Nursery Room Educators recognise that effective communication between staff and families is essential in creating a caring environment where each child is valued and where children’s abilities, needs and routines are respected and accommodated.
Experienced Nursery Room Educators aim to read the cues children provide in order to most effectively respond to children’s needs. In this age group, learning occurs via everyday routines during which communication develops, movement increases, listening skills emerge along with children’s increasing understanding of their surroundings. At the same time, relationships with peers and Educators emerge and strengthen.
We feel excited and privileged in the Nursery Rooms to have a part to play in the beginning of your child’s life-long journey of learning and discovery. This is the time when the strong foundations are formed on which your child’s ongoing learning will be built.
Our Junior Toddler Rooms cater for ages 0 to 2 years and are staffed by fully qualified Educators. The Junior Toddler Room Educators understand that the children of the Junior Toddler room are curious little people and that it is through social experiences at this age that quality learning occurs. Environments and experiences provided, both indoors and outdoors, are arranged to promote these social occurrences and educators make themselves available to guide and facilitate interactions, to model positive social and inclusive behaviours and to scaffold learning.
Junior Toddlers are becoming increasingly independent and will often assert this new found control during their day. Educators encourage and respect each child’s right to independence and our room curriculum supports this through daily routines, developing self-help skills, interacting and offering many play choices.
Junior Toddlers also learn from the social interactions around them and educators in the Junior Toddler room aspire to create a warm, welcoming atmosphere for all families, so that we may develop strong and trusting relationships that will enhance each child’s sense of belonging within our room. Families are welcome and encouraged to spend time in our room and to “have-a-say” at all times.
Research tells us that brain development is non-linear and by the time children reach age three their brains are twice as active as those of adults. Two to three year olds’ are delightful and competent small people with a tireless curiosity. Children in this age group have a total involvement in the here and now, which makes them simultaneously exhausting, demanding and wonderful.
Life in the Toddler Rooms is usually busy, happy, occasionally chaotic, sometimes peaceful, but never boring as the children often lead us somewhere unexpected.
A snapshot of a typical day might include some of the following:
- Creative experiences such as painting, collage or drawing.
- Play dough.
- Outside play – physical activity opportunities are embedded in our programs.
- Cooking.
- A wide range of play equipment designed to extend children’s learning.
- Music and movement.
- Dramatic play.
- Enjoying books – stories to share aloud or quietly alone.
- Self help experiences, encouragement of emerging independence. Toileting, dressing, assisting with preparing beds for nap time.
- Recognising and keeping track of belongings.
“Children are unique and individual beings who thrive when their families and educators work together in partnership to support their learning”. (Belonging, Being, Becoming) Educators of the Pre-Kindy rooms at API Childcare Centres believe it is our role as Educators to promote these relationships by providing each child and their family with a safe, secure and supportive environment in which every individual’s rights and needs are met and upheld.
We aim to promote each child’s individual style of learning by using these supportive relationships to gather information, both verbal and non-verbal, so that as a team we may provide experiences that enhance and develop each child’s current interests and abilities. It is our belief that children learn best by doing and that the best “doing” is play.
We aim to create a learning environment rich with play based experiences that promote in each child a love of learning, and to look for ways to personalise learning that may engage each child’s imagination.
We aspire to awaken in each child a love for our natural world, to create opportunities to bring the outdoors in, by providing many wonderful natural items for exploration. We believe that it is through this connection with their world that a child will develop an appreciation and respect for natural environments, so that now, and in the future, they make more ecologically sound choices.
In the API Childcare Centre’s Kindergarten rooms we follow the Queensland Kindergarten Guidelines to provide a warm and welcoming learning environment for all of our children and families.
The aim of the Kindy rooms are:
- To inspire the desire to learn by creating a classroom and experiences that are fun and engaging – to spark interest and develop confidence in learning.
- To build on the children’s knowledge and support them to create connections in their own learning
- To promote independence in age appropriate tasks and through these, self-confidence and a ‘give it a go’ attitude
- To give them the tools and strategies – emotionally, physically and academically – to be ready for Prep.
Our focus is also on:
- Developing listening and communication skills essential for success in play and working with others.
- Having confidence in learning and reading behaviours
- Gaining confidence to “have-a-go” and to begin to take responsibility for their own learning behaviours
- Promoting gross motor and fine motor strength and co-ordination through a variety of play-based learning experiences as a pre-cursor to drawing and writing i.e. good core strength gives the child the endurance to sit at a desk when drawing or writing, strong upper body enables endurance and control to draw or write and strengthening hand and finger muscles enables the correct grip to give definition, detail and control.
The Kindergarten rooms are run by fully qualified Early Childhood and Education Teachers assisted by fully qualified Educators.
