Staying healthy: Preventing infectious diseases in early childhood education and care services - 6th Edition has now been published and available to download.
The Australian Government will support a 15% wage increase, over 2 years, for early childhood education and care through a new Worker Retention Payment that providers will need to apply for. The payment will start in December 2024 and run for 2 years.
In fine motor skills, children develop their fine motor skills when they use their smaller muscles in the hands, fingers, and wrists. Children, who cannot express what they feel and think and how they view their world in words, may be able to do so more readily through art. STEM learning is important for children as it caters to critical thinking and problem-solving attitude. The following provides a list of fine motor, art and science activities for children that can be incorporated into the learning environment.
The Scientists And Their Jobs Posters are great to display within the learning environment. Each poster includes the name of the role, a description of what the job involves and an image. This is great to get children involved in learning about science and to start conversations about scientists and their different roles.
Use household ingredients to create this cool lava lamp that glows in the dark!
STEM refers to an integrated learning approach that introduces Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics through play-based activities.
These scientist posters can be used as a display that describe the qualities of a scientist and what scientists do. These can be used in the science area to support children's learning.
Invisible Ink is a great science experiment that enables children to create invisible art and make it magically appear using lemon juice!
The Australian Dental Association is offering a free dental children's storybook Guardians of the Gums available to download. Created together with BeeHealthy Stories and SugarByHalf, the story tells the battle faced by the Guardians of the Gums as they protect the teeth from sugar and bacteria.
The Health and safety of children are among the prime concerns of early childhood services when planning the learning environment. The safest way to combat such issues is to opt for organic formulations which replace harmful chemicals with nature-based ones. The following article provides information on using green cleaning products in an early childhood service.
The Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Posters are a good reminder for Educators and children on what items are to be reduced, reused and recycled. These can be displayed within a recycling area set up in the service to promote a sustainable environment.
