February Educator Update

Welcome to the first instalment of our Educator Update series! Every couple of months, you’ll hear from some of our Educators about what has been happening in their Family Day Care programmes. This month, Lea, Alyce, and Dina have written in to share their news.

From Lea in Woodcroft (SA):

On a cool, wet January day, a few Educators got together to take the children strawberry picking. The children were excited about this excursion and waited patiently while collecting our punnet to put our strawberries in. The row that we picked to start in had loads of strawberries. Once the children realised that what they picked they could eat, the children were off, independently picking strawberries. The children were able to see how strawberries are grown and we had a bounty of delicious strawberries that we took home.

“When we went strawberry picking, we had to find red strawberries, they were so sweet. We were allowed to eat as many strawberries as we wanted too.” - T, 12 years

“I liked picking the strawberries and eating them on the way.” - C, 9 years

“I love picking strawberries, it was fun.” - A, 4 years

“The strawberries were YUMMY!” - H, 3 years

“We took strawberries home.” - A, 2 years

“I eat them.” - D, 2 years

Excursions invite the children to interact with the world around them. Being out and about in the community helps children to learn about the environment.

From Alyce in Woori Yallock (VIC):

Starting with an interest in the beautiful butterflies we saw flying around our yard, the children at Schoolhouse Family Day Care have been exploring the butterfly life cycle. We did some research and read books together, before setting up a space where children can recreate what they learned with finger puppets, flying from flower to flower and collecting nectar a bit like bees. We dyed different types of pasta to represent each stage of the life cycle: egg, caterpillar (larva), chrysalis (pupa) and butterfly.

The children were thrilled to take a trip to the post office to collect a parcel with something living inside – it was three cocoons! It was absolutely wonderful to watch this step of the metamorphosis process. Our butterflies emerged on different days. We looked at their wing patterns to determine if they were male or female, and then fed them sugar water to give them some energy while their wings dried out. The children kept each butterfly for two days, making observations and learning how to care for them. We chose a warm, sunny day to set our butterflies free and watched as they moved from flower to flower in our yard.

From Dina in Coburg (VIC):

One of the first things I tell new families visiting my service is “we get very messy”. And then I go on to explain that our backyard is a big yes space. Want to dig in the dirt – sure. Mix some paint into the dirt to see what happens, cool. Draw on the brick walls – go for it. Paint on the concrete path? Sure. Our only rule is not hurting friends or intentionally breaking equipment.

Being allowed to freely explore, mix and experiment fosters children’s creativity, fine and gross motor skills, language skills, independence, problem-solving, and cooperation, and its very inclusive. There is really no right or wrong way to make a mud pie…

Thanks to the invention of full rain suits and boots we are lucky enough to have the opportunity to get very messy all year round and stay mostly dry. While adults often huff and puff when it rains, but the children here cheer when the rain gifts us with big puddles to jump and splash in. And puddles lead to more experiments. Can we dam it? Could we lead it the other way? How deep is it? How much dirt do we need to add to make it very oozy?

It might look like we are just doing silly playing, but hanging out in our backyard has taught us a lot about weather patterns, how to work out if the soil is good for growing things, how to take turns with equipment and last but not least how to make epic mud pies.