Term 2 has begun in Prep/1 without me even being there! Thankyou Mrs Miffy for greeting us back in Term 2 while I was travelling back and recovering from Indonesia.

I have had so much to share with the class, and they have been wonderfully receptive and curious about my experiences. We have begun learning some Indonesian phrases and we have been playing a new game called “Cublek cublek suweng” which is really fun!

Part of this experience has been sharing key learnings. One thing I really took away from the trip was that learning skills for the future such as coding, using technology, being analytical and being able to problem solve are skills we need to be focussing on. We don’t know what the future holds for our children, and the world will likely be a very different place for them to live and work in. Of course, in the early years of school we are laying the foundational English and math skills that are essential for success in any aspect of life. And we always value curiosity and inquiry. The information is out there and accessible, we just need to teach the children how to find it and how to analyse it to get the correct information.

We have begun looking at coding, and talking about it in terms of algorithms being sets of instructions that must be in the correct order for it to work. Stay tuned for more work on this topic!

Sharyn Brett came and saw us on Wednesday and shared the story “On Country” with us, along with her beautiful Australian animal puppets from Wayraparattee. Sharyn bought some clap sticks for us to use while we learn her Aknowledgement of Country song. We will replace our Good Morning song with this Aknowledgement of Country song. Thankyou Sharyn for sharing this with us and allowing us to acknowledge our traditional custodians of the Country we live, work and play on.

Ms Bec