Welcome to Lobethal Kindy 2014!  We have been thrilled to welcome a whole new group of children. This is the first group to all begin their kindy journey together in term 1,  due to the implementation of the ‘same first day’ policy here in SA.  We have had some staff changes again this year.  We are very excited to have Katie join our team as a permanent full time teacher, adding a wonderful sense of stability to our programme and our future planning. You may have noticed that the title of this post, ‘Belonging, Being, Becoming’ is also featured around our kindy. It refers to the framework under which we base all of our programming, assessment and reporting. Belonging, Being, Becoming : The Early Years Framework (EYLF)

These first series of blog posts will introduce you to aspects of our programme and environment. It will give you a ‘little peek’ into all the wonderful learning that your child and our staff team are involved in each and every day. For those of you visiting our blog for the first time, take a few minutes to look back over the posts from last year. This will give you further insight into our journey to date. It will also let you know what you and your child may be involved in this year!  Hopefully it will provide you with a deeper understanding of all the learning that is richly imbedded in the play based programme that we provide…. So that when your child comes home each night saying ‘all’ they did at kindy was play, you will know exactly what we spend hours of planning and preparation time trying to achieve….we plan for play, we invite children to play, we encourage and embrace play, we truly value play and all that it involves.   We are looking forward to having our new children and families actively involved in this years journey with us.

We want all our children to feel safe, secure, happy, loved, and know they are an important, valued part of our kindy family.  Their name and their image is very important to them. You will have noticed the children’s photos are displayed in many places around the kindy.  We have their photos, names and self-portraits proudly displayed on the board near the mat.

Cards with their photo and name are available in the writing corner to increase their literacy awareness and sense of identity. We also use these cards for various games with the children.

There are framed photos of each child with an individual photo on one side and a photo of them involved in a group activity on the other.

These images have been used by the children to identify their work, familiarise themselves with other children, and for many other amazing child initiated projects.

As part of the upcoming review of our Philosophy Statement we have invited each family to share a value that is of importance to their family.  We have sent home a rock for each family to write this on and return to us.

These will be on display for everyone to see.

We will be using these words from you to guide us in ensuring our philosophy continues to be a true reflection of the values and beliefs of our staff team as well as our current community of families.

Last week we introduced our ‘Belonging Tree’ to the children.

The children have embraced this idea with enthusiasm, and are doing a fantastic job of ‘signing’ themselves in and out of kindy each day. This involves hanging their photo which is on a leaf onto the tree as they arrive and returning it to the board when they depart.

Our Belonging tree has even received a couple of little ‘gifts’ this week. The other night we smiled as we saw someone had placed their socks on the mat under the tree, and also the tree had been honoured with a piece of creative art from one of the children.

I think we can conclude that the tree has officially been accepted and welcomed to our kindy in its own right.

Early Years Learning Framework

Outcome 1- Children have a strong sense of identity

Principle 1– Children feel safe, secure and supported

Principle 3– Children develop knowledgeable and confident self-identities

Written by Nic