Pre-Prep Room (4-5 years)

This term in the Pre-Prep room, we have had a big focus on building autonomy and independence. Our routines and transitions are evolving to promote the children’s ability to organise themselves and their belongings, manage their daily routines and delight in making decisions, choices and resource their own learning. For example, the introduction of a progressive morning tea reflects our respect for the value of the children’s play. At morning tea time, rather than interrupting all the children while they are engaged in their work, we now simply open the morning tea space and children are able to complete their experiences and have morning tea when they are ready. This is of course monitored, to ensure all children are making healthy choices, practicing hygiene and having morning tea at some stage before 11.00am. As a result, we have seen less interruption to children’s play and their play is therefore reaching new levels as they extend on their initial ideas. As educators, we therefore have increased opportunities for purposeful intentional teaching moments. We are also encouraging the children to show pride in their work and their environment; in addition to paper names for naming their artwork, they now also each have their own named tile for placing with creations that cannot be taken home such as peg board pictures and block constructions. These tiles allow the children to feel a sense of pride in what they’ve created and to communicate to others that they would like the creation to be left standing. The children have also been using iPads to take photos of their work and have been documenting their experiences by gluing the photos in to their learning journals and dictating a caption to an educator.

Miss Teagan Frawley, Kindy Teacher