Last Week at The Infants’ Home 30 October to 3 November 2023

Toddlers

Story by Educator Sreedevi

In the Johnson House toddler program, the children have been exploring sensory play. We started with ‘goop’, which was a big hit, and then extended this with using clay. We provided the children with clay, sticks, vehicles and some road signs. The children manipulated the clay with their fingers, and they used their imaginations to create different objects such as umbrellas, vehicles, animals, food and lights. Through this experience, the children were developing their hand-eye coordination by squeezing, patting, pounding and rolling the clay, using their imaginative skills and experiencing the creation of three-dimensional objects. They used their language to communicate with peers, for example, saying that they were “digging the clay using a digger” and mentioning that they had made dump trucks or garbage trucks.

This clay experience was a wonderful activity to help the children to develop their fine motor skills, together with their social and language skills.

Infants

Story by Educator Purti

Today the children in Murray House infants are using coloured chalk to make Rangoli patterns. Rangoli are special, colourful patterns that are used during Diwali, which is the Hindu festival of lights, with variations also celebrated in other Indian religions. Rangoli can be created from coloured chalk, sand and flowers.

Today the children used chalk to create these beautiful, bright patterns. The children have enjoyed participating in a range of different craft experiences over the past few weeks which have all been linked to the celebration of Diwali. The children have been engaged in using brightly coloured papers, paint and chalk to make their beautiful designs.

This has been an opportunity for the children to develop an understanding of the ways that different cultures recognise their traditional celebrations, and the beautiful ways we can express different parts of culture. The children adored using the brightly coloured chalk to create these Rangoli patterns.

Story by Playgroup Coordinator Rebecca

Over the past few weeks the playgroup team has had several requests for recipes materials used for our sensory activities. Playdough, snow dough, coloured rice and our new favourite, chia seed slime, are all sensory activities that are easy to prepare and both fun to make and to use in play with your child.

Many families have told us that they have enjoyed the experiences they have created for their children at home and have loved the enjoyment and learning their children are experiencing.

The playgroup team loves sharing their ideas with families and are delighted that so many of you are using the ideas and activities you see at playgroup at home. The sharing of ideas between playgroup staff and families is very important as we know that parents and caregivers are the most important educators in a child’s life.

If anyone has ideas or activities that they would like to share with us and other families, we would love to hear about them and to try them out at our playgroups.

Here is our latest favourite recipe.

Chia Seed Slime

1. Mix chia seeds according to the directions on the package and add a colour of your choice.
2. Leave overnight to hydrate.
3. Stir cornflour into the mixture, starting with 1 cup and adding more until the slime no longer sticks to your fingers.

Have fun!