June 2018

 We are half way through 2018!

I have been here for 5 months now, and what a wild ride it has been.

The educators and I have been focusing on the Quality Areas to ensure we are doing 110%.

We have been looking at Quality Area 1 - Educational Program and Practice, as a team. and together with your feedback we have been able to identify areas where we could improve, and explored what we are really strong on.  

Our focus continues to be the Quality Care we provide, which is why we will be exploring each Quality area individually and outline what we do well, and what we could do better.  

Your feedback is important, and extremely appreciated.

Look out for our next Survey on Quality Area 2 - Children's health and Safety coming out soon.

​The new Childcare Subsidy (CCS) is now in full action.

The new subsidy came into effect as of Today (Monday 2nd July 2018.)

Statements have been sent out for this week, and next as the CCS works on a fortnightly basis.  

If you still have not made the transition on MyGov or Centrelink I recommend you look into this to avoid paying full fees.

Please dont hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions, or if I could help in anyway.  

There have been so many changes happening the past few months.  

While the changes were necessary and the transition result was positive, it was difficult nonetheless.

In the midst of all the changes we have managed to find our feet as a team, that all have ONE thing in common - providing high quality care to the children. 

The Staff at Piptree Mt Gravatt East and I would like to say thank you to all for your positivity, understanding and cooperation during this time.  

​In addition to all the changes, we have had a very busy few months, and are nowhere near slowing down!

You would have all received your child's Individual Observations by now. 

As a team, we agreed it was a great way to keep our families in the loop with where your child is sitting developmentally.

We understand you dont always have time for a chat, or to stop by and check your child's progress so we thought it would be a different way that we could communicate with you.

We got absolutely inundated with positive feedback with this change!

Collaborative partnerships with families, and strong communication channels are extremely important to us, so we have decided to make it a permanent addition.

Our June Individual observations are ready and will be getting sent out this week.  

Make sure we have the correct email address on file for you so you don't miss out :) 

Educating the mind, without educating the soul is no education at all.

by Aristole

Pips

Welcome to June! 

Wow what a wonderful start to June it has been, we had Pirate day on the 8^th of June and the children dressed up so wonderfully and they all had so much fun.

We have moved the room around again as the children enjoy the change and love having new toys brought out for them to engage with.

We are continuing with our sensory play.  Ms Julie and I have finally done up the sensory box for the children to explore and engage with. 

We have put cardboard, fake flowers, leaves and some bark. The children are so brave and are willing to put their hand in and feel the textures. 

The children are curious and want to investigate further as they try to pull out the objects and materials. To continue this further we will be putting in different textures each time to cater for each texture available.

As we are coming into the colder months, can we please ensure jumpers are brought in as well as socks. 

Can we also remember to label your child's belongings as this helps find lost items.

Ms Julie & I want to say a big thank you to our families that have updated your child's routine, this make it easier for the casual and lunch float staff to ensure the room is running smoothly.

Also if you haven't already, please bring in a family photo so we can display that up on our family tree! 

Partnerships with families is something that Ms Julie & I really value, so it would be great to have some more input/feedback come in.

We hope you have a wonderful start to the second half of 2018 and we will see you all around.

Miss Taylah and Ms Julie

Sprouts

Hello to all of our wonderful families for the mid-year newsletter. How quickly the year has passed, and how much the children have grown and matured. The children have adapted very well to all the changes that have occurred recently. Miss June and myself have concentrated on developing trusting relationships with the children, families and each other.

Congratulations are in order. Our friend Darcy has become a big brother. Pearce Alexander was born on 16^th June. Darcy is adjusting as expected. Darcy is also spending time transitioning into Miss Na's care in the Junior Kindy/ Buds room, so huge changes for Darcy. We wish you all the best, but will miss you.

Tommy has recently graduated to the Buds room also, and has settled in well. We do miss you, little man!

A birthday celebration is in order for Giovanni, who has turned 2. Happy Birthday from us all!

The Sprouts are a delightful group of children. We have been adjusting our room routine, for a smoother lunch – sleep transition time. This seems to be working well both for the staff and children. This has involved outdoor play to develop large motor skills before lunch. This has resulted in increased appetite and deeper rest time – adjustment to meet the rest time needs of the children. We have also introduced the self-help skill of handwashing. The children have responded with great enthusiasm, and are progressing well. It is rewarding to see them take responsibility for their own hygiene practices.

In the coming weeks we will be continuing our interest in sensory exploration, music, and gross motor activities. The children are displaying wonderful social skills, and developing deep friendships within the group. It is heartwarming when we observe these exchanges, knowing that these are our future leaders. We, as adults could learn much from these delightful exchanges – unconditional love and acceptance.

The search is still ongoing for our permanent Lead Educator – it is so important to find the right person to become part of the team, and to meet the high standards in care and education that we expect. We hope that the position will be filled soon.

We do welcome all family input, so feel free to approach us at any time.

Miss Julie C and Miss June, together in caring 

Buds

 A big welcome to Penelope, Priscilla, Oliver M, Tommy and Aimi  in our Buds room. 

They have settled well in the room, and have enjoyed making new friends. 

Our Buds children will continue to develop and extend on their independence and self- help skills in relation to toileting, washing hands, putting shoes and socks, making their beds, cleaning up after lunch and now with some cooler days putting on and taking off their jumpers. 

We will also focus on our numeracy counting skills of the numbers 11 to 20.

By observing the children reading books in book corner and the activities they choose to play all the time, they show us their interests and we are seeing a lot of interest in various motor vehicles, so to extend this we will start investigating 'transport' and 'road safety' in the coming weeks. 

This topic will involve many exciting activities related to transport vehicles and will engage the children in exciting art & craft activities. This will allow children to follow the rules that they have learned about keeping safe on the road as they walk and cross at the traffic lights. 

We have settled in well as a room.  We have now established a routine that suits us all and we have formed great relationships with each other.  

We cant wait to see what the second half of 2018 holds for us.

Until next time,

Ms Na, Ms Innie & Ms Shahnaz.  

Blossoms

Hey parents!

We cannot believe we are already half way through the year!! It seems like January was only yesterday.. The children have accomplished so much I don't know where to start. First of all I would like to welcome Miss Lyn to the blossom family! You all may have noticed she is the permanent assistant in the room.. FINALLY! The children absolutely love her, as Miss Lyn brings in so much character to the room. It's great hearing the children say good morning to her everyday and give her a well deserved cuddle. We work together with the children to build and extend on their interests while learning as well.

The children have continued their interest in the alphabet, they look forward to each week where we talk about a new letter. We investigate what sound that letter makes then think of words that start with that letter. The children also practice writing each letter on the whiteboard as well as on the tracing sheets we print out. Everyone loves the tracing sheets, it gives the children an opportunity to sit down with Miss Elena one on one and practice their writing. This time also helps Miss Elena continue to help the children with their pen hold and their fine motor skills. We also help the children improve their fine motor skills by doing activities such as threading and play with play dough. The children also have their names printed out in dot form so that they can practice writing their names, its amazing seeing the improvement in such a short amount of time!!

Through the month of May we celebrated the special ladies in our lives with our Mother's Day Pamper Morning. It was so much fun creating our mothers day presents, making our own bath bombs was an interesting experience. The children loved experimenting with different smells while we made the bath bombs. On the day of the pamper morning tea the children painted their mummies nails, some of the children painted mine and Miss Lyn's nails as well. From then nail polish was very popular! The children often asked to have their nails painted, so if you got some pretty nails coming home now you know why..

We also learnt about Reconciliation week as well as Sorry Day. Miss Elena vaguely went through the topic of how the Indigenous people are the original owners of the land (Australia). We also talked about some of the traditional ways the Indigenious people caught their food and communicated with each other. We borrowed some special sand from the buds room (special thanks to Miss Innie) that was baked in the oven for a few minutes to create symbols that they used to communicate to each other with. The children really loved using their fingers to create different symbols. We also read different books teaching the children about their way of life. This topic was very interesting for the children, their favourite part was definitely drawing symbols on the sand.

We enjoyed some incursions with the rest of the centre, we had a dentist visit (with a special tooth fairy) who taught the children a special song about brushing their teeth as well as the importance of eating healthy foods. The children really showed an interest in healthy eating. During morning tea/lunch times the children would all have conversations about what was in their lunchboxes and if it was a healthy food or a sometimes food from this we extended the topic of healthy eating with the children by making a chart of all the foods they eat. They decided which side their food went on the 'always' side of the 'sometimes' side (can you guess which side chocolate went on?). It was great to see the children making good choices of what foods are good for them to eat. Another great incursion was taking part in 'National Simultaneous Story Time'. We had a librarian come in and read us "Hickory Dickory Dash". The children loved this book as it was a spin off of the original rhyme hickory dickory dock. This lead the children to a real interest in reading. We read so many books in one day we wouldn't be able to list them all. We read during group time, before sleep time as well as before we go outside. The children each have a turn choosing books for us all to read, this helps us get a chance to read many different types of stories.

In our room we are working on getting a family wall up, feel free to bring us your family photo or just email it to Miss Nulla in the office and we can print it out. The children LOVE seeing their families around the room, it gives the room a much more homey feeling and its a great way to get the children communicating with each other. The children are super proud of their families and love sharing you with their friends and having a photo of you around makes them so happy!

That's all the news we have for this newsletter, tune in for our next one!

Until next time,

Miss Elena and Miss Lyn 

Poppies

Dear Parents/Caregivers,

We would like to welcome the Poppies room Theresa, Ripley, Lucas, Shihuyn, and Matthew M. They are settling in great, as our room buddies are eager to support their transition into the centre and the Poppies room. Our room buddies help with becoming familiarised with the room environment, and room routine. They often play with the new children, making connections and developing friendships from their first day. So, I would also like to say thank you to Sofia, Isobel, Charlie, Ruby, Eli, Brianna and Matthew who often volunteer or are prepared to be a room buddy.

Cooking

The Poppies continue to show their interest in cooking. After identifying the ingredients to be used for the day, they gather around the table eager to learn the procedure for the day. We found out that our label from the can showed green apples in the pictures and also said 'apples' in the print form. To incorporate and develop the children's literacy skills we are also looking at the environmental print on the labels of packages. This involves looking at the letters, numbers, pictures and symbols used on the outside packaging or labels. We discovered that for tinned foods, if we don't have the label on it, we wouldn't know what is in it. This could make life interesting. The children appreciated that we had apple in the can for making our mini apple muffins.

When the children can identify letters, numbers, pictures and symbols of everyday items around them, they are using decoding skills that enhance their literacy skills. Being able to use the decoding skills prepare them for school, as they will often use a combination of decoding skills to identify objects placed before them. To help our investigation of 'Environmental Print' we will need empty packages and labels for the children to develop an understanding of the world around them. We thank you for your help in this.

Home Corner 

This month poppies children have been interested in playing with our babies in our home corner.

The children have loved role playing as daddies, babies, mummies and even big sisters.  It's been great to watch the children as they engage with each other positively.  They have also shown empathy and care towards babies as they practice in home corner to feed, dress, bath and put the dolls to sleep.  This has been the biggest focus during their time in Home corner, but they have also shown great interest in cooking, which is great to know that they have been enjoying our weekly cooking sessions.  

Sheets and Warm clothing

With the cooler weather we have noticed that many of the children also need a small light blanket and will assist in feeling warm and comfortable for our rest pause time. Even if your child may not sleep, we do provide books and quiet activities during them time. Having a small blanket helps to keep warm while being engages with reading, completing puzzles or working with a quiet bag.

Could we please also ask for you and your child together to add extra warm clothing such as extra tops or pants. When you add the clothes with your child's input they gain a better understanding of what they have in their bags and an awareness of how to look after their own belongings when coming into the Poppies room. This is an important skill to also develop when heading to school, as they will need to be more responsible for their own belongings at school.

We would like to thank you for your continued support and feedback. If you have any queries please feel free to chat with Miss Renee or Miss Belinda, we are more than happy to help you.

Cheers,

Miss Renee and Miss Belinda

Poppies Room