Our Programs
Beach Kinder
Out & About
Children have the opportunity to visit the beach multiple times per year. The children catch the local bus to the beach, which enables them to learn and practice road safety. Research shows that play based learning and spending time in nature are beneficial to children’s health and well-being. At the beach the children have many opportunities for play based learning, and through this play and exploration they can engage in learning under all curriculum areas.
Play Based Learning
Literacy
Through drawing in the sand, mark making, storytelling, vocabulary building and learning to use language to describe aspects of the world around us, including what, where, and why.
Numeracy
The beach provides lots of opportunities for collecting, sorting, counting, adding, subtracting, measuring, estimating, categorising, exploring shape, colour, and time.
Science
Developing an understanding of the coastal environment, exploring the sea litter found in the intertidal zones, learning about sea life, local plants, weather and seasons. We develop our scientific reasoning skills as we observe, hypothesise, investigate, experiment, and question.
Environmental Sustainability
As children explore and play in their local coastal environment they learn to respect and care for this area. They learn about life cycles, the impact of human activity on the environment, and the ways in which we can work to reduce that impact.
Risk taking and managing risk
Risky play is embedded in the Beach Kinder program because we understand the importance of children learning to take, assess and manage risks. One example of this is when children walk out onto the rock-wall or explore the shallows of the water.
Gross and Fine Motor Skills
The beach provides a large space for the children to explore through walking, running, tumbling and more. They use their fine motor skills to collect and place small objects and their gross motor skills to move heavy sand or water.
Wellbeing
Nature based bush and beach kinder programs are inspired by current research that supports the remarkable range of positive impacts being in nature has on children.
Environmentally led STEM Learning
Children’s interactions with items they find on the beach such as sticks, shells, seaweeds, and sand leads to early experimentation with concepts related to engineering. It allows children to interact creatively with the environment around them teaching them the fundamentals of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
Indigenous Perspectives
Beach kinder is a valuable opportunity to immerse the children in Aboriginal Culture and teach them about respecting the Bunurong Country and the elders who lived on the land before us. We talk about why the Bunurong people care so much for this living land, and the responsibility we have to also care for the land.