The Gums Childcare Centre
EARLY YEARS EDUCATION & PRESCHOOL
Ph (08) 8842 1249
Wattle Room
Our Wattle Room programs have been developed from Reggio Emilia inspired practise where children are viewed as independent and capable and acknowledged as active citizens in their community.
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Our small group with a maximum of 30 children provides a play based learning environment that enables educators to offer children developmentally appropriate experiences that support and enhance their learning.
Literacy and Numeracy development occurs in all areas of children's play and is supported by programmed daily group times. Through structured literacy group times, children learn about vocabulary development and phonological awareness (rhyme, tone, segmenting parts of words and sounds). Literacy activities also include comprehension of texts and concepts of print (author, illustrator, plot, reading left to right, top to bottom of page).
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Planned numeracy group times and table top activities support the development of counting, recognising numerals, ordinal number, spatial and directional concepts, as well as sorting and classifying.
Preschool at The Gums – ELC Wattle Room
As early childhood educators and Teachers who are instrumental in influencing children’s learning patterns for later life, it is our responsibility to set them on a course that will inspire investigation, exploration, problem solving, questioning, discovery, and the disposition to take on challenges.
In the year before children attend school, they are classified as being in their ‘preschool year.’ The ‘preschool year’ curriculum at The Gums involves activities and experiences that may include, but are not limited to:
• visits by children to local primary school settings
• visits from Primary school teachers and/or Principals to our Service
• exchanging information about a child’s individual strengths and needs
• networking with educators, primary school teachers and Principals
• developing children’s talking and listening skills
• early literacy- rhyme, chants, songs
• alphabet and number awareness
• shapes and colour recognition
• social and emotional enhancement
• pre-writing development
• name writing and recognition.
• concentrating on the task at hand
• responding positively to new situations
• taking responsibility for their own behaviour
• developing the communication skills necessary for group or individual play
• developing positive feelings about themselves and others
• experiencing a sense of self-satisfaction resulting from achievement
• experiencing eating from lunch boxes, as we educate children about different foods eaten at recess and lunch and how to open different container and packaged foods.
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Connection to Country
We live on Ngadjuri land, we play on Ngadjuri land. The Gums Bush Block is two acres of Ngadjuri land located behind the Centre, with magnificent tall eucalypts, flowering plums, olive trees, fallen logs, a creek, open grassy spaces and a meeting place. The Ngadjuri people are the group of Indigenous Australian people whose traditional lands lie in the Mid North of South Australia extending from Gawler in the south to Orroroo in the north.
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As part of our Wattle Room program, children explore the Bush Block all year round to observe and experience the seasonal changes that occur in our natural environment. We follow the seasonal calendar of the Indigenous South Australian People as we observe changes around us.
On arrival in the Bush Block, educators and children come together at the meeting place, a log circle surrounding the fire pit. We sit and discuss the possible risks and hazards that may be present at each visit and ways to ensure our personal safety and the safety of others.
Once we have equipped children with these skills the children are more likely to become capable and confident risk takers as they explore their ever changing natural environment out in the bush block.
