🌼 September 2026
🌿 All Month
Biodiversity Month
Save the Koala Month
International Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
Footy Colours Day Month
📅 Weekly Focus
31 Aug–4 Sep — Teacher Aide Appreciation Week
1–7 Sep — National Superhero Week
6–12 Sep — National Child Protection Week
14–20 Sep — National Organic Week
14–20 Sep — Māori Language Week (Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori)
21–27 Sep — National Week of Deaf People
September 2026 Childcare Activities Calendar
Growing Together: Belonging, Wellbeing & Our Living World
September is a month for growing connections — with the people around us, with different cultures and ways of communicating, and with the living world children encounter every day.
This month's ECEC program brings together September events such as Early Childhood Educators' Day, Indigenous Literacy Day, National Child Protection Week, R U OK? Day, Māori Language Week, National Week of Deaf People, International Day of Sign Languages, Save the Koala Day and World Rivers Day.
Rather than creating a separate activity for every calendar event, we have grouped September's themes into four weekly learning journeys and one long-term project.
Children are invited to CREATE, DISCOVER, MOVE and CONNECT through art, science and STEM, nature, physical play, communication, culture and relationships.
The experiences are designed as flexible starting points for children aged 0–6 years and can be adapted to children's interests, abilities, family backgrounds and your own early childhood setting.
🌱 September Long-Term Project
Our Living World Investigation
How are people, plants, animals and our environment connected?
Let this investigation develop gradually throughout September.
Begin with a small discovery space containing soil, seeds, plants, magnifying glasses, natural materials and photographs or books about local wildlife.
Then let children's questions help determine what comes next.
Perhaps children notice the first shoots emerging from the soil. Someone discovers an insect outside. A conversation about Threatened Species Day may lead to bilbies. Save the Koala Day might inspire questions about trees and habitats.
Add children's discoveries, drawings, photographs, measurements and questions as the project develops.
🌿 Ideas to Grow the Project
Children could:
- plant and care for seeds
- observe roots, leaves and new growth
- measure and compare plants
- investigate soil, flowers, leaves and insects
- photograph discoveries outdoors
- investigate koalas, bilbies and other Australian wildlife
- explore what animals need in their habitats
- design and build animal shelters
- investigate water and air
- create nature-inspired artwork
- explore environmental changes
- discuss ways people can care for living things
- contribute questions to an “I Wonder…” board
The project brings together science, STEM, art, mathematics, literacy, sustainability and environmental responsibility while allowing children's curiosity to influence the direction of the learning.
🌼 Week 1 — Celebrating Who Helps Us Grow
Calendar connections: National Wattle Day • Early Childhood Educators' Day • National Health & Physical Education Day • Indigenous Literacy Day • Father's Day
Children's identities grow through relationships with family, educators, community, culture and place.
This week celebrates the people who support children while also introducing September's exploration of growth and Australia's natural environment.
🎨 Experience 1 — People + Place: Our Community Artwork
CREATE + CONNECT
Begin with conversations about the people and places that are important to the children.
Provide an open-ended collection of:
photographs • mirrors • drawing materials • paint • collage • recycled materials • natural materials
Instead of everyone completing the same artwork, invite children to contribute something to a growing community installation.
A child might paint their family. Another might draw an educator. Someone else might create their house, favourite park or a place they visit with a grandparent.
National Wattle Day can provide another connection to place by introducing wattle, Australian plants and natural colours and textures.
👶 For Babies & Toddlers 0–2
Explore mirrors, familiar photographs, sensory painting and mark-making.
Educators can name familiar people and respond to children's pointing, sounds, gestures and facial expressions.
🧒 For Children 3–6
Encourage children to represent people and places that matter to them.
Ask:
Who helps you grow?
Where do you feel that you belong?
What do you like doing together?
Record children's words alongside their creations.
Learning: identity • belonging • visual art • relationships • language • community
🔬 Experience 2 — What Does a Plant Need to Grow?
DISCOVER — SCIENCE + STEM
Spring provides the perfect opportunity for a real growing investigation.
Plant seeds and investigate what happens when plants experience different conditions.
Children might compare:
☀️ sunlight and shade
💧 more and less water
🌱 different types of seeds
🪴 different growing locations
👶 For Babies & Toddlers 0–2
Allow children to scoop soil, water plants, smell herbs and safely explore leaves and flowers.
Focus on sensory language such as:
wet • dry • soft • rough • green • little • big
🧒 For Children 3–6
Introduce a simple scientific process:
PREDICT → PLANT → OBSERVE → MEASURE → RECORD → COMPARE
Children can document changes using drawings, photographs or a simple growth chart.
Ask:
What do you think will happen?
What is happening underneath the soil?
Do all plants grow at the same speed?
What changed since yesterday?
Keep the plants growing throughout September as part of the Our Living World Investigation.
💛 Week 2 — Safe, Strong & Connected
Calendar connections: Threatened Species Day • International Literacy Day • R U OK? Day • Bravehearts Day • World First Aid Day • National Bilby Day
Children learn best when they feel safe, secure, respected and heard.
This week gently explores emotions, relationships and children's voices before extending the idea of safety to the natural world.
If people need safe places to live and grow, what do animals need?
🎨 Experience 1 — My Safe & Happy Place
CREATE + CONNECT
Invite children to think about a place where they feel happy, comfortable or connected.
Provide:
drawing • paint • clay • collage • blocks • construction materials • loose parts
Children decide how they would like to represent their place.
It might be their bedroom, childcare centre, grandparent's house, garden, beach, cubby, park — or somewhere entirely imaginary.
👶 For Babies & Toddlers 0–2
Use familiar photographs, comfort objects, family images and simple emotional language.
Educators can respond to children's non-verbal communication and talk about familiar people and routines.
🧒 For Children 3–6
Ask:
What makes this place special?
Who is there with you?
How does being there make you feel?
Who can you talk to when you need help?
The focus remains on children's voice and expression, rather than producing a particular product.
Learning: wellbeing • identity • emotional literacy • communication • agency • relationships
🐾 Experience 2 — Build a Safe Home for a Bilby
DISCOVER — SCIENCE + STEM + ENGINEERING
Use National Bilby Day and Threatened Species Day to introduce a design challenge.
First investigate bilbies.
Where do they live?
What is their environment like?
Why do they need shelter?
Then ask:
Can we design a safe habitat for a bilby?
Provide blocks, cardboard, tubes, sand, sticks, stones, recycled materials and natural loose parts.
Follow an early engineering process:
ASK → IMAGINE → BUILD → TEST → CHANGE → BUILD AGAIN
If the structure falls over, resist immediately fixing it.
Ask:
What happened?
Why do you think it fell?
What could make it stronger?
Mistakes become part of the investigation.
👶 For Babies & Toddlers 0–2
Create a sensory Australian-animal environment using safe natural materials, tunnels, sand and animal figures.
Explore inside/outside, hiding, digging and movement.
🧒 For Children 3–6
Encourage children to consider stability, shelter, entrances, materials, shade and protection from weather.
🏃 MOVE — Bilby Habitat Trail
Extend the investigation outdoors.
Children can:
crawl • dig • jump • balance • carry • climb • navigate
Now science, engineering and physical development become part of the same learning experience.
🌏 Week 3 — Languages, Cultures & Caring for Our World
Calendar connections: Māori Language Day • Ganesh Chaturthi • International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer • Australian Citizenship Day • World Cleanup Day
Children encounter different languages, traditions, foods, celebrations and ways of communicating within their families and communities.
This week provides opportunities to explore diversity and belonging while investigating our relationship with food, land and the environment.
🎨 Experience 1 — Patterns Around Our World
CREATE — ART + MATHEMATICS + CULTURE
Start outside.
Go on a pattern hunt.
Look for repetition, lines, shapes and symmetry in:
🌿 leaves
🌼 flowers
🌳 trees
🐚 natural objects
🏠 buildings
👕 textiles
🧱 construction
🔷 everyday objects
Photograph interesting discoveries and create a Pattern Gallery.
Then provide paint, loose parts, printing materials, drawing materials and blocks so children can create patterns of their own.
👶 For Babies & Toddlers 0–2
Explore repetition through colour, movement, music, shapes and sensory mark-making.
🧒 For Children 3–6
Investigate:
pattern • sequence • symmetry • repetition • line • shape • colour
Encourage children to explain the rules behind their patterns.
When introducing patterns connected with particular cultures, provide meaningful cultural context rather than asking children to copy sacred or culturally significant designs.
Learning: creativity • mathematics • observation • culture • visual literacy • design
🌱 Experience 2 — From Soil to Table
DISCOVER — SCIENCE + STEM + SUSTAINABILITY
Ask:
Where does our food actually come from?
Investigate the journey:
SEED → SOIL → PLANT → FOOD → SCRAPS → COMPOST → SOIL
Examine fruits and vegetables.
Where are their seeds?
Are all seeds alike?
Plant herbs or vegetables and compare their growth.
Where appropriate, introduce composting and observe what happens to food scraps over time.
👶 For Babies & Toddlers 0–2
Smell herbs, explore vegetables, water plants and investigate safe natural textures.
🧒 For Children 3–6
Sort and compare seeds, predict what might grow, measure plants and document changes.
Ask:
Which seed is biggest?
Which plant grew fastest?
What happens to food scraps?
Can something we throw away become useful again?
💨 Mini Science Investigation — Can We Catch Air?
For Ozone Day, investigate something children experience every day but cannot see.
Experiment with:
bubbles • balloons • wind streamers • pinwheels • feathers
Ask:
Can we see air?
Can we feel it?
Can air move something?
Does air take up space?
🤟 Week 4 — Every Voice Belongs
Calendar connections: International Day of Peace • World Gratitude Day • World Rhino Day • International Day of Sign Languages • Chuseok • Save the Koala Day • Mid-Autumn Festival • World Rivers Day
Children communicate in many ways.
Speech is only one of them.
Children use gestures, signs, facial expressions, pictures, movement, drawing, music and play to express their needs, ideas and identities.
This week's experiences celebrate communication and inclusion while giving children another opportunity to investigate the science hiding within everyday life.
🎨 Experience 1 — Hands That Communicate
CREATE + CONNECT
Begin with:
Can we communicate without talking?
Experiment with facial expressions, gestures, pictures and movement.
Using appropriate Auslan resources, educators can introduce selected signs relevant to children's everyday lives.
Children can trace, draw, print or photograph their hands and contribute them to a collaborative:
EVERY VOICE BELONGS
installation.
👶 For Babies & Toddlers 0–2
Focus on gestures, facial expressions, songs with actions and appropriate everyday signs.
Notice how babies already communicate through eye contact, movement, pointing, sounds and expressions.
🧒 For Children 3–6
Experiment with communicating a message without speech.
Can another child understand it?
What happens if you use a picture?
A gesture?
A sign?
Learning: communication • inclusion • empathy • identity • visual art • belonging
🔬🎵 Experience 2 — Can We See Sound?
DISCOVER — SCIENCE + STEM + MUSIC
Turn music into a science laboratory.
Explore sound and vibration using safe materials such as:
drums • elastic bands • containers • instruments • tapping materials • rice or other suitable materials for observing vibration
Encourage children to look, listen and feel.
Ask:
Where does the sound come from?
What is vibrating?
Can you feel sound?
Can sound move something?
What changes when you tap harder?
Why do different materials sound different?
🛠️ STEM Challenge — Build an Instrument
Now introduce a design problem:
Can you build something that makes a sound?
Provide recycled and open-ended materials.
Children move through:
ASK → IMAGINE → CREATE → TEST → LISTEN → IMPROVE
A first attempt might not work.
That is useful.
Children can change the material, shape, size, tension or construction and test it again.
This one investigation brings together science, engineering, art, music, creativity and problem-solving.
🏃 MOVE
Finish with movement.
Can children move differently to fast, slow, loud, soft, high and low sounds?
Children could even create movement instructions for one another using the instruments they designed.
🎨🔬🏃💬 How We Learn This September
Across the month, children's experiences move naturally between four interconnected ways of learning:
🎨 CREATE
Art • imagination • making • music • representation • design
🔬 DISCOVER
Science • STEM • nature • experiments • investigation • engineering • problem-solving
🏃 MOVE
Physical play • coordination • sensory exploration • gardening • movement • outdoor learning
💬 CONNECT
Language • literacy • culture • identity • relationships • communication • wellbeing
These aren't four separate areas children need to complete.
A child constructing a bilby habitat, for example, might research what a bilby needs, draw a plan, carry blocks, negotiate with friends, test the structure and redesign it after it collapses.
One meaningful experience can support many areas of learning at once.
📘 EYLF V2.0 Connections
Outcome 1 — Children have a strong sense of identity
Children explore family, community, belonging, agency, safety and their own ways of communicating.
Outcome 2 — Children are connected with and contribute to their world
Children investigate culture, biodiversity, sustainability, Australian wildlife, inclusion and caring for environments.
Outcome 3 — Children have a strong sense of wellbeing
Children explore emotional wellbeing, relationships, safety, movement and healthy environments.
Outcome 4 — Children are confident and involved learners
Children investigate, predict, experiment, design, measure, problem-solve and revise their ideas.
Outcome 5 — Children are effective communicators
Children use conversation, storytelling, art, signs, movement, music, photographs and documentation to express and exchange ideas.
🏡 NQS Connections
QA1 — Educational Program and Practice
Children's interests and questions can influence the direction of experiences, while educators use intentional teaching to extend thinking and learning.
QA2 — Children's Health and Safety
Experiences support wellbeing, physical activity, children's voices and age-appropriate understandings of safety.
QA3 — Physical Environment
Natural materials, outdoor investigation, sustainable practices and flexible learning spaces encourage exploration and discovery.
QA5 — Relationships with Children
Responsive interactions, collaboration, children's agency and respectful communication support secure relationships.
QA6 — Collaborative Partnerships with Families and Communities
Family knowledge, culture, home languages and community experiences can become meaningful parts of the program.
💭 Reflect & Extend
At the end of September, consider:
- What captured the children's curiosity?
- What did they return to independently?
- What questions emerged?
- Where did children change our original plan?
- Which experiments encouraged the most problem-solving?
- How did children communicate their ideas in different ways?
- What learning should continue into October?
The most valuable outcome may not be the activity you originally planned.
It might be the question a child asks halfway through it.
Plan the invitation. Follow the curiosity. Extend the learning.
🌿 September at a Glance
Monthly Project: Our Living World Investigation
Week 1: Celebrating Who Helps Us Grow
🎨 People + Place: Our Community Artwork
🔬 What Does a Plant Need to Grow?
Week 2: Safe, Strong & Connected
🎨 My Safe & Happy Place
🐾 Build a Safe Home for a Bilby
Week 3: Languages, Cultures & Caring for Our World
🎨 Patterns Around Our World
🌱 From Soil to Table
Week 4: Every Voice Belongs
🤟 Hands That Communicate
🔬 Can We See Sound? + Build an Instrument
Monthly learning:
🎨 CREATE • 🔬 DISCOVER • 🏃 MOVE • 💬 CONNECT