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Recently, our toddler and preschool rooms have been investigating many different cultures, countries, and our world’s currencies. It’s offered an amazing chance for our little ones to explore these different cultures in our Mascot early learning centre.
Including our Story House Values
As we plan insightful experiences for our Mascot children, we are also mindful of incorporating our Story House values. One of our important values is ‘Connectedness’ which is reinforced by helping children to connect with the world around them and to their cultural heritage. Mascot is fortunate to have many families from diverse cultures and we ensure that these are Celebrated (another important Story House value) regularly.
The Seals room went global
Our Mascot Educators, Abby and Yvette investigated each child’s unique background through conversations with parents and used that knowledge to explore the flag, traditions, food, music and movement of each child’s respective country. Not only did this demonstrate how we are fostering a sense of connectedness, but this exercise also demonstrated Outcome 2 of the Early Years Learning Framework which helps children learn and understand how they are connected with the world. The children also engaged in a collaborative paper mache globe, to signify the importance of collaboration through connectedness.
The Blue Whales room compared money
Our Mascot Educators, Tara and Rishita noticed children were making ‘pretend money’ during their independent play and decided to make this an intentional teaching experience for the following weeks. We investigated and studied different currencies from all over the world. We compared them to our Australian currency and discussed how they looked different in how they were made with different shapes, colours and sizes. The children were able to appreciate the uniqueness of the currency in each of the countries they visited.
An important message to families
Story House understands the importance of culturally responsive education to draw upon the cultural knowledge, skills, and talents children bring with them from their home and community.
Our Educators are culturally competent and respect multiple cultural ways of knowing, seeing and living, celebrate the benefits of diversity and have an ability to understand and honour differences.
We appreciate that families are children’s first and most important teacher. From the very beginning of their life, they are learning about their culture and the world around them from their parents and other family caregivers in the child’s life. Always feel free to share special occasions, traditions or celebrations with us so that we can incorporate these into our childcare centres’ programs.
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For information regarding our childcare and kindergarten service go to: Story House Early Learning Mascot
