March 2017 - Kidz Magic

Hygiene

 Infectious Disease

Spending time in Childcare Service's and being exposed to many children provides an opportunity for infectious diseases to be spread. In order to prevent infectious diseases being spread in our Service, we believe it's crucial that families understand how this occurs as well as how to stop them being spread.

Essentially, there are three steps to spreading infection. These are:

• The germ has a source (e.g. a person has the infection).
• The infection spreads.
• The germ infects another person.

The following things can stop infection spreading:

• Effective hand washing
• Excluding ill children and adults from our Service
• Immunisation
• Cough and sneeze etiquette
• Appropriate use of gloves (e.g. when there is a chance you may come into contact with faeces, urine, saliva, vomit or blood)
• Effective environmental cleaning

Hand washing is one of the most effective ways of preventing the spread of disease. Staff have been trained in the correct way of washing hands and also ensure that the children wash their hands in the correct method:

• Wet hands with running water.
• Use liquid soap and spread over hands.
• Rub hands vigorously for about 15 seconds, ensuring that the back of hands, palms, underneath fingernails and around wrists are washed.
• Rinse hands under running water to remove all soap suds.
• Turn tap off with a piece of paper towel
• Dry hands thoroughly with a fresh piece of paper towel.

We encourage that you and your child wash your hands upon arrival at the service also. Antibacterial gel is available at the front entrance for your convenience.

Nursery News

We would like to welcome you all in the new year 2017 with lots of enthusiasm. It's been so wonderful to know you and your child.
Since the beginning of the year we have been focusing on the children feeling safe, secure and connected to the environment which is the utmost important factor for their overall development. The children are bonding with each other and with the educators. The feeling of being secure and settled is reflected daily in their behaviour. We hope to achieve this every day in the future too. We also hope to work in partnership with you in the best interest of your child. If you have any ideas or suggestions or any experiences for your child please do share with us, we value them highly and hope to integrate that in our daily programming.

We value that each child has their own routine, we have been following their needs and routine every day to give them the best care. The activities included in our daily routine are purely based on each child's interest and skills, however we encourage everyone to take part and choose their play. Children can explore around the room, investigating and discovering lots of things from different ranges of toys to the books. We are also focusing on the interaction with each child that will help them feel comfortable and be confident.

Children have loved the sensory stimulation activities which we did using paint, rice and gel. Children loved to look, touch and feel them. Looking at the pictures in the book, listening to the educators while reading books to them are also of children's interest. They listen quietly, look at the expressions, even express themselves with laugh, giggle or smile. Singing songs are always our favourite. As we sing songs the most interested ones gather around, we then do our actions for the songs. We have lot of fun while singing. Children also love the different ranges of toys. The shape sorter has recently been a favourite one as they try to push the shapes in, they think, investigate, try and discover. The educators help them to scaffold their learning. The wall mirror is the favourite of everyone. They look at themselves, look at their friends, then they try to interact with each other looking through the mirror. They also seem to enjoy to touch and feel it. The surprise box full of the soft toys and rattles is also liked by the children, they love to dig in, get the toys out one by one to explore. We have our outdoor times too, children love the sandpit, the little obstacle course and the bikes and the cars. We have our super explorers on a mission every day and we are very happy to support their mission!

We will need a folder for each child to put in their art work, photos and their observations, if you have not provided one, please bring one for your child. We are also planning to make a wall with family picture so please do provide us with your family picture.

We are looking forward for a fabulous time with you and your child. Keeping in mind that it's their home away from home, we will be working towards achieving the best for each child.

Thanks Miss Jo and Miss Noni 

Toddler News

We're having a great time in the Toddler's rooms. We are participating in lots of fun and educational activities.

We've been making new friends and we're getting really good at following our routines. We'd like to make a family tree. If you could bring in a family photo that would be great.

Wow, it's nearly Easter. We have also just commenced on some Easter craft.
If you haven't brought in your white A4 binder for your child's artwork, can you please bring this in.

Miss Ruth & Miss June 

Junior Kindy News

From the start of this year our friends are all getting to know each other and settling in well. We have all been busy engaging in many learning experiences.

We have been learning about fruits and vegetables. The children learnt all the names of the fruit and vegetables. They're also learning to identify which fruit picture goes on what tree. We also spent some time learning about healthy food and sometimes food. We spoke to the children about which food is healthy and which food can be eaten sometimes. We extended this activity with a hands-on experience. Miss Tash got everyone to plant some seeds in their own individual pots. The children also watered the plants every few days to see if it was sprouting.

We have been singing the rainbow song and the children have been interested in anything that involves colour. Colour recognition during play enhances a child's thinking skills and communication skills as they communicate what colours they would like to use.
Our next project is learning about the sea creatures that live in the ocean. As you can see there is already some of the children's artwork hanging in the room. Our program will expand on new experiences and through the interest of the children they will have several opportunities for open ended exploration and spontaneous discoveries.

We have a parent input board on the shelf outside the room. We would appreciate your ideas and suggestions. Please feel free to stick a note on there if you would like to see this added to the program.

Miss Tash, Miss Amy & Miss Nishi 

Kindy News

Almost another month of 2017 has past! How the year is already flying by so quickly. This month we have been busy little bodies and found ourselves learning lots of new wonderful things.

Most recently we had a visit from Wildcall – a company that tour centres and introduce the children to different Australian animals. Our Wednesday group this year were lucky enough to take part and found it fascinating. We followed up on the visit with lots of interesting, new activities in the room. One of these was our fantastic small world area that Miss Tracy cleverly began to create for us. It holds various Australian animals, grass, trees, rocks and bark. We have asked the children if they could go home and find some other natural resources, perhaps in their backyard or on a walk around the park, they might like to add to the small world play for the animals. We would love your help with this! Natural resources are a great way to encourage imagination, discovery and experimentation.

Another exciting visitor we had recently was the tooth fairy and her dentist friend. They came out and spoke a lot about how to keep your teeth healthy and clean and gave everybody a toothbrush. We thought this was a fantastic time to continue with this topic and even extend on it in the classroom. So, we spent a week discovering, learning and even teaching each other about dental hygiene, exercise, restful activities like yoga and meditation and healthy and sometimes foods. We used the story 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' to help scaffold our learning about healthy foods as well. We also continue to try to incorporate one session of exercise, meditation or yoga into our daily routine to help children develop a passion for it that they may develop a passion to extend this throughout their life.

Over the next week or two we are aiming to change a couple of things in our room. The first one is our 'What we did today' sheet. Children love to share their day with you and they love to look back at photos of the day of themselves and the activities they participated in. To make our day sheet more accessible to children we are looking to display it on one of our tables. This way, as you are leaving with your child each day, they may like to have a look at the display and chat with you about the superb day that have shared with their peers and the things they have learnt. If you can find 5 minutes each afternoon to share this special information with your child, you may find that you are encouraging a skill in them to retell an event/story which is a great attribute to have by the time school starts!

The other thing we are aiming to add to our room is a parent input wall which will go in the place of the current day sheet display. We love parent input! We love to hear what your child is doing at home, goals you would like to work on, questions they have asked, trips away, etc. This can be incorporated into our curriculum and this is what we are all about – working with you to create the best possible learning environment for your child! A place that inspires them and that they love to come to! We will place post it notes beside the board and all you need to do is write a quick note on something about your child (with their name) and their interests/needs/skills. You can do this as often as you like – the more the better.
If you have any questions, concerns, suggestions please don't hesitate to contact us.

Thanks

Tanya, Zubaida and Tracy