Friend Street Kindergarten in Mont Albert North, Victoria, Australia | Nursery

Friend Street Kindergarten

Locality: Mont Albert North, Victoria, Australia

Phone: +61 3 9857 6583

Address: 5 Friend Street 3129 Mont Albert North, VIC, Australia

Website: http://www.friendst.kindergarten.vic.gov.au

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25.01.2022 This week we made vegetable soup. After reading the story of the Stone Soup the children worked together to chop the vegetables, cook the soup and then eat the soup. It was a good opportunity to try some vegetables they may not usually eat. It was yummy!

24.01.2022 We’re here waiting for youEmail us at [email protected] for an enrolment application form for 2021. Then we can let you know when we are open for tours and when we will be having our Open Day.

23.01.2022 Happy Mother's Day for this Sunday to our Friend Street families. We hope you enjoy the special surprise presents the children have made for you.

23.01.2022 We had the lovely Anna demonstrating how to make muffins on video for our remote learners and then the children at kinder also made the muffins with Roxy.This is our home/kinder partnership in action for term 2!

22.01.2022 The builders have been busy doing some important projects around the playground. Besides being fun role play like this is an important way for children to learn about the world, problem solve, develop physical and social skills.

22.01.2022 This week Blue Group have been reading and singing "Ten in the Bed". They have also acted it out with finger puppets and their bodies. The repetition of rhythm and rhyme in these songs help children learn about words, sounds and language formation which is the basis of early literacy development. There were ten in the bed and the little one said ....

22.01.2022 Some beautiful handy art pieces.

21.01.2022 Pirate John came for his last visit before a long sea voyage and said we could keep the treasure we found. The problem was how do you split it up so that everyone got their fair share? Another example of problem solving, numeracy and social skills at work. Learning through play!

21.01.2022 Not only did we plant seeds we also found them great to count with and match the right number in the pot. Science and numeracy combined.

21.01.2022 Time to get creative with a bit of watercolour painting. Don't have paint pots? A cupcake tin works wonderfully to separate the colours.

21.01.2022 Are you still searching for the right 3 year old kindergarten program for your child? Friend Street Kindergarten still has a few vacancies for their 3 year old program in 2021. We are offering you an opportunity to meet our dedicated, experienced teachers, see our inspiring playroom and playground and ask questions about the program. You are welcome to come on Saturday 28 November at 10 am. You must register for this event via email [email protected] or phone 9857 6583. This tour is only for prospective families of 3 year old kindergarten in 2021. We look forward to meeting you.

20.01.2022 As part of the positive start to school transition program, Mr Price from Greythorn Primary visited the children this week. Mr Price sang some songs with his guitar which the children enjoyed dancing to. He read us two stories and shared knowledge about space and did a teabag rocket experiment. The blue group children contributed to these space discussions and Mr Price was amazed with what the children knew. Mr Price's visit created a lot of school conversations between the children.

20.01.2022 Responding to the children's interest in treasure which has come up in stories like "Magic Beach" by Alison Lester, our sensory tub a few weeks ago and our numeracy matching activity last week the children wanted to make their own treasure. Using plaster of Paris the children chose different items like gems, buttons, shells and glitter to make a very special treasure. And what does every treasure need? A treasure box! Keep an eye out for that next project coming soon...

19.01.2022 We have been busy supporting local business at the Friend Street Cafe. It is a great place to role play, practice social skills, use "money" and serve customers. There may not be many customers at the moment but the ones we have are very enthusiastic.

19.01.2022 Run, run you can't catch me! We have been exploring the story of the Gingerbread Man. We have baked and decorated gingerbread, cut out paper gingerbread and made gingerbread people with playdough covering areas of literacy and STEM all through playbased learning.

19.01.2022 Playdough is available every day for our children. Through adding some other items there seems to be no end to the creativity in this space. Playdough is great for children as all the squishing, rolling, pushing, flattening and cutting builds up the muscles in their hands making them strong enough for cutting with scissors and holding a pencil.

18.01.2022 Warm weather means it is time for water play. The children love the tactile nature of water and measuring and pouring.

18.01.2022 Look what has popped up at Friend Street! Our families have been invited to create and add their own Spoonie to our Spoonville. If you would like to add your own Spoonie creation we have included the instructions and we would be happy to see Friend Street Spoonville grow and grow!

18.01.2022 Mish our new 3 year old educator has a passion for gardening and with the help of the red group brightened up our yard.

18.01.2022 Friend Street Kinder loves to support the wider community where possible and learning about fun ways to help the environment. Bread tags for wheelchairs use our collected bread tags to sell to recyclers to make into homeware goods. Watch an example of this in action. The Friend Street Community supports a wide range of community programs and charities throughout the year. https://www.facebook.com/68043178685/posts/10158570386133686/

18.01.2022 Following the children's interest in space we have had some space exploration zones this week. We even had some moon grey sparkly playdough and aliens to use. Open ended materials like this allow children to creatively play and express themselves without having to produce a set end product in a set way. Through this type of play children explore and develop new concepts and connections which sparks further learning. When your child is playing they are learning.

17.01.2022 We are excited to welcome Jules from Pee Wee PE this term to work with the 4 year olds. Pee Wee PE is a program developed for pre-schoolers which provides specifically chosen stimulating activities, designed to enhance children's spatial awareness, motor control and participation. We practiced balancing, catching and throwing skills this week and had lots of fun.

17.01.2022 We have a couple of vacancies in our 3 year old group for 2021. Please contact the kinder if you would like further information. There is also a virtual tour available on our website to show you what makes Friend Street Kinder such a special place for your child. https://www.friendst.kindergarten.vic.gov.au/

17.01.2022 Spring time and we are planting Sugar Peas to see what happens and watch them grow.

16.01.2022 Our first Open Day for 2020 will be held on Saturday 21st March. We welcome past, present and prospective families to come along and enjoy spending some time at Friend Street Kindergarten.

16.01.2022 We love a treasure hunt at Friend Street and look what we dug up! Working together we found the treasure box which had gold coins and jewelry in it. We then buried it for our friends to find it all over again. Activities like these are good for problem solving, communication and social skills such as sharing and turn taking.

16.01.2022 Sometimes photos are just so cute they don't need any words!

15.01.2022 This week is Harmony Week which celebrates Australia’s cultural diversity. It’s about inclusiveness, respect and a sense of belonging for everyone. The colour for Harmony Week is orange so the Blue Group dressed in orange today and there have been many orange activities.

14.01.2022 A virtual tour of Friend Street Kindergarten has been created to give everyone a sense of what our beautiful kindergarten has to offer. Please share with anyone who may be interested in enrolling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh8sSdPSORU&t=12s

14.01.2022 We were so happy to welcome everyone back this week. There was an excited buzz in the room as the children reconnected with teachers and friends and worked on their favourite activities again.

14.01.2022 We can’t wait to welcome everyone back to face to face learning next week.

13.01.2022 We have been learning about stars this week. We have been finding out facts about stars, drawing and making stars and catching stars.

13.01.2022 A beautiful example of child initiated learning. A simple question "will this roll of ribbon go from the door all the way to the sandpit?" Our educators supported a hands on measuring experience and helped our little investigator to work the answer out the answer for himself. And the answer was yes!

13.01.2022 We have been enjoying our new magnetic tiles. The creativity has been amazing.

12.01.2022 Just a reminder that we have postponed our Open Day this weekend until further notice.

12.01.2022 Our home corner is currently a hospital. The children have been diagnosing and treating all the poor sick dolls. The hospital allows the children to practice their medical language, role play, share and take turns and write out prescriptions. We have some very good doctors and nurses on staff.

11.01.2022 This week the wizzy dizzy came out for the first time and we needed to work out how to share it as everyone wanted a turn. The sand timer allowed the children to self monitor how long a turn should take while the other children could see how long they had to wait for their turn. Kindergarten is all about learning skills such as sharing, patience, fairness and working together.

11.01.2022 Watch out Indiana Jones we have some up and coming archaeologists to keep an eye on.

11.01.2022 Reading together is enjoyable and important for development in the early years of life. As the Department of Education says "Reading increases your childs vocabulary, expands your childs understanding of the world, and gives them confidence when using language. Reading is also an important way to make the link between spoken words and written words." For more information about literacy and numeracy in the early years the Department of Education has published this booklet with some helpful tips. https://www.education.vic.gov.au//LiteracyandNumeracyTipst

11.01.2022 Aren't the Autumn leaves beautiful? So many colours. Whether you are at kinder or doing remote learning you can be creative with leaves.

11.01.2022 Thanks to the lovely family who left this message on behalf of the Red Group remote learners. We miss you too and are eagerly waiting for everybody to be able to come back together at kinder.

11.01.2022 Our children are so happy to be getting back into messy play. A nice berry stew spooned into a muffin pan. Imagination, measuring and motor skills practice all in one.

10.01.2022 Look at all the Spoonies in our village. They are looking forward to welcoming everyone back to face to face learning in Term 4!

10.01.2022 Last week we had Gingerbread people and this week we have bears having a tea party. Providing storytelling props allows children to retell stories they know or be creative and make up their own. This experience allows them to practice and develop their oral language skills and understanding of how language works. More information about the power of storytelling for young children can be found here: https://raisingchildren.net.au//liter/reading-storytelling

10.01.2022 We made pumpkin star scones and they were delicious. Cooking is great activity which you can do during remote learning. It provides a good learning experience for literacy reading recipes and developing measuring and cooking vocabulary and for numeracy with measuring, weighing and estimating. Through getting children involved in the cooking process they may even try a new food!

09.01.2022 Treasure hunts are always popular in our playground and now we have some special golden treasure to find.

08.01.2022 Not only do building sets like this allow children to create imaginary lands and tell stories but they are also excellent for developing fine motor skills with precise hand movements and strength required to put the bricks together and pull them apart again.

07.01.2022 We read a story about making paper dolls so we had a go at making them. This is something that can be done at kinder or at home. It can be tricky to remember how to fold them so that they keep holding hands but cutting them out is good for developing scissor skills.

07.01.2022 Welcome to a very different term 2. In line with government advice Friend Street is open to families who wish to attend on site. Our hard working teachers are also supporting remote learning with take home packs each week. We have been thrilled to see the projects that have been made at home and sent back via email with happy faces proudly showing them off.

07.01.2022 A lovely example of how play leads to learning experiences. Our boys decided to work together practising problem solving, communication and turn taking to put together Mr Bones our skeleton puzzle. This sparked curiosity about how tall Mr Bones was and if the boys were taller or shorter. This provided the opportunity to learn about how to measure, language around measurement taller, shorter, cm etc, then recording and comparing different heights. Through responding to children's interests learning becomes more engaging, meaningful and powerful.

06.01.2022 Cooking with children is a wonderful way to engage them in many learning areas so this week we made pancakes. They read and followed the steps in the recipe (literacy), measured the ingredients (numeracy), and were patient and waited for their turn and as well as negotiated who will do each job (self regulation and social skills). We have asked every family to contribute a recipe and we will create the Friend Street Cookbook and try out some of the recipes throughout the year.

05.01.2022 One of the lovely things about this time of year is the observing the friendships that have grown and changed over this term. Whether it is playing games such as hiding fairy stars for each other, running a cafe, working together to collect leaves or investigating things that have been found there is always room for one more to play.

04.01.2022 Even though kinders are still operating there are some things being done remotely including our Yogafun - Kids Yoga program. Connie is running the class through zoom and the children are participating at kinder. It is great to be able to see Connie's smile and her infectious enthusiasm for yoga.

04.01.2022 It's beginning to look at lot like Christmas. This week we have made gorgeous Christmas trees by wrapping wool around the icy pole sticks and then decorating. This was part of a fine motor program where the children are having to use their fingers and hands in coordinated ways to wrap the wool, grasp small objects like sequins and buttons and be precise with their placement.

04.01.2022 Our Christmas tree has been decorated by the children in Blue Group and has begun receiving donations from our generous families for the Boroondara Community Outreach Christmas Hamper project. The donations will be made into hampers and delivered to Boroondara families in need.

03.01.2022 Wednesday is worm day at Friend Street. We collect left over scraps from fruit time to feed the worms however first you need some worms! One of our parents worked with the children to set up our wormery for 2020. Our parent volunteers play an important role in our program and we appreciate any amount of time that they can give to help out with activities.

03.01.2022 We are still accepting enrolments for 2021 and have some space available in our 4 year old group this year. Please email us at [email protected] for an enrolment application form.

03.01.2022 Hands on learning and discovery is an essential part of the kinder day. Through being able to manipulate objects children develop their understanding of abstract concepts often found in mathematics. In this case using matchsticks and Plasticine we were making 2D and 3D shapes and pictures looking at the number of sides, angles and ways to connect to connect the sticks through trial and error. This is the same reason we use objects such counters, fingers and other small objects when we are counting to teach children that each number represents specific quantities. It is easy for children to rote learn how to count 1,2,3 but using objects helps them understand that each number has value which is an important early maths skill.

03.01.2022 We have not been able to hold our usual open days this year so we created this virtual tour instead. Can you spot all your favourite things about Friend Street like Herbert the snail, the mushroom, collecting fairy stars or the comfy reading chair? What are some of your favourite memories from your time at Friend Street Kindergarten? https://www.youtube.com/watch

02.01.2022 With ANZAC Day approaching we made ANZAC biscuits and watched the story "ANZAC Ted" read by a serving member of the Australian defence force this week.

02.01.2022 Unfortunately due to the current situation with the COVID-19 virus we have decided to postpone our Open Day this weekend for the health and safety of everyone involved. We have another Open Day scheduled for May.

02.01.2022 It's exciting to see the literacy explosion at this time of year as the children get ready for school. Whether it is a letter to Santa, matching and recognizing letters or writing part or all of their name there are lots of ways to experience literacy at kinder.

02.01.2022 Were here waiting for youEmail us at [email protected] for an enrolment application form for 2021. Then we can let you know when we are open for tours and when we will be having our Open Day.

02.01.2022 As we slowly welcome more friends back to kinder each week we are all enjoying working, playing and being together again.

01.01.2022 Our budding scientists taking some time to investigate our snail friend. Following children's interests is an important part of developing our weekly curriculum. Fun facts - snails can live up to 15 years, snails hatch from eggs and if a snail didn't stop it would take them a week to travel a kilometre!

01.01.2022 Threading is a great way to practice fine motor skills and hand eye coordination. It can be done with a threading set or simple items you can find around the house such as string, cut up straws, buttons, beads and any other materials you can find.

01.01.2022 Who remembers doing this as a child? Painting on one side of the paper and being amazed by what was copied on the next page. We were exploring painting techniques and symmetry with mirror images.

01.01.2022 Our beautiful oak tree has lost so many leaves that the playground was completely covered. Both our groups have had fun playing, jumping into and cleaning up the leaves. We were very lucky that Bunnings donated some brand new children's rakes to help us do the clean up.

01.01.2022 We made real popcorn and then some playdough popcorn appeared on the playdough table. Imitation of real life events and experiences is one way young children learn about the world around them. Children are always watching, listening and taking things in even when you think they are not.

01.01.2022 Many of our preschool children have an interest in dinosaurs and our teachers have responded to their curiosity by providing thought provoking activities. We know children learn best when they are engaged, interested and motivated and so some of our weekly activities are based around current interests. We use these interests to extend and expand current knowledge and skills. The learning will be different for each child whether it be problem solving, learning a new fact about dinosaurs or working together. In this way each child has their own meaningful unique learning experience.

01.01.2022 From the time they are babies children use their senses to explore and develop understandings of the world around them. Encouraging sensory play is important for cognitive development, enhancing memory, developing fine and gross motor skills and language development. Sensory play can also be used as a calming mechanism to help children self regulate their emotions when they are feeling overwhelmed.