Newsletter 21st to 25th of September

Dear Families,
As a part of the continuous improvement required by the National Quality Standard this
week we are reviewing some of our professional development activities from earlier weeks
including those relating to:
– our procedures for ensuring the premises and equipment are clean and well-
maintained
– our child protection obligations
– measures we take to ensure children are always well supervised.
Please let us know if we can provide any further information on these topics.

Preschoolers

This week the preschool children finished up with the space topic by making themselves a rocket/astronaut costume. Some rockets fell on our playground and got broken, children had to find a select number of pieces of silver cardboard including one box, and 4 silver rectangles. Everyone sat in a group while our teachers were scattered amongst us, helping us to construct these pieces of recycled material into either an astronaut costume or a rocket costume, as we explored theories of what we might do and how we might proceed.

The preschoolers started the week reviewing the digestive system. They created an amazing giant one using recycled items and they participated on cooking experiences to make their food processing machine to enjoy healthy afternoon tea. When children engage in an experience multiple times and in different ways, their capacity for learning is expanded across all areas of their development, and they are better able to retain information. It also increases their capability for creativity and flexibility in their learning and understanding.

Now that we are experts on the digestive system, we started our learning about our brain and the nervous system. The preschoolers are engaging in experiences that will allow them to have a better control over their brains, and therefore their actions and the decisions they make. Throughout amazing discussions and craft experiences children start to make connections between, concepts and processes, as they learn to repeat an action in their own creative way to concrete their learning.

They’ve been improving their fine motor skills creating colorful playdough brains, tracing them on our light table and getting better on their scissor’s skills making.

Toddlers

The trip continues, this week the toddlers went on holidays to Nepal to visit the country one of our families come from. This experience made our child feel very special and increased his sense of identity. His lovely family had been helping with the project providing us with some clothes, musical instruments and recipes for the children to enjoy. It’s wonderful to see how the families of this centre gave everything they canto help us build strong and positive relationships with their little ones and allow us to create a wonderful big family at Amigoss.

Our nurturing educators started by boosting the toddlers’ imagination on a fun plane flight with destination to the new country. While in “Nepal”, they explored the mountains, made some soothing music with a madal (singing bowl) and learned about the most important animal for the country: the elephant! They made some amazing craft elephants displayed in their multicultural classroom. The Holi Festival and making momos (Nepal dumplings) had been the pick of the week. Children loved to participate in the celebration to welcome spring covering themselves with dust of colors.

Diversity activities teach young children to respect and celebrate the differences in all people. Learning about different cultural aspects offers new experiences for children who love to participate in new challenges every day.

babies

Babies this week had enjoyed water playing with our big rainbow, they had also helped to clean some toys with soap and sponges. Encouraging little ones to clean their toys gives them creates a challenge and gives them a sense of responsibility. It also boosts their confidence as they see themselves mirroring actions, they see on grown-ups around them and they feel proud of that.

During the week they had the opportunity to join the toddlers in their celebration of the Holi Festival from Nepal. Later in the week they participated in a fun an educational matching experience. Miss Silvia had prepared some flash cards with the pictures of different fruits, she presented them to the babies and introduced the names in Spanish and English. After that, a basket of real fruits came into the game and the children worked on their memory, visual and manipulative skills matching them with the picture.

This week had been also a great week for our new babies who looked much happier and settled in the centre providing us with their beautiful smiles. By working in coordination with their families we’ve built the special relationship necessary for successful transition and adjustment for all parties involved.