Para Hills West Preschool

We had our first day back at preschool today!

Welcome to our new families and welcome back to those who were with us last year too. We have also been thinking about and discussing our old kindy friends who have now moved onto school. We hope you had as much fun as we did today!

Love this!

What do you think? It could be something to do with your children over the holidays.

Enjoy the holidays with your children and Happy New Year!!

Our mural journey started 3 weeks ago with planning and this week we have been able to add to the mural which Violet and her team at Winda Creations began into the evening on Wednesday night!

We can’t wait to see the finish product which connects with Kaurna country and Dreamtime story of the Ibis Chabooki (may be spelt wrong). It brings elements of our learning about Aboriginal mark making representing emu tracks, kangaroo tracks, and gathering men/boys and women/girls together.

This mural connects with our site’s story of healing ❤️‍🩹 and connection as well as multicultural families coming together from all over to create our preschool community and family!

Thank you to all the families of the past, present and future!

We thank Violet and her team at Winda Creations for supporting us on this journey of connection and art!

It’s been an emotional day today! We were absolutely spoilt with gifts (many of which I have already eaten with my family). The most precious of course are the beautiful words written by my team, the children’s names signed in my card with photos of our learning together, a treasured mug with my team dressed up for the Christmas Pageant and one of our preschool children, and gorgeous individual scrolled “letters” from the children who drew their favourite things to play at preschool with me.

My work colleagues at PHWP have become another work family to me! I have felt so torn with the decision to leave a site, community of families, children and educators that has become so dear to my heart! While I know I need to make this move to grow professionally, and I look forward to working with my new team, I will miss every single person who became a part of our preschool family!

As I shared happy/sad tears with the preschool children today, we talked about how we felt to be leaving preschool and going to a new school or coming back with new and different friends! Precious moments shared and will be treasured always!

I will say Farewell but I hope to visit you all soon!

Thank you to all who were able to make it to our Exhibition of Learning and Farewell to our 2024 children. We were thinking of those who couldn’t make it! Getting close to the end of year! Hope to see as many families as can make it to the Salisbury Christmas Pageant Saturday!

If you are thinking about becoming a teacher, you may be eligible for a scholarship. Take a look!

Commonwealth Teaching Scholarships – applications for 2025 will open in late 2024/early 2025: https://www.education.gov.au/teaching-scholarships

Subscribe to be informed of key dates and new program information: https://msg.dese.gov.au/commonwealthteachingscholarshipssubscribe

For more workforce initiatives, visit the Shaping Our Future online dashboard: https://bit.ly/3WJWyNx

Happy world kindness day to everyone in the Para Hills West Preschool community! Thank you all for spreading kindness to our preschool community!

🌎💖 It's World Kindness Day! 💖🌎​
Today, let's spread kindness like confetti! 🎉 Take a moment to share something kind — it could be a little love note to yourself, a compliment for a friend (and don’t forget to tag them!), or even something you love about LPD. Let's make today a scroll of smiles and encouragement! 💌💫

Hats off to our amazing teachers Bambi and Andrea! Thank you for all the amazing work you do for our preschool children every day. We know your don't stop thinking about them when you leave work and come into work each week with new ideas and even resources to share. We love how you share each child's learning with excitement and love to recall the words children use as they share and reflect on their own learning! Thank you!

** Local event **

Your invited to attend Bush Playgroup on Wednesday 23rd October at 10am!

If you are interested in attending, please RSVP using the QR code in the flyer.

A big thank you to Community hubs, Words Grow Minds, and Green Adelaide for creating such a great opportunity for our local community 🌳

Sometimes families (and everyone) can worry about their child's development. One of the milestones families would love to see their child achieve, especially in the lead up to attending school, is writing their name. At preschool we provide opportunities for children to write their name each morning, to label their own paintings and to write their names on their own book-making or drawings. But we also provide opportunities to move our bodies. To spin, climb, twist, roll, jump, and so much more to develop their core muscles ready for writing. Have a read of this article which says it so well: When it comes to writing "M is for Monkeybars". Don't forget to bring your child outside to build their gross motor skills and enjoy painting with their hands and bodies!

https://movingsmartblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/m-is-for-monkeybars-getting-ready-for.html

(NOTE ADDED: wowza! I last shared this post in January, and it caught as much attention as it did this weekend! CRAZY!!! Commenting has been turned off. I am just one person. Thus the reason for switching to a smaller subscriber-only audience in a few short weeks... FB is a full time job)

This 4 yr old child has asked for help to write his name occasionally, but aside from that, he has done zero writing of any other letters,

YET...look carefully at his painting (he also draws on small paper very similar pictures)

I see all the components necessary to form every single lower case and upper case letter.

I see big lines, little lines, horizontal lines, vertical lines, diagonal lines, big curves, little curves and circles.

This tells me all of this child's freedom to MOVE and USE his body as he so chooses has worked to connect body and brain. (far more so than removing time to MOVE and replacing it with forced table time and "writing time")

His body is able to do what his brain says....his brain is able to direct those arms, wrists and hands to make all sorts of necessary lines to accomplish HIS intrinsically motivated task. As he painted he used full body movements, but also movements from just his wrists and hands.

Children develop from large to small... large muscles need to be strong and controlled before a child can have strong and coordinated small motor skills.

PERHAPS, we should assess a child's ability to write in a different way?

PERHAPS, forming actual letters CAN WAIT until the child is intrinsically motivated.....

PERHAPS, forming actual letters isnt as important as assessing a child's body/brain connection in different ways? (this is not limited to painting....ALL of their play)

PERHAPS, we should stop the disrespectful practice of teaching children how to write their names INCORRECTLY (all capitals) just so they can do it earlier. INSTEAD...wait, and follow the lead of the child. WAIT....and value that ALL MOVEMENTS a child chooses to engage in are, indeed, getting a child's body and brain "ready".

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