HomeFootprints Sunnybank | Newsletter September 2017
From the Office:
Hi everyone, normally I don't do a segment from the office in the newsletter when the classes do theirs, but we have had a very exciting month here at Footprints and I just wanted to share with you all some of what has been happening.
Firstly at the end of July, we were fortunate to host a child care industry expert, Caroline Fewster to come to our centre and give us industry feedback on how we can work towards achieving a good result in our next round of assessment and rating. From this visit we have received a report and will be working closely on implementing the suggestions within the centre.
The first step that we have taken is by removing and purchasing new outdoor mats, these mats are eco friendly and easier to move and clean compared to the old mats we previously had. Room by room we will be doing the same. The Nursery classroom was the first classroom to receive new mats and we will work on the other rooms as the year goes by. This is just a start of what we are working on.
In the month of August we celebrated the centre's 8th birthday. We all enjoyed a combined centre birthday party to celebrate, complete with cake and balloons.
We hosted our popular movie night, where parents get to go and have a date night whilst we have fun watching movies. We all enjoyed the dinner and snacks that were provided as well, making Mums and Dad's jobs at getting the children here that evening much easier. Keep an eye out to see when our next one will be.
At the beginning of this month - Miss Shelly, Miss Alison, Miss Sharon and Miss Bernadette all completed their Auslan course that they have been attending every Tuesday night via Deaf Services Queensland. They have all enjoyed undertaking this course and the lessons and many signs they have learned from attending. Great work girls, we look forward to seeing you all demonstrate your signing skills.
At the beginning of this month, we hosted the a photographer who was here on behalf of the Department of Education and Training, who was taking photos of the children and educators (and even a few lucky parents), in the environment of a child care centre as we go through our day, these photos will be part of a campaign that they are putting together. Once the campaign is finalised and put together I look forward to sharing this with you all.
We also celebrated Early Childhood Educator's Day, thank you to all of the parents who took time to share messages on our Facebook page, the staff were just in awe of all your beautiful words. They truly help us to keep in check why we do what we do. Thank you.
Till next month,
With a smile :-)
Glenda
Please don't forget:
The centre has a Facebook page - please like and check this regularly as we find this is a great way to get information out to parents and the community quickly. Please feel free to interact with comments - we love to hear from you.
Parents, please also remember that in private groups on the Facebook page is your child's class. The daily reflection (the story of the day that the educators put up on their walls about the day with the pictures) is now available each day in these groups. This means you can read this and see the photos any time, anywhere - whether it be on the train home from work, or on the couch at midnight. To be able to see this, if you haven't already joined the group, you need to go to the main page, groups, find your child's group then send a join request.
Thank you to the parents who have shared such positive feedback in regards to having the daily reflections available online. We enjoy being able to share with you in more time friendly and accessible ways.
Dates to remember:
| SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER |
| Wednesday 6th - Early Childhood Educators Day | Monday 2nd - Public Holiday, Centre Closed |
| Wednesday 6th - Photo shoot with Department of Education and Training | Wednesday 4th - World Animal Day - activities TBA |
| Thursday 7th - Itty Bitty Stars Pirate Show | Thursday 19th - Diwali Show and festivities |
Next month we are looking forward to celebrating Diwali. Miss Amandeep and Miss Gurpal will be guiding these festivities as we will be celebrating a festival from their culture. One highlight of this is we have managed to secure a show on the celebration day to help make things more fun and festive. More information to come. Why do celebrate ? Who celebrates ? and how ? Read on to find out ...
Diwali or Deepavali is the Hindu festival of lights celebrated every year in autumn in the northern hemisphere (spring in southern hemisphere). It is an official holiday in Fiji, Guyana, India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and recently Sindh Province in Pakistan. One of the most popular festivals of Hinduism, it spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, knowledge over ignorance, and hope over despair. Its celebration includes millions of lights shining on housetops, outside doors and windows, around temples and other buildings in the communities and countries where it is observed. The festival preparations and rituals typically extend over a five-day period. In the Gregorian calendar, Diwali night falls between mid-October and mid-November. (WIKIPEDIA)
News from the Classrooms:
(click on each tab to open the newsletter from the class)
Happy Reading ...
Hello everyone,
Lots of things have been happening over the last two months, we have said goodbye and hello to some children.
Firstly, I would like to say thank you so much to Miss Sharon for being an awesome Assistant in Nursery, it was sad to see her move to Pre-Kindy but she still comes by and visits us so that is ok! She must MISS US! Also, we said goodbye to Jaxon, Taeao and Lionel who have moved up to the Toddler room, we would like wish them good luck!
Secondly, I would like to welcome some new children and their families to our Nursery room -Martin, Arya, Alissa, Haisleigh and Finn, we have been enjoying getting to know you guys more with each day, but we will be sad to see Martin go as it his last week this week, we will miss you Martin and wish you and your family all the best. Also, I would like to welcome in advance Tison and Alexandra who will be starting over the next few weeks.
Nursery Room has been so busy over the last two months which has been fantastic for the children as they have been enjoying learning lots of new things every day. It has been wonderful to see the children developing their confidence and from what I saw in the beginning when they first started to what they are now showing what they have in knowledge now, I can see all the children have been learning so much over the last two months and they are growing up so fast, it makes us feel so happy to see them developing/growing into successful little individuals - showing how much independent they are getting.
Over the last two months we have been focusing on with the learning:
- -Celebrating NAIDOC Week, the children enjoyed doing some artwork to help them celebrate.
- -Their drawing skills, along with different media types such as felt pen, crayon and chalk to encourage them to experience different media and to see how each makes different marks on the paper.
- -Encouraging the children to feel comfortable toward doing painting, as the children are still very curious with painting on paper and whether they use a brush or their hands. Using paint brushes helps the children to work on developing their fine motor skills and using their hands encourages the children to get used to different textures – using their touch senses
- -I hope you all had a great Father's Day, and hopefully you all enjoyed the gift from your child and had the most wonderful day.
Please remember to write down on the communication chart to keep updating us every day. Please label your child's items as sometimes things go missing, and or staff are unsure as to who what belongs to.
I would like to take time to say thank you to all of the parents for taking your time to communicate with me.
Also, I wanted to say thank you Miss Bernadette for stepping up to help Miss Hayley out in the Nursery to ensure the parents get what they need from the room when Miss Hayley isn't there or if I doesn't understand. Side note - the children love you Miss Bernadette!
Much Love
Miss Hayley.
Wow, what a big two months it has been; throughout the first half of July Miss Ria was away on holiday visiting family in Samoa for her brother's wedding, lucky girl having such a wonderful opportunity, so we had the chance to become more acquainted with Miss Gurpal (Pali) and Miss Sharon.
As the end of July approached we saw a change in educators with Miss Ria moving over to Kindergarten 1 and Miss Bernadette stepping into Toddlers in Miss Ria's place. We hadn't really spent heaps of time with Miss Bernadette except when we were outside or from combined experiences we had throughout the year. With the change of educators also came a change of friends, we welcomed Lucia, Lionel, Jaxon and Taeao as they transitioned up from the Nursery and goodbye to Abigail and Virajveer as they transitioned up to the Pre-Kindy room. Since moving up Lucia, Lionel, Jaxon and Taeao have settled into the room and slightly new routine very well and especially enjoying morning group time and all the different songs as well as welcoming all our friends.
In the past two weeks, we have welcomed two new friends into the Toddler room, Elliana and Zalia. Elliana is new to the centre and Zalia is returning after taking some time to be with her family, welcome girls and your families, we can't wait to get to know you better.
August saw us participating in some big events and celebrations. On Thursday 24 August, all children and educators combined in the Kindergarten 1 room for a massive afternoon party to celebrate the centre's 8th birthday. We had balloons and streamers everywhere. We celebrated with lots of singing, cake (it was gigantic) and icy poles. We followed up and ended the party with more dancing and balloon fun before heading back to our own rooms to continue the party.
As well as the party, we celebrated the centre's birthday with a Movie Fundraiser Night on 18 August. Thank you to all that came, it was a great night, everyone enjoyed snacking on sausages (vegie sticks – for the vegetarians) in bread and popcorn. We all enjoyed lounging around on the pillows with our friends and educators watching Moana. Some over the children enjoyed signing along to their favourite song throughout the movie.
Throughout August we got busy as we worked on our Father's Day (Special Loved One's) presents, we all enjoyed getting our hands messy as we created hand print impressions and painted a canvas with a special message. We love being able to show off our creative side any way we can.
Our project for September and October is to get the vegie patch up and running, please if you have any seeds, soil, pots, tools or anything else we could use to help get the vegie patch up and running, please don't hesitate to bring them in and pass onto Miss Bernadette or Miss Pali. Hopefully we will see growth and be able to use the vegies and herbs in the kitchen to accompany our lunches.
Until next time, if you have any questions or would like to have a chat with an educator please let us know and we will be happy to organise a time to suit.
Miss Bernadette and Miss Pali
Hello from the Pre-Kindy room,
Wow what I fun and exciting year it has been this year can you believe we only have 3 more months till the end of year and it will be Christmas again.
As some parents may know we have had changes to staff last month, where we had Miss Sharon come join us in the room, to which the children have adjusted well, while Miss Bernadette went next door to join the Toddler room as the Group Leader. We would like to make Miss Sharon welcome, and congratulate and wish Miss Bernadette well in her new room and position.
We would also like to welcome the new children that have moved up from the Toddler room to join us in the Pre-Kindy room, these children are - Virajveer and Abigail, while we welcomed these two, we had to say good bye to Shyloh and Chayse who have now moved up to the K1 room. Good Luck to you both in your new classroom.
The last couple of months and for the rest of the year we have been and will continue learning to help work on our alphabet and number recognition skills, which the children are showing great interest in attempting to learn.
The children have also been keen in their learning about healthy eating and helping to grow our very own vegie garden alongside with the children from the Toddler room. This also helps children learn more about how and where our food comes from.
We would like to also notify parents on how toilet training is going for the Pre-Kindy children – it is going well; however, we do need to remind parents that you do need to bring your own pull ups, spare clothes and undies to help with the children transition from their nappies to their undies. If you have any further questions about your child and toileting please feel free to come speak to Miss Catherine and Miss Sharon.
If any parent has any concerns regarding anything in the Pre-Kindy classroom, please feel free to speak to the Pre-Kindy educators.
We would also like to remind parents to please do not forget to pack your children spare clothes and their drink bottles every time your child attends Pre-Kindy, thank you for your support and co –operation, till next time.
Thank you
Miss Catherine & Miss Sharon
Hello and a big welcome to our new friends Iolanthe, Ethan, Ohood and Tiare to the Kindergarten 1 room and farewell to our friends Jermaine, Lily and Dallas who have been transitioned to our Kindergarten 2 room on the 21st of August.
It has been a great pleasure working in the Kindergarten 1 room for the last 2months alongside Miss Alison (again – I can't seem to run away from her haha) and the same children I worked with last year, it has also been challenging at times as well, but I am, like the children and Miss Alison, enjoying every moment of it.
The last two months has seen us learning our recognition charts, letters of the alphabet, letters in our names, letter our name starts with and also recognising our names anywhere we go, learning our numbers, ages, colours and working on our speech, long and short conversations, and some children of the class are confident in holding long conversations, while others are still in progress but we are getting better each and every day which is fantastic to hear.
Just want to say again a quick happy Father's Day to all our Dad's, Grandad's and Pops etc we hope you enjoyed your presents from your son/daughter... and Happy birthday to Footprints, we enjoyed celebrating in our classroom and felt priviledged our room was chosen to be the one everyone came together in and had a great time celebrating with singing songs with Miss Ria and celebrating and singing happy birthday to Jack, and Chayse and also singing Happy birthday to Devlyn for his birthday the next day. Then when the cake came out we all had to sing Happy Birthday again with Miss Glenda, we loved every moment. Especially when we got to eat the yummy cake and then when we finished go and dance – what a blast that afternoon was.
It has been a challenging month getting to know our friends developmental capabilities and skills, trying to find the children's interests and finding out each child's strengths and areas that need focusing on, and working together to create a plan to help them achieve their goals ... meanwhile, we have been learning with our recognition charts and helping some of our children with language barriers, learning disabilities and challenging behaviours, we are working very close with the families and parents to come to decisions and have solutions to solve any matters that crop up, we ask each families to please be patient and bear in mind we are doing our best to help our children and families.
We ask that you please make sure you read the label/tag that is attached to your child's bag and follow what is said on them accordingly, we are still having children come in with no hat and drink bottle and some with no shoes as these are needed and essential for the children to have every day all day, these are important basic things that the children require to help them get through their days here.
Also, could we ask you to please check your child's locker and bags before you go home for anything that does not belong to your child, if you find something that is not your child's could you please return the item back to the educators because we are having other families have their items go missing and please remember to label all your child's belongings so then educators can know what belongs to who and we won't have anything go missing.
We will also be starting to send out simple task sheets for you and your child to revise at home. We will be working on our recognition booklets from this month onwards, and last but not least if you have any toys or house hold items, dress up clothes you wish to get rid of, please don't throw them away, please donate them to the Kindergarten 1 room, we would love to take these items off your hands. (Only if they are still in good use)
For any other concerns or questions about the Kindergarten 1 room, please feel free to ask room staff Ria and Alison
Thank you Miss Ria and Miss Alison
What a month we have had in the Kindergarten 2 room. This month we have been very busy focusing on learning our letters and numbers through a play-based curriculum. What a very busy few weeks this month we have had celebrating birthdays. We would like to wish Jack, Devlyn, Kayne and Jett a very big happy birthday to you all and we hope you had a great day at Kindergarten 2 celebrating with your classmates. This month we also celebrated Footprints 8th Birthday with cake a party the children all had a fantastic time.
This month has been a little sad as Miss Sinead left us for two months to complete her prac in a big school. The children are missing you like crazy Miss Sinead, and they can't wait for you to come back. Miss Sinead also says she is having a fantastic time on prac and that she is learning a lot but she also misses her children. In the mean time Miss Dana is the assistant in the Kindergarten 2 room while Miss Sinead completes her prac so welcome Miss Dana.
We would also like to give a friendly reminder to parents now that it is getting warmer to please ensure your child has a hat and water bottle and suitable clothing for the weather in their bags. We would also just like to remind parents about the items that children should be bringing with them to Kindy each day including the aforementioned hat and water bottle, but also sheets, and spare clothes too. Parents also a reminder to please check your child's sunscreen to ensure they have enough as we are spending more time outside and applying sunscreen more. We would also just like to remind parents to place leave children's toys at home where they are safe.
This month we have been trialing an indoor/outdoor program two days a week. This program allows children to have a choice on which environment they wish to learn and play in.The children are able to complete the same learning experiences inside as they are outside which allows the child the freedom of choice which is an important aspect of children's learning. This week the children all decided to play outside but we still completed our learning activities we would normally do inside, just in the outdoor environment. The children had lots of fun using their imagination while engaging in play. The children also enjoyed getting messy with their painting while in the outside environment.
We have also been very busy with our letters and numbers. The children, during group time have been continuing to identify different letters and numbers. Over the last few months the children have been taking turns in changing the days of the week calendar, but also identifying the first letter of the day they are placing on our chart. The children have still been very busy learning to write the names in their books. Each day the children get their books and write their names we are all doing such a great job Kindy 2 your educators are very proud of how far you have come with your writing. The children have also been focusing their learning of numbers through play by using the number puzzles and also the number blocks. The children are also using their creative skills to represent letters and numbers that are around our room.
This month we had a movie night with all the children and staff from the centre. The children had a great night eating sausages for dinner and watching Moana. The children also enjoyed a little treat with popcorn throughout the movie, we all had a fantastic time.
We have had another very busy month working with the children to ensure they are ready for the transition to big school next year. We look forward to sharing more learning and fun experiences with you all throughout the next few months.
Miss Sharney and Miss Dana
Have a wonderful month everyone !
