During the morning tea group time session Ms Nerissa introduced the topic of the Ambulance. Ms Nerissa and the group discussed that an ambulance is a vehicle that takes sick or injured people to the hospital for treatment.  Ms Nerissa also explained that in an emergency when you need an ambulance you have to dial 000. We also spoke about the colour and shape of the ambulance vehicle and how do we know when there is an emergency. And Ms Nerissa showed the children a poster with an ambulance and word and showed them that the word starts with the letter ‘A’. As a follow up activity the children were collaging the letter ‘A’ and painting a picture of an ambulance van.

• Outcome 2: Children develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities. (EYLF)
• Outcome 1: Establish and maintain respectful, trusting relationships with other children and educators. (EYLF)

We celebrated Australia Day today by firstly discussing where Australia is on the world map and where in Australia we live. We also discussed what our national flag looks like and sang the national anthem. MS Bernadette explained to the group that each country has a flag and a national anthem. And secondly our activities were made up of a variety of sensory skills, fine motor skills, literacy and numeracy. The sensory activities involved Georgie and Jackson painting pictures; and  Sophie, Freya and Madison all using Australian animal cookie cutters to cut out animal shapes in the play-dough. The fine motor skills involved  Megan completing a puzzle of the map of Australia. The literacy skills used was Ms Alice reading ‘Possum Magic’ and ‘Are We There Yet?’ stories. And finally the numeracy skills used were children counting the stars on the national flag and sequencing stars from smallest to largest.

Outcome 1:Provide times and space for children to engage in both individual and collaborative pursuits. (EYLF)

Outcome 2: Child recognises that they have a right to belong in a community. (EYLF)

Outcome 3: Using sensory capabilities to explore and respond to the world.  (EYLF)

We are celebrating the New Year in honour to our families whom have a Chinese cultural background. Ms Nerissa has set up various art activities which are making lanterns and collaging bowls of oranges which represents good luck.  Our gross motor activity involved crawling through the dragon’s tail to get to the other end of the obstacle course. Then we played a game of ‘Catch the Fishes Tail’. This game involved MS Bernadette and Ms Rina being the dragon’s mouth and the children are the dragon’s body. The children take turns in crawling through the dragon’s body so they can wash their hands.

Outcome 1:Provide times and space for children to engage in both individual and collaborative pursuits. (EYLF)

Outcome 2: Child recognises that they have a right to belong in a community. (EYLF)

Outcome 3: Using sensory capabilities to explore and respond to the world.  (EYLF)

Today we were having a discussion about our families. We spoke about how many people are in our family and the role of the person. Indiana counted on her fingers that she has five people in her family. There is Mum, Dad, Luca, freeman and herself. When Marley was asked who is in his family he said Mum then he pointed to Mickey and Ms Nerissa said ‘and you are a part of your family too’ and Marley said ‘yeah’.

Ms Nerissa and the children discussing who were are. This discussion entailed whether or not we are a boy or a girl followed by their age and their role in their family structure.

 Some of us are sisters while others are brothers. Georgie said she is Sophie and Izzy’s sister. Rhiannon said she has two brothers and a Mum and Dad and they were swimming at Lake Eacham on the holidays. Rhiannon then went on to draw a family portrait of her family members.

The children really enjoyed learning about different forms of transport as the children explored and shared their common interests. The children learnt about heavy machinery, emergency vehicles, trains, planes, buses, cars, road rules and safety rules.

While learning about heavy machinery the children learnt about the different types of machinery; the purpose for the machines and the different parts of the machine. Jackson, Thomas and Lillie all share the common interest that their Dad’s and Grandad’s all operate heavy machinery and the children all had prior knowledge that they could share with each other.

When learning about emergency vehicles, we discussed what are emergency vehicles in our community and the purpose of the sirens. We experimented with a listening activity called ‘Listening For The Sirens’. Ms Bernie had read the story book of ‘Emergency Vehicles, Listen for the sound’. This story is about recognising the different sirens of the emergency vehicles (ambulance, police and fire truck). Then after the story Ms Bernie had a box of bells. First of all there was a discussion about the different sounds then Ms Bernie had the bell behind her back and she would ring one bell at a time. The children had to guess which bell is ringing. Furthermore we had a discussion about rules and safety rules then Seth, Ben and Tau decided that they would construct an obstacle course for traffic to follow during a car race. The boys used road signs and discussed the safety rules with everyone before starting the race. Rhiannon and Charlotte decided to make ‘stop’ and ‘go’ lights for everyone to be safe and sensible.

The next day we moved on to a discussion about trains and read the story about ‘The Little Engine’. We also done various numeracy activities such as sequencing different size trains from smallest to tallest; counting trains both horizontally and vertically and making trains using different shapes and patterns. And Ms Bernie also read the story ‘Panda the train driver’ and learnt the train driver shouts all aboard to the passengers before he takes off from the station. When we were going outside we all sat behind Torfinn who was the train driver and he shouted “all aboard” before he took the train full of passengers down the ramp and to the sandpit train station. Outside Torfinn also made a train roller painting. And Miss Bernadette put one of our old slides into the sand pit for us to use as our train track and walk along or drive our cars over.

Throughout this theme, we learnt the importance of safety while driving on the road and operating heavy machinery.  And furthermore  we learnt that there are many different types of transportation we could use to travel in.

Ms Bernie has set out the Farm theme and introduced the theme to the children during group time discussion Ms Bernie and the children spoke about the different farm animals that will be at ‘The Show’. Lillie engaged in the conversation by explaining which farm animals she has at her home. And these animals are baby chicks, goats, cats and dogs. 

In addition to the discussion about farm animals we then spoke about ‘The Show’. We discussed that we need to be safe and sensible because lots of people go to ‘The Show’. Then Ms Bernie asked “How can we be safe and sensible at The Show?” Lillie said by holding Mummy and Nanna’s hand and Indiana said by listening to Mummy and Daddy. And Kiki said she won’t run on the road. Ms Bernie responded by saying that is a sensible choice.

Each child gathered and interpreted the theme differently and learnt new and different things that they were interested in. Lillie, Bella and Maxwell enjoyed learning about cows and the process of the milk and the different products that can be made using milk. Jude and Thomas were interested in horses because one of their hobbies are riding horses. Jackson, Rex, Mickey and Ben were more interested in the different heavy machineries that are used on the farm. And Freya, Aurora, Niamh and Tyler were more interested in learning about the different foods that grow on the farm and are then transported to the shops and markets for people to buy.

 Ms Cindy  taught us about washing our hands. We did an activity where we all put cream on our hands then we washed it off with soap and then put our hands under the florescent light. We discovered that we are very good at washing the front of our hands but we don’t wash the back of our hands. This is a hygiene that we will be working on from now on.

Ms Cindy is a train and qualified nurse who taught us how to brush our teeth and how much toothpaste we should be using as we practiced brushing our teeth. Then we had a discussion about what healthy foods we can eat to make out teeth strong and healthy. Lillie said that she eats yougurt to make her teeth strong while Indiana said that her Mum said she has to eat apples to clean her teeth.

Dear parents,

We have begun our National Quality Framework (N.Q.F.) process and will keep you informed of the principles in this framework over the next 6 months. This framework is under review and will change in January 2012. In the meantime we will work with the existing principles as follows:

Quality Area 1: Staff Relationships with Children and Peers Quality Area 2: Partnerships with Families Quality Area 3: Programming and Evaluation Quality Area 4: Children’s Experiences and Learning Quality Area 5: Protective Care and Safety Quality Area 6: Health, Nutrition and Wellbeing Quality Area 7: Managing to Support Quality