Preschool News: Term 3 Week 1

Hello everyone,

Welcome back. We hope you had a restful school holiday. It was wonderful to see the children return on Wednesday, ready and raring to go!

We began the term by welcoming two speech pathologists from NSW Health’s Brighter Beginnings program. They spent time screening the health and development of children whose families had provided consent. Families have been advised that they should receive their child’s results within four to six weeks.

It was lovely to see the children reconnecting with one another and continuing to embrace the agency preschool offers them. They have already been taking responsibility, sharing their ideas and leading experiences with their peers.

There has been strong interest in literacy, particularly through our name-card game, Who Am I? It has been wonderful to see the children identifying their own and their peers’ names, recognising upper- and lowercase letters, and connecting letters with their sounds. The game
also provides opportunities for peer learning, as children share their knowledge, learn one another’s names and discover connections with others.

The Early Years Learning Framework V2.0 reminds us that “Literacy is the capacity, confidence and disposition to use language in all its forms.” In early childhood, literacy develops through meaningful experiences involving talking, listening, playing, singing, storytelling, reading and writing. Games such as Who Am I? embed phonemic awareness and early reading skills within a social, playful and purposeful context.

The children also welcomed Carolina back for Spanish, reconnecting with familiar language, songs and vocabulary in an enjoyable and relaxed way. These playful experiences support children to listen carefully, experiment with new sounds and develop an appreciation of languages and cultures.

During Craft with Chris, the children participated in an observational drawing experience using animal skeleton specimens. They looked closely at shapes, lines, proportions and small details before creating their own interpretations. This supported concentration, visual awareness, fine motor
development and each child’s individual creative expression.

Thank you to everyone who assisted with cleaning and maintenance during the holidays. We greatly appreciate the time, effort and care you contributed to preparing the preschool environment for the new term.

As the UV index is now reaching above three each day, please remember to pack a clearly named hat for your child every day. Families are encouraged to apply sunscreen before arriving at preschool, and we will support children to reapply sunscreen during the day as needed.

Please also ensure your child has a set of spare clothes in their bag each day. Even when children are unlikely to have a toileting accident, clothing can become wet or dirty through water play, spills, mud, painting and other everyday preschool experiences.

Weather permitting, we hope to visit Kimberley Playground on Monday and Lane Cove Library on Wednesday. We will keep families updated if the weather requires any changes to these plans.

It has been a busy and positive beginning to the term, and we look forward to seeing where the children’s interests, ideas and collaborations take us over the coming weeks.

Love,
Katrina. Lisa, Meeta and Lida