Terry Aizen – Director of Kornmehl

Reflections on Term 3

This term has brought with it a multitude of mixed emotions and feelings – both positive and negative. It feels crazy to think we have already been in lockdown since the start of the last school holidays – 12 weeks!

The one certainty has been coming to Pre-school every day and seeing the joyous faces of the children – so eager to learn, to see their friends and to have the consistency of routines and experiences during the day.

The children have shown resilience and have, once again, adapted to not having their parents come into the Pre-school in the mornings. They are able to say goodbye at the door confidently, unpack their bags and get started with their day.

Some days the numbers in the groups have been low and the children at Pre-school have wondered where their friends are and why they are not at Pre-school. They have engaged with their friends at home on Zoom and have sent messages to them via our EDUCA platform. During the term we sent several activity packs to our friends at home. Shabbat each Friday has become a regular on Zoom and it’s great that we can stay connected with families and children in this way. We hope that next term, we can all return more confidently, as the vaccination levels increase steadily. We will wait to see what changes are made and what restrictions are lifted. Until then, we continue offering quality of care and enjoying our days with the children, filled with love, caring, happiness and gratefulness.

What are Gross Motor Skills?

Gross motor (physical) skills are those which require whole body movement, and which involve the large (core stabilising) muscles of the body to perform everyday functions, such as standing and walking, running, and jumping, and sitting upright at the table. They also include eye-hand coordination skills such as ball skills (throwing, catching, kicking) as well as riding a bike or a scooter and swimming.

Why are gross motor skills important?

Gross motor skills are important to enable children to perform everyday functions, such as walking and running, playground skills (e.g. climbing) and sporting skills (e.g. catching, throwing and hitting a ball with a bat). However, these are crucial for everyday self-care skills like dressing (where you need to be able to stand on one leg to put your leg into a pant leg without falling over) and climbing into and out of a car or even getting into and out of bed.

Gross motor abilities also have an influence on other everyday functions. For example, a child’s ability to maintain appropriate tabletop posture (upper body support) will affect their ability to participate in fine motor skills (e.g. writing, drawing and cutting) and sitting upright to attend to class instruction, which then impacts on their academic learning. Gross motor skills impact on your endurance to cope with a full day of school (sitting upright at a desk, moving between classrooms, carrying your heavy school bag). They also impact your ability to navigate your environment (e.g. walking around classroom items such as a desk, up a sloped playground hill or to get on and off a moving escalator). Without fair gross motor skills, a child will struggle with many day-to-day tasks such as eating, packing away their toys, and getting onto and off the toilet or potty.

Children need to understand how to move and complete tasks independently, and be able to explore the world around them, which promotes cognitive speech, sensory development, and gives them confidence and independence, which promotes skills such as executive function.

Renee Schneider and her new grand daughter Isla

Mazal Tov

We wish a hearty Mazal Tov to our Educator, Renee Schneider, on the birth of her second granddaughter, Isla Alfie. She will no doubt bring you and the family much joy and happiness.

Happy Birthday

We wish a very happy birthday in the holidays to Finn Zurnamer (6) and to our special educators Renee Schneider and Janice Eliovson. We hope you all had a special day celebrating your birthdays.

During the holidays, families will celebrate Sukkot on Tuesday 21 September 2021 and Wednesday 22 September 2021. Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah will be celebrated on Tuesday 28 September 2021 and Wednesday 29 September 2021

We wish you all a peaceful, calm, and happy holidays and Chag Sameach.

Pre-school will return on Wednesday 5 October 2021.