Kornmehl

Terry Aizen – Director of Kornmehl

Buddy Reading

On Wednesday afternoon, Year 2 Yerushalayim and their teacher Mrs Esra joined us for our first Buddy Reading session of the year. Every fortnight the Year 2 classes will alternate their visits to the Pre-school. We look forward to also welcoming Year 2 Tzfat and Gabi Wynhausen.

It was heartwarming to welcome back many ex-Kornmehl students into the Pre-school. They were equally excited to come back and show us how well they can now read.

It was lovely to witness the start of some beautiful relationships and friendships that will continue to develop throughout the remainder of the year, as well as siblings and cousins having the opportunity to connect and read together. This is a lovely program encouraging both a love of literature and a strong sense of belonging within the Emanuel School community.

Family Day

We celebrated Family Day on Monday morning with a special breakfast for all our wonderful families. A big thank you to Anthony Pinshaw, Mike Wicks, David Robuck and Oliver Berger, who came in on Monday morning at 7.00 am to help prepare the food. We also thank our bakers on Friday who cooked up a storm in the kitchen – Rachel Szekely, Mandy Heyman, Lee Sandler and Liana Butt. A big thank you to Cliffie Rosenberg for lending us his lighting to create a wonderful, relaxing ambiance in our Dream room. Your support is very much appreciated.

The children from all three groups spent their time with their special person squeezing oranges, having a mint tea party, making bookmarks, threading beads, winding wool around sticks, drawing self-portraits, dancing in the Dream room with scarves and coloured lights or even having a back massage.

The children were excited to have breakfast with their special person. It was a morning of many special shared and heart-warming moments.

Centennial Park Bush School Visits

This week, we commenced our visits to Bush School down at Centennial Park for the Dolphin and Starfish groups. The children were excited to step out of the gate and finally be returning to our Bush School classroom, to discover what this space has to offer, to witness incredible seasonal changes and to take some risks with activities like tree climbing and jumping off huge stumps of wood. There is nothing more rewarding than giving young children time to be and time to engage with the smorgasbord of sensory experiences that the natural world has to offer. Being in nature is truly food for the soul!

The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) recognises the importance of the outdoor environment in the development of young children.

The Early Years Bush Connections concept is informed by other successful outdoor learning practices from well-researched and established international examples such as Forest Schools, Wilderness Awareness Schools, Wild Play schemes and Nature Kindergartens.

We believe Bush School has many advantages for the children, especially in today’s hurried society, where the children do not get enough uninterrupted time to just play and be in nature for extended periods of time.

Some advantages of Bush School are:

Open-ended resources in visually simple spaces – giving children the opportunity to be creative, to observe, to be inspired and to problem solve in an open-ended natural environment.
Risk full learning – the development of a risk adverse society is creating what Tim Gill calls the “shrinking horizons of childhood” where the independence and freedom of childhood has been curtailed.
Eco-friendly and sustainable living – we need to encourage an ecological awareness in children from a young age.
Physicality – children need to be more active. Movement is critical to each child’s health and well-being. The physical aspects of their development are promoted through running, climbing trees, and physically being in wide open spaces with a canopy of trees for a roof.
Children who play regularly in natural environments show more advanced motor fitness, including co-ordination, stamina, balance, and agility.
Play in natural environments, stimulates children’s imaginations, creativity, and a sense of wonder. Wonder is an important motivator for lifelong learning.
Exposure to natural environments improves cognitive development by improving children’s awareness, reasoning, and observational skills.
Spending time in nature has shown to reduce stress. Nature buffers the impact of life’s stresses on children and helps them deal with adversity.
An affinity to and love of nature, along with a positive environmental ethic, grows out of regular contact with and play in the natural world.
Motivation, concentration, and problem-solving skills are developed through exploratory play.
Playing in nature encourages children to have positive feelings about each other, and this enriches their self-confidence, independence, and resilience.
Natural environments stimulate social interactions between children. It fosters an increased awareness of others and our actions on them, as well as encouraging sharing, co-operative play, and collaborative skills.
Language and communication development is fostered by being in the outdoors. This is prompted by visual and other sensory experiences of participating in a bush school program.

Coral Reef Project and Competition

Ella and Lexi with their artworks

We submitted 40 art works for this competition. Congratulations to Ella Johns and Lexi Kalinko – their artwork pieces for this competition have been shortlisted.

We received this lovely email during the week:

Thank you for the brilliant effort you and your children put into your Happy HabitART Competition artworks. Over 500 children from 14 countries created coral reef artworks made with paint, pencil, crayon, play dough, recycled items, nature items, lego…even clothing.

We’re thrilled to let you know that the artworks of Ella Johns and Lexi Kalinko have been shortlisted!

Our iconic illustrator judging panel, including Kate Pankhurst, Rebecca Cobb, Diane Ewen, Stephen Stone, Jeannie Baker and Sally Morgan, will be judging shortlisted artworks from Wednesday 17 May – Wednesday 31 May.

At the same time, People’s Choice Voting will be taking place on our Instagram and website from Wednesday 17 May – Wednesday 31 May. Please follow Be The Future on Instagram and tap the notify bell so you don’t miss out on casting your votes!

Winners will be announced via email, our website and social media pages on Monday 5 June.

Wishing you all the best of luck! Thanks so much for being part of this nature loving competition.