Learning at Little Rascals Childcare
Learning Through Play
We encourage children to learn through play.
Play-based learning provides opportunities for children to actively and imaginatively engage with people, objects and the environment. Symbolic representation is a critical aspect.
When playing, children may be organising, constructing, manipulating, pretending, exploring, investigating, creating, interacting, imagining, negotiating and making sense of their worlds.
It promotes the holistic development (physical, social, emotional, cognitive and creative) of a child and depending on how it is utilised, may also support a broad range of literacy and numeracy skills. The teacher's role in scaffolding play is pivotal.
Our Educators may:
- construct opportunities for play within (not as opposed to, or as well as) the learning program/environment
- make connections between play and the Australian Curriculum visible for all involved and clearly articulate this relationship
- model, support, initiate and generate play to include the use of, for example, miniature worlds, socio-dramatic, puppet, media, block, sand, water
- actively engage in and guide the play — before, during and after.
Our Children may:
- engage in a learning environment that progressively withdraws scaffolding as mastery is increased
- trial modelled metalanguage and behaviours within meaningful classroom contexts
- move towards applying skills, strategies, concepts and rules independently
- transfer new knowledge to broader teaching and learning contexts
- identify when, and from whom, help can be sought.
School Readiness Program
Starting formal school is an important milestone that can be an exciting and anxious time. Our transition to school program aims to ensure that our children and their families enjoy their start to school and the many school years ahead.
One of the main focuses of our school readiness program is the development of life skills, those skills which if attained at an early age, will support your child to be a happy, confident member of not only their school community but the wider community as well, assisting them to lead successful and fulfilling lives in their future years.
These skills include things such as independence, perseverance, empathy, cooperative interaction skills, fluent and concise communication skills, and the ability to build and maintain relationships with others.
At Little Rascals, you will find your child in specialized activities in the school readiness program:
- Working cooperatively in small groups to play a game, listen to a story, or complete a group art or craft experience
- Participating in language group activities either in small groups or in large groups that may be more reflective of the environment they will encounter in their first year of school
- Participating in activities that require the children to move around the room to participate in daily routines and activities according to verbal teacher directions
- Small rotating group work, reflective of the way that many schools organise their maths groups and reading groups. This is aimed to give children the opportunity to feel familiar with the expectations for these type of activities
- Encouragement to show respect and care for others through appropriate role modelling and participation in various social situations
- Staff embracing the ‘teachable moments’ which foster your child’s curiosity and inspire their love of learning
- Participating in excursions to the local school and exploring the different environments.
- Encouraging children to pack up their own play spaces before moving onto the next activity
- Opportunity to develop their interest in emerging literacy through the provision of pre reading and pre writing activities, encouraging some understanding of the dynamics of language and literacy such as rhyme and early phonics
- Encouragement to display recognition of numerals, and the ability to count using one to one correspondence
- Participation in activities which allow children to experiment with various concepts such as weight, mass, volume and measurement
- Opportunity to practice in managing their needs with regards to lunch and morning tea, eating from a lunchbox, unwrapping sandwiches and other foods • Encouragement to be independent in meeting their own needs and verbalising their needs with regard to areas such as toileting, managing their own belongings, dressing, including jumpers, socks and shoes
- Activities which allow children to practice their cutting and pasting and scissor skills, such a large part of kindergarten activities.
