Kindaburra Childrens Centre

The program for this age group has been designed by the educators to develop close relationships with the children and families. The educators follow the established routines of the children and work closely with parents to implement changes as the children grow.

We communicate the program to families via email and it can be viewed in displays and learning projects.

Program details:

• Educators develop secure relationships and a relaxed atmosphere.
• Share communication with the babies by responding to babbling, reading stories, singing and sharing fun rhymes.
• Nurture interactions with peers and educators.
• Babies have short periods of tummy time and develop gross motor and fine motor skills.
• Introduce solid foods and encourage self-feeding as skills develop.
• Support the children to negotiate the surrounding environment.

• Expand a rapidly growing vocabulary with conversation, stories, songs, games, poetry, nursery rhymes, labeling objects, shapes and colours and fun interactions.
• Introduce group times for language and music.
• Develop listening skills.
• Experimenting with art and craft materials and new textures.
• Develop close relationships with educators and support separation from parents by caring staff.
• Develop a sense of belonging to the Goanna and Possum group.
• Maintain predictable and positive routines.
• Learn to be responsible for own hygiene by encouraging children to wash hands and faces independently.

• Develop language skills, putting words together to create sentences and communicate with confidence.
• Follow simple instructions.
• Enjoy reading.
• Collaborate and be apart of small group learning.
• Begin working with scissors, pencils, and other writing implements.
• Encourage self-help skills, washing hands, toilet training.
• Educators support independence and choice making.
• Develop positive interactions with peers and educators.
• Begin to manage emotions.

• Begin to identify own name.
• Encourage reading books quietly and sharing with friends.
• Focus on activities for 15 minutes.
• Develop skills for participation in group situations.
• Develop listening skills.
• Begin to understand boundaries.
• Encourage positive interactions and the use of language to solve differences of opinion.
• Encourage empathy and understanding of others.
• Learn respect for diversity and embrace cultural difference.
• Learning to take turns and share.
• Plan nutritious and healthy diet and routines that support hygienic practices – toileting, hand washing, sunscreen.
• Investigate numerals, recognise numbers, count objects and perform simple addition and subtraction.
• Encourage exploration of the environment, test theories and use imagination to construct and experiment with motion, cause and effect.
• Explore the wider community with visitors to the Centre by the fire brigade and police.

Transition to school

The Early Years Learning Framework guides our program. We plan for individual and small group learning experiences, which are based on the child’s interests and developmental skills. The program is divided into learning areas, Literacy, Mathematics, Science, Social/Emotional Development, Health and Wellbeing, Physical development.

Literacy

• Children develop confidence to communicate effectively with others.
• Learn to develop their story telling through dramatic play, puppet shows, news time, music, songs, rhymes and poetry.
• Developing skills to communicate their needs for hygiene, hunger and thirst.
• Letter of the week – children study a new letter each week.
• In-group discussions we brainstorm words beginning with the letter we have been studying.
• Children learn to recognize letters and it’s sound. (Phonics)
• Children use the interactive white board to watch stories and sing songs about the letter of the week.

The Ella Program – Early Learning Languages Australia– Kindaburra was chosen as a Centre to implement a pilot language program to teach the children a second language.

• The educators help to support the children as they learn to use the Ipads and play aps designed to teach literacy tasks and developfoundation skills such as colour identification counting and greetings. We are very privileged to have a Chinese educator who extends this learning throughout the day.

Developmental Writing – developed by the Centre’s educational leader. The children are learning the process of story writing in a fun and positive environment.

Science

• The learning area is organized with natural materials and resources that promote experimentation and investigation.
• Research – Using resource books and the Internet to view videos and pictures from the Hubble Space station, volcanoes, rocks and crystals forming in the earth and to experience a walk with dinosaurs.
• Experimentation – Is planned learning experiences with the educators and children to understand, magnetism, centrivicle forces, light, the behavior of volcanoes, movement of air and machines, geology, chemistry and other topics the children are interested in.

Mathematics

• Children learn concepts of numeracy and quantities.
• Learn one to one correspondence.
• Count objects.
• Learn simple algebraic equations.
• Geometry – shapes, 3 dimensional shapes and learning about area.
• Fractions – whole, ½ ¼ - we learn with planned cooking, play dough and fraction games.
• Measurement – length, weight, comparing and predicting and using language that describes weight and length and other mathematics concepts.

Creative Arts

• Planned art sessions with displays of still life as stimulus and paintings from old masters.
• Children have access to a wide range of mediums to express themselves and enjoy.
• Music is planned with an outside professional, which teaches the children while incorporating aspects of the room program. The children help to create new songs and they are given endless opportunities to explore instruments and to learn appreciation of music from different cultures.

The Wider Community

• The children attend in classroom experiences towards the end of the year with our local primary school as part of the transition to school programs.
• The children have opportunities to make connections with the fire brigade, police, surf lifesavers, and other community helpers from organised visits.
• We are able to plan excursions to the library, local schools and to places of interest such as the museum and theatre.

Kindaburra employs a full-time chef who prepares an excellent selection and variety of food for all the children. Menus are planned and evaluated on an ongoing basis in light of the current dietary guidelines.

Food preparation carefully follows the contemporary food handling regulations to ensure a healthy, nutritious and balanced diet. Kindaburra provides breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and late afternoon tea.

The emphasis of our menu is on fresh ingredients, whole foods and plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. We encourage and promote a diet low in sugar, salt and saturated fats. The menu is full of variety taking into account food and ideas from around the world. Children are encouraged at times to help with the preparation of meals as well as assisting with cleaning up after they have eaten. Please inform our team of any special dietary requirements.

We also have an internal dinner solution for families with little time to prepare a well-rounded meal for their children.

The program is designed to provide an extension to the existing preschool / transition to school program.

Kindaburra Saturday Education & Fun Program is available for children who already attend Kindaburra or anyone who is interested and would like to bring their child in for some concrete learning through play and fun.

The aim of the program
The aim of the program is to deliver the most important learning to students with emphasis on the knowledge, skills and understandings (fundamental skills) needed to succeed beyond preschool. In planning and developing programs that meet the needs of students with varying ability levels and learning needs teachers draw on the detail provided in NSW Primary Curriculum Foundation Statements.

Key Learning Areas
The programs are implemented in small groups, they are play- based and focused on the following Key Learning Areas: English: Talking and Listening/ Reading/ Writing Mathematics Science & Technology Human Society & Its Environments Creative Arts Personal Development, Health and Physical Education.

For more details regarding this new program please call Kindaburra