HomeKidz Magic Capestone - February News
Dear Parents and Guardians,
Wunya and Welcome to our Newsletter for February 2020.
With a new school year commencing there are loads of adjustments needing to be made around routines and planning within the service and as a new first time 'Prep mum' myself I'm also experiencing this struggle and working to find the perfect 'work/life' balance.
Over the coming months, I have made the decision to reduce my start time in the centre on a Monday and Wednesday to a 9-5.00 pm rather than my usual 7:30-5:30 pm daily shifts. Tuesday and Thursday will be a typical 8am-4:30 pm. My Friday shift times will remain at the 6:30-3 pm each week. I have asked 3 of our senior team members in Miss Charmaine, Miss Sarah, and Miss Amy to support with any questions or queries along the way in the early mornings. Please feel free to e-mail me at any stage and I will continue to respond as soon as possible for any assistance you may require.
Over the previous week, I've sent out a parent survey. I thank each of you for your time in completing these as they support with our service reflections, areas for continued growth as well as celebrating our successes. It's always so kind and reassuring to be able to share your beautiful kind and thankful words with our team. I have observed a few points returned that I wanted to touch base on in the hopes that it provides further insight into what we do each and every day:
Breakfast Bar – Our centre license is to provide meals for the children within the service during morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea times. We introduced the breakfast bar across the service as an initiative to support families during the busy morning drop off periods between the times of 6:15 am-7:45 am. Families are welcome to self-serve from this area in reception each morning and we hope that it supports both yourself and your child each day. Alternatively, you are welcome to bring along your own breakfast for your child between these times provided the food is egg and nut-free.
Excursions – 2019 saw our Toddler room, Senior Toddler 1 room, and Kindergarten rooms explore their first excursion experiences of venturing outside of the service. Although these events are super exciting and provide wonderful opportunities around growth and exploration they also include many hours of planning, preparation, and risk assessments to ensure the safety of all children and educators at all times. Our Kindergarten room plans to conduct many exciting excursions in the future such as visiting the library, retirement village, museum, parks, etc and we look forward to continued growth in this area.
Reception Support – As mentioned up above my hours will be changing from my usual 9-11 hour day to an ideal 7.5 hour day. I will be on-site to support within the office during the above mentioned hours, unless I'm required on the floor within the rooms, off supporting/cleaning or meeting with educators or families. For some of you who attend early mornings and late afternoons you will not always get the opportunity to see me, nor will you to your child's educators at times, but please know you are welcome to phone the service, write a message in the room communication book or e-mail at any stage you require assistance. We don't have administration support within our Kidz Magic service so it's just little old me :)
Our Menu - One of the feedback received was around providing a vegetarian/vegan option with the meals which has raised with me the fact that our menu doesn't have this option displayed upon it even though it's available daily. With each meal for the day a vegetarian option is constantly provided. We have many allergies, intolerances and general requests that we work with each day and this request is certainly one of them. Over the coming weeks, we will be looking into providing a different menu each week rather than a rotating 4 weekly roster to allow for flexibility around seasonal fruits and vegetables and meat availability and costs. Once these flexible menus are ready our centre Cook will share with me each Friday the menu for the upcoming week and this will be on display for you to view.
Communication Books – Within each room, you will find on the parent information bench a covered exercise book called 'Communication book'. These books are your way to leave individual room messages about your child to the educators within the classroom. Unfortunately, the team will not be completing individual books per child as this would equal over 500 individual messages a week throughout the service. We have been so fortunate to be able to move from paper-based reporting to Educa and 2020 will be a significant year around embedding our documentation, sharing the roles and responsibilities amongst all educators within the service and building on individual child online portfolios.
Please don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions along the way. Your room Lead Educator is also able to support with your queries as well as providing support and advice if ever required.
Looking forward to an exciting year ahead!
Kind Regards,
Hayley Le – Centre Director Kidz Magic Capestone
- 2 March : Clean Up Australia Day
Our national event held the first Sunday of March each year, when it inspires communities to clean up and conserve our environment.
- 12 March : National Ride to School Day
Council is encouraging all students in the Sunshine Coast Council region to leave the car at home and pedal, scoot or skate to school on Friday 13 March for national Ride2School Day.
- 15 - 21 March : Harmony Week
In 2019, the Department led national celebrations for the 20th anniversary of Harmony Day. The event was renamed Harmony Week to recognise diversity and inclusion activities that take place during the entire week. Harmony Week will include 21 March, which is the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
- 22 March : World Water Day
International World Water Day is held annually on 22 March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources.
- 25 March - 5 April : Nature Play Week
Nature Play Week was developed collaboratively by individuals and organisations involved in the Kids in Nature Network.
- 28 March : Earth Hour (8.30-9.30 pm)
'Lights Out' for 60 minutes at 8.30pm – a symbolic show of solidarity. We can all work towards better understanding and appreciating the values of biodiversity and the current critical condition of our home and our planet. Being aware means that we can all take actions to protect our biodiversity and nature, it means we can live more sustainably, and expect the same of businesses and governments.
2 March : Charmaine Weston
2 - 3 March : Chrystel Green
2 - 6 March : Tracy Mathers
4 March : Raman Kaur
6 - 9 March : Laura Chapman
13 March : Hayley Le
This month has been very exciting in the sustainability area. Thanks to everyone's hard work and continued efforts we have managed to collect and sort over 6000 bottle caps for lids4kids. This is an amazing achievement for the month and puts us very close to the first goal of 10,000 lids which is what I would love our first donation to be. Once again thank you to everyone who has participated and keep up the good work.
Miss Laura
Avocado Blueberry Baby Smoothie
- 1/4 avocado
- 1/4 cup blueberries
- 1/2 banana
- 1/4 cup baby oatmeal or regular oats iron fortified
- 1/4 cup whole milk yogurt
- 1 teaspoon flax seed meal
- 1/4 cup water
- 2-3 ice cubes
Instructions:
Puree all ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 48 hours.
Chef's Notes:
Using frozen fruit:If you're looking to use frozen blueberries for this smoothie there is no issue. It would take the place of the ice cubes being used.
Using Oats:You do not have to cook the oats first. They can be blended dry.
Where to find whole fat yogurt:Whole fat yogurt is in the yogurt aisle – just make sure it doesn't say low fat, fat free or reduced fat. It usually says "whole milk plain".
How long does this smoothie last?This smoothie will keep up to 48 hours in the refrigerator.
Nutrition Facts:Calories: 243kcal | Carbohydrates: 33g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Cholesterol: 7mg | Sodium: 40mg | Potassium: 590mg | Fiber: 7g | Sugar: 14g | Vitamin A: 135IU | Vitamin C: 13.8mg | Calcium: 74mg | Iron: 0.8mg
Reference : https://thelemonbowl.com/avocado-blueberry-baby-smoothie/
Video : https://youtu.be/LzhKV5wHAF8
***Menu of the day may change based on the ingredients availability***
Hi!
My name is Miss Chrystel, I am an assistant in Pre-Kindergarten One. I started as a student here at Kidz Magic in April 2019. I am currently studying my Diploma in Early Childhood Education and Care.
Previously I have been an Assistant Manager in a deli in Woolworths for 13 years. I have loved my whole time in Kidz Magic, It has been teh best decision I have ever made, moving to the childcare industry.
I have only been married for 1 month but i ahve been with my hubby, Daniel for 18 years. We have one beautiful daughter, Aurora who is 8 years old. In our spare time we like to go to the beach, bush walking and eat sushi.
I love read, sew, paint, draw or do any creative activity. My daughter and I are currently into with paint rocks.
Feel free to come and find me in the yard for a chat.
xx Miss Chrystel
Illness & Infectious Disease Policy
- The following guidelines have been drawn up to reduce the risk of transmission of infectious diseases and to promote a safer environment for the children. This is the responsibility of both parents and Educators.
- Please consider your child when they are sick, as they want more attention, rest and quiet which is impossible to give to a child in a group situation in child care. Please consider the other children and the Educators who catch these illnesses.
- The following symptoms in a child may alert you that they are unwell :
persistent coughing
fever
diarrhoea
rashes
frequent scratching
vomiting
breathing difficulties
loss of appetite
green mucous discharge from nose
lethargy
- Parents are requested to keep all immunisations up to date. Immunisation records, which are voluntary, will be maintained on each child at the Centre for the year.
- Please inform the Centre if your child has any infectious illness so that we may watch for signs of
illness in other children and alert other parents and Educators at risk.
- Managing Contagious Infections and Illnesses :
Parents are asked to notify the Centre within 24 hours of their child being exposed/diagnosed to/with a contagious disease.
Parents will be given information from Staying Healthy on the contagious disease.
All rooms in the Centre will display notification of the particular contagious disease in the Centre.
Where necessary, in accordance with government regulations, the Centre will notify the appropriate health authorities within 24 hours of the Centre's awareness of this situation.
Parents are encouraged to discuss any issues in respect to individual children with their Doctor and the childcare Educators at the time of the infection/illness.
The complete Illnes and Infectious Disease Policy is accessible in our office – the entrance area.
Feel free to provide any feedback through
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Welcome to Nursery 1 newsletter for February 2020
Firstly we would like to say a warm congratulation to Penelope and Valishka as our new family who recently joining with us in Nursery 1. Both has been showing improvement of their transitions and getting to know their new environments and building a positive relationship with their educators as well.
It has been so much grown towards each child milestones during February month and we are so happy and proud to all of them.
Penelope has been showed a lot of interest to practising her walking skills and be able to hold her own bottle to increase her self help skills.
Geo has been showing his self help skill by holding his own bottle and practising belly time as much as he like as well. Geo is be able to share his emotional skills when his educator was having face to face conversation with him and give a giggle and smiles respond
Kayden is always share his happy smiles to his educators. Kayden is practising her belly time where he is learning to move his head side to side or just tilt up straight. And he is showing interest to hold his own bottle at the moment too
Kodi has been enjoying his exploring activity between indoor and outdoor playground. He is showing much interest with obstacles course by climbing and standing up against it. He is showing his confidence surround other peers as well.
Clare is enjoying her exploring her activity by walking. She is now be able to enjoy more what is available for her between indoor and outdoor. Particularly when she is climbing the obstacle course and showing her independently ]with her own safety.
David is interested to explore more on the mat by moving side to side, in circle, move backwards or trying to move forward slowly. As well holding on his own bottle is part of his self help skills to improve as well as well.
Koda is always share his happy smiles to his educators. Practising sitting down and holding own bottle are Koda's interest sand are on going skills as well. Well done Koda!
Aza is show his interest with walking practising and eating solid food/finger food at the moment. Always share his happy smiles and willing to explore his activity between indoor and outdoor environments
Zara is showing so much improvement with her sitting down independently and happy to explore her choices between indoor and outdoor. Zara is enjoying her finger food and meal times and willing to explored assorted food as well.
Valishka is in her transition routines where she is adjusting her new environments in Nursery 1. Building a relationship with her educators and meet her needs are our goals at the moments.
Beside solo interactive between peers and the educators we are encourage having group activities as well.
We are encourage our little friends to drink water to encourage a healthy practising as well. Introducing finger food and solid food are available for few babies as well. Please provide separated formula in milk compartment and water requirement inside individual bottle as well to avoid confusion Spare clothes and nappy rash cream if need it.
Once again if you do need to provide few suggestions, ideas, concerns or input do not hesitate to talk to us.
Thank you,
Ms Yefi, Ms Inday and Ms Prema
Hello from Nursery 2
Wow-what a humid hot month! This has affected some of our plans for
outside activities as we had to be mindful of how the heat affects our little
children. Lots of drink breaks and having our outside play early and late in the day.
This month we welcomed Ari, Tammi, and Kalani to our room. There is still
some tears from our old and new children as they wave goodbye to mum and
dad but rest assured they only last a few minutes and it is perfectly normal for children to feel this way when they separate from parents. You may have
noticed your child also bursts into tears when you arrive to pick up, this is also quite normal and part of their development.
At the moment we are loving rhymes and songs and trying to remember the
actions and words to them. Chasing bubbles is probably one of our most
favourite activities outside. "Bubbles, bubbles" are one of the first words we
hear. We are trying our best to do at least one art activity each week which is
usually popular.
As we have approximately half of our group having a couple
of sleeps a day we try to plan art around these. Speaking of sleeps, we have
started to trial some of our children on beds out in the playroom for the lighter sleepers and therefore the heavier sleepers aren't being disturbed in the cot room. Sleeping on a bed in also great training for when our children move through to the Toddler Room.
Remember our door is always open, if you have any concerns or would like to
contribute to our program you are most welcome.
Ms Liz and Ms Sandra and Miss Prema
Wow-what a month February has been. We have welcomed a new friend Thomas into our wonderful Toddler room. At the end of Feb/start of March, we will sadly be saying goodbye to Koa and Hudson as they complete the big move up to our Senior Toddler Rooms, which is a very exciting time.
This month the Toddlers have developed the most amazing relationships with their Educators. The first few months of the year is a big focus on developing confidence and a strong sense of belonging as we build on attachments with one another. Most of the toddlers now happily wave goodbye to their parents as they leave in the morning, or only take a few minutes to settle. This shows us that the children feel safe and secure in our room and have a sense of belonging.
Sensory play has been a hit this month as well, we have made cloud dough, play dough, shaving foam play, ice play, sand foam, and goop. Messy play is essential for children, it gives them endless ways to develop and learn, using their senses to discover and explore their environment and develop their imagination, creativity, and problem-solving skills.
We have a few favorite songs we have been singing with the children that you could share at home too. Some of them we watch on youtube, which includes the One little finger song by super simple. This song introduces not only number concept, but body parts as well. We also watch Let's learn the colors song by chu chu tv which introduces colors to the children. Our last main one is a phonics song 'Phonics song 2' by KidsTV123 which introduces letters of the alphabet in a fun way. We would definately encourage you to sing these at home with your children.
Our 'fun' song this month has been Baby Shark. Most of the children can do some of the movements to this song and get very excited when we put it on. Using technology for learning purposes is one of the EYLF outcomes and with today's technology youtube is a great tool for children to utilise.
Looking forward to an exciting March :).
Thank you,
Miss Tracy, Miss Luna, Miss Claudia, Miss Tomomi, Miss Salma and Miss Tash
Hi Senior Toddler one families
Welcome to all our new families that have joined us over the last month we hope that you are enjoying being a part of our Kidz Magic family, we are enjoying having you all here and look forward to many more month with you here.
Over the next few months we will be focusing further on our self-help skills and independence. Toilet training can be a tricky time and we are here to help and support in anyway we can. If you are ready to begin this journey at home and would like us to continue this when your child is here please come and see one of the team. We encourage parents to bring lots of changes of clothes and a wet bag if possible as this negates the need for the use of plastic bags for any soiled clothing. I have attached some links below that are helpful in deciding if your child is ready to toilet train.
https://www.babycenter.com.au/a4384/toilet-training-is-my-child-ready
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/toilet-training
https://www.startingblocks.gov.au/at-home/toilet-training-your-child/
You may have noticed on Educa over the last few weeks Miss Laura has been doing some exploration of sign language. Miss Laura uses Auslan sign language and we have all become very good at remembering basic signs like letters of the alphabet and saying thank you. We will be continuing this as part of our daily transitions and if you would like to try some of this at home please come and see Laura as she can provide you with some print outs to take home.In March we will be extending our interests in the "Going on a bear hunt" story with a Teddys bears picnic. This will be an excursion out of the centre to the local park here in Capestone. I will be providing families with an outline of this on Educa and permission slips will need to be filled out. The date is still to be confirmed but if your child does not attend on that day please feel free to join us at the park with your Teddy bear friend. Thank you to all of you for all your support over the last few months, the transition to new rooms has been a little bumpy at times and we are always here to support any of your concerns that you may have.
Miss Charmaine, Miss Tabby, Miss Laura, Miss Alida and Miss Mariela
Wunya families from all of the senior toddlers 2 room,
We would love to take this opportunity to welcome Miss Priya to the senior toddler room family, she will be joining the permanent three educators within our room Miss Mel, Miss Irena and Miss Olivia.
We have settled into the room really well now and have currently formed a solid foundation for our learning.
This month we focused on counting, phonics, the alphabet, colours and shapes. Our friends are doing a great job at learning these.
We also have continued smiley minds which is a meditation program aimed at certain age groups. Our friends are absolutely loving this.
Can I please stress that all items are clearly marked.
We still have a lot of sheets, bottles and drink bottles unmarked.
I have attached name tags to your child's bag to help make it easier for any staff to locate your child's bag quickly. If these become lost or your child is missing one please let me know ASAP and I'll create one for them.
With any bottles, can they please be placed in the fridge, clearly labelled and your child's name written on the board attached to the front of the fridge.
Our friends have also started a Spanish lessons with Miss Mariella on Thursday mornings. They are showing great interest.
If you have any questions, concerns or feedback please feel free to approach any of our rooms staff members, write it on the page located on the parent information wall or the communication book located under the eat/ sleep chart.
This month we will also be starting toilet training, if you feel your child is ready, please don't hesitate to talk to myself or another ST2 staff member and we will talk about the requirements needed etc to help the translation much easier.
* Miss Mel, Miss Irena, Miss Olivia, Miss Priya and Miss Raman
Pre-Kindergarten 1 newsletter.
Wunya! Welcome to our newsletter for February.
We have been working on so many things that the children have shown interest in already. We started the year off with the Indigenous story "Warnayarra the Rainbow Snake" and engaged in artwork and spoken stories about that. It tied in well with the recent rain and storms we've been having! The children used mixed media to create the humpies that were depicted in the story.
We moved on with "Tiddalick the Frog" and we made an environmental provocation with natural items like plants, sand and rocks to mimic the environment in the story. We finished this off with Australian animals and a really big frog. The children spoke about the story and told us their own stories. We looked at the life cycle of frogs and moved onto some biology studies with other animals with simple life cycles.
The children spoke about the beach, being summer, so we had a look at and discussed the season of summer and created a provocation about the beach, with sand, water, shells, stones and sea creatures. We spoke about sun safety and created artworks about the beach and sea. We read wonderful stories like "Thomas and Grandpa" to enhance this learning and discussed our favourite things to do at the beach.
We have been learning about letters and sounds, and are discovering the first letter of our name. We have been counting slowly, learning colours and are touching on shapes. We have been focusing on communicating with educators and peers and emotional knowledge. Most importantly we have been having fun and spending time getting to know each other, given our recent room transitions for 2020.
We have been learning how to be safe at Kidz Magic through a great book called "Sit Down Sydney Brown" and using this to identify areas of risk at a child's level. We came up with some great rules which are displayed in the room at the children's level so they are able to refer to it.
Thank you,
Miss Amy, Miss Chrystel, Miss Manita and Miss Dani.
Wunya PK Two Families,
Another month gone by all ready! We are well into establishing our habits and routine. The children are already showing a wonderful sense and pride and confidence in their self help skills. We are practicing our yoga moves, affirmations and mindfulness practices everyday, it's such a wonderful way for us to relax and ground our minds and our bodies.
Our learning wall focuses are going so well. The children are becoming more confident around their recognition of these aspects every day. We are also beginning to focus on our names, letters and recognizing and spelling them. This gives the children a confident sense of identity and great Kindy readiness skills.
This month we celebrated lots of birthdays this month with our beautiful friends, Will, Noah, Major and Arlo all turning the big 3! Happy birthday boys!
Please don't forget to send through your feedback on my monthly post, it's super appreciated.
Thanks
Miss Sarah, Miss Maria, Miss Alida, Miss Dani and Miss Ailish
Dear families,
What a wonderful start to the year, all children have settled in really well these past few weeks. We welcomed a few new children - Paige, Noah, Hazel and Manraaj. They have been busy exploring their new environment and making new friends.
We celebrated a few birthdays - Tyler and
This months letter focus have been:
A a - the children have been busy investigating ants and their environment. We created an ant farm together and have enjoyed watching them inside. We believe the ants were too small and they escaped, we will attempt to find bigger ants so this doesn't happen. We traced around our arms and dotted black paint to represent ants on their arms. We made airplanes and raced them. Learning concepts around fast, slow, high and low. We painted the alphabet onto paper plates and will display them at their level so they can interact with them.
T t - T is for tadpoles, toes, ten, two, tooth brush and teeth. The children are slowly grasping the letter sounds and communicating words that begin with these beginning sounds. Dylan's mum (Skye) brought in tadpoles from the lake. The children have been amazed by these creatures, we watched them grow legs and then into frogs. We learnt the life cycle of the frog and extended on their interest by jumping into hula hoops like frogs. The class have also learnt about how to keep their teeth healthy and clean. They demonstrated this by using the toothbrushes on the teeth template, cleaning the germs away. T is for trains- the children have been enjoying our new train table, learning how to build the tracks, share and take turns.
I i - In the last week of February the children explored their their senses with our ice tray. They communicated that the ice was super cold, freezing and melting. We had two colours - blue and yellow which changed the water into green. We also did some ice cream counting where the children had to draw the ice cream scoops that matched the number on the cone. They did a fantastic job! We also learnt about Italy and Indian countries through research, watching videos and culture songs.
This month news:
The children have a strong interest with trains therefore We are organising a trip to the train station in the first week of March on the 4th March Wednesday. We will have forms for families to sign if your child comes on this day. We are super excited.
Another strong interest has been home corner, therefore we have changed it into an ice cream shop for letter focus letter I i.
Letters next month - March are P and N.
Next month we are focusing on writing our names, numbers and pink playdough, painting and pencil practice.
Thank you
from Miss Cathy, Miss Tahlia and Miss Ailish.
