Although our school age care services couldn’t celebrate National Children’s Week at the usual time this year due to the COVID-19 lockdown, our educators made up for it with a range of fun activities once school returned face-to-face in November.
Of course, our educators couldn’t help but throw some learning into the fun, and developed their programming to reflect and enable discussion on this year’s Children’s Week theme: “children have the right to choose their own friends and safely connect with others.” This is based on Article 15 on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Here is just a small sample of what the educators and children got up to.
Colour in music at Charles Conder
Down in Tuggeranong, the children at our Charles Conder School service made a gorgeous piece of art by decorating a guitar with mosaic pieces. (Don’t worry, no guitars were harmed in the making of this experience: the instrument had been collected from the local Green Shed with a broken neck.)
The children loved working together to choose tiles and attach them using mod podge. This developed their cooperation skills and ability to communicate ideas, as well as their dexterity as they learned the best ways to apply the mosaics without getting sticky fingers. There was even some geometry involved, as the educators helped the children determine the best orientations to place the mosaic tiles and reduce the amount of blank space.
The children were thrilled at the results of their combined efforts, making it well worth the resultant gluey mess! This was the perfect activity for a rainy afternoon and kept all the children engaged.
Party time after school at Gilmore
The team at our Gilmore Primary school age care service surprised the children in their after-school program with disco lights, balloons and all their favourite songs playing!
The Gilmore educators started the event with a discussion on the Children’s Week theme. The children picked up on both the friendship element and the safety element and how that related to their upcoming fun, telling educators that, at the disco, they needed to:
- “be moving safely when we dance”
- “make sure we let our friends join in!”
Children and educators alike devoured bowls of nachos outside on the deck then, all fuelled up, got into lots of dancing. The children loved dancing games like musical statues and musical bobs, and everyone joined in when they heard the macarena and the chicken dance.
The balloons inspired some children to suggest a game of balloon volleyball, which ended up in a mini tournament alongside the disco.
At the end of the energetic fun and boogying, the children all enjoyed a refreshing icy-pole!
Recycled fun at Hawker
The educators at our Hawker school age care service decided to tie the National Children’s Week celebrations into their sustainability practices.
They helped the children work together to create fun dress-ups from recycled materials, which, to continue the theme, were later used for dancing!
The children at Gilmore also enjoyed making canvas creation together that symbolised that everyone is equal. They focused on the fact that, while we come from all different parts of the world, we all have the same rights.
Food and fun at O’Connor
At our service at O’Connor Co-operative School, the educators set up an outside barbecue to enjoy the lovely spring weather together. Everyone loved coming together again and enjoying food and chats. And, of course, there was dancing afterwards.