It’s a little crazy to consider that we’ve progressed just slightly beyond the midpoint of the year. In the Little Fish room, our journey has undoubtedly been quite remarkable. Numerous significant developmental milestones are accomplished within our space.
At the onset of the year, the typical room-to-room transitions are not what we encounter. Over the course of first half-year, we’ve embraced a multitude of new little companions in our space, collectively aiding them in acclimating to our surroundings and daily rhythms.
Educational Programming
Our Educational programming places a strong emphasis on;
- Social and Emotional learning (SEL) ;
- Fostering exploration, discovery and learning by fully immersing in Natures playground; and
- Inclusion of our Native culture.
We harness these teachings through our 3 specialised programs; ( Mindful Kids Resilience, Empowering Our Youth, Indigenous and Nature Inspired) These
Developmental Milestones
The Developmental Milestones span over two different age groups with the children in our Little Fish Room. We separate the developmental milestones for babies to 18mths into the following age groups:
- 3-12 mths, and
- 12-18 mths age group.
3-12 Months Bracket
Our Little Fish Children (3-12mth age group) are achieving significant gross motor skills like:
- Rolling over,
- Commando crawling,
- Crawling,
- Sitting,
- Pulling up on furniture to standing position, and
- Walking.
We are beginning to become wary of strangers. We actively seek out our parents developing a stronger attachment to them, with at times, feeling anxious when they’re gone. Our interest in toys is growing, as we search for preferred playthings or specific objects. Additionally, we are becoming increasingly conscious of our surroundings, displaying improved abilities to mimic and reflect sounds and behaviors in our vicinity.
12-18 Months Bracket
In this age bracket we are getting into the swing of moving our bodies around our environments. Becoming more confident with our walking, standing, running and climbing. At this point, our fine motor skills are becoming more refined with feeding ourselves finger foods and possibly even using utensils and using our cups. We’re beginning to become more competent with things like drawing with pencils and crayons, throwing and kicking balls and assisting with turning pages in the books we’re reading.
Forging Ahead
Advancing forward, we will continue to encourage each child with their individual milestones. A few are on the verge of walking, so that’s exciting to witness. Fine motor, gross motor, special awareness, cognitive and hand eye co-ordination will always have high priority on our list of goals, always working to the next stage of that child’s development.
We’ve had feedback from multiple family’s discussing the goals they’d like to work on at home, so we’ll also continue to assist in reaching those goals here at Bright Kids.
‘Mindful Kids’ Certified Resilience Program
Our very own licensee is a Resilience Facilitator and Certified NLP Coach, who has developed the accredited ‘Mindful Kid’s’ resilience program. This distinctive initiative has been integrated and embedded into our Centre for the past seven years and is consistently undergoing enhancement and modification with fresh resilience methodologies and tools.
This year we initiated our exclusive ‘Bright Kids Resilience Book Club,’ centering on a single book each month. You might have come across a few of our review articles. In case you overlooked them, here’s a list of the books along with the corresponding blog links to bring you up to speed:
- “Moody Cow” https://brightkidscentre.com.au/march-book-club-review/
- “The Angry Bull” https://brightkidscentre.com.au/may-book-club-review/
- “Little Yoga” https://brightkidscentre.com.au/june-book-club-review-yoga/
- “My Magic Breath” https://brightkidscentre.com.au/april-book-club-review/
- currently “Tiger, Tiger, is it true?”
We have learned many resilience and calming tools inspired by the books we have read over the past 6 months. Tiger Tiger is it true, even though the concept is a little advanced for children of this age level, reading the story multiple times begins the thought process and embedding of these values. At this age group we emphasis the importance of treating or friends well, telling the truth and expressing their emotions accurately and authentically. Over the coming years, as the children get older, they will learn a little more and take more from the story and its message.
One of the most useful redirection tools we created was the sensory bottle. We put glitter and water into a jar to use as a relaxation and redirection of focus method. An ongoing learning experience we have incorporated into our learning from the books we’ve read is different breathing techniques.
Breathwork techniques look a little different in our room. We learn to slowly exhale with a bubble blowing activity and we learn to inhale with a ‘sniff the scent’ activity by using different herbs and candles to draw in the scent, using our senses. We then combine these two experiences when we incorporate breathing in our yoga practice.
‘Empowering Our Youth’ Indigenous Inspired Program
‘Empowering Our Youth’, is our Indigenous Inspired program, we have embedded into our Centre. Our vision is a journey of living, breathing and walking together to bridge the gap and unite as one. To empower our youth to be inclusive of all cultures, but especially their own.
We honour and experience the Aboriginal culture a little differently than the older age groups by integrating rituals and experiences into our daily routine.
- Paying Respect– We pay our respects to the custodians of the land before we eat our morning tea.
- Greetings– At group time we greet each other with ‘Jingeri’, acknowledging our friends and educators.
- Yugambeh translation– Our Children’s family tree includes both English and Yugambeh language, as do the animal photos adorning our walls.
- Indigenous Symbols– We’ve integrated Indigenous symbols into our play and activity time. By using natural materials with sand and dirt tracing, story stones and placemats and incorporating them into our various playdough and nature inspired activities.
- Dreamtime Stories- During our story time, we’ve included dreamtime stories such as “How the Birds Got Their Colours” and “The Rainbow Serpent”. Even though the true meaning of these stories are difficult to understand for our age group, we enjoy the art work and activities we followed up with after reading them.
‘Nature Inspired’ Bush Kindy Program
Our campus outdoor environmental yard was designed as an extension of our indoor studio, providing space for sensory exploration with natural materials, discovery, stillness, relaxation, collective group learning and gross motor skills.
Every week we incorporate multiple aspects of nature into our daily routine.
Whether we’re embracing the outdoors, basking in sunlight and fresh air on the grass, or bringing fragments of nature indoors for artistic creations, we thoroughly enjoy engaging, experimenting, and getting our hands dirty. Our ventures have included painting on bark, crafting nature collages using glue, paint, and paper, and even introducing a mini sandpit indoors for activities such as symbol tracing and finger and utensil patterns. Of course, the art of transferring is not forgotten either.
Furthermore, we’ve delved into the realm of Australian animals, employing songs, stories, imagery, and even puppets to spark discussions about each unique creature. Among our cherished activities is the “If you’re happy and you know it” rendition, featuring an Australian animal twist.
Conclusion
We have gained numerous life long lessons and insights and established a routine of integrating important principles into our lives. These values which will continue to evolve and increase throughout the duration of our Little Fish Children’s time here at Bright Kids. Our growth encompasses not only physical but also mental, emotional, and spiritually too.
That’s all this Month from Miss Tash and the Little Fish (Jalumn) peeps.
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