We've had such a great start to ourpreschool year - already halfwaythrough term 1 and all the classesare settling into their routines,learning and exploring and gettingmore confident with every passingday. It's been wonderful to meet so manynew families as well, and we wereglad to see lots of you at ourWelcome Morning Teas. If you havesuggestions of ways we can helpyou can make connections withother parents, please feel free tolet us know! So far this year we have had a busytime getting to know each otherand discovering all the fun things todo at preschool!The children really loved ourButterfly Garden, seeing thecaterpillars develop, becomechrysalis, and then emerge asbutterflies.

It was so beautiful seeing thechildren's faces when thebutterflies were released :) We are all very excited aboutbringing our Teddy Bears topreschool this week, and at thesame time raising money for theChildren's Hospital at Westmead.Coming up this term we haveHarmony Day where we willcelebrate our rich variety ofcultures at preschool. We also have a Chicken HatchingProgram to see another life cycle inaction, our Easter Church visits andthe Return to Preschool Kindy visitwhere we will welcome our 2019finishers back to play. We will finish up our term with thePreschool Annual General Meetingat 6pm on Wednesday 8/04. Please join us!

The Buzz: Term 1S T J O H N ' S P R E S C H O O L

Butterfly relea

se!

JACARANDA3-day class

We have had a great start to the year!Everyone has settled in and alreadynew friendships have formed, aschildren discover their commoninterests. We have been amazed at thechildren’s creativity and their self-expression in using many different artmediums. The classroom walls arefilling up with their master pieces. Through their art making we haveenjoyed experimenting with colourmixing. The children particularlyenjoyed eye dropper painting andcreating their own butterfly prints. Thechildren were able to transfer thisknowledge to join together with theireducators in painting “The Very HungryCaterpillar” story and making our ownenormous butterfly. The children’s creativity has also beenseen in their Lego constructions anddramatic play.

Our PALS puppet friends Jack, Annaand Kate visit each week and arehelping develop the children’s socialskills in turn taking, sharing, listeningand greeting one another. Togetherwe are enjoying practising these skillsand encouraging one another as wedo so. Small group games and board gameshave been a fun way to practice turntaking. Through this we havediscovered a number of buddingmathematicians and some fantasticmemories. We are going to have a funyear enjoying lots of games togetherand developing these skills further inpreparation for Big School. We can’t wait to see where thechildren’s interests and creativityleads us this year.

JACARANDA2-day class

Experiences have been provided tosustain and enrich children’s interest,and we have been learning aboutanimals that live on land and in thesea, and why animals are differentcolours. We have been enjoying Music andMovement to start building thechildren’s interest in this veryimportant area of development.Music ignites all areas of childdevelopment and skills for schoolreadiness, including intellectual,social-emotional, motor, language,and overall literacy. It helps the bodyand the mind work together. Dancingto music helps children build motorskills while allowing them to practiceself-expression. We have also started doing PALSprogram, which helps the children tolearn social skills together with thepuppets. We encourage parents torevisit  together with the childrenwhat they have learnt during thosesessions. 

We are excited to welcome newfamilies into our room! It is still earlydays, but our new children have settledso well. It has been a pleasure to seecalm transitions in the morning, as wellas how happy and engaged they are inplay and learning through the day. We have been concentrating onbuilding new friendships, gettingfamiliar with the daily routines andclass rules. The children have beenlearning very important social skills:turn taking, negotiation, working in co-operation and playing collaboratively. We have been enjoying our CookingClub every Tuesday. The children havean opportunity to make a variety ofrecipes that are easy and quick. Thecooking experiences are amazing forlearning mathematics, social skills, finemotor skills and of course trying newfood! We have seen a strong interest inanimals throughout all different areasof the preschool.

It has been wonderful to welcome ourFrangipanis back to another year atPreschool! We have spent the past few weeks exploringa few projects with the children. The firstproject that we studied was Space. On thefirst day of Preschool, Ellie, Yalguun andSienna showed an interest in making moons,stars and planets out of playdough. From there, an interest was sparked and weexplored many elements of space such asplanets, astronauts, rockets, stars, meteorsand shooting stars. We did this through grouptimes, art works, Lego and other playexperiences.It has also been wonderful to spend time withthe children exploring colours. We have donethis through color sorting activities andinvestigating the mixing of colours at the arttable. The pinnacle of it all was the magicmilk experiment that the children conductedwith Els, exploring how when two or threecolours combine, new colours can be made.In Bible time, the children have been learningmore about the Bible, how it is God’s bookthat tells us about His Son Jesus and thepower that Jesus has over sickness anddeath.

FRANGIPANI3-day class

It has been wonderful getting to know ournew Frangipanis throughout the beginning ofthis term. We are starting to see theirindividual personalities and look forward togetting to know each one of them better. The children have shown a strong interest inanimals – exploring our Australian animalfigurines, as well as sharing their knowledgeabout different animals. We have had groupdiscussions about the different features ofanimals around the world, comparing thesimilarities and differences between themand talking about our favourite animals. Itwas wonderful to extend on this interest increatures through the visiting of our ButterflyGarden in Weeks 4-5. We have some budding artists in ourFrangipani room. The children have reallyenjoyed exploring different ways to expresstheir creative ideas over the past few weeksthrough water colour painting, drawing withsharpies and adding a wash of edicol dye,along with exploring the many possibilitiesof what can be made at the boxconstruction table. In Bible time, we have been looking at Jesus’power over sickness, as well as how we canlearn more about God through the Bible.

FRANGIPANI2-day class

LILLI PILLI3-day class

Lilli Pillis continue to inspire each other tolearn new skills and concepts. Insects havebeen an interest since last year and itbecame even stronger after exploring theButterfly Garden and the lovely beeexperience with Suzie (Hannah’s mum). Thechildren have also learned about insectsand their life cycle through investigatingthem during outdoor play, engaging in acraft project to make chrysalis andbutterflies, and in group times.

Learning to make paper planes was also astrong interest! Children taught each otherhow to fold paper planes showing anamazing ability to explain the step by stepprocess of folding a paper plane. Theybecame so proficient in folding paperplanes that they took on a challenge tolearn how to make more sophisticatedmodels.

We have seen strong friendships developthis term as well as new ones quicklyblossoming! Understanding friendshipdynamics can be challenging for thechildren, so our focus this term is to learnand practice how to negotiate play withpeers, share friends with one another, andregulate emotions.The Lilli Pillis have been enjoying learningthese skills with puppets Anna and Jackwhile also sharing great ideas to solveissues that commonly occur when playingwith others.

LILLI PILLI2-day class

Other ways to help the children feel a sense of belonging withing thegroup is our Lilli Pilli tree. They love tolook for their own photos as well as toshow them to peers and teachers. As the children responded with stronginterest in group experiences, we havebeen having extra short group timesthroughout the day in between free play.The children engage in role play songsthat involve choosing a friend to jumptogether in the middle of the circle or toplay ‘bug in the rug’. Through group experiences, the childrenhave been learning social skills such asturn taking, sharing,

and becoming familiar with peers andteachers, as well as learning new concepts.It didn’t take very long for friendships tostart to emerge as the children gathered inbig groups to play hide-and-seek, duck-duck-goose, and other games such as tipand dancing. Outdoor play is a popular time of the day,and looking after our pet animals is a stronginterest among the children - we seem tohave real animal lovers here! The childrenenjoy feeding, patting and just looking forthem in their coop or hutch. The bunnies are the most popular for sure!

The new Lilli Pilli children have settled reallywell into the routine and easily navigatedtheir days while showing lots of excitementto be here! All of the children have showngood concentration and interest in groupexperiences which impressed their teachers!To help the children become familiar withthe routine, we used picture boards thatrepresent each part of the day. Every daythe children are eager to do our dailyroutine chart which is a great way for themto learn their peers’ names, develop pencil grip and use cognition when matching pictures or identifying 

numbers.

Inclusion atPreschool

The Universal Declaration of HumanRights states that everyone has theright to education.We value the ability to welcomechildren with additional needs orany other individual differences into ourpreschool. We believe there areopportunities for all of us to grow anddevelop by learning from each other!We work hard to ensure our staff arewell trained and that ratios ofeducators to children remains high toassist in the inclusion of children withadditional needs. Our enrolments are carefully managedto ensure a balanced opportunity for allchildren to have their needs met, togrow, learn and flourish together.Children who have additional needsbenefit greatly from being in aclassroom with children who have a mixof abilities – it leads to increasedaccess to friendship and social skillacquisition.

They learn new skills more quickly andhave a chance to feel they belong.For children with more typical abilities,there are benefits as well. They learnto be a part of a society that is fairand inclusive. They also develop theirsocial skills as they learn how torespond and adapt to different ways ofinteracting. Having a classroom that isinclusive and allows individual childrento develop at their pace allows allchildren to have their educationalneeds meet more fully than in anenvironment where only one way oflearning is promoted.As a parent, it is great to be a rolemodel for your child and get to knowall the children in your child’s class asindividuals. Talk with yourchild about how to interact withchildren who might respond differentlythan others and encourage them toseek out others they can help and learnthings from.