Redlands House/Transition Gold
Chinese New Year Celebrations
Last Wednesday Redlands House and Transition Gold celebrated Chinese New Year together with our parent community. There was a great buzz of excitement as the fun began on Wednesday morning. The festivities included making paper lanterns, calligraphy, cherry blossom paintings and dragon dancing. It was wonderful to see the children so interested and engaged fostering respect, awareness and open-mindedness for other cultures. Understanding people and their backgrounds is crucial to personal and community growth and at Redlands we are fortunate to have such a wide diversity.
Learning Centres
When exploring the rooms in Redlands House you cannot miss the learning centres thoughtfully created by the staff to inspire children’s play. Learning centres are an important way to support the play-based learning environment that underpins the Early Years Learning framework. Each area of the room has a focus and is changed regularly to meet the needs of individual children and the group as a whole. Staff work with children in and around these areas to teach concepts and skills targeted to each child’s needs. Provocations are set up to challenge thinking and extend an interest. This is the magic of the early childhood classroom and makes it a highly individualised learning environment for each child.
Centres are based on areas of learning and can include:
The Library or Reading Centre – a quiet spot set up in the classroom, with a variety of books available for the children to read or share literature with teachers.
The Writing Centre – a place where students can practice the various stages of writing. Exploring a wide range of writing and drawing materials, learning than writing has a purpose.
Block Corner or Building Centre – Having a large spot set aside for building and creating is an important part of early childhood classrooms. Building can include blocks, train tracks and cars, Lego, and so many other creative building options.
Art and Crafts Centre – lets the children explore their creativity. Students might paint self-portraits, make play dough, or paste collage material. Children might see what happens when they mix different paint colours or experiment with mixed-media art or sculpture.
Science/Environment Centre – helps the children learn to investigate the world around them. Depending on the children’s interests, they might have pumpkins to dissect, rocks, shells, insects to observe, or snake skins in in the centre.
Literacy Centre – allows children to explore literacy concepts: the appearance of letters, how they compare to each other, how they combine to form words, how we make meaning using symbols and reading visual images and sharing literature of different genres.
Mathematics and Manipulate Centre – focussed on learning more about shapes, colours, numbers, quantities, this also assists in developing fine motor skills.
Puzzles and Games Centre – space to work on puzzles or play games together. Fun, cooperative play!
Mrs Audrey Fellowes
Head of Preparatory School
afellowes@redlands.nsw.edu.au
9968 9848