May Newsletter

From the Office

Welcome Families.

We are definitely feeling the Autumn weather coming in. The days are becoming cooler and we are starting to pull out our long sleeves. This is such an amazing season with so many opportunities to explore nature. It also brings with it some of chilly mornings and afternoons so please ensure your little ones have some warm clothes and shoes with them when attending the centre. 

Over the past months we have seen the children learning about Dental Hygeine with the staff from My Dentist at Cannon Hill visiting the centre. This was a fun , interactive learning experience for our 3-5 year olds and the children were able to decipher between healthy and unhealthy food choices in relation to good nutrition. 

The Commonwealth Games has been a huge curriculum base for so many experiences in the rooms. From Toddlers playing sports variations to Pre School batton making, this was such a wonderful addition to the program and  a great opportunity to introduce community and cultural awareness. 

Car Park Safety

We have recently revised our risk assessments for our car park and would like to remind families of safety in this area.

Our speed limit in the car park is 5km per hour

Please ensure you hold your child's hand when in the car park

Please ensure children are secured into their seats before starting your engine.

Please do not leave children unattended in your car. This is illegal and you can be fined!  

New Child Care Subsidy

​As many of you already know the current child care percentage and rebate will be replace with the new Child Care Subsidy as of July. If you have not already done so please logon to your mygov account and update your assessment details. https://my.gov.au/LoginServices/main/login?execution=e1s1

Please note that we will be required to submit sign in and outs as proof of attendance so it is absolutely imperative that parents are signing their children in and out of the centre every day or confirming any missed sign ins on your next attendance. 

Labeling Children's Items

​We cannot stress enough how important it is to label children's items. With so many children in the centre each day it is hard to keep track of what belongs to each child. Please help the staff out by writing your children's names on ALL of their belongings-from underwear to socks to drink bottles and containers. Staff cannot be held responsible for lost items if they are not named. 

Sleep and Rest within the centre. 

 As per Regulation 81 of the Education and Care services Regulations 2010, we "must take reasonable steps to ensure that the needs for sleep and rest of children being educated and cared for at the service are met, having regard to ages, developmental stages and individual needs of children". 

What this means is that if children require rest and sleep, then they are catered for. 

At our centre we provide these rest periods to cater to the children's basic needs, health safety and well being. No child is forced to sleep however children who  do fall asleep are displaying their basic need for it. We are aware that some parents rather their children do not sleep during the day and staff will use every strategy they can to assist and accommodate this however if children do fall asleep on their own we must allow them to rest and revive as this is our Duty of Care.

Upcoming Events

Chocolate Fundraiser

​Our staff have been busy organising a chocolate drive fundraiser to buy some spanking new trucks for the outdoor area. Chocolate boxes have arrived and are being distributed this week. Monies are due back by Friday June 1st. Chocolates are only $1 so ask you family friends, work colleagues and sports groups to support us.

Staffing

Our Senior Kindy room has a new assistant- Jonabeth has become one of our permanent team members and will be assisting Gabby. 

We would also like to welcome Jeet to our relief team.

Upcoming Holidays: 

Miss Jo will be away from 14/05/18-29/06/18

Miss Jonabeth will be on holiday from 21/5/18 to 25/05/18

Miss Joyce will be on holiday from 25/05/18 to 6/6/18

Nursery News

 What a busy few months we have had in the nursery. All of our children are growing so fast and learning so much. They are all settled in and are comfortable in their environment. They are beginning to interact with each other both verbally and non-verbally and it is fascinating to watch. To encourage language and communication we have been doing a lot of singing and dancing in the room. We have also displayed pictures of the children around the room to help create a sense of identity and recognition. Our children have all come so far with their gross motor skills, balance and co-ordination and some of us are gaining confidence with standing up and taking steps around the room. We have been encouraging this through the use of walkers to assist with muscle development and with huge amounts of praise for the children's efforts. 

Over the next months we will continue to help promote and environment in which the children can learn and grow and extend on their interests. 

Until Next time

Sarah and Ai

Toddler Tales

 This month we would like to welcome our new friends Sophia and Sophie. We would also like to say a big Happy Birthday to Jackson. Charlotte, Thomas and Chase who all celebrated turning 2 recently. April was a big month for us! 

This month we have seen a big leap in communication as the children are building their vocabulary. We continue to extend on this through programmed experiences including flash cards, stories, songs and lots of conversations between the children and educators. This also encourages the children to build their friendships between one another as they engage in enjoyable interactions(Outcome CN: 1.2).

Our herb garden has been coming along nicely over the last few months and the Toddlers are showing a lot of interest in watering the garden each day. Soon we will be planning cooking experiences as the children learn how we can use herbs in our food. It is great to see the children so involved and excited in our group project.

We hope all of our mums had a fantastic Mother's Day last weekend. Thank you to those who attended our Afternoon Tea. Everyone had so much fun preparing all their gifts and even more fun making (and eating) the fairy bread.

Until next time

Mel , Pam and Kan

Junior Kindy Jabber

 Welcome back! since the last time we spoke we have been very busy in Junior Kindy working hard on developing and enhancing our skills through many different experiences.

We have begun exploring our 5 senses. We began with sight, looking at and experimenting with mixing colours, making coloured rainbow chains and using a magnifying glass to see  objects in our environment through a different lens.  We then explored sound through the use of our listening post where we could listen to stories and sound lotto. Over the coming months we will continue to incorporate this theme.

Popular experiences in the room have been construction, dramatic play and dancing. Building block towers have helped us with our concentration and cooperative skills. Our favourite dancing music has been the Wiggles and we especially like dancing with Emma the Wiggle. We have also been experimenting with group reading which has been very successful. 

A special request from staff! If you bring your child into the room in the afternoon to collect their things and they are playing with the toys, please tidy up before leaving. We take the time to make our room look nice and we would appreciate your help with this. 

Reminders: 

With the weather becoming colder in the morning and afternoon, we kindly ask if you could bring a jumper and shoes for your child(please label them). 

Please remember to pack nappies for your child daily as we do not supply them in the Junior Kindy room.

Please bring in sheets, a hat and water bottle for your child every day 

Thank you

Kathryn and Deep

Senior Kindy Scoop

 Hi again

Our Senior Kindy children have begun learning about the first letter of their name in recent weeks. We have been focusing on name recognition and this is really helping the children to locate their name tags at meal times. It has been a little challenging with so many of the children's names beginning with the same letters however this in turn has assisted them in looking for letter shapes and patterns within their name to distinguish which one is theirs. We will continue to focus on this in the coming weeks.

Our children have been displaying a keen interest in Dinosaurs as of late and we are extending from this interest with various experiences. We will be learning about the different dinosaur names, what they eat, where they lived and their differing characteristics. The children have begun a project where they are making a T rex from boxes. Stay tuned for the progress on this.

Please remember to check your pockets for notices.

In regards to lost property we have been placing this on top of the lockers. Can you please check to see if any of these items belong to your child.

Until next time

Gabby and Jonabeth

PreSchool Press

Minnasama, konnichiwa(Japanese: Hello to everyone)

A big thank you to all of you for your constant support and feedback into our program. We value this effective partnership as it allows for honest, open and collaborative conversations in collaboration to meet the best interests of your child. It is a pleasure to be working with all of you and we look forward to supporting your childrens learning.

Throughout the past months we have continued to work on letter recognition and letter formation.The children's hard work and effort have paid off as they are now confident in writing their name independently.There is an easel with your child's name on it to encourage them to trace over letters in Queensland beginners font. This type of font is used in Prep and helps children form letters correctly. 

We have learnt about ANZAC Day and created some Poppies and medals after watching some Stories of the ANZACs on our tablets and we had a wonderful time creating our gifts for our mums for Mothers Day.

We are happy to hear that many of you have been to look at schools for your children already. We would love to know and share the schools where the children will be attending next year so there will be a list on the shelf as you enter the room for you note these.  This will be a wonderful opportunity to start planning small group experiences to encourage children to build friendships with others attending the same school.

Just a friendly reminder to all families that the weather is getting much colder. Our children are coming in lovely warm jumpers, hats and socks. We kindly ask that you label all of your child's items, including socks .

Joyce willl be on holidays from 25th May-6th June. If you have any questions during this time please do not hesitate to approach Bithi. 

Mata kondo (Japanese: Until next time).

Joyce and Bithi.