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11 minutes reading time (2216 words)

July 2020

Welcome back to another newsletter dear families!

Things have somewhat calmed down in the last month and we are slowly re-introducing external activities to the centre.

Please continue to sanitise on the way in and out of the centre.  We'd appreciate it also if you would be able to limit your drop off/pick up times and please remember we encourage you to catch up with each other outside of the centre.

 

As you're aware, CCS returned as of the 13th of July.  

As you can imagine, it's been a fun transition... As we continue to get accounts back to normal with all of the end of financial year re-balancing I strongly urge you to check your statements weekly!

These are sent out every Monday.  

Here are some tips to help you understand yours...

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The Pips have had a busy month of learning. 

From further developing their motor skills, to exploring colours and shapes. 

We have had a blast exploring these topics through art and craft, learning indoors and outdoors, and of course through music. 

The Pips have showed us they are having fun while learning as they share smiles and laughs with us, and show us their cute personalities. Among all of the learning we have had so much fun getting to know the children, making them laugh and creating memories. 

We will be exploring lots of new topics in the coming months and look forward to showing you all.

Miss Corrine & Miss Chona

Dear families,

Thank you all so much for welcoming me and making me feel so comfortable to join the Piptree family! I am loving taking the time to get to know all of you and your children.

In the past three months our Sprouts have been focusing on learning their colours and shapes. We did this through group times, puzzles and nursery rhymes. 

Through this time the program has been child lead and lots of parent input. Since Miss Amy started we have been working on toilet training, gross motor skills, singing the alphabet and building strong relationships. 

We are enhancing the Sprouts gross motor skills by indoor and outdoor activities, having activities that encourage the children to use big movements. We have had a balloon party, practised balancing skills by walking on the balance beam and walking with little bean bags on the children's heads.

From here we are continuing to focus on building strong relationships with our educators, being comfortable in our environment and continue to provide activities that encourage the children to use and grow their gross motor skills. 

Ms Amy, Ms Coralie & Ms Kaylee :) 

Hello again families, what a busy few months we have had here in the Buds 2-3 year old room. 

We have celebrated so many birthdays, most of our children are now three, can you believe it? 

Together we have also achieved countless milestones – toilet training has been one of our MAJOR achievements, we are so proud of all the children that have grasped this concept. 

In the room we have been focusing on numbers and sequencing, we discussed one number each week and used various methods to help the children begin to recognise each number. 

The children have also become very confident with the room routine, we have introduced a pack away song where the children have a tune and timer to help them tidy up the room. We have also introduced a time where the children have a free choice of either playing inside or outside. This helps to encourage decision making!! 

Outdoor activities are definitely the favourite as the children get a chance to enhance their gross motor skills. It is fantastic to watch the children show off their amazing balancing, hopping, jumping and running skills. 

In the room we have also welcomed Ms Ryley and Ms Gabby they will be running the room together with Ms Emma, while Ms Elena will continue her role as Education Leader. The children have already made lovely connections with their new educators!

If you haven't guessed so already, Ms Emma is pregnant! She is working very closely with the girls in the room to ensure the children are comfortable and supported while she prepares for maternity leave at the end of September.  Congratulations Ms Emma! 

We are now well into the second half of the year, it's crazy how fast the months have passed us, hopefully Covid-19 will soon pass us too.

Until next time.

Ms Ryley, Ms Emma, Ms Gabby and Ms Elena 😊

This Month our Blossoms (3-4yrs old) children were focused on learning about the alphabet and the related words. 

Each day during group time we were learning and practising how to write the letters. 

To extend children's learning we also made the art and craft based on each letter.

We have also had a big focus on manners lately.  The children have been learning all about respect and using our 'nice' words with each other.  We have been learning about how simply using those 'nice' words (please, thank you, you're welcome etc.) makes a huge difference in our interactions with each other.  This has also helped the children when working together and has assisted them in resolving their own conflicts.  

Encouraging children to use their manners and setting an example in our interactions between us educators, is teaching children ways to respect each other and follow the class rules which in turn helps them feel safe and secure in their environment!

It has been an eventful couple of months, but we have loved continuing to strengthen our relationships within the room! 

What's Cooking in the Poppies?! (July Newsletter)

Hello!

The Poppies are heating up while the weather gets cooler & freezing!

We have had a lot of exciting things going on in our science & nature programs the past six weeks.

The Poppies helped celebrate and took part in many activities which drew awareness in many educative topics.

Based on their interests, we explored on baking some recipes like Greek Macaroons, Sticky Date Pudding, Leche Flan, Jam Puffle and many more!

Everyone had a turn to contribute to these activities.

Stirring, mixing, whisking, pouring, kneading, rolling, spreading, etc are just a few of the kitchen tasks that allowed the Poppies to develop their fine motor and hand-eye coordination skills.

The learning opportunities in baking are vast and each deserves their own individual post, but in summary - it offered a great opportunity to help with their language development, with new words and terms.

Part of our room became a science lab because of our baking activities where the Poppies watched ingredients changed colour, texture and form (liquids, solids, gases) and made predictions and observations too!

We explored the Ocean creatures where we welcomed Ocean Life Education who brought the Sea to us with fun marine education designed to inspire our little Poppies to appreciate and take responsibility for the marine ecosystem. It was an interactive touch and learn session introducing them to creatures from the ocean, with live marine creatures to touch and an activity space made to explore in our room. Mind you, we did not touch the baby shark! 😊

The Poppies also have been exploring the world map & flags. It is a game where we find & match the country and flags together. We set the map out on the table to promote discussion about maps and what kinds of information can be found on a map. We spoke about where different people came from and why there are different languages spoken. "Because they are from different planet!" Vincent went.

"No, they're not aliens. They're people." answered Patrick.

Of course! This activity provided great entry points for playful learning experiences among our little friends.

We cannot wait to explore each country and maybe invite some parents from that specific country to tell us more about their culture and traditions.

We enjoyed welcoming the different bugs in the room like the weaver spiders Ms Amor brought in from her garden at home. The Poppies enjoyed investigating their physical features using the magnifying glasses and researching about them before we released them into our little garden outside the centre.

Science experiments continue to be a hit among our Poppies – our egg that turned into a golf ball the following day, our changing flower colours, volcanic eruptions, etc science experiments continue to fill the Poppies minds with awe and sense of wonder.

The Poppies absolutely love science. The benefits of it for them is tremendous. As soon as they are engaged in it, there is no disruptions at all because they are too busy exploring.

They all work together, and their interactions increase with conservation.

Their conversations resulted in cooperative behaviours.

They always begin to talk to each other about their predictions, what they observed, and they ask questions too.

They observe and learn that things change and for that change to occur there is a process. When these opportunities present themselves, they provide learning experiences that were relevant to our Poppies' surroundings.

Show & tell continues to be popular among our little ones. The Poppies are proud to demonstrate their language, communication & listening skills and we are proud of them when they talk about their experiences about our topics each week. Thanks for your help on this too dear families!

As mentioned on our previous newsletter: "We care for our planet EARTH!" And as we care for the planet we live in; we also are becoming aware that our planet is one in many.

When Elliott started to share his interest in space, this extended in giving everyone that spark too to research and get to know what is made of it.

This interest was extended by a space investigation project.

After discussing what we can see in space and finding how it works over there, we decided to focus on The Solar system.

Further exploration of the sun, moon phases, solar system, stars, constellations, and travels to the Moon were researched using our Star Tracker app from our tablets.

Facts were gathered by the Poppies to examine the differences and similarities between objects in space. The discussions furthered on the travel to outer space.

Group observations and individual learning is helping the Poppies to understand what other objects are in our universe.

The Poppies have been enjoying exploring space which lead us to hang the planets, stars, meteors, and astronauts.

The Poppies continue to familiarise the letters of the Alphabet. We are focusing on letter P this week and it will be letter Q next week.

Also, we are exploring numbers 1-20 now not only through our ELLA program which is in Mandarin but also in the different activities we integrate to e.g. science experiments.

It is forming them with foundations for learning, educational attainment, personal enrichment, and social interaction.

Just a few reminders and announcements for our beloved parents and guardians...

1. NAIDOC week celebration has been moved to November.

2. Letters regarding our lunchbox days which started on the 20th of July have been emailed.

This is to practice how they will have their mealtimes when they go to prep.

3. We also started our 'No Sleep' practice each day as of this week.This will help prepare our pre-preps again to be ready for big school.

Of course, we will also practice our mindfulness during these times, so we need to have quiet play here because we have other children in the other room that sleeps at rest time.

4. We have finished your children's mid-year summative assessments to summarise how their first 3-6 months went with us in the Poppies room. Please take time to read them for your reference on how they have developed from the day we had them in the room until now. These are available for you in your child's portfolio on Educa.

Thank you for taking time to read our newsletter. If you have any concerns or worries regarding your child, please do not hesitate to contact Ms Amor & Ms Ellen. We would love to hear your voice on our program, or any input would be greatly appreciated.


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