Kornmehl

Terry Aizen – Director Kornmehl

Pesach explorations

This week we have begun our learning around the festival of Passover and all the wonderful traditions, stories, characters, songs, food and creative experiences. We tell the story of Pesach using animation, song, music, props and costumes and invite the children to take on roles in the story. Re-enacting the story in this way helps to bring it to life and allows the children time to process the details and make sense of it.

The children have started learning a variety of wonderful songs: When Moses was, one morning when Pharaoh awoke in his bed, Bang bang bang, Dayeinu, Listen, King Pharaoh, how did Moses cross the Red Sea, Ma Nishtana, who knows one, to name but a few.

We have been making our own visual representations of wild animals and frogs, Seder plates using different mediums and making baby Moses in the basket.

All the children will be participating in a Pesach Seder in the Pre-School on Thursday 11 April. This event is for the children only.

Care Packs

Our Care Pack project is well underway with many pre-schools, Long Day Care Centres and Emanuel School, participating in this worthwhile project to provide Care Packs for Aboriginal children in outback NSW pre-schools. We are working closely with Gunawirra, a NSW, not – for – profit charity. Gunawirra works in direct response to the needs and resources that the Centres require, with ongoing collaboration and consultation. By teaching pre-schoolers about personal hygiene, basic health care and simple nutrition, significant improvements to primary health care can be created, therefore reducing longer term chronic health problems and ultimately reducing the difference in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

The people from Gunawirra have expressed, through their vision and care of Aboriginal children, a need for basic healthcare necessities. Many of the children arrive at school with no underwear, no access to toothbrushes and toothpaste, hence there is poor oral hygiene and a lack of basic health necessities.

We thank everyone in advance for their continued support of this project. Care Packs are due in between the 1 and 15 May – Term 2, 2019.

Back to Pre-school Visit

Our Back to Pre-school visit will take place on Friday 5 April 2019 from 2pm to 3pm in the Pre-School. We look forward to welcoming all our Starfish and Dolphins back to share their learning about Year K with us all.

Centennial Park Visits

Next term our visits to Centennial Park will start in week 2 for the Dolphins and Starfish groups. We are planning on walking the children to the park and back, once every few weeks and therefore will require parent support to help us do this. The Seashells will start their visits in Term 3.

The Pre-School has purchased a classroom set of water proof pants and tops for the children, so all they will need are gum boots on a rainy day and sneakers on warmer days. If the weather is bad (strong winds and torrential rain) on the day we will make an informed decision to cancel the excursion. There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing!

The Bush School approach does not stand-alone from early childhood education and care. The Belonging, Being and Becoming: 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 todays 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 – do we want the earth to still be beautiful in 60 years’ time for our children? We need to encourage an ecological awareness in the children from a young age. Real materials are far more sustainable and encourage the children to use their imagination more than materials that are prescribed.
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, and they are sick less often.
When children play in natural environments, their play is more diverse with imaginative and creative play that fosters language and collaborative skills.
Exposure to natural environments improves cognitive development by improving their 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. The greater amount of nature exposure, the greater the benefits.
An affinity to and love of nature, along with positive environmental ethic, grow out of regular contact with, and play in, the natural world during early childhood.
Early experiences with the natural world have been positively linked with the development of imagination and the sense of wonder. Wonder is an important motivator for lifelong learning.
Motivation, concentration and problem-solving skills are developed through exploratory play.
Children who play in nature have more positive feelings about each other. The development of self-confidence and self-belief comes from children having freedom, time and space to learn, grow and demonstrate their independence.
Natural environments stimulate social interaction between children. It fosters an increased awareness of others and our interactions with them as well as encourages sharing and co-operative play.
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.