Program – Glenaeon Preschool

Program

The program of Glenaeon Rudolf Steiner Preschool is strongly founded on a deep understanding of child development and supports the care and nurturing of the young child’s curiosity, reverence for life, joy and wish to grow and become. The program has a balance between teacher-led activities imitated by the children and child-directed play.

Meaningful adult activity to be imitated

“The task of the early childhood educator is to adapt the practical activities of daily life so that they are suitable for the child’s imitation through play… The activities of children… must be derived directly from life itself rather than being “thought out” by the intellectualised culture of adults. …The most important thing is to give children the opportunity to directly imitate life itself.”

Rudolf Steiner, The Child’s Changing Consciousness

This includes:

- Listening to and observing a puppet/prop story each day
- A circle time with songs, action rhymes, movement and imaginative role play
- Baking bread, making lunch, setting the table and washing up
- Mending, sweeping, crafts, drawing, painting and gardening

Play

Play is the essential avenue by which the young child comes to understand their physical and social world. In play activities, children can develop verbal, conceptual, physical and social/emotional capacities. Our program includes:

- Child-directed indoor and outdoor play and social interaction
- Role play including dress ups, home corner play and cubby building
- Story landscapes and healing play
- Play with rhymes, sounds and words
- Play which enjoys movement
- Sensory creative play in the elements e.g. sand, water, mud and stones

Learning

Research shows that children best prepare for later academic skills through immersion in regular creative movement, rich oral language, music and creative play and that these are even more beneficial than early work with reading and writing letters, words and numbers.

Neurological Development studies suggest that the proprioceptive and vestibular systems must be well developed through extended time for movement such as running, gardening, climbing, swinging and skipping¹ so that letter and number shapes can be visualised and imprinted. Challenges to literacy skills occur when vestibular functioning is not yet mature.²

¹ Ibid. ² Goddard-Blythe S, The Well-Balanced Child

Planned Weekly Activities

Glenaeon Preschool Term 3 Planned Weekly Events. Program

Parent Education

Regular parent education talks and workshops on celebrating festivals at home, creative discipline, storytelling, healthy foods and supporting child health are held at the preschool and Castlecrag campus regularly and are usually freely available to parents.

Glenaeon Parent Education Term 3 2023

Term Overview

Term 3 Overall Planned Weekly Events and Program
In addition to Room Leaders Individual and Group Program and Learning Cycles

Week	Theme	Activity	Learning Outcomes
1&2	Our Family and Holidays	Families prepare photos and captions and paste their sharing in the Family Book. Educators read the book with the children and support conversations and relationship building	Children develop knowledgeable and confident self-identities. Children interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purposes.
3	Darug Language – Workshop	Stacey Etal will visit to share songs, culture and stories using Darug language.	Children respond to diversity with respect. Children interact with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts.
4	Our Garden – Science Week	Children explore photos and listen to poems and stories of our garden and its plants and animals. They communicate about their garden and work as shown in Our Garden Book.	Children become socially responsible and show respect and care for the environment. Children begin to understand how symbol and pattern systems work.
5	Our Beautiful Story Books	Children listen to and view story books. They share them with friends and family through our library and communicate about the stories.	Children interact with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts. Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect.
6	Dog Safety	Children observe careful interactions with dogs, hear about steps in meeting new dogs and practice asking to pat a dog.	Children are happy, healthy, safe and connected to others. Children interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purposes.
7	Village Craftspeople	Children observe craftspeople, see their teachers learn and persevere and are filled with wonder at what they all created. They help and see the contribution of natural materials which are used to create our goods.	Children develop dispositions for learning such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity. Children develop a range of skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching.
8&9	Butterfly Garden and Spring Festival	Children observe how over two weeks the cocoon opens and the butterfly emerges. Children interact with parents-making flower crowns, singing songs moving to music, experiencing joyful festivities.	Children resource their own learning through connecting with people, place, technologies and natural and processed materials.
10	Children’s Picnic at the Park	Children pack their Morning Tea and sit to share and enjoy the warmer Spring weather and their friendships. They enjoy the movements of e.g. running, rolling, climbing and dancing.	Children take increased responsibility for their own health and physical well-being. Children interact with others with care, empathy and respect.