Little Red Caboose Group

Reflections from the second week of

Kindy, 27 & 28/01/2015
Good day wonderful folk
Well here we are after the second week of
Kindy and it is so encouraging to find all the
children managing this new social experience to
the best of their current capabilities.

People experience social settings in different

ways. For some it can be stimulating while for
others it can be unsettling. Each of us is
exploring the Kindy space and the social
relationships with some interest and equal
trepidation. We are learning to recognise new
faces, learning and remembering new names
and finding ourselves excited when our
approaches work and also confronted, when
they dont.

Active social support from the educators

assists the children to recognise what is
required to better facilitate inclusive social
play and it takes time to develop the
confidence and resilience to apply open social
skills in new social contexts.

The Collage Hub has been an interesting point

of contact this week where children gathered
alongside others to make resources that either
reflected their interest in imaginary
construction or a way to further develop
resources they needed for their play. Here, they
watched each other and learnt more about the
nature of individuals. They observed and
listened to the unfolding conversations,
building their social knowledge and
confidence. Staff supported their growing
recognition of new players by introducing them
to those around the table and by facilitating the

inclusion of new
players by
articulating the
skills others have
to bring to the play
or drawing their
attention to the
presence and
contributions
others might make.
The children last week showed more interest in
the arts resources, as we were indoors for the
duration of a wet and humid day. The front
deck comes into its own in weather such as this
and the media, simple acrylic paints with
brushes to apply the paint to paper, were
familiar resources for the children.

They showed us their current skills

manipulating brushes to create lines and forms
or spreading the paint across the paper in
layers of colour that blended to create
different shadesa mixture of developmental
styles here that show staff just where the

children are placed as they explore their

surroundings to communicate and learn.
Their collage skills were also developmentally
and imaginatively diverse and it is such a
pleasure to see young children filled with
creative enthusiasm when looking for different
ways to express their ideas.
The first image in the group of collages below
was created by a group of boys interested in a
game playing with the wooden aircraft. An
opportunity to expand this game to stretch the
use of skills being employed, presented itself
and the children began to represent all sorts of
game related ideas with the pens and scissors.

You can also observe the great care and

attention the children have invested in their
selection and manipulation of the available
resources for the other collages in the group on
display and notice how unique each is beside
the other.

The same opportunities often arise in

childrens construction play. Here, they
stretch their thinking and planning through the
use of a selection of diverse resources that
expand the creative potential of their play. A
game of trains enabled the construction of a
river, which then stimulated the childrens
interest in the life within the river system and,
for a moment in time, their attention was
directed to recording water dwelling animals in
the cardboard" river that flowed under the
bridge for all the commuters to see! I wonder if
any of you heard about these small vignettes
over the course of the days after Kindy. Often

when you ask your children what they do at

Kindy, these stories do not easily emerge, as a
young childs memory needs provocation and
time to return to the many different
experiences they share in their day.
This is when a Learning Journey Diary can be
of great assistance; a pictorial record of all the
different experiences that make up a day at
Kindy. There are two ways staff make this
possible.
The first is an online pictorial diary
where the images taken during the program are
uploaded onto a secure site, a Weebly Blog,
where parents are given access through their
email address and a password to view the
daily pictorial slideshows with their children
and seek their understanding of the
experiences that are unfolding. Its also a
good way to include Dads in the experience too
for they can also access this site through their
electronic hardware i.e. phone, computer or
tablet and also touch base with their childs
Kindy life.
Will is currently developing the 2015 site in
preparation for our use, so we will let you
know when we are ready to share the joy!
The second way you can enjoy these
experiences is through the childs personal

Kindy Book. Here the individual journey

of each child is presented, with connections to
the curricular outcomes of the Queensland
Kindergarten Learning
Guidelines around
which the childrens
daily program is
balanced.
It tells a childs personal story and is a
much-loved resource by children and families
alike.
Between the two tools and in the company of
the weekly reflections, we aim to give you a
view of the learning plans staff are building
from our observations of the children at play
and the curricular and developmental goals
developed to support childrens growth and
learning in early childhood programs. We hope
you can happily keep abreast of the daily
comings and goings of the centres learning
program and your childs place within it, as
the year unfolds. Let us know how you fare if
you find these communication tools difficult
for our aim is to provide relevant and open
chanels of communication with all parents.
We are currently preparing these resources and
hope to be able to introduce them to you soon.

JUST SOME GENTLE

REMINDERS
Please engage your
children in unpacking and
putting out their
belongings at the
beginning of the day. This assists them to
independently recall where their belongings
are, as and when they need them. They will be
eager to get to the resources to play, so best to
speak with them about their responsibilities
when you pull up in the car.
Collect any wet or soiled
clothes. You will notice on the
sign on sheet a column to the
right hand side of the page that
will show you if you have
anything to collect. They are to be collected
from the white bucket with a wet clothes
sign on it that sits on the shelf behind the
childrens toilets.
Looking forward to see where the railway line
will take us all next week
Warmest regards,
Anne, Will and Pauline.