2020 Newsletter Term 04 | Issue 03

One of the guiding principles of the National Quality Framework is that Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures are valued throughout all education and care services. In each of the preschool classroom, the children say an ‘acknowledgement of country’ and we pay our respects to the traditional owners of the land before each group time. In Elouera ours sounds like this;

“here is the land, here is the sky, here are my friends and here am I, thank you Guringai people for sharing your land”

We have also been exploring the Aboriginal Flag. We started by learning about what the colours and shapes mean; the sun, the red earth and the people, then we made our own classroom flag to hang on the wall. This week the children have been drawing their own individual flags and we have been looking at images of the red earth in central Australia.

– Corinne, Debbie & Sarah

Throughout the year we recognise a number of cultural celebrations and festivals. From Chinese New Year festivities at the beginning of the year, recognising NAIDOC week, Easter, Diwali and Christmas. We also recognise special days including Remembrance Day recently. Children learn about the significance of these celebrations along with learning about different countries and the people that live there. The recognition of these holidays encourages understanding and acceptance of diverse cultures along with creating a sense of community that welcomes all families.

We also honour children’s birthdays with a special Montessori ritual that involves a walk around the sun, represented by candles. Children bring in photos from every year of their life as a guide to discussions around the things they could do when they were one, two, three etc. The birthday child enjoys sharing their day with friends.

We recently celebrated NAIDOC week and continued our learning of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. This year we used a Welcome Tree in the classroom to encourage a sense of belonging and togetherness. The children each had their handprint of the Aboriginal flag to hang on the tree each morning. We have also been enjoying listening to some Dreamtime stories with a favourite being about a whale, a boat, a starfish and the animals that call Australia home – How the animals came to Australia.

– Amanda & Teresa

With the weather giving us rain and sun the garden is producing fruit and vegetables and there are lots of insects in our garden. The children have been investigating the concept of metamorphosis with the silkworms in the classroom. Today they had the opportunity to take this learning out of the classroom when they discovered a caterpillar making a cocoon in the leaves of the peas. This led to lots of investigating questions such as “what kind of caterpillar is this ?”and “ what will the moth look like?” and “how long will it live?” The children continued to look through the vegetable garden to see what else they they could discover… lots to see.

– Jenny, Jo & Angela

Children love to cook.  From the decision of what to make and gathering the ingredients (some from the garden if we can) to the joy of sharing the final dish with their friends. Children learn practical life skills in the process from using a knife safely, measuring quantities accurately to washing up when they are finished. Learning to taste and season their food even trying new foods is a bonus.

To extend this interest we recently gave the children some kitchen equipment and observed as they created their own cafe and made some very imaginative dishes!  This process of creative play is a safe and secure way to use their imagination, to mimic adults and to practise cooperation and collaboration with their friends.  It’s also great fun and to see a child offer everyone a sand muffin and be told “it’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted” by their best friend to which they reply “it’s because I put a pinch of salt in!”  Well it just makes you smile.

– Dawn

We embed indigenous learning to our everyday practices. We do this in many ways such as, sharing stories, acknowledging country, listening to music, connecting to our community and appreciating how wonderful the natural world is.

We have been telling Dreamtime stories, which the children have enjoyed. We spoke about different places and settings of the stories. This led onto learning about sacred places around Australia and the cultural meaning behind place names. We are looking at the indigenous country names of places by using a large map. Additionally, we are making observations of colours, patterns and shapes in the Australian landscape. These are then incorporated into subjects across the curriculum. For example, writing about the colours of a river and using many adjectives.

– Elizabeth

This fortnight Aikya has been busy with outdoor lessons, experiments in the kitchen, poetry recitals for the Christmas Concert, art and extensions of our curriculum material.

Notably, some students have focussed some of their studies to that of a small charitable shop stand to be placed at our front door. In brief, they hope to transform the classes artwork into gift cards that parents and passer bys could purchase. Proffits to be donated to a charity yet to be chosen by the students.

A few examples of other interesting topics discussed around the room are The Properties of Air, Crystallisation, The Function of Leaves, Antarctica and Our Role Within Our Community. Students are working hard towards the end of term and are looking forward to their summer break.

– Harshitha, Toby, Phillipa & Thomas

Last week one of the students went on a holiday to Uluru and explored some of the Aboriginal art and culture. She told us all about the art her family discovered and donated a book to the school class called ‘What is Aboriginal Art?’ by Margo Birnberg. The book showed us the different styles of Aboriginal art we can create. We would like to create our own Aboriginal art in the coming weeks.

One of the students in the class has a mum who works for Amazon who has kindly provided all the girls in the class a coding program to use for 1 week. The program is to encourage girls to get into the tech industry as there aren’t many girls that work in tech. The Yani girls are enjoying this opportunity given to us and exploring more about the tech world. 

When the American election day came, the whole class was watching the election results come in and saw Joe Biden won. We watched some of the election on Behind The news as this has been a popular topic in our class leading to many healthy debates and discussions within our class.

The last few weeks we have been making props for our Christmas concert. We have been making the props for two different plays and have been practising really hard. We are all extremely excited for our performances. 

By Pearl and Jessica

– Laura & Jessica

Dear Families,

Highlights over the last fortnight  

Community library box update

It is now all hands-on deck! This fortnight we have devoted a lot of time to building the box…. we’ve been busy assembling all the pieces together and it is starting to look like mighty fine! Along the way, the children have learned a couple of new joinery skills including how to use a screwdriver, fill in the countersunk holes, select the right sandpaper for the job as well as the correct way to tear it, and sand lumpy filler to perfection! What goes into the box is just as, if not more important and some children have started to sift through the collection of Ooshc books discussing with each other which books to share with the community. One child said, “let’s not put this one in because it’s boring. We don’t want to give them anything boring!” – how kind is that! 

Wrapping presents for The Smith Family

A warm thank you to the families that have already kindly gifted presents towards the Smith Family Toy and Book Appeal. It has been lovely to see the children getting onboard this worthwhile activity. In addition to contributing nearly all the great gift suggestions hanging on the little tree they have been getting involved in wrapping the presents. The appeal has opened opportunities to have conversations with the children about why there are charities, the importance of them and how we can all do our bit to help. So, if you’re stuck for ideas, feel free to grab one of the stars on the tree…. and you needn’t worry as big bulky ideas like BMX bikes have been left off the tree!  

Cubby house

Up on the oval, the children utilised their teamwork skills and built their first cubby house of the term. Together they gathered a heap of fallen branches, sticks and foliage for their structure. They assumed different roles during the build, by far the most popular roles appeared to be architects and project managers! 

World Vegan month

To acknowledge World Vegan Month, we discussed eating more veggies in our diet and what differentiated a vegan diet from a vegetarian one. We then bravely followed up with plant-based chicken schnitzel wraps for afternoon tea, with one child rating it 5/5!

If you would like more information about Primary OSH Care or our centre and how to enrol, please visit our website www.primaryoshcare.com.au

From Sarah, Ella and all the OSHC staff at Farmhouse Montessori OSHC Centre