The toddlers practiced their practical life skills

Chef Sasheema and the toddler educators provided the children with a hands-on baking experience. It beautifully combined sensory exploration, fine motor development, emotional expression, and learning practical life skills—all inspired by Montessori principles. The children scooped, poured, and mixed ingredients, exploring the textures of oats, melted butter, chocolate chips, and coconut. Their little hands moved with purpose and curiosity as they felt the different consistencies and watched the ingredients blend.

Mixing the dough with a wooden spoon quickly turned into an adventure. Some toddlers used all their strength (and both hands!) to stir, while others observed as their friend mixed the dough. Once baked, the toddlers decorated the cookies with edible flowers and sprinkles. We loved seeing their faces light up with pride when participating in this activity.

Practical life skills activities are part of our educational curriculum 

Hands-on experiences like this one provide toddlers with meaningful, real-life learning aligned with our Montessori-inspired approach to early learning. While scooping, pouring, mixing and decorating, the children actively explore texture, colour, and transformation, all elements of sensory education in Montessori.

Each child was encouraged to participate at their own pace, fostering fine motor development and a sense of accomplishment. As they collaborated, the toddlers practised turn-taking, sharing tools and expressing joy in each other’s efforts.

Linking to the Early Years Learning Framework

This baking experience strongly supports several key outcomes of the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF):

• Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity.
• Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world.
• Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of well-being.
• Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners.
• Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.

At Enrich, learning is active, joyful, and rooted in meaningful experiences. This cookie-making adventure perfectly exemplifies how playful, real-life experiences, and learning come together in our Montessori-inspired environment.

Grandparent’s Day at Enrich

To celebrate the special bond grandparents have with their grandchildren, we invited them to an afternoon tea with a special activity to remember Grandparent’s Day 2024.

Our Grandfriends joined the Grandparent’s Day

Every week, the Kindergarten children visit our Grand Friends in their home at Enrich Early Education. This community-focused program allows the children to form meaningful relationships with their Grand Friends while practising essential social skills. In a way, the Grand Friends become like grandparents to our little learners, so we invited them to our Grandparent’s Day celebration too.

Capturing the loving relationship between grandparents and their grandchildren through art

In our educational program, we use art to express emotions. We organised a creative, artsy activity for the grandparents and their grandchildren. They could make a t-shirt for the child with their combined handprints, forming a heart. The families painted their hands and stamped them onto the t-shirt – providing a unique expression of love and connection.

Voices of the children

Our events are designed with an engaging and educational purpose in mind. In the week leading up to Grandparents Day, we asked the children to share what they love most about their grandparents and grand friends.

The children’s responses to the question “What do you like about your Grand friends?” were:

One child shared, ” I like having tea with them. I look forward to seeing Stuart!”

Another shared, ” I like the activities, and I love going to see Beverly.”

We asked the children what their favourite activities were. The children replied:

“I like playing with the blocks and seeing Bob” and “I like playing with our Grand friends,” while another simply said, “I love playing with our Grand friends.”

One memorable activity was the mindful stacking of blocks, which helped the children and Grand friends practice their fine motor skills while forming strong friendships.

Another question we asked is: “What do grandparents do?”

The children’s affection for their grandparents shone through in their answers to the question, “What do grandparents do?” “They cook me food – Cookies and food and cuddles!” shared a student, while another said, “I love grandparents. They are super nice and play with me in outer space”. While another student shared, “They like looking after us in my room.” “When I see them, they give me cuddles and see their doggies”. “They do some work and make lunch for me. They give me treats and watch Iron Man”, and “I see them on Sunday”.

While other students have a whole different view of what grandparents do 😉: “They sleep. They look at me”. Or “My Lola doesn’t feed me any diary, my poppy annoys me, and my nanny keeps kind to me”.

A sunny afternoon with delicious treats by our chef, Sasheema

Our chef, Sasheema, lovingly prepared treats for our grandparents and children. From refreshing iced teas and a fruit platter to sandwiches and celebratory cupcakes.

We would like to thank all families that joined in the Grandparent’s Day celebration.

A morning in Pre-Kinder

We have a lot of new friends in Pre-Kinder. As they transition from their toddler room to the Pre-Kinder room, we focus on building their knowledge and confidence in our Pre-Kinder routine like the morning routine.

Examples of this are how we engage with and use our resources during our work/learning cycles, how we use the mats, putting resources back to their correct spot and checking to make sure no pieces have been left behind, cleaning our areas after eating, putting rubbish in the bin, tidying and washing our dishes, and transitioning through the day.

Outdoor play to practice gross motor skills

Every morning, we start our day with outdoor play. This allows the children to practice their gross motor skills as they crawl over the climbing equipment, ride their bikes, and explore the forts. The children also practice their social skills when they take turns on the swings and offer to push each other. Some children played with the small connecting pieces as they tried to make rockets.

Group time: a moment to connect

Around 9:30 AM, it’s time to go inside. The children put their hats in their hat pockets and their shoes in their lockers and sit on the mat for group time.

The educator started group time with a song greeting the children and asking them how they felt, followed by Acknowledgement of Country. It was wonderful to see so many of the children join in to help with the actions. The educator went around doing a ‘roll call.’ When she called each child’s name, they responded with ‘I’m here!’ and/or raised their hands. The groups responded, “Good morning!” to each of their friends.

When all the children were welcomed, it was time to dance. We danced to Taba Naba and burned a lot of energy, so we progressed to wash our hands and transitioned to morning tea.

Work cycle in Pre-Kinder

A work cycle is a Montessori-inspired approach. It gives the children a block of peaceful focus time to practice and learn (new) skills. Our rooms are prepared to entice exploration by the children. The children can follow their curiosity and interests as they engage with the different resources and activities.

While some children enjoyed quiet time with books on the mat, others used their recognition skills with the colour-sorting activity. Some friends decided to build stairs and towers with the different blocks, focusing on which block was to go next and even removing a block after they noticed it was smaller than the one they wanted to place next. Little artists enjoyed drawing houses and saying. “This is my house.” In the home corner, the children used their role-playing skills, making dinner and taking care of their babies.

The Pre-Kinder learning cycle

The learning cycle is where we focus on teaching the children life skills. We follow the process of raising awareness, exploration, elaboration and utilisation. During this learning cycle, the children used the mats, grabbing them for an activity they would like to use and practicing rolling them up and putting them back.

About our educational program

At Enrich Early Education, we follow the Early Years Learning Framework and enrich it with our EQM approach. The EQM approach combines Emotional Intelligence teachings with the scientifically proven Montessori method. You can read more about our approach here. 

July learning journey in pre-kinder

Our educators communicate with the parents daily through the OWNA app so they can follow their child’s learning journey. The educators also provide a monthly learning story. Here’s an example of the learning journey of the pre-kindy class for July.

The month of July has been very exciting! 🎉

This month, we have seen deeper connections between friendships and a beautiful unity of being a group where we share our activities and experiences. We have also observed more empathy and cooperation among the children in and outside the classroom.

Welcoming new friends in Pre Kindy

The big news is that we have welcomed three new students to our growing pre-kinder community at Enrich! We have all been open and welcoming as they begin their journey with us.

Learning journey

In Pre-Kindy, we have covered many aspects of learning this month, including the very exciting new Montessori Pink Tower!!! The tower is used alongside the brown stairs introduced last month. These learning tools help continuously build and expand the children’s size discrimination learning.

The children are absolutely delighted when they create their own tower, built from biggest to smallest (or best they can), as they learn to use the error-correcting material repeatedly. It has been wonderful to observe the children’s cognitive process from vertical to horizontal, depending on their stage of ability.

Visual identity cards

We have now added the children’s names to our successful visual identity cards. Here, we are encouraging children to recognise their own names more personally visually. It is a beautiful way to encourage letter recognition through our educator’s dedicated weekly sensory letter activities, in which she works alongside the children to understand the significance of a letter’s purpose.

Learning practical life skills

Every month, we work on our practical life skills. This month, it was all about tasting and enjoying the efforts of our food-handling skills. We peeled mandarins and made our own orange juice😋. Every day, we practised pouring our own water into a glass cup and using tongs and big spoons to serve our own food. Yum and fun! Of course, our routine includes other practical life skills, such as washing dishes, and independent self-help skills, like toilet training.

NAIDOC Week brought native and natural resources to our curriculum

During NAIDOC week, we celebrate our acknowledgment of our Ancestors’ traditions on the land through music, dancing, cooking, and art. We loved the Native and natural collage resources that are freely available to us this month. We used cardboard cutouts of Australian animals, leaves, bark, and many earthy resources, plus paint, glue, and scissors, all available for the children to access when they desire to get creative.

Getting active with Little Big Sports

Every Wednesday, Little Big Sports comes to our centre. Coach Alex works with the children to develop their gross motor skills and the ability to assist them in listening to instructions.

Learning to take turns

Taking turns is a big part of the morning circle group times in Pre-Kindy. It teaches the children important skills, like patience and understanding emotions, to be successful in school and life.

Fun days in July

We had a ‘crazy hair day’ and a ‘pyjama day’, which was so much 🤩 fun!! Allowing a child’s sense of belonging to a group brings confidence as we collaborate and dress up together.

Fostering friendships day

Our Friendship Development Day on Mondays is our main outdoor day. This is a purposeful outdoor play day where we allow the children to “play” together. Social and emotional interactions are crucial to their language and friendship development.

We love having our daily shared painting Easel inside the room. The children are able to freely contribute through artistic self-expression. Sometimes, we paint alone, and sometimes, we paint with each other. Either way, it’s all our work, and we choose different paint colours each week.

The role of art in Montessori and EQ

Children are capable learners and can educate themselves if we provide the right environment, inspiration, guidance, and encouragement. Our EQM approach, which integrates Montessori and Emotional Intelligence (EQ) principles in our education, does just that.

Montessori emphasizes hands-on learning, self-directed exploration, and allowing the children to develop at their own pace. EQ focuses on managing feelings and emotions, and art allows the children to express them. Art is a great way to do just that!

Art at Enrich Early Education

While creativity comes naturally to all children, some might find exploring and experimenting freely a bit challenging. Especially if they are afraid to make mistakes, coming from a strong sense of right and wrong. That’s where our loving educators come in. They guide the children in overcoming their fears and obstacles.

Our process-focused approach and open-ended arts encourage our children to use their imagination and creativity freely. That’s why we prefer not to give step-by-step instructions. This approach nurtures creativity and cultivates 21st-century skills like resilience and adaptability.