Minbalup Kindy Room
3 – 5 years
Kindy children are eager and curious learners who love to question the world around them. They begin to develop more complex social relationships and show increasing skill in their communication and physical capabilities.
Our team of Minbalup educators are highly experienced in working with children to support their development of these new skill sets. Our educators expertly guide children through their evolving emotional responses to situations, and provide strategies that enable them to regulate their feelings appropriately.
We provide a nurturing and secure environment for children to thrive. Play is crucial to children’s learning and our children are encouraged to make choices regarding their play and the materials they use, in order to pursue their personal interests. Our natural setting provides the ideal location for your child’s imaginative play, forming the basis for much of their social interactions.
‘Minbalup’ means a happy place in the Kaurna language.
Our centre believes in trusting partnerships between families and children to achieve the best educational and well-being outcomes from your child’s time in care. Each child has their own learning profile book which includes individual programmed observations and planned activity reports. These profiles are designed to celebrate the child’s learning journey and are available for parents and children to look through at all times.
Nature Baskets
In the Kindy Room we have two nature baskets for the children to take home and collect natural resources; leaves, flowers, sticks, stones, shells, bag of sand & seawater just to name a few. The children take turns and we are always excited to see what stories are written in the book with the basket, and what the children can tell us about their collection. Children love to tell us their adventures in their own back garden, Nanna’s house, the park, beach or farm. Leaves, bark and sticks are often used for natural collage.
Library
Once a month, the Kindy group walk up to the Hub Library for special story time with the Librarian, Jackie. We look forward to this special time, singing songs and listening to interesting stories. This often encourages children’s conversations as they discuss amongst themselves the story they have just heard. This also enhances literacy skills and a life long love of books and reading.
Walks to the Oval and around the local area
Our Centre is surrounded by wonderful natural parks and walkways. We make the most of this by regularly going out of the centre to explore. We also practice road safety as we walk in our community – to the oval and surrounding areas. We can observe the natural changes to the environment during the changing of seasons – leaves changing colour, buds on plants, rainfall and the creek filling up. We notice the wind, the plants and birds. We have donned welly boots and raincoats and explored puddles and the creek, as well as our ideas and concepts about water.
At the oval we always have a brisk walk and healthy exercises. Many of our children are following their interests of playing football and the oval just outside our door gives us wonderful opportunities to run and kick the footy as far as we can.
We regularly take a special bag with us containing balls, frisbees and small streamer balls and take turns at different ball activities in small groups. Group games such as Duck, Duck Goose provide opportunities for the Kindy children to belong to a group and learn how to be part of a team, learning skills such as turn taking, waiting and communicating with others.
Emergent CurriculumAt Aberfoyle Hub Community Children’s Centre we have a strong focus on the development of relationships between children and educators. The strength of the relationship between your child and our educators underpins your child’s well-being in our centre. Our flexible programming supports your child’s development by providing intimate times for discussion, songs, books and games that are stimulating and challenging. Our program is planned in line with the Early Years Learning Framework and focuses on an emergent curriculum. Children develop competencies through opportunities to make choices that direct the focus of their learning; experiences are tailored to their changing interests and follow a dynamic progression.