Building Independence, Confidence and Foundation Skills.
At Mi Kids Warriewood, our Junior Preschool Room caters for children aged 2.5 to 3.5 years, supporting them to build the independence, confidence, and foundation skills they need to thrive in the Senior Preschool Room and beyond.
Our Junior Preschool environment is warm, welcoming, and engaging, with thoughtfully designed spaces that encourage children to explore, learn, and build strong relationships with peers and educators. The program focuses on developing self-help skills, social-emotional learning, and communication, providing children with the tools they need for lifelong learning.
Program Focus
In our Junior Preschool Room, children are supported to:
Take part in our Finger Gym Program, building fine motor strength, coordination, and control to support self-help tasks such as feeding and dressing, as well as pre-writing skills essential for Senior Preschool learning.
Strengthen communication skills, using both verbal and non-verbal cues to express needs, ideas, and emotions confidently.
Build emotional awareness, learning to label their feelings, regulate emotions, and display empathy towards others – important skills for group learning in Senior Preschool.
Participate in structured, teacher-directed sessions, developing listening skills, turn-taking, and the ability to follow simple instructions, laying the groundwork for more formal learning experiences.
Engage in daily reading sessions, fostering a love of books, early literacy, and language development.
Develop gross motor skills through physical activities, creative projects, and sensory experiences that build coordination and confidence for more complex physical challenges in the Senior Preschool Room.
Program Features
Physical milestone development to support coordination, balance, and body confidence.
Self-Help Program, fostering independence in daily routines such as toileting, dressing, and feeding.
Finger Gym Program to build hand strength and fine motor control for everyday tasks and future writing skills.
Mini excursions within the local area, including nature walks and library visits, broadening understanding of the community and building confidence for larger excursions in preschool.
Art Program with access to the art studio and guidance from our art educator for sensory and creative projects.
Yoga Program to build body awareness, balance, relaxation, and mindfulness skills.
Multiple Intelligences Programs, catering to different learning styles and strengths.
Keyword Signing Program, supporting communication for all children, including those developing verbal skills.
Happy Feet: Weekly visits from Miss Teela for creative music and movement sessions, introducing rhythm, dance, and imaginative movement in fun and engaging ways.
Multicultural Language Exposure, with educators sharing their mother languages to broaden children’s cultural awareness.
Child Safety Program
Our Child Safety Program underpins all Junior Preschool programs, fostering a culture of safety, trust, and respect. Children learn about body autonomy, personal safety, and protective behaviours, ensuring they feel secure, valued, and confident in all learning environments.
Inclusion Support
Our Wellbeing Support Educator and working together with Care Connect Inclusion Support to work alongside families and educators to cater to the individual needs of each child, providing:
Additional guidance, information, and strategies to support their learning and development.
Connections to external services and therapists where needed, ensuring holistic support.
Family workshops and programs such as Triple P Parenting, empowering families with practical tools to support their child’s social and emotional growth.
At Mi Kids, our Junior Preschool Room equips children with the social, emotional, physical, and foundational learning skills they need to move into the Senior Preschool Room with confidence, curiosity, and happiness, ready to thrive in their next stage of learning.
Preschool Room Facilities
Custom-designed learning areas
Low-lying mirrors, sink and fridge so children can collect their morning tea or afternoon tea with educator assistance.
Lots of prompting and facilitation
Smart board to practice writing and enrich the program
Preschoolers can access the art studio, so children can create with the guidance of the art educator
Open areas in the room and outside for yoga
Rooms and outdoor areas are set up to cater to different learning styles.
Outside we have a music corner, a nature corner, water hand pump for the sandpit.
Plenty of books and reading time for inquisitive minds.
Optimising Time Spent with Educators
Our first and foremost priority is putting our children first and providing them with quality care. To achieve this we believe in optimising the time educators have with each child through increasing the educator to child ratio in each room. Also for educators to be more present with each child we are restricting documentation for daily learning to be only a reflective journal for the day with meaningful photos. We strongly believe children will benefit more with educators being with them in the present moment and are tailoring our system to allow staff to concentrate on achieving this.
Free play and child-directed learning opportunities.
Settling In
We always put the child’s needs first and to ensure children settle in, we actively encourage consecutive day attendance, with a minimum of 2 consecutive days preferred. We find that having consecutive days assists with the children seeing familiar faces each day, which greatly assists with the settling in process. However, we understand the individual needs of each family and always take this into consideration when dealing with attendances.
Mi Kids has an orientation process which enables children to visit our centre for short periods of time, before their actual first day in their room, to assist them meeting their educators and new friends. We strongly suggest that each child has at least two orientation sessions before they commence. We welcome you to phone in and check on how your child is settling into Mi Kids and we fully understand that you may need to call for re-assurance at anytime.
Exploring with light and different objects.
Ongoing Support and Involvement
Our early childhood educators provide an ongoing record of children’s learning and development and families are encouraged to access this information. We will continually discuss with families our observations and together with families set out short-term and long-term goals for their child’s growth and development. Also the educators will discuss the learning styles that their child is strong in using Gardner’s theory. Throughout the year there will be educational summaries and milestone checklist reports provided to families to show their child is meeting the goals set.
All meals are prepared onsite by our co-owner and cook, Isara Crea. Meals are child-friendly, nutritious, and filled with hidden vegetables for peace of mind. Some meals are prepared with children’s assistance as part of our cooking program, fostering early food literacy and self-help skills.
At Mi Kids, our Nursery and Toddler Room is a warm, nurturing space where babies and toddlers are supported to grow, explore, and build the foundation skills they need to thrive in the Junior Preschool Room and beyond.
