Events & Activities | St Catherine's EEC

our upcoming events

A snapshot of our term

Nursery

WE CAN FEED OURSELVES!
In the nursery room the children are getting more confident in feeding themselves from morning tea, lunch to afternoon tea. They put a lot of effort in holding their milk bottles, with a little help from the educators of course. We always make sure that they get all the nutrition they need in our care. The children are always very eager to feed themselves and we are eager to support them and we will encourage them on this learning journey.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY

We love the lands that we play and learn on, we acknowledge the traditional owners of these lands throughout Australia.

We pay our respects to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Elders past and present.

Together we celebrated National Reconciliation Week 2021 as the children made Aboriginal art work expressing creativity, enthusiasm and imagination using textas, indigenous art work and drawing. This was a step towards, respectful and heartfelt relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the wider Australian community.

Toddlers

LETS MAKE .... PLAYDOUGH!
Our Toddler's participated in our group activity making playdough this morning.

We had purple, pink, yellow and green food colouring and we decided with the green colour to our dough. The children were sitting and waiting patiently to have a turn to add ingredients into a big bowl. There was plain flour, cream of tartar, cooking oil, salt and water.

Our children absolutely enjoyed the activity as they engaged the experience from the beginning to the end, they added and mixed all the ingredients together with an egg mixer. Our children joined to mix and feel the dough as well. One children said “green” when we added green colour into the flour.

Through the making playdough experience, the children learnt how to express themselves with their social and emotional skills as they were happy and engaged in a small group play, waited for their turns to add and mix ingredients and communicated to their peers verbally and non-verbally. The children also learnt and practiced on green colour and enjoyed a sensory experience as they touched and felt the flour and the dough.

COMMUNICATION, CARE & OUR CHILDREN
We in toddler room, promote the idea of sharing and respecting each other, we support our children to come to SCEEC not only to improve physical and cognitive self-help skills, but also develop their social skills. We encourage children to make friendship with each other.

Through the activities, they begin to show concerns for others, they will participate in reciprocal relationships, and they slowly learn to pick up the social cues from the others such as crying means they are upset or getting hurt, laughing means they are happy.

(EYLF Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to the world)

During the play, they slowly understand the connections, similarities and differences between others. They will learn the meaning of respect and they will slowly develop the friendships day by day.

(Quality Area 5, element 5.2.2 Collaborative learning – Children try to collaborate, learn from and help each other)

Juniors

WE ARE JUNIOR SCIENTISTS
Scientist Carla demonstrated the famous chemical reaction today in the lab: bicarbonate soda and vinegar, in front of the juniors scientists. Everyone exclaimed with excitement ‘Blue!’ when the blue liquid went up the roof. A few junior scientists have made some extra comments upon their observation:

Scientist F: Sugar! (When asked what the Bi-Carb soda was.)

Scientist A: Oh dear Carla, again! It made a puddle, water.

Scientist R: It’s coming out! It’s made bubbles.

Scientist R: A noise, bubbles, up!

Scientist A: Fish noise in the water, smells like mango.

Through the experiment, the junior scientists expressed their curiosity and eagerness to find out the cause and effects behind the reaction, learning about how mixing certain ingredients would create something unexpected—bubbles! They also used a range of vocabulary to communicate their observation to each other, including colours, sounds and objects that are familiar to them. It was a very successful investigation!

THOUGHTFULL TIME SPENT IN THE TENT
Group times are an important part of our day, we read stories, sing songs and enjoy being together as a group. This special small group time happened inside the tent, the children chose the books to read and helped to sing the songs, they invited everyone into the tent making sure there were enough cushions to share and everyone was included.
Each group time supports children with the transition and routines of the day, they provide opportunities for inclusion supporting all children to be engaged through educator support, interests and allow them to make choices about their learning.
Group times encourage the development of listening and communication skills such as taking turns to speak, using your body listening and following instructions. The children are able to develop their skills interacting verbally and non verbally with others for a range of purposes.
This small group time allowed children to show their understanding of inclusion and respecting the needs and rights of the other children's personal space, enhancing their sense of belonging.

3 Year old Kinder

SOY MILK COMES FROM ...???
One morning, when the 3YO Kinders were enjoying their morning tea, the question ‘where is soy milk from?’ came up; as a couple of them drank soy instead of cow’s milk. This question triggered a very interesting conversation among the children. Some thought that it was chicken’s milk, others thought it was from pigs. To solve the mystery, we watched a video of the soy milk production and found out together that soy milk is actually made from soy beans!
Following through the excitement of our new discovery, Jintana brought in soybeans, so we got to make our very own soy milk. Children had the opportunity to observe the different between a dry and a soaked bean, experiencing with the smell, the touch, as well as the taste. They also learned that not all milk is from animals, that there are plant-based options too!

PRESERVING PRECIOUS EARTH
This month, the 3YO Kinders dived deep in many conversations on how to preserve our precious planet earth, with focus on ocean pollution, composting and recycling. We discussed about actions that will make Earth happy and actions that would make Earth sad. We explored different materials that can be recycled, and those cannot. We watched a video on where the garbage trucks take the recycling bins; learning about the recycling symbol. Children have shown genuine interest and care in protecting our only home, expanding their knowledge and understanding by asking and answering big questions.

What makes planet Earth happy/ sad?

N: Look after the planet everyday.

M: Bottles in the sea. Lots smoke from cars. Turn the light off. Planet Earth can breath.

E: Wind make bottles go in the water.

N: Share the toys. Car make air smell bad.

A: Plastic ocean in the sea, if not in land field. Save water, no waste water.

Discussion on recycling and the recycling symbol:

K: Triangle.

N: Arrows.

E: Recycling.

R: It says to make something new.

M: Tin, you can’t squash it, it can be reused

and recycled.

E: And metal too.

R: I broke a glass and mummy said ‘stop’. Glass goes to a recycling bin.

N: We put a water bottle in a recycling bin.

We put together a WORM JAR to observe how the worms dig through tunnels, turning our morning tea fruit scraps into compost.

3YO Kinders used the banana peels from morning tea to make banana fertilisers for our communities’ gardens.
Learning all about the food chain and pollution in the ocean through songs and discussions. Children rescuing the sea animals from the tangle mess caused by the fishing industry.