Four Seasons Childcare & Education

15/05/2023

Gumboots, mud, rain and kids ☔️ Could it get any better!? ☺️

12/04/2023

🤎🤎

Experiential Education
"Education is a natural process carried out by the child and is not acquired by listening to words BUT BY EXPERIENCES IN THE ENVIRONMENT."
Maria Montessori (My emphasis, not Maria's.)

This little girl is learning about chickens. She is a 'multisensory data collector', meaning her 20+ senses are taking in megabites of information from which she will build her 'body of knowledge'. She gets to experience how heavy or light the chicken is, the noises that it makes, the smell of it, the texture of the feathers, the warmth of its body, the structure of its being, the texture of its legs, the shape of the wings, feel its little heart beating - and much more. Nothing you can say about chickens would give this girl knowledge, it can only add information to the knowledge acquired through her experience. That's great, but it's only information, not experience. And if you are thinking, 'where do screens fit into this picture?', they don't. Screen presentations can add more information (that's good), but they cannot add the important sensory data required for learning in this 3D world.

12/04/2023

We hope you’ve had a lovely Easter long weekend! 🐣

We still have spots available! Please DM me if you have any questions ☺️

06/04/2023

What can your child expect when they come to us at Four Seasons?

🤍 Other children ready to welcome them with open arms and be friends
🤍 A home
🤍 Homemade food for morning and afternoon tea
🤍 Engaging resources to help them learn and grow
🤍 Respectful care
🤍 Plenty of outside play
🤍 An environment that avoids over-stimulation
🤍 More 1:1 time with the educator
🤍 An infinite amount of opportunities to take risks, ask questions and explore

I am sure that they will absolutely love it here! Message me if you want to find out more about what we do!

05/04/2023

Making a mini supermarket has never been so much fun!

They’re…

🛒 Learning real life skills
🛒 Developing gross motor skills
🛒 Developing early numeracy and literacy skills
🛒 Contextualising their learning from the real world
🛒 Getting proprioceptive sensory input
🛒 Practicing and developing their speech and language

Message me if you’d like to find out more about what we do here at Four Seasons! 🤍

05/04/2023

Our home/family corner is very popular at the moment 🥰

05/04/2023

Let kids be kids 🥰🤎

04/04/2023

There is no shortage of connecting with nature and being outside at Four Seasons ☀️

Nature and the seasons guide our planning and group themes and topics. As we move into autumn, we are talking about the colours we see, the changes in light at day and night, foods that are in seasons, holidays during this time (like Easter) and much more!

We believe that if children are connected to nature, they are more inclined to respect it and understand our world through deeper connection and knowledge 🤎

03/04/2023

We’re on a mission!

Our mission is to spend 1000 hours outside 🌳

Why? Because on average, children consume roughly 1,200 hours of screen time a year. While screen time has it’s benefits, it pushes us further away from our roots within nature. Being outside is incredibly beneficial for children and their cognitive, physical and emotional development. But not only that, being outside allows children to connect with nature, make observations and see changes in the weather and seasons, find new passions and interests, and build a love for the environment which will help them make more sustainable choices as they are older 🤎 If they love the earth, they’ll definitely respect it and try to keep it going!

We will do this by…

☀️ Visiting the beach
☀️ Visiting the park
☀️ Going on nature walks
☀️ Playing in our outdoor environment

We have a big heat pump and warm home so even if we play outside for an hour in the rain or in the cold, there is always a warm space for the children to return back too. That means that we will do some outside play every single day, but of course, some days will be shorter than other due to weather conditions ⛈️❄️

When your child enrols with us, they will be part of the programme and I will start tracking their hours outside! You’ll get to be part of their journey too as I will share learning stories, and photos of their 1000 hours journey 😊

Will you join us? We have spaces available three days a week with no minimum days required 😊 DM us if you’re interested!

03/04/2023

One of our favourite invitations to play yet! Simple yet effective 🍄

31/03/2023

We are totally digging construction at the moment 😆

30/03/2023

A range of leaves we collected in our walk 🤎🍂

What is so amazing about using these?

Well, they are open-ended and natural which means that they can be in SO many different ways!

Like…

🍂 Grouping (colours, shapes, sizes)
🍂 Identification (colour, shape, species)
🍂 Counting
🍂 Seasonal learning and appreciation
🍂 Early literacy concepts
🍂 Early mathematical concepts

Simple but very effective!