Early Learning at The Wonder Approach Family Day Care
Play Based Learning
Play-based learning is crucial for young children's development, helping them explore their world and build communication, social, emotional, and physical skills. Everyday activities like playing with building blocks foster spatial awareness, math, and fine motor abilities. At The Wonder Approach Family Day Care, we prioritize play as a foundation of early education, offering a flexible environment filled with diverse materials and teachable moments throughout the day.
Children are encouraged to develop independence, make decisions, solve problems, and appreciate nature in a nurturing setting that supports literacy, numeracy, and self-guided learning. Neuroscience highlights the importance of positive early experiences—nurture shapes brain development more than genetics. Our family-based program values hands-on activities, creative arts, and child input, ensuring each learner actively participates in their education.
The Wonder Approach way:
- All children are knowing, competent and able learners
- The program happens within a warm,nurturing and stimulating environment that is home and family based
- Children are given the opportunities for decision making and for further independence and responsibility
- Hands-on activities further encourage problem solving and scientific skills
- Children are encouraged to appreciate nature and to explore it with respect
- Attractive learning areas are designed to encourage a variety of self learning prompts including: writing, creative arts,dramatic play, reading, blocks/construction, problem solving, loose parts, computers/technology.
- Children are active participants in their learning and aid their educator in planning where their ideas will take them.
- Creative arts are promoted as a foundation for learning and are respected.
Early Years Learning Framework
The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) guides early childhood education in Australia for children from birth to five years and their transition to school. As part of the National Quality Framework, EYLF highlights play-based learning, communication, language, social, and emotional growth. By integrating EYLF, educators help children build:
- identity
- connections to their world
- wellbeing
- confidence in learning
- effective communication
Sustainability
At Wonder Approach Family Day Care we use recycled items such as tubes, plastic lids, containers, paper, buttons and more during art experiences and play.
We use water saving initiatives and teach the children about this. We try to reduce the amount of disposable plastics that we use and talk to the children about why we do environmental education at Early Years Care.
We learn about our environment by:
- Waste management
- Gardening and cooking
- Water saving management
- Science programs
- Animal care
- Aboriginal education
- Bush, River and Rockpool program
- Recycled art
Nature Play Schools
We believe that children should experience life first hand in a practical and sensory way. We want to encourage resilient children. Children who can make decisions, guide their own learning and assess their own risky challenges.
We want children to embrace new experiences with excitement and a curious sense of wanting to learn more.
Our nature programs are risk assessed and guided by knowledgeable educators. It is important that our children are connected to our land and form a relationship with their local environment.
This may mean bush school programs, river kindy, learning at the National Park or rock pools.
Each educator is different and our support staff assist them to ensure that projects and plans are realised.
Holistic growth and learning happens naturally when outdoors and the environment provides a blank canvas for wonderous ideas and exploration.
Being in nature provides the opportunity to learn many skills
- Develop confidences and autonomy
- Communication and team work
- Relationship building
- Outdoor resilience and exploration
- Inspiring play opportunities
- Ideas develop for project work and extensions of learning
- Children learn skills in nurturing and care
- Risky challenging play that children can identify and risk manage from Investigating ideas and scaffolding learning
- Nature gives the opportunity for inclusive play-based learning
- Children learn about natural phenomena and how to problem solve
THE EARLY YEARS CARE ATELIER
Our founder has a passion for art and the Reggio Emilia philosophy of education. After being trained in Italy, Marie decided to set up an atelier (art studio) that Educators and children can utilise for projects or creative experiences that are process not outcome oriented.
The space is currently situated at Barrack Heights. Educators and children can access the space and there are training sessions based on creativity and Reggio Emilia pedagogy held throughout the year. Parents are welcome to attend sessions and explore their own imagination to start their creative journey. We also live stream art sessions for children and educators and now have a resident artist who has completed creative arts at the University of Wollongong.