3 to 5 Room Years
The kinder room caters for 24 children, aged 3-5 per day with two full time staff caring for and educating the group. We then have two age related groups within the room consisting of a 3-4 year old group with 12 children and a 4-5 group with 12 children.
Our Goals
Children are encouraged to be independent and are provided with many opportunities to practice their emerging self help skills. A lot of choice is offered within the room, through open shelving and children are also able to ask staff to implement additional activities if they are not currently included in the program. The main goal is for children to develop a love of learning, investigative curiosity, and experiment with theories and ideas through attempting problem solving before asking for assistance.
The beauty of being in a 3-5 room is the amount of modelling that occurs between the age groups.
The Program
The kinder room runs an emergent curriculum, which is derived from observations taken of individuals and of the group as a whole, as well as there current interests. Therefore, some activities may be out for a short time and others will be extended for longer periods. The activities are mostly open ended which allows for each child to develop at their own pace. During the course of the plan, staff may find that the children’s interests have moved from one area to another and the plan is adapted to incorporate this new child initiated direction. Resources are used to promote and facilitate play, it may be through simply visiting the library to find a story about a particular subject or as complex as inviting an external agency to become involved in the program, the internet is also considered a vital research tool. Evaluation of the program is based on observations taken of children interacting with the planned experiences.
The following permanent learning centres are available every day:
- the computer
- home corner
- block corner
- book corner
- puzzle table
- cognitive/fine motor table
- drawing table
- construction area
- painting easel
The Kinder room has bi-fold doors opening onto an enclosed deck area which enables staff to run a concurrent indoor/outdoor program, providing children with additional choice during their play.
Incursions
Incursions are an important component of the program and are offered at no additional cost to families. To allow greater opportunities for everyone to become involved, incursions are organised for varying days during the course of the year, so children only attending one day are still able to experience that part of the program.
Parent participation is highly valued, with an open invitation given to all families to come and participate in the program through sharing a special skill or simply reading a story at group time.
A 4 year old kinder information session is held in July each year for families with children eligible for 4 year old kindergarten the following year. This session is delivered by the qualified kindergarten teacher and provides parents with information on all aspects of the Centre’s kindergarten program.
3-5 room Image Gallery
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