07 5529 8744 [email protected]

Happy Fri-yay!

Thanks for a beautiful week, hope you all have a lovely weekend and I can’t wait to see you all again next week!

This morning we were combined with our friends from both babies two and babies three, our friends Zelia, Bentley and Larsson were welcomed with open arms from Miss Otavia and Miss Hope. When Miss Crystal arrived, we moved into our room and shared lots of cuddles! When we went into our room it was all hands-on deck as all our friends were getting ready for their first sleeps of the day. We did nappies, bottles, and cuddles and one by one we went down for a sleep. Bentley was the first to wake and soon after Zelia was awake too. Zelia and Bentley sat with Miss Jin and Miss Crystal and enjoyed our morning tea. As Bentley and Zelia were finishing their morning tea, Larsson had woken from his sleep and was eager to have something to eat. This morning tea was interesting four friends, there was a lot of different elements and textures which they enjoyed exploring with their fingers and eating. We encouraged our friends to select from the bowl of food what they would like to eat and offered a spoon, continuing to develop self-agency and developing a positive relationship with food.

Group time today involved songs, musical instruments, dancing and finger puppets, all the things our friends are absolutely loving! To gain our friends attention as they each were playing, Miss Crystal put on the song “Bare Necessities” and sat on the mat where our musical instruments were set up and started shaking the rattle to the music along with her “beautiful” singing of the song. Larsson was first to show an interest and make his way over, smiling and watching Miss Crystal shaking the rattle. He sat up next to her and picked up a shaker egg in each hand and joined in. Immediately after Zelia and Bentley joined in to. We all took turns of playing the different instruments, such as the egg shakers, mini drums, bell rattles, bell xylophone and big round shaker drum. Our friends did an excellent job having a go at each. This was encouraging us to use our fine and gross motor skills to be able to firmly grip the instruments and be able to lift them and either tap or shake them. By having them all available, it also encouraged us to take turns, this is great as our friends are beginning to develop an understanding of fairness and acknowledge the verbal and non-verbal cues of one another when they each want to have a turn. To extend on this, Miss Crystal pulled out her amazing finger puppets and we sung two songs, ‘Old Macdonald’ and ‘5 Little Speckled Frogs’, our friends were so engaged in this and couldn’t keep their eyes off the puppets, as we sang the songs and each finger puppet was eliminated, they loved pulling it off Miss Crystal’s finger and having a look at the puppet up close. These songs, not only are fun and engaging but they are introducing our friends to counting, animals, colours and building on their cognitive development. What a fun group time we all shared!

After group time Zelia, Bentley and Larsson went off and engaged in learning spaces and toys that were of interest to them. Zelia had found her way to our books, she picked a book called “That’s not my kangaroo”, began flipping the pages, Miss Crystal joined her, she stopped flipping the pages and pointed to the kangaroo, she was making sounds, demonstrating her ability to engage in meaningful verbal conversation and learning with her educator. It is also the foundation to learning how to story tell and interpret her own version of stories. Zelia LOVED using her pointer finger and pointing and touching the picture of the kangaroo. On the mat of instruments Bentley continued to explore his love of music and played with the drum, making noises to himself and enjoying his own entertainment. Bentley is demonstrating a confidence in talking and his ability to use his gross motor skills, he knew what to do with the drums with no instructions and upon observing him, he would often stop and clap at himself and his achievement. Larsson had found himself with the small world area, playing and engaging with the stones, small plant and animals. He would pick the animals up and move them around, in and out of the tray. He then picked up two stones and began tapping them against one another, smiling and laughing and sharing his excitement with Miss Crystal. Larsson is enhancing his grip and ability to move items from one spot to another while also engaging in imaginative play. He is also demonstrating his ability to transfer what he has learnt and continue that learning from the previous day as this is something we had begun exploring making sounds with stones yesterday. It was such a beautiful day, so we decided to venture on outside. Miss Crystal had set up a super fun sensory based learning exploration space. We had our small table filled half with sand and half with water mixed with some lavender and chamomile oil, in the table we also had some plastic balls, sand shape toys, floating boat and funnel. This space was set up and provided to allow for opportunity to continue exploring our senses, messy play and develop our balance and leg strength as both friends are showing an interest in being on their feet. Bentley was straight over to the table and straight into splashing the water, meanwhile Larsson watched Bentley from afar and soon enough joined in, playing with the sand. Bentley had worked out he could pick handfuls of sand up and place it in the water and would watch it fall to the bottom. Larsson soon made his way over to the water side and joined Bentley in splashing the water, he also picked up the plastic balls and would throw them into the water. Miss Crystal had the funnel and would scoop water up and lift it high to show our friends what happens to the water. Bentley was interested and wanted to continue splashing while Larsson would be concentrated on what Miss Crystal was doing and the moment she would put the funnel down would then attempt to do this himself. I loved providing this activity and watching our friends absolutely love the getting messy. It was great observing them explore and experiment with the funnel and the sand.

For Transition today we got dressed from our messy play, sat in our bumbo’s and before having lunch we sang open, shut them. We then sung Bee Bee Bumble Bee to continue with our learning and recognition of not only our own names but of our peers. Our friends all followed their own individual sleep routines as best as they could! We endeavour to follow each child’s home routine in whatever way we can. Zelia, Bentley and Larsson all loved having the opportunity for 1:1 learning today. They loved self-selecting areas to play in based on their interests. All our friends were very engaged and participated well in group time today. Bentley and Larsson enjoyed exploring their senses in the sand and water play, engaging in play with one another and getting messy. As the afternoon sets in, we will enjoy some indoor/outdoor play, having opportunity to play with what we choose before all coming inside when the weather becomes cool.

Todays meals were;
Morning Tea: Bananarama Split with custard, sultanas and wholegrain orgran o’s
Lunch: Vegie balls, roast vegies and our fresh salad bar
Afternoon Tea: Crunchy chocolate topped rice and sunflower slice with a side of fresh fruit

Lots of Love as Always,
Miss Crystal and Miss Jin xxx