February News
Hello, again families!
Welcome to February!
We are officially in full swing for 2020 with our rooms buzzing with the sounds of children learning. Walking through the centre it is so delightful to see so many settled and happy children interacting with their new educators, peers and room environments. The weather lately has been keeping us indoors but that hasn't stopped our exploration and interest in new experiences.
We had our first dress-up day for the year last week on Valentine's day. It was so lovely and refreshing to see a sea of red in the centre. The children were all very busy with arts, crafts and other activities centre around the theme of love!
Due to all of the wet weather around, Brisbane is having quite a mosquito epidemic. We encourage parents to use insect repellent for your children during this time. Mosquitoes can carry some nasty diseases so we want to ensure everyone is taking precautions to protect our children. We will have insect repellent in the front foyer at the sunscreen station for your use in the mornings if you choose.
Upcoming Events:
February 25th- Teddy Bears Picnic. Bring along your favourite soft toy or teddy(no action figures please) for a fun day of teddy bear activities.
March 4th: Holi-Festival of Colour show
12th March-Funky Hair Day-Shave for a cure.
We have also invited hairdresser, Jayde from Hair on the Move to come into the centre monthly to do mobile haircuts and stylings. We are currently working on a services and pricing menu a start date and will have all of this information to you as soon as possible.
Fundraising: We would like to thank everyone for your participation in our fundraising activities for 2019. We are currently in the process of purchasing some advanced musical instruments including keyboards and ukeleles and guitars for the children to investigate and use under guidance. We would also like to invite any parents or friends who are able to play musical instruments to join us in the centre sometime to assist the children. Musical instruments are so very valuable in a child's learning. They can help promote a child's self-confidence, promote advanced hand-eye coordination, improve concentration and encourage expression and relaxation. We have also purchased a lovely rocking chair for the nursery cot room.
Advertising: We are happy to advertise in our newsletters for our parents and friends. If you have any business advertising you would like to add to our newsletters please let Kelly or Sarah know and we can organise this.
Referral Incentive: Don't forget our referral incentive runs all year. If you refer a family then you could be entitled to 2 weeks free fees. Conditions apply.
Friendly Reminders
Breakfast Policy: Our policy states that we will serve children's breakfast up to 7.30 am only. There have still been many parents bringing breakfast in after this time. Unfortunately we are not able to serve breakfast after 7.30am.
Hats and Water bottles: Please ensure that you are sending a hat and water bottle with your child every day they attend the centre. In our older rooms, we encourage the children to care for their own belongings and hats are kept in lockers and taken home in bags. Our younger rooms use their pockets or hat hooks. Water bottles should be collected and taken home every day to be washed and cleaned.
Labelling: Please ensure that all of your child's items are labelled clearly with their name so they can be located easily. This also assists the children in locating their own items and recognising their name in print.
Allergies and Medical conditions: Just a reminder that if your child has an allergy or a medical condition we need to have a risk minimisation plan in place for them and an updated medical from your child's doctor every 12 months.
Our new centre sign is almost ready and should be up in the next couple of weeks. Yay!
If at any time anyone has any queries or questions please come and see me in the office or shoot me through an email :)
Until next month
Kelly
Nursery News
Hello parents from Miss Bithi and Miss Jonabeth,
We warmly welcome all of you to the nursery for 2020. We are very pleased and honoured to be caring for all of your beautiful children.
As you know this first year of their lives is filled with wonderful milestones and we look forward to sharing these with you. In respect to all of you as parents, we would like to ask you all if you could let us know if you want us to mention milestones we may observe in the nursery to you(such as crawling, rolling over, first steps) or if you would rather we not so that you can witness them for the first time yourselves? We feel this is a very divided and delicate subject so we would like to place that decision in your hands. Please let Miss Bithi or Miss Jonabeth know your preference for this.
In the nursery, we follow each child's individual routine and we will do our absolute best to work together with you to fulfill their needs and ensure they are secure, happy and growing beautifully.
The most important thing in the nursery is communication. Each morning we request that you fill in your communication chart located in the bathroom. Throughout the day we will complete the teacher's information for you to view upon your return.
We love to receive input and feedback from families as we are always open to suggestions for how we can improve and we want our families to feel secure and happy about leaving their precious babies in our care.
Each day we observe and take note of your child's strengths, interests and challenges and build a weekly curriculum around these. We plan experiences to further development in all areas and most importantly we strive to form a secure attachment with the children. Once children feel safe and connected, they are free to learn and grow. Our weekly program is located on the shelf under the lockers and you will see it grow throughout the week. Feel free to ask questions at any time.
You will receive learning stories via our EDUCA online app along with photographs. This is a great app as you can check in at night when you get home or throughout the day.
We kindly ask that you clearly label every individual item that your child brings to care to avoid items being mixed up or lost.
We look forward to a great year!
Miss Bithi and Miss Jonabeth.
Toddler News
Hello and welcome to Toddlers 2020!
The children have all done a wonderful job of settling into the room, new routines and participating in new experiences.
Our favourite experiences at the moment are home corner exploration, books, dancing, magnetic shapes, and bubbles. These are all very sensory and investigative activities and the toddler children are opening their minds to exploring new things.
Our art experiences have been very sensory and tactile-from handprints to track painting, fingerpainting and exploration of yoghurt we have been deeply focussing on texture.
Over the next few weeks, we will be continuing with various investigative art experiences and discovering our sensory capabilities. Messy is so much fun!
Just a friendly reminder to please check your pockets daily for and important notes or messages from your educators. We will also be using the EDUCA message board so please ensure you have signed up for your account to receive messages and updates on your childs progress.
Until next time, please do not hesitate to approach us if you have any questions,
Miss Kat and Miss Deep
Junior Kindy News
Welcome to Junior Kindy.
Everyone has settled in the new room well and the children that have remained in Junior Kindy have adjusted to the educator change quickly.
In the last few weeks, we have been trying to focus on extending primarily off the children's interests and getting to know them. If you have any parent input for us about your children please feel free to let us know so we can add this into our program.
We want to focus on creating a sense of belonging in the room through photographic displays of the children. We ask if you have any family photos you would like to send in then please do so we can create a family tree(include pets as well :)).
he children have all been very interested in role play and pretending they are going shopping. To follow on from this we will be creating a home corner store. If you have any recyclable items can you please bring them in for us to use? we would love milk cartons, egg cartons, cereal boxes, food boxes etc.
Just a reminder to please label everything your child brings to the centre. This makes it easier to locate if things go missing.
Thank you, until next time
Miss Sarah, Irene and Pam
Senior Kindy News
Welcome to Senior Kindy for 2020!
All of our children have settled in well to the new room and are having a wonderful time exploring all areas of the room. Home corner is particularly popular and usually a hive of activity with children dressing up, going shopping, feeding and bathing babies and cooking meals.
We have been focussing on our room routines a lot so the children become familiar with what is expected of them and how to react in certain situations. Our Senior Kindy's are all doing really well at looking for and recognising their name cards at mealtimes. Mealtimes are a very social experience where the children discuss their healthy foods and how they taste.
Handwashing and toileting is a really busy time and the children are learning to wash their hands thoroughly to keep germs away.
Sorting and counting have also been a popular activity with the children really enjoying using their cognitive and fine motor skills to manipulate and gather the pieces. To add to this also the children have been very involved in playdough manipulation which is preparing their small hand muscles for gripping pens and scissors for writing and cutting.
Could all parents please remember to send in a sheet for rest time. Children do not have to sleep but they do have a rest period and need to have a covering on their mattresses.
Until next time
Miss Gordana and Miss Nikita
PreSchool News
Welcome to February's newsletter. This month has been a busy month in the preschool room. We are getting to know one another and our new routine. In the past few weeks, we have welcomed new students Rafa and Douglas to our room and they have settled well and are making new friends.
We have been exploring many new things in our room. We looked at Australia and where it is in the world and looked at the different states. During our exploration of New Zealand and its national fauna and flora icons we looked and explored the floral icons of Australia. We did some beautiful art works of the golden wattle which then led to the question "Why do flowers look different?" As a result of this question, we looked at an unusual flower, the bird of paradise. The children were then able to explore their creativity using oil pastels on board and drew their own interpretation.
We have explored Chinese New Year looking at the folklore behind the festival and how the different animals were chosen when representing the different year of the Luna zodiac.
During group time we are learning to recognise our names and the letters that make up our names. Learning to recognise their name has many benefits which include view that recognising one's name helps children feel important, recognising others' names builds community, name recognition builds concepts of print and begins the process of sight reading. To further facilitate this idea the children are activity participating in many different activities that encourage them to build their prewriting skills and name writing skills. One of these is one that the children will sign themselves in every morning on a large white board near the door. The children will be encouraged to find their name off the cupboard and then use that name to guide them in writing their name on the whiteboard. Some of the children are becoming peer educators as they guide the other children in finding their names and recalling the letters in their names. The children are also learning to remember that when they write their names that the first letter is a capital/upper case letter and the remaining are in lower case
Last week we started to look at the letters of the alphabet and the sounds that they make. We will be concentrating on two letters a week. Presently we are looking at the letters A and B. The letters of the alphabet are the building blocks of all language. In order to become proficient, children need to be able to recognise each letter, both in order and out of order, as well as the sounds connected with that letter.
If you need to leave a message for staff, please place this in the notebook on the top of the lockers so that Miss Ai or myself can see and sign off on it. If you would like to discuss anything concerning your child, please do not hesitate to contact me to organise a time that is convenient for a chat.
Before I finish up, I would like to remind parents of the things that your children need to bring with them every day
- One set of fitted cot sheets and in cooler months a light blanket. Even if your child doesn't sleep, regulations and policy require that all children have a rest period during the day. No pillows please as they take up too much space
- One drink bottle which is to be taken home and washed daily
- A hat for outdoor play(broad rimmed is recommended)
- A full change of clothing in their bags
- Children are also required to wear sun-safe clothing, no sleeveless shirts or dresses please
Hope to see you all soon Miss Odette and Miss Ai
"Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere." – Chinese Proverb
Recipe of the Month
Miss Amy's Beetroot Dip
Ingredients:
1x 425g can tinned beetroot sliced or cubes
1/2 cup plain greek yoghuurt
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
Method:
Combine all ingredients in a food processor or with a hand blender
Blend until smooth
Serve with your favourite vege sticks or crackers.