Box of educational resources

Overview

The box of educational resources offers early childhood professionals delivering a Three-Year-Old Kindergarten program the opportunity to engage with a range of specifically selected hard copy resources, tip sheets, posters, books and online professional learning vouchers.

Several resources included in the box are also freely available online via these pages or this order form(opens in a new window), while some others are only available to be purchased in hard copy, direct from suppliers.

All services in Victoria delivering funded Three-Year-Old Kindergarten have now been sent a Teaching Toolkit Box of Educational Resources. The box of educational resources is designed to be a shared resource for teaching teams delivering Three-Year-Old Kindergarten and is strictly limited to one per service due to the significant cost of the resources. No further boxes are available. It is not available to the public or for purchase.

The box of resources was developed through consultation with sector experts and is intended to provide practical support and resources to teachers and educational teams as they deliver funded Three-Year-Old Kindergarten. All resources align to the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF).

The box of educational resources divided is into six critical areas:

1. Reflective practice – program planning and practice
2. Assessment for learning – younger children's development
3. Wellbeing – executive function and self-regulation, secure transitions, routines
4. Communication – oral language, literacy and numeracy
5. Environments for learning – inclusion, physical spaces, materials
6. Collaborative partnerships – with families and other professionals.

Unpacking the box of educational resources

A toolkit navigator document (PDF)(opens in a new window) lists all of the resources in the box of educational resources and provides a short description of each item.

The box of educational resources video(opens in a new window) provides information on what’s contained in the box and ideas for how to best use these resources.

Online versions of many of the teaching toolkit resources are freely available through links provided on these pages. See ‘connection to the box of educational resources’ on each critical area page.

Limited hard copies of the following resources may still be available via the order form:

• Letters to Carla (reflective practice)
• Powerful interactions: How to connect with children to extend their learning (reflective practice)
• Birth and beyond: Meaningful practice for babies and toddlers (reflective practice)
• Child development: The developing child, communicating skilfully and nurturing competent learners (assessment for learning)
• Health and wellbeing: Growing and developing physical and emotional wellbeing (assessment for learning)
• Everyday learning series: Executive function in the early years (assessment for learning)
• Secure transitions: Supporting children to feel secure, confident and included (wellbeing)
• Children’s imagination: Creativity under our noses (environments for learning)
• Just discover! series student pack - 1 pack = 4 books (environments for learning)
• Making links: Parent partners (collaborative partnerships).

Alternatively, resources can be sourced via local libraries or purchased from bookshops or directly from suppliers.

Ideas for using the box of educational resources with your team

There are many ways to engage with the box of educational resources. It is intended to be a set of resources for early childhood professionals to draw on over time to support high-quality practice.

Suggestions for engaging with the box of educational resources:

• consider the topics you would like to focus on and explore these in detail
• establish opportunities for focused reading and discussion with your colleagues at your kindergarten service regarding a particular resource or one of the critical areas within the box of educational resources
• take your time with the resources and revisit them periodically
• explore the relationship between a resource and your practice (e.g. what challenged you, what excited you and what might you consider implementing in your classroom?)
• consider undertaking an inquiry project based on one of the resources (e.g. what does literacy in the everyday look like with a group of three-year-old children?).