Footprints Sunnybank | March News

 Dates to Remember:

 Please remember to check our Facebook page and be up to date with centre information. 

 From the Rooms:

 NURSERY

Welcome to the 2018 schooling year, its hard to believe that we are already in March.

It has been a big few months in the Nursery room, we said goodbye to all our older Nursery friends as they transitioned up to the Toddler room, we also said goodbye to Miss Hayley who has moved into the Toddler room. It has been lots of fun getting to know each other as we continue to learn and grow. We have all settled into our individual routines and are becoming very confident with being able to communicate our needs, we have also been working on our Auslan communication, especially with the words such as - finish, milk, eat, nappy to help communicate these needs. If you would like to learn some Auslan please don't hesitate to come and ask, we are more than happy to help accommodate and teach you.

In January we welcomed our new friend, Cruz, and his family to the centre, it has been great getting to knew them and seeing how well Cruz has settled into the room.

This year so far, we have been focusing on our gross motor skills and our movement and balance (e.g. walking, crawling, sitting up, tummy time), we have made significant progress and are showing more confidence in our ability to move and support ourselves. We have also been working on developing and expressing our interests, so far, we have seen a major interest in balls and how they move and exploring our senses (sensory bottles, sensory toys). As the month continues we will be exploring more possible interests as our identities are continuously expanding and developing, as well as further developing our movement and balance as we take the next sets in our growth.

Up coming dates in the Nursery room:

29/03/2018 - Nursery Easter afternoon tea, keep an eye on your family pockets for more information and invites (made by us)

20/03/2018 - Visit from Sargent Donna Steel (Acacia Ridge Police Station) as we learn about safety and our neighbours (community) (Neighbour Day 25/03/2018)

Keep checking out the Facebook page for all our daily stories and photos.

If you would like us to include anything in our room program or our daily routines, please don't hesitate to come and talk with Miss Bernadette.

Until next time, Miss Bernadette, Alexandra, Cruz and Kaleb 

 TODDLERS

I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you. My name is Miss Rupa and I am your children's group leader in the Toddler room this year, taking over from Miss Hayley who has sadly left us to pursue other employment opportunities. I am looking forward to meeting all of my Toddlers parents/guardians. Any questions regarding your child or anything related to the room/centre please don't hesitate to come and see me.

We have had a very busy couple of weeks helping the children to settle into the room, and they have been great in helping me to get used to their routine. Getting to know them individually and getting used to the room has been great. Having a close attachment with children and educators has a main focus for us, as it is very important that the children feel safe and confident with their new carers and builds a close loving bond.

The Toddlers love to explore new sensory materials. We have a science table in the room. The container on the science table is filled with soil and some small plants for the children to see and explore. Recently the children have been experimenting with soil, sand, water and different colours of paints. Everyone had fun getting messy with the paint, using our hands to spread the paint over the paper, creating some wonderful masterpieces. The children are learning through early exploration of the senses and are acquiring skills with problem solving, language development, cooperative and collaborative play as well as eye hand coordination.

Home corner play is always a popular choice for the Toddlers the children enjoy role play with the dolls in the house. They initiate and join in play, creativity, imagination. They communicate and enjoy shared play experiences often imitating real life experiences with each other.

Self-help skills – the educators are working with the children to practice on how to hold a pencil or draw some lines on the paper. Children are also recognising their pictures on the water bottle table to place their water bottles where they belong.

The centre will be organising an afternoon tea for the children parents/guardian for the Easter Celebration. Hope to see you all for our Easter celebrations at the centre.

Kind regards,

Miss Rupa & Miss Alison

 JUNIOR KINDY

 Hello and Welcome to a new year!

Welcome to all the new children that have joined us in our room this year and welcome to the children that have moved up in the Junior Kindy room.

What a nice start to the year as the children are getting to know the new room and to their teachers for the year. The children have showed how well and how quick they have settled in as well and show how well they are getting to know their room routines and how they are very interested in what is being taught to them.

The children in this room also show how much they really enjoy their dancing with each other and ask their teachers to always put music on for them. As the children are also showing a great interest in dinosaurs we have made for our sciences are dinosaur land were children are enjoying role playing and are able to tell their teachers what the dinosaurs names are.

The Junior Kindy children are also showing how well they are getting the hang of toilet training, we also like to take the opportunity to remind parents to also please not to forget to pack the children spare clothes and undies as they are learning and will have accidents.

In the Junior Kindy room the children have also been learning the alphabet and numbers and slowly working on learning how to recognise their numbers and letters to which the children will be focusing this month and we will also be getting the children ready for their Easter time this month as well lots of fun.

We do encourage parents to also feel free if you have any concerns to feel free to speak to Miss Catherine or Miss Sharon. 

Till next month,

Miss Catherine and Miss Sharon

 SENIOR KINDY

 First, I would like to welcome all the families to our Senior Kindy room for 2018. An extended welcome is due also to all our new families who they have just joined the Footprints family. It was nice to see you all after the holidays. In the upcoming months, I would like to invite all the parents to contribute their ideas and suggestions into all the aspects of the operation of our centre, so we will work together and ensure that we are always providing the care and education that you are happy with,  ensuring we are all the on the same page.

Now, we are working on our social and emotional skills. We are getting to know each other,  our friends and our educators in our room. We all worked together to settle well into our new class and routines and now the children are very attached to their new educators and friends, all settled and enjoying being a part of Senior Kindy 2018. 

We have also been focusing on our personal hygiene and well being over the last couple of weeks. The children have been having discussions about the hand washing procedure and why we must wash our hands before and after each meal, after using the bathroom and blowing our noses, most importantly. We are very busy each and every day with our daily routines and our learning. The children enjoy all learning and are coming along well - they love to work and play together which has been great to see.

On 26^th of January, which was Australia Day, the children were wearing clothes with Australian flags on them and we were celebrating Australia day. We also celebrated Chinese New Year with wearing red clothes. On the 2^nd of March it was an Indian culture festival called Holi, which is a festival of colours, the children loved to do art work for Holi and Miss Amandeep told the children all about Holi festival - how Indian people celebrate and why? All the children were showing great interest in listening to the story behind it all. We respect all the cultures and share their values and aspects with children.

Could I please ask parents to please bring your children's bed sheets and spare clothes as we don't have spare clothes in the centre anymore because of our policy. If your child requires spare clothes during their time here and they are not in their bags, we will have to contact you and get you to bring them in, to avoid this happening, please ensure you pack a few sets of spare clothes in your child's bag each and every time they attend the centre. Also, please check the sunscreen list on the class door to see if your child needs new sunscreen brought in. All the children are settled in the new class and are used to with their routines. We value and encourage to the families please share your children's interests with us so we can include in our curriculum so that we can provide more opportunities in the early years. if you have any concerns please see Myself Miss Amandeep and Miss Pali.

Thanks Miss Amandeep and Miss Gurpal (Pali)

 KINDERGARTEN

 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the news letter from the Footprints Kindergarten room.

We are all settled in and in full swing for 2018.

In our afternoon session we have started doing a singing class. This is a great way for all of the children to singing with their friends but is also remember the words of the songs as Miss Sinead is slowly turning the music down. We have learnt so far "how far I'll go", "tale as old as time", "let it go" and "go the distance".

To develop children's literacy skills within this room the children are interested in reading their favourite books that are on the book shelf. The children are very interested at looking at all of the different types of dinosaurs and all the animals that had lived a very long time ago. The children were very fascinated with how different the animals looked and the names that they had. 

We also have been working on our writing skills by writing on a white board. This is a great tip as is the children make a mistake they are able to rub it out and start over again.

We also in the class have started to learn how to slow dance with our friends. This was a great way for all of the children to work together as Miss Sinead switches who is with whom. We sort of learnt how to do the box step and how to spin our partner under the arm. 

This month we have started to work out different problems that we may be faced with. Our first problem we had was what does an anchor do and how does it work. To work this problem out Miss Sinead went and got a bucket of water and showed us using a bottle and heavy weight. At first Miss Sinead asked us after she put the bottle in the water what will happen if she moved the water around. All of us thought that the bottle would stay where she put it, but GUESS WHAT????? It  moved all around the water. Then we watch as Miss Sinead put a weight on the end to make an anchor, we found out that it did move a little bit but not as much as the bottle without the weight did.

After seeing how it worked Miss Sinead asked all us that were here to go see who could make a boat that could float on top of the water using the small Lego. Miss Sinead waited and watched some of our boats started to sink really fast, but it wasn't until Miss Sinead showed each boat that was sinking why, some of us had it way to heavy on one side of our boats so it sank, others we put way to much blocks on so the boat was just way to heavy. This activity was a great way for the children to go and test their theories that they were coming up with and when it didn't work to try and solve the problem.

After doing this the next problem that we were face with was the magic milk trick. Make sure you ask your child how that one turned out.

Till next month,

Miss Sinead and Miss Eseta