Our Busy Life
Our fabulous open plan house and gardens allow us to create an awesome play based program that supports and inspires all of our Small Friends to feel confident in both playing to learn and learning to play. Our unique space means we can run a free flow world where all of our Small Friends play and learn together, and have plenty of room to explore our inside and outside spaces throughout the day, with our team guiding and encouraging them to make choices and decisions on the activities they wish to explore and engage in.
Our Inside and Outside spaces offer our Small Friends, learning spaces that are always changing, whether it be from week to week, day to day, or hour to hour! We choose to work with our concept of change throughout our days because not all activities are enjoyed by all of the children. If a learning centre is not engaging the children, then we can make the choice to change the concept and the activity within the space.
Our Small Friends are encouraged to learn for themselves using touch, sight, sound, taste and smell. Activities are always varied and designed to spark their interest, with learning areas corresponding to a child’s developmental levels. Our learning areas are set up so that everyone can decide what to make or do, and in our program there is no ‘right way’ for anyone with regard to what they create or build, and they are always encouraged to decide for themselves what a finished creation will look like.
Drama activities are part of our day whether we’re inside or out, with role play a major focus as this is where language, social and creative learning through play is best developed. Alexa plays music throughout our day, and we encourage everyone to sing and dance as much as they like!
Our PreKindy Adventure Zone!
Our world is always busy and we as a Team enjoy the opportunities we get on a daily basis, to create learning and play spaces that not only nurture creative play and social interaction, but keep our Small Friends engaged and happy throughout their day. Our wonderful house and yards are reflective of what our Small Friends have at home, with spaces to play and plenty of activities to keep their hands and minds busy.
Our Little House can become anything we wish it to be...at the beginning of the year it is a house where the children can role play life at home, but by term two our Small Friends can be astronauts in our Space Station; work in our restaurant; be creative in our hair salon; play in our fairy garden or go looking for wild animals in our jungle!
Our Learning Zones are spaces in our world that are always ready for action at all times. You will always find housemates busy at one of these spaces whether they wish to play with friends, or be creative on their own.
Our Collage Table is where our Small Friends can be as creative as they want to be as they work with glue, paint and anything and everything that will stick to the boxes and other surfaces we have available for their next masterpiece! Mess is never a concern when everyone is busy at this learning centre, as that’s when our Small Friends are their most creative!
Our Books with a quiet place to sit, is always available for anyone wanting to turn a page and escape to the land of “once upon a time”!
Our Chat Room is where 6 chat sessions are run during our day, and is certainly one of our busiest inside spaces. During 5 of our chat sessions our Small Friends get the opportunity to tell or listen to news; listen to a story or music; sing their favourite songs and nursery rhymes; engage in a language or theme based activity and dance. And if they are with us for a full day then they also get a chance to relax and rest after they have had their lunch.
Our Backyard is our largest learning space where Mama Nature surrounds us and we have the room to think on our program to support our Small Friends to develop their fine and gross motor skills. Each area has a different level of activity where children can choose to engage in quiet play or more active activities.
Salt & Pepper are our resident giant bunnies, who are free to run and play with the children and even though they have a stylish den of their own to live in, they love being in their super fabulous Bunny Den with everyone!
Equipment such as climbing frames, balance planks and our obstacle courses are all free standing and are not permanently in one position, as we like to change how our backyard looks all the time!
Our Magnificent Pepper Tree is always ready to offer all of us a wonderful outdoor space, whether it’s the hottest day in summer or Mama Nature has sent some rain for the day!
Our Woodwork Bench has tools and materials on hand for any budding artist or carpenter to be creative!
The Painters Easels and paint stand with all the colours of the rainbow is a favourite with many children, as getting the chance to create their next masterpiece to take home to their family is something many Small Friends can’t wait to do everyday!
Our Sandpit is for those who want to be chefs or are budding builders. During the day it can be a cooking sandpit which a kitchen, utensils and table ready to bake and cook for our friends, and then it can magically turn into a construction pit with hard hats, trucks, wheelbarrows, spades and buckets ready and waiting for our team of builders.
Our Garden Cottage has its door open at different times during the day for the children to role play in, with equipment, props, toys and dress ups available for them to engage in imaginative play.
Our Choice of Transport is a fleet of balance trikes. They can go anywhere in the yard as there is no designated path, and with road signs and other obstacles put on the “road”, our drivers sometimes need to work with other drivers and of course the pedestrians when it comes to negotiating our backyard roadway!
Early Years Learning Framework
Play to Learn and Learn To Play At Small Friends we embrace the concept of play based learning which is the basis for the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), and with the release of the Australian Curriculum in 2011 we now see Kindy classrooms taking on the same ideology that Small Friends staff have been working with for years. Our programming supports the EYLF which recognises that early childhood is a vital period in children’s learning and development. EYLF embodies the idea of ‘belonging, being and becoming’.
Belonging is all about our Small Friend’s relationships with the people and communities around them.
Being simply means allowing children to be children.
Becoming focuses on children’s growth and development in these early years.
All children at the Centre will be observed by Small Friends staff for programming and/or training purposes.
Outcomes set by the EYFL are…
Outcome 1 : Children have a strong sense of identity.
Outcome 2 : Children are connected with and contribute to their world.
Outcome 3 : Children have a strong sense of wellbeing.
Outcome 4 : Children are confident and involved learners.
Outcome 5 : Children are effective communicators.
Our learning and play programs are guided by the outcomes, and are developed to assist with each child’s development no matter their age and observations and evaluations are done accordingly.