Term 3 in the Early Learning Centre at Ivanhoe Girls' Grammar School has been a combination of onsite and offsite learning. We have been wanting to utilise the tools available to us to add richness to the learning program and stay connected with children at home. Whilst Zoom incursions/excursions are now a necessity, they have opened up so many opportunities for learning that we feel their use will be a great tool once we are permanently back at school.

Our community is full of people the children can learn from. We have been so grateful to our parents who have been willing to share aspects of their work with us over Zoom. We also had a special session with one of Miss Franceschi’s friends who has performed in the Australian Ballet and we hope to book in some more in coming weeks.  

Jeanette’s mum, Rita is an audiologist. Rita noticed how the Kinder girls had been learning Auslan and offered to speak to us about her job. This was a wonderful session that Rita and Jeanette were able to run from home. Rita explained how the ears work, how we should care for them and then showed us hearing aids for hearing impaired children. Jeanette chose some charms to decorate the hearing aid and demonstrated how they are worn. Thanks so much Rita and Jeanette for this special Zoom incursion.

Last week, we visited a construction site where Frankie, Chloe’s dad was working. He had heard about our interest in the local construction at Ivanhoe Library and offered to give us a tour of the building site where the new Ritz Hotel is currently being built. It was a fantastic experience that included seeing how concrete is moved from the trucks at road level up to the higher levels, noticing all the signs and maps, and ending with a ride in the crane. 

Using Zoom, the girls joined from home, wearing hard hats and high visibility jackets. There were lots of great questions from the girls ranging from:

Frankie answered all the questions whilst climbing up ladders, checking in with people on site and staying safe himself. Thanks Frankie, we loved our excursion to the building site.

Bernadette Gioia
Director of the Early Learning Centre