Bonkers Beat, Author at Early Learning Childhood Education

18/08/201618/08/2016

Let’s Get Reading For Life

Reading books is a favourite hobby for many, children and adults alike! Books can be great for learning, for escaping, for relaxing and just for fun.

More that this, books help young children to build vital literacy skills that will provide them with benefits throughout their lives.

Children’s Book Week takes place from August 20 – 26 in 2016 and gives educators, children and parents the chance to discover the magic of reading together or alone. This is a great excuse to relive the wonder of your favourite childhood book and share it with children in your care! The theme for this year is ‘Australia! Story Country’, so you might like to incorporate this too.

Literacy and Numeracy for a Better Life

Literacy is defined as the ability to read and write. Numeracy is the ability to understand numbers. These two areas are major pillars in our development and ability to learn throughout life.

The research shows that “reading to children 6-7 days per week has the same effect as being almost 12 months older”, and that “These differences in reading and cognitive skills are not related to the child’s family background or home environment but are the direct result of how frequently they have been read to prior to starting school”. With this in mind, we need to do everything can to encourage a love of reading in all children!

Try this list of great books for children aged between 3 and 5 to get even the least interested children engaged in reading. Sometimes if you start with the subject matter this can be a good tactic, for example a child who loves trucks could fall in love with pictures of trucks in a book and then the story about the trucks. It can be as simple as that to start off a love of books in children!

Why Children Should Read More

Need more reasons why children should read more? In addition to those measurable educational benefits, reading is great to:
-Help children learn about the world

-Stimulate the imagination and ability to visualise

-Increase children’s vocabulary

-Provide a form of entertainment that is relaxing and has no screen!

Reading is a simple way to enhance children’s love of books and in turn, enhance their ability to learn and have a positive impact on their lives well into the future.

In the interest of Book Week, we’d love to know what your childhood favourite was from the bookshelf… Share with us!

11/08/201611/08/2016

A day of professional development for your ENTIRE team

professional development to your entire team

Each and every centre running the Bonkers Beat Music and Wellbeing programs gets the opportunity to attend two exclusive Wellness Summits each year. The Wellness Summits take place in summer and winter, plus we run them in each state so no one misses out or has to travel interstate.

Professional development delivered to your entire team

It’s not just the management or team leaders that are invited to head along – the Wellness Summits deliver a day of exclusive professional development to your entire team!

As if that’s not enough, the Summits feature guest speakers who are ready to share with you and your team, enlightening you on a range of different topics and unique approaches to grow your knowledge on various aspects of early childhood education.

Not to be confused with the recent (and fantastic!) Wellness Works! Early Childhood Leaders Conference, which was a ticketed event, the Wellness Summits are only open to centres with membership to the Bonkers Beat Music and Wellbeing program.

For all centres running Bonkers Beat within their curriculum, the Wellness Summit is a 1-day event for your entire team to attend together with NO additional costs, fees, tickets – it’s all included in the Bonkers Beat membership!

The Winter Wellness Summit will travel across Australia over August and September with all participating centres attending.

The event features:

-Reggio Emilia expert Kerrie O’Neill from Early Childhood Hub

-Wellbeing expert

-Managing behaviour with music and games

-Learning enhancing strategies

-A practical and informative session on setting up systems in your centre

-MUCH MORE!

To all the Bonkers Beat members, we cannot WAIT to see you there!

If this innovative, practical and cost-effective professional development day sounds like something you and your team would like to be involved in, feel free to send us an email to info@bonkersbeat.com to find out the many benefits of being part of the Bonkers Beat family.

04/08/201605/08/2016

Your Guide to Celebrating the Rio 2016 Olympic Games

As we all know, the Olympics only comes around once every four years so it can be a novel event to celebrate in centres – not to mention a lot of fun! The Rio 2016 Olympic Games take place from August 5 – 21.

The Olympic Games provide early childhood educators (as well as educators at all levels) the opportunity to explore many different topics with children, but to make it simple for you we’ve narrowed it down:

1. What are the Olympic Games?

Start with a discussion of what the Olympic Games are. Keep it simple – pick from a few of the main features that children will find exciting. You could talk about the whole world working together, the teamwork, the sports, the Olympic torch and the medals.

Here are some leading questions to help you with your Olympics discussions:

What do you know about Olympic Games?
How often do the Olympic Games run?
Which countries participate in Olympic Games?
Where will Olympic Games run this year?
Which country is Rio de Janeiro the capital city of?
Do you like playing sport?
Which sport is your favourite?
Does your mummy or daddy play sport?
Why do people like to do sport?
Does playing sport make you healthy?
Why do we need to be healthy?

2. Get physical

Check out the full list of the sports featured at Rio 2016 here and adapt them to allow children to try at your centre. Children could line up chairs and row in an imagined kayak! Or get outside for one of the many ball games like basketball.

3. Get creative

Children can explore elements of the Olympics creatively using visual arts. Here are a few ideas:

-Colouring or creating Olympic rings is a classic Olympic activity for children. Here’s a printable, or try using plastic cups dipped in paint.

-Children can create their own Olympic medals using ribbon, cardboard, coloured paper, felt, foil – whatever else you can find!

-Roll up some paper into a cone shape, secure with glue or tape and stuff with orange and red tissue paper to create an Olympic torch!

4. Talk about teamwork

Children watching the Olympics and any sport will notice that in many cases teams need to work together and help one another. A simple parachute game of trying to keep a ball or balls on the parachute/sheet will help demonstrate the importance of teamwork to children! Observing and discussing uniforms can be fun too.

The Olympic Games are an exciting time all over the world, so above all keep it fun! If you have some amazing ideas to add, we would absolutely love to hear about them! Share with us on our Facebook page, or if you’re a Bonkers Beat member, share in our private group here. Parents, feel free to post in our private Facebook group for Bonkers Beat

27/07/201628/07/2016

Overcoming High Staff Turnover in Centres

When it comes to the first five years, we know how important this time is in a child’s development.

Genetics play a role in this foundation-laying period in children’s lives, along with other influencing factors like nutrition, environment and relationships. With many children spending time in childcare centres or kindergartens during these early years, early childhood educators can have a notable impact on their lives – now and into the future.

In this blog we will focus on relationships and high staff turnover in centres. A recent survey conducted by Queensland University of Technology discovered that of 1,200 childcare workers across Australia, 1 in 5 plan to leave their job within the space of a year.

The research leader Professor Karen Thorpe spoke with the ABC, saying: “[The children] are losing people they’re attached to and that’s not good for children’s learning or emotional and social development.”

Children’s bonds with educators

Children have various bonds with different educators and can also be creatures of habit – they tend to like routine and seeing familiar faced, so when an educator they are used to seeing is no longer around it can cause distress.

Children deserve the opportunity to feel like they can trust their caregivers and when an educator who has created a positive, nurturing relationship with them is leaving, that sense of trust can be affected. Needless to say, this can disrupt a child’s learning experience and be generally upsetting for them.

The impact is felt

The impact of losing staff members – team members – is felt across every aspect of a centre. And while children are impacted most, everyone is affected.

To gain a passionate, qualified, dedicated educator is no easy feat and requires time, energy, patience and financial resources. Even more to train them, help them to understand centre’s philosophy, make them feel welcome and comfortable. For educators to then be planning to leave within a short frame of time presents many challenges for a centre.

Parents need to be informed, job advertisements need to be distributed – and of course, as we mentioned, it needs to be explained to children.

Facilitate loyalty

So how do we overcome high staff turnover and improve retention of our valued educators? It’s a complex issue and one that there is no simple answer for, but it is something we need to work to overcome together as dedicated members of this important industry.

In this recent article in Early Edition, we discuss what an exciting time it is to work in early childhood education. We also acknowledge that it’s a role that isn’t always easy but as a team we can create positive environments that are geared towards maximising the day-to-day experience for our educators.

Supporting the wellbeing of educators and maintaining an open line of communication with plenty of opportunities to express feelings can be invaluable. While we spend a lot of time doing and informing, sometimes we can benefit greatly from simply listening and understanding.

Have you experienced high staff turnover in centres? What actions do you take to improve retention of your educators?

High staff turnover in centres is an industry-wide issue in early childhood, so a team approach is the first step toward fostering a culture of long-standing teams of educators in our centres.

21/07/201622/07/2016

Revealed: The Top 3 Challenges Faced by Early Childhood Educators

On July 12 the very first Wellness Works: The Complete Early Childhood Leaders Conference took place in Melbourne… And what a fantastic success it was!

In the lead up to the Melbourne event, we did some research to find out exactly what challenges in early childhood education were coming up for educators, leaders, managers and owners working in the field. The reason for this was to ensure that the conference addresses what you really want and need from your early childhood professional development. We asked many centres to share their top three challenges, and it’s safe to say there was a theme in the responses!

Top 3 Challenges in Centres

Here are the top 3 challenges in early childhood education that we identified after reviewing responses from a range of centres. These are challenges that are faced on a daily or regular basis by educators, room leaders, management and owners.

Motivation

Many centres find they have difficulties with motivating their teams – from getting them motivated initially, to keeping them motivated. This is a priority at Wellness Works and is addressed thoroughly. Our approach is through empowering and motivating the leaders in the centre as the basis of improving motivation levels across the team. Our tactics and tips are foolproof…

Transitions

If you’re like the vast majority of the educators we heard from, transitions continue to cause stress and are a great source of frustration in centres. We’ve been careful to focus on this area and deliver practical ways for your centre to tackle transitions. You will even find them enjoyable…!

Documentation

How do we document a child’s learning, how do we maintain adequate – even excellent – standards for our centre’s documentation without it being a job too big to handle? Documentation is a hot topic for early childhood and we set out to improve your understanding of documentation and make sure it is no longer a huge challenge for you and your centre.

Do these challenges sound all too familiar? Not to worry –Wellness Works: The Complete Early Childhood Leaders Conference comes to Sydney on July 26 and Brisbane on July 28. Both Galina and Alina (or the Duolinas as they’ve been dubbed!) are really excited. If you’re coming along to Wellness Works, you should be excited too! (And if you haven’t got your seats organised yet, you’re in luck as there are still a couple of places available for Sydney and Brisbane – be quick and get them here!)

What Early Childhood Professionals are Saying

Here’s what just a few of the Melbourne Wellness Works attendees had to say about the event:

“Thank you today was very enjoyable. I have RSI I took so many notes!”
– Mandy, Joseph Avenue ELC

“Great opportunity. I feel empowered to take back to a team. Loved the songs and games”
– Rebecca

“This PD was fantastic, all the info was great, very engaging and fun”
– Jessica, Aberdeen Street ELC

Join us at Wellness Works: The Complete Early Childhood Leaders Conference and let’s break down your challenges in early childhood education and address them together.

Featuring the engaging and experienced early childhood experts, Galina and Alina, this just might be the best professional development session you attend this year!

14/07/201614/07/2016

Grandparents and their impact on children’s wellness

Did you know that involving parents in children’s pre-school and school life is linked to closer bonds with children, increased resilience and overall family wellbeing? Involving grandparents is beneficial to strengthening family bonds too and further improving the wellbeing of young children. This is why each year we encourage all providers of early childhood education to fit in a day dedicated to celebrating grandparents.

In the Seven Stone Philosophy, a stone is dedicated to relationships and their impact on wellbeing: “Healthy relationships lead to better lives. They are important and have an enormous impact on our physical and mental health.” Mums and dads should of course be celebrated, but we also believe that grandparents unique role in children’s lives should be celebrated too. This is why we always include a Grandparents Day each year!

Relationships can vary

As we all know, families come in all different shapes and sizes, and family dynamics and relationships can vary greatly.

Each child has a different relationship with their grandparents, while some may not have grandparents. It can be a good idea to invite children to celebrate grandparents and special friends, so that an aunty, uncle, godparent or family friend can attend too.

Grandparents and Special Friends Day presents an opportunity for children to share their learning environment – it’s always a treat to watch children give the tour and point out their artwork along the way!

July is the month we choose and recommend for celebrating Grandparents and Special Friends Day at Bonkers Beat – with Mothers Day in May and Father’s Day in September, it fits nicely in between.

Get creative for Grandparents and Special Friends Day

Here are some creative ideas to include in your celebration of Grandparents and Special Friends Day:

Create a photo frame as a gift
Children can simply draw/paint their grandparents/special friends
Children enjoy cooking up a storm to share some special treats with grandparents/special friends
Get out the glue to create a collage that represents their relationship
Sing some special songs together
Put on a special show for grandparents/special friends
Play instruments together in a music session
All children act out a favourite book for the grandparents/special friends
Yoga and wellbeing activities with grandparents/special friends

Bonkers Beat members, share your ideas to celebrate grandparents and special friends on our closed group. Parents, let us know what you thought of our celebration on the closed group for the centre. Everyone else, feel free to share yours on our Facebook Page.

06/07/201608/07/2016

The Journey of a Small Local Kinder

Choosing the right childcare centre, kindergarten or school is one of the most challenging decisions parents have to make. It’s clear that many parents have an idea of what sort of program or approach to early childhood education they prefer… So how can our philosophy, values and early childhood curriculum suit everyone?

As early childhood educators, we want to deliver what all families want, but how do we do this while staying true to what we believe will help a child to reach their full potential?

Have a Vision

After teaching music to children for more than 25 years, it was evident to me that music is powerful! I could see how music could change lives and characters of young people and could become a key for the development of the whole child. The vision for me was to use music as the foundation of a program to nurture each individual, develop their sense of identity and unlock the door to reach their potential.

The questions I asked myself were: “How can we create a curriculum where music will become a strong and valuable foundation for children’s learning? How can we include music in everyday routines? How can we achieve the best outcomes for EVERY CHILD, EVERY DAY?”

Fix your Focus

With so many expectations from parents, it’s hard to know what to focus on. “Will your programme help my child to read and write before he’ll start school?…” “Can you help my child become independent? He will be going to prep next year…”
“Don’t you teach children math in kinder? They need to know how to count…”

So where do we start? I believe we should start with VALUES. For example, the Bonkers Beat Philosophy is based on Five Principles:
• Respect for all people
• Respect for all animals & living creatures
• Respect for all plants & nature
• Respect for kinder & personal belongings
• Respect for yourself

While our program reflects these Five Principles, it’s clear that every curriculum should have only one Main Focus: THE CHILD!

Ask yourself these questions:

What is the main focus of our curriculum?

Is this working for the children (and educators)?

Are the children really interested and engaged?

Do I really know and understand every single child?

What new and exciting ideas can I offer?

What is my purpose and what is my vision?”

Remember every educator is a creator and every educator is an innovator. If our Main Focus is the CHILD, we are well on our way to delivering a world-class curriculum.

Wellness Works for Every Child

We mentioned in our previous blog, ‘Why Wellness REALLY Works’, that a holistic approach really is crucial to deliver high quality early childhood education. For me, the approach that made the most sense – and demonstrated amazing results – was through wellness. There’s really no denying that achieving wellness for children AND for educators improves every aspect of early childhood education – for families, staff, centres and the industry as a whole.

In our days of pressure and fast living, it’s so easy to fall into the habit of doing the same things over and over again. From time to time we might feel scared to make a change or try something different. Often, we get criticised for not doing things the ‘usual’ way. Believing in your dreams and working towards one goal with a team of supportive and dedicated people, will make a difference. It will help you to put your vision into practice.

For me, one single idea of a music program for EVERY CHILD EVERY DAY, was just the beginning of a comprehensive and innovative curriculum which is now successfully run in centres all over Australia!

There is always so much more for us to learn, that we can never say that all our work is done. There will always be many more opportunities to improve, make our curriculum better and reflect on the changes of our fast moving society.

I’ve joined forces with internationally renowned early childhood expert Alina Dan and invite you to join us at Wellness Works: The Complete Early Childhood Leaders Conference. Come along and see for yourself why a holistic approach is so unique and effective.

30/06/201630/06/2016

WHY Wellness REALLY Works

“Wellness is a conscious, self-directed and evolving process of achieving full potential. Wellness is multidimensional and holistic, encompassing lifestyle, mental and spiritual wellbeing, and the environment. Wellness is positive and affirming.” National Wellness Institute

We all want to be the best version of ourselves possible. And we want the children in our care to reach their full potential too. Working towards wellness is the key.

Wellness is made up of several connected parts, and can really only be approached holistically. By approaching early childhood education with wellness in mind, we can make an incredible positive impact for all involved.

The Australian Psychological Society’s 2015 survey on stress and wellbeing in Australia showed that the wellbeing of Australians is faring worse than the first survey in 2011 – we’re reporting lower levels of wellbeing and workplace wellbeing, as well as higher levels of stress, depression and anxiety symptoms. This is in line with BeyondBlue’s statistics that suggest there are 3 million Australians living with depression or anxiety.

It’s time that we in early childhood education put some serious effort into the wellness of both educators and children. The best way to change the future is with wellness and some inspired leadership action. This is the mentality behind The Complete Wellness Works Educational Leaders Conference.

This is a conference like no other, designed specifically for educational leaders, management, directors and owners. It’s time to lead your centre with an early childhood revolution. You can learn more and register today at www.bonkersbeat.com/wellnessworks/.

Early childhood education needs a holistic approach, and the multi-faceted nature of wellness is the ideal foundation to build the future on.

Wellness in early childhood really does work, and The Complete Wellness Works Educational Leaders Conference is going to show you how to make it work for you and your centre.

Alina Dan is an internationally renowned early childhood presenter and business developer – her presentation will empower you to reach your full potential in your role as a leader.

Galina Zenin is a multi-award winning educator and her Seven Stone Philosophy is a clear path to incorporating wellness in early childhood. Her presentation is not only informative but gives you practical tools and inspiring insights into incorporating wellness to make your centre the best it can be.

Why does wellness work?

Here’s the simple answer: the path to wellness in early childhood is also the path to reaching our full potential. Let’s get started on the journey to wellness and watch as your team and the children in your care flourish – not to mention your centre.

Spots are filling FAST! Secure yours now – register at www.bonkersbeat.com/wellnessworks/

23/06/201624/06/2016

Don’t Wait For Change – CREATE Change

Too often we spend time waiting and hoping for change. This applies to life in general, but today we are specifically referring to early childhood education providers.

You might have recently read our blog about leadership and how important it is to have leaders who are inspiring. With this in mind, many managers, owners, directors and educational leaders have asked – how do we use our leadership positions to make positive change?

You can be a leader, you can inspire those around you, but how do you create real change that will benefit your team, your families, your centre and most importantly the quality of care and education you provide to children?

When it comes to professional development, we are huge advocates of ongoing training and training that involves your whole team. However, for true change to take place, the leaders in your centre need to take charge and lead the way. This is why it is crucial to have professional development that focuses solely on management and educational leaders.

This is why Galina Zenin and Alina Dan have joined forces to deliver just that. Introducing, the upcoming event ‘Wellness Works: The Complete Early Childhood Leaders Conference’.

Galina recently attended a conference in Chicago in the USA that was dedicated to leadership and was tailored to specifically address the issues and challenges that are unique to management and to educational leaders. Inspired, she has teamed up with early childhood business development expert Alina Dan to deliver an event that is tailored to the leaders – to inspire them to inspire their teams.

The simple fact is, change won’t happen unless the leaders – the management – make it happen. And to make it happen, you need the right tools. Wellness Works provides practical tools that WILL equip management and educational leaders to bring about positive change in early childhood education and real results.

If an Early Childhood Education Revolution sounds like a breath of fresh air, take a look at the flier for Galina and Alina’s July conference below. You can even reserve your spot right now by emailing info@bonkersbeat.com.

15/06/201617/06/2016

Staying healthy in winter

Winter has arrived and this often means the beginning of colds, flus and other bugs. Parents and early childhood educators would have to agree that children and colds are not a good mix! Let’s look at how to avoid illness this winter, how to prevent it spreading and how best to treat viruses if they do sneak in.

Preventing colds and other viruses

Prevention is the ultimate goal for health at any age, and these tips will help you stay healthy, even through winter:

-Exercise

-Get enough sleep and make sure it’s quality sleep

-Head outside and get fresh air even when it’s cold

-Eat a balanced diet including protein, fibre, vitamins and antioxidants

-Stay hydrated to keep your body functioning optimally

Stopping the spread of germs

Adults and children alike can reduce the spread of colds by being paying extra attention to:

-Handwashing

-Avoid sharing drinks, food and cutlery

-Stay home from work/childcare/kinder/school

-Throw used tissues away straight away

-Avoid touching mouth/nose/eyes

-Cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze

Treating colds and other viruses

While antibiotics are sometimes necessary, most colds and flus are viral infections, so antibiotics won’t help. Help the body get better faster with these tips:

-Plenty of fluids to keep hydrated

-Vaporiser or humidifier to break up mucus

-Lots of rest and quality sleep

-Honey to relieve coughs for children over 1 year old

-Keep warm, but don’t overheat

-Try eating a nourishing soup, like this one

In fact, what a fun opportunity to teach children about nutrition by cooking up a delicious, vitamin-packed soup! And as far as getting children to stay active in winter, rugging up with a coat and gumboots and having a splash in some puddles is always a hit!

Author: Bonkers Beat