as we believe children thrive when families and educators work together. We create a positive transition to school by building relationships with local schools, fostering interest and excitement for literacy and numeracy through play, group times, games and books and ensuring they have the confidence and independence necessary for school.