East Melbourne Childcare Co-op Yarra Park

Such a treat to be spending some time as an educational leader to be spending time with other educators from all over Australia (and the world) to hear from some amazing speakers from Reggio Emilia at the REAIE biannual conference this weekend in Adelaide..
It’s only the first full day and already I am excited about exploring some of the ideas around engaging with arts materials and techniques that can provide a new language for our educators and children to express themselves!
When the sector has a heavy cloud over it, it’s nice to remember some of the beauty that we can create for children in our care.

Before heading out for our weekly PR Murrums nature outing, Bec read the book ‘Let’s Eat Weeds’, a child’s guide to foraging by Annie Raser-Rowland and Adam Grubb.
This proved to be the perfect inspiration and the children were quick to find the many dandelions scattered across Darling Square.
After separating the dandelions from the daisies, the children gave them a SUPER GOOD wash. They then picked the petals, placed them in our teapots, added hot water and Canadian maple syrup then let it steep.
The result was a lovely peppery but sweet tea that was loved by (most!) of the children.
These experiences help highlight to our children that food is all around us, it just may not be the ‘norm’ for us. And once upon a time, ALL food was ‘wild’.
***It’s important to note that discussions around safe foraging are paramount. Our Educational Leader has also spoken to the parks department to ensure no exposure to pesticides.

EMCC strongly supports reforms which place child safety at the forefront of all decisions. This cannot happen again.

If you have any child safety or child protection questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to our Centre Managers, Rikki, Stacey or Rose-marie.

More from yesterday’s International Mud Day celebrations at Powlett Reserve!
Did you know that exposure to soil microbes through mud play can help strengthen the immune system and potentially reduce the risk of allergies and autoimmune diseases?

Beginning as an idea during a World Forum on Early Care and Education gathering, International Mud Day has taken root all around the world!
Today the PR Warins got their hands dirty, tipping, filling, squelching, and enclosing objects within some glorious mud.

“Our challenge isn’t so much to teach children about the natural world, but to find ways to sustain the instinctive connections they already carry” - Terry Krautworst.
Seeing the way our Powlett Reserve Warins are interacting with the environment during their nature play outings has seen that instinctive imagination flourish.
They found a protruding piece of bark on a tree and said it was a door. We wondered if it was a door for people or fairies. Some raised bulbous roots looked like a pool to another child. More evidence for their imaginations that something magical was indeed living in the tree
Some of the children found marks on the trunk of another tree. Jess explained that this meant the tree was home to something else…they were possum trackways!

The creation of their mosaic birdbath stimulated a lot of conversation with the PR Murrum children around birds and what they know about them.
Jing facilitated an experience for the children to experiment with ways a bird might make it nest. The descriptions the children gave for their designs were quite interesting, with one child making theirs soft like a bed and another having a roof made out of eucalyptus to protect the eggs from storms.

Wind is almost magical for children. It’s such a strong natural force, yet we see it only through the effects it has on other things - our hair flicking in our face, the dancing of leaves on branches or sand scattering across the ground.
With last week’s crazy winds, Powlett’s Warin room teacher Emma thought about how she could make this invisible phenomenon visible. Sometimes explaining things isn’t enough, we need to see them.
Providing a selection of art and craft materials for the children, Emma guided the Warin group to make their own kites.
I’m excited to see where the children’s investigation into wind goes!

Yesterday saw the emergence of a real life mystery in the Powlett Murrum room! The children found that someone had written their name on the side of our building in chalk, something we don’t do (no drawing on walls or resources as they’re not designed for it).
We already know this group has a deep sense of justice, but we got to witness a very exciting display of right and wrong manifest itself. The children’s critical thinking skills also came to the forefront as they battled with the fact that everyone that was there denied it was them that wrote their mystery graffiti but it must have been someone. Could it have been a ‘baddy’ that snuck into the kinder room the night before?
The children put their detective hats on and followed the clues. They found bits of broken chalk near the scene of the ‘crime’ which they followed and found a trail of it close by. They then went around the yard checking if anyone had chalk residue on their hands.
One child found a smear of paint on the wall which they identified as fingerprint. How could she discover who it belonged to? She thought of a brilliant idea! The child asked people to come up and compare the size and shape of their fingertip to the mark on the wall but couldn’t find any matches. The children then had everyone do a handwriting analysis so they could be compared to the mystery graffiti.
This situation created an exciting opportunity to practice principles such as truth, honesty and integrity as well as critical thinking skills and persistence.

Eric Carle was an author, illustrator and designer. His unique style is immediately recognised all around the world. With the PR Warins currently obsessed with many of his books (often requesting them over and over and over again!), Sandi reflected on how she could take this learning further. She’s now implementing a fully immersive exploration of all things Eric Carl with the group, with a particular focus on his works which depict natural phenomena (a theme repeated through much of his work). They’re looking at his art style, story narratives as well as learning about the man himself.

Using patterns in nature as inspiration, Powlett’s 4 year old teacher Jing provided the children with mosaic tiles to expand on their ideas and representations. Jing furthered this introduction to the art of mosaic, and taught the children how to mix and lay mosaic cement before permanently fixing their designs.
With the children giving consent, this mosaic bird bath will become the 4 year old Powlett Reserve auction piece at this year’s trivia night.

In Early Childhood Education, we’re often so preoccupied with ensuring that children have open ended opportunities to create, that we overlook the fact that some artistic mediums have specific methods and techniques. And it’s absolutely ok to teach these to children! If you do so with careful consideration, you’re adding more to a child’s artistic arsenal for them to draw upon when provided with a variety of creative tools and resources.

As part of their fibre arts exploration, Frances has introduced the PR Murrums to weaving crafts using strips of silk, wool and cotton. This complements their other fibre arts work around cotton processing and dying fabric.
The children are experimenting with the qualities and potential of the different fabric types and how they can be worked together to create unique patterns and pieces of art.