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Good afternoon everyone and welcome to a warm and sunny Monday here at Riversdale.  We started our fun today during outside morning play time where we bathed dolls, played on the giant swing, and did some drawing under the shady pergola. Harley, Kaylee, Ivy and Ellie had lots of fun bathing their dolls. Kaylee used one of the clothes as “my baby’s towel”. Once indoors, we had a yummy morning tea consisting of rice cakes and fruit pieces. Miss Ana made owl features from the fruit pieces, with the rice cake as the owl’s body.

Following on from morning tea, the children did their own quiet reading, and were then asked what activities they would to play with.

Ellie, Zahra and Kaylee were keen to play with the hairdressing equipment, and Miss Manuela was their client. Harley also joined in, very carefully combing Miss Manuela’s hair. Ivy attempted to put her own Velcro rollers in.

Harvey and Ivy wanted easel painting set up, and once organised, the children produced some beautiful works of art – lots of strong colours and long brush strokes in a multitude of colours.

Playdough was also a popular request, where Arlo suggested that Lego pieces be used with the dough. It certainly made for very interesting patterns being made.

During story group time, Miss Manuela read aloud a story entitled” The very busy spider” by Eric Carle. It was a wonderful opportunity for all our friends to physically interact with the story’s time clock and dials, and to express their opinions about different animals the spider met through the story. As the children have such an avid interest in spiders and bugs, Miss Manuela continued on with a fascinating picture book about lots of different spiders.  As evidenced under Learning Outcome 5. 1.1 of the Early Years Learning Framework…Children will engage in enjoyable interactions using verbal and non-verbal language, and Learning Outcome 5.4 – Children begin to understand how symbols and pattern systems work

During this time, Miss Donna had set up a variety of smaller tree branches and twine for the children and Miss Manuela to make some large spider’s webs for our room. Over the next week or two, we will also make a variety of bugs, spiders and insects to add to our webs. Coincidentally, Mr Nic also showed all our friends a small water dragon he found in the garden today. Everyone was spellbound.

Extension activities such as this really expand a child’s interest in a topic that important to them. The Early Years Learning Framework outlines:

Learning Outcome 4…Children are confident and involved learners

Sub-Outcome 4.1 …Children develop dispositions for learning such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity, and Sub-Outcome 4.1.6… Children will participate in a variety of rich and meaningful inquiry-based experiences.

Until tomorrow, please enjoy your evening with your family! Love Miss Donna and Miss Ana xxxx