April 2017

Nursery 1

We would like to send a huge welcome to all of our new families and friends starting with us recently. We are very keen to build a fantastic relationship with you all. We have been all enjoying outdoor play on the veranda, crawling through the tunnels, playing with pull along toys and riding on toy cars. We also love practising our passing, rolling and catching with the balls.

We are still encouraging self-help skills with some of the older children. We are doing this by encouraging them to put water bottles into basket, washing their own hands and by helping to pack away the toys after finishing play. We are very excited when we are listening to stories, singing a song and dancing to music in a variety of group times.

Please note that under the Health and Safety Regulations, we must ask parents to ensure that your child's bottles and formula containers are clearly labelled with your child's name. In addition, please make sure that morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea is placed in the basket in the fridge when you unpack your bag.

If you have any queries or would like to have a chat about your child, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are looking forward to hearing from you.

Miss Jasmine, Miss Chrystal and Margaret.

Toddler 1

Having fun with Shaving Cream

Firstly we would like to welcome Harrison and Fletcher who have recently joined us from the Nursery Room. We hope you guys enjoy your time with us making wonderful memories. From Sein and myself we hope you all had a wonderful Easter and enjoyed the long weekend. Over the past few weeks we have enjoyed lots of messy play: Goop and Shaving Cream play in particular. Although some of us were a little reluctant at first we all seemed to enjoy these activities in the end. At group time we have a blast singing and learning new songs, learning our body parts, learning colours and how to say our friend's names. Please remember if you would like to come and spend some time in our room you are more than welcome to.

Miss Hayley and Miss Sein

Toddler 2

We have had a very busy couple of months, the children painted clover leaves and dressed in green to celebrate St. Patrick's day as well as Harmony Day. The children have continued with their Jungle theme, reading stories about animals in the jungle and singing jungle songs as well as painting and collaging jungle animals.

We have been concentrating on learning our colours, shapes and counting. This is coming along quite well, we read books about colours, shapes and sang counting and colour songs like the Rainbow song, 1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive, 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed.The children are enjoying mat time

Joining in with our stories and singing.

This month we have been getting ready for Easter by painting and collaging

Easter artwork, making Easter Baskets and hats, reading some great Easter

Books and singing Easter Songs.

Our next theme will be Under the Sea, so keep an eye out for sea creatures popping up around the room.If you have any suggestions to help us with this theme, please feel free to let Cristina or myself know so we can include them in our program.

I have added new photos of your beautiful children to our photo wall so please if you have time, stop and have a look.

These photos will be sent home at the end of the year.

Miss Veronica and Miss Cristina

Junior Kindy

Hi all and welcome to another monthly newsletter for Junior Kindy. We have all been very busy bees these past few months.

It's crazy to think that it's already Easter, where has this year gone? The children have enjoyed the different Easter activities we have incorporated this past month, through different art works – to encourage creativity, a bunny race – to encourage turn taking and various Easter books and songs – to encourage wonder and curiosity.

On a daily basis, we continue to incorporate numbers, shapes, colour and letters throughout the children's play and also at group time by singing different songs with the children.

During group time, we have been working on self-identification and recognising ourselves through song and photos. The children's favourite song to sing at transition time is 'Bee Bee Bumble Bee' as it is a fun way for the children to recognise themselves but also to recognise their friends' names as well.

Over this past month, we have had a few children take the big step and start to toilet train. Miss Carly and I are so proud of how the children are going with their toilet training. If you are considering to start toilet training please do not hesitate in coming to us and asking your questions.

As we move into the colder months we would like to remind you all to name all of your child's belongings, as we would hate for them to go missing, especially jumpers when they get taken off.

Until next time,

Miss Steph and Miss Carly

Kindy Room

Fine Motor Skills in Use

Wow what a busy 3 months we have had already in the Kindy Room. Nittaya and I have been guiding the children with their growing independence toileting and self-help skills. Boy they have been doing a fantastic job. We have also been touching bases on colour, listening within the room and our cutting skills using scissors.

Recognition of our names is beginning to show. This is thanks to our personalised photo name tags. As a result, our locker tags are also going to change to the photo name recognition.This will help the children understand the connection between pictures and name even more.

The children have really been interested in using their fine motor skills by playing dress ups with baby dolls and playing with vehicles.To further extend on these learning ideas we are going to focus on transport over the coming weeks.This will range from sound puzzle stones, pre-writing and initiated play.Hopefully the children will find this interesting, as well as fun.

Until next newsletter "Take Care and Be Safe"!!!!!

Miss Julie and Miss Nittaya

Preschool 2

Hi and welcome to another Preschool newsletter, the year is just passing by so quickly it's hard to believe that we have just enjoyed the refreshing break of Easter with our families.

In the Preschool 2 room the children have been busy building and reforming relationships with peers as they find their place within the room whilst becoming familiar with routines and classroom rules (walking feet inside, legs crossed/eyes on the speaker when on the mat, hands and feet to themselves, hand up to speak etc.) all that is needed to make the day run smoother and allow for learning to take place.

The last couple of months a lot of learning has occurred within the room with most of the children now beginning to recognise colours, shapes, numbers, days of the week and Jolly phonics (A, B, C, K, D) with the help of flash cards and programmed experiences.

We are making steady progress with the jolly phonics program with the alphabet being posted on our wall once we are complete. This learning is also followed up through learning materials and writing activities to enhance the children's learning process.

Your child has also been working hard learning how to hold and cut paper with scissors. They are becoming increasingly confident when cutting with the scissors with most readily mastering the concepts and skills of using them. This can be encouraged at home by allowing your child to cut up junk mail, play dough or wrapping newspapers.

We will be soon finished our in-depth focus of scissor cutting skills and concepts which will see us move onto 2d shapes this will include focus will feature looking at shapes through art, pre-writing, stamping, flash cards and craft so make sure you look around the room at our learning taking place.

Just some housekeeping. We have had an increasing number of home toys coming into the room. These toys can create friction between children and can cause your child to become distressed if they are lost, broken or misplaced. Please keep these items at home as there is a wide range of resources and materials within the centre that your child has the opportunity to play with on a regular basis.

Please feel free to come and discuss any of your child's needs with either Teresa, Alena myself as we will be pleased to help in any way that we can.

Miss Pedeta, Miss Teresa and Miss Alena

Pre-School 1

Enjoying the food

Firstly from everyone in the Pre-school Room we hope you all had an enjoyable Easter. Our Easter afternoon tea was filled with lots of sugar and fun…….just what every mum and dad just before a long weekend! Special thanks to Harrison and Kendall's mums for joining us. As most of you are aware the Pre-school children now have an outdoor eating area. So with the weather permitting we get the opportunity to eat outside and enjoy the Queensland weather. Please ensure your child has a hat each day they attend the Centre as we are incorporating lots of indoor and outdoor play.Over the past few weeks the Pre-school children have been busy ticking off the boxes on their Developmental Milestones Checklist – things they should be achieving before the end of the year. It's great to see the children developing well. Our hand writing is slowly improving with most of us attempting to write our own name or attempting a few letters. This will improve over the coming months. We have all enjoyed experimenting with different colours, as you can see from the master pieces around the room. We really enjoyed the science experiment where we melted the crayons and watch the colours join. For those of you that have not yet paid for the Compost Kingdom that is coming on the 26th April, this needs to be paid by Friday the 21st April. We have attached some happy snaps from our Dentist Visit. We hope those new toothbrushes have been very busy.

Miss Zoe, Miss Carol, Miss Alena