HomeMay 2018
From the Office
Hi Parents, and welcome to May 2018!
Nearly half way through the year already and we've gone through so much together!
April
Last month we took part in World Autism Day, working together as a centre to all decorate a puzzle piece which was created to raise awareness on World Autism Day, but to also teach the children about the 'same but different' concept. Thank you to all the families that took part by decorating a puzzle piece or wearing odd socks for 'Odd Sock day'.
In April, we also had the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. Each room used different methods to explore what this was and enhance their knowledge on 'physical activity' and 'taking care of our health'.
During the last couple of weeks in April, we celebrated Anzac day by taking a closer look at what this meant, and we had the Reverse Garbage incursion, which assisted children in making creepy crawlies out of recycled materials! This was to celebrate Earth day on the 22nd of April.
This month is just as busy!
Mother's Day
The children in all rooms are working on their presents for their beautiful mummies for Mother's day. We are hosting a 'Mummy and Me' pamper morning on Friday 11th May 2018. Each room has picked a different way of pampering their mummies. This starts at 9am - 10.30am. If your child does not attend on a Friday, but you would like to come in, please feel free to do so. We would love to have you! Please let me know if you have chosen to do this.
On the same topic, you may be aware of our Mother's Day hamper we have up for grabs. We are raffling this off for one special mummy to win. The winner will be announced on Friday 11th May by 5pm.
Tickers are just $1, and you can buy as many as you like, but please note these need to be purchased PRIOR to the 11th. You must be liking our Facebook page, as this is where the winner will be announced.
The hamper was created with the help of the local community. Please keep an eye out on Facebook as I will soon be uploading a picture of the hamper, along with the prizes and the lovely community businesses that are taking part.
New Childcare Subsidy
Please ensure you have updated your details on the MyGov website for the new Childcare Subsidy that starts on the 2nd of July 2018.
This is crucial as your details will not be rolled over from the current system. If you require more information on the changes, these can be found on our Facebook, the KAL website, I am also here to answer any questions you may have.
Sunscreen
We are now providing sunscreen here at Piptree Mount Gravatt East.
If your child has an allergic reaction to certain sunscreens and you'd prefer them to have their own, please bring it in clearly labelled with a chemist label with your child's details. Any chemist should be able to provide you with a label if you let them know it is for childcare. If your child can have the centre sunscreen, we will be sending their previous sunscreens home. Please ask your child's Educators to collect this.
Lost Property
There has recently been an increase in lost belongings. Please ensure ALL items that come to the centre with your child, are clearly labelled. This includes toys & blankets. If they are labelled, it makes it easier to get these items back.
I also had a Quartz watch handed to me yesterday. If this is yours please come and see me.
Internet Issues
Thank you all for being so understanding with the issues we have had lately with our internet and phones.
I appreciate your understanding and cooperation.
Due to the recent technical difficulties, I am unable to make changes to the code access door system. This means that I am not able to change your codes or provide new codes for our new families. Please bare with me while we sort through this.
It has been lovely talking to most of you, be it in the morning or afternoon, about the positive changes happening and gaining your feedback. It is appreciated more than you know, and I would like to say a HUGE THANK YOU again, for taking the time to provide your input.
I hope you have a great long weekend.
Nulla
Pips
Welcome to April, families and Educators
I want to give a warm welcome from myself to Families, Educators and our little Pips, my name is Taylah, and I am the new Nursery Lead Educator in the Pips room. Myself and Julie have been focusing lots on setting up fun, warm and aesthetically pleasing environments for Parents, Staff and of course our little Pips to enjoy and feel safe and secure as they join us for the day.
This past month in the Pips Room we have been focusing on building strong relationships with the families and the children. By learning each child's new routines and getting to know the children and families on a different level. My aim as a Lead Educator is to ensure yourself and your child are satisfied with outcomes that arise for each day. We are planning on implementing sustainability into the Pips room to better teach our Children, Families, Educators and Community on the importance of sustainability. I will be doing a plan up for this month of what we can achieve for this next project. Please feel free to chat to myself or Julie with any ideas for our new project.
Looking forward to a wonderful year with the Pip family 😊
Sprouts
你好Nǐ hǎo from The Toddler Sprouts room.
It was a fun and busy Month of April in The Toddler Sprouts room. Firstly we would like to say a big 'Happy 2nd Birthday' to 2 our friends, 1 being Tommy.
We were very excited to play with some new cognitive wall activities boards that were installed on our room walls.
We started a 'World of Technology' Table pod, (please see Piptree Facebook) with the Toddler children engaging in dramatic role-play.
This month, Four of our Toddler friends were lucky enough to go and see The Wiggles in concert with their families.
So as The Wiggle are a big interest with our Sprouts, we have decided to create a Wiggles Area of play. How cute do our friends look all dressed up, even our Dad's!
To finish off Autism Awareness Month, Miss Renee the Preschool Poppies teacher, Miss B and their children organised an odd sock day, so we all took part by coming in with our odd socks. Ms Deb wore bright red and white stripy long socks!
Thank you to all that took part.
This month, we are looking forward to our Mummy & Me pamper morning, The Aperture Dentist Visit, as well as taking part in Australia's Biggest Morning Tea!
Until next month, Miss Debbie, Miss Rosemary and The Toddler Sprouts😊
Buds
Hi Parents!
Next few weeks our focus topics will be: Healthy foods and Hygiene. The educators will be introducing new concepts and ideas to the children to enhance their learning.
Examples include every day and sometimes foods, why water is good for our body and our contribution in protecting the environment through composting.
The children will be encouraged to keep a good and clean hygiene in a fun way. Children will develop their learning and understanding about personal hygiene and good hygiene practices such as brushing their teeth and washing hands thoroughly through the planned learning experiences and stories.
Parent input
Each day we reflect on the day's activities and experiences the children have enjoyed throughout the day. The emphasis is to get more family input/feedback into our program so we can meet the needs of our families and children. The children are always so proud of their work and they love to share it with you. We reflect on how the children played with the experiences. This ongoing cycle is our way of continually furthering the children's abilities, skills, ideas, and problem solving during their time here.
We love to regularly get your stories about what your child got up to on the weekend, special memories you want to share, things you hope for your child to achieve, things you know they really love to do etc., all so we get a big picture of what type of person they are.
Please come to us with your thoughts and ideas. We look forward to it!
Until next time
Miss Na, Miss Shanhaz & Miss Innie
Blossoms
Hey parents!
We've had a very busy and eventful April! The children are absolutely loving learning about the alphabet, they have showed such great interest in learning how to write each letter. In such a short amount of time there has been a very big improvement not just in their fine motor skills but their writing skills as well. Now before they write they stop and make sure they are holding their pen correctly. This is so amazing to see! I am so proud of how far they have come.
Together with the children we also set up a dish washing station, we now have our very own sink that we fill each lunch time for the children. Once they have finished eating they wash their containers and leave them to dry. This is very popular with the children, they love washing their own dishes (lets hope they love to do it when they're teenagers too!)
We loved extending our knowledge on Anzac Day last month! The children took part in a range of play activities as we learnt the true meaning of Anzac day. We made our own Anzac biscuits too, which we devoured for Afternoon tea!
April was also Autism awareness month! Together with the preschool room along with the whole centre we made special puzzle pieces that the children coloured in, with which we will be creating a chain to represent diversity and coming together. We love teaching the children all about diversity and about different cultures and backgrounds. As we say together in the senior kindy room – "Even though we are different, we are all the same."
May we will be focusing on the children's culture and backgrounds. We would love your contributions! If you could please fill out 'All About Me Sheets' and bring them back as soon as you can it would be really appreciated.
We will also be displaying different country flags to represent our backgrounds as we learn about each other. This will help the children feel at home even when they're not at home. We all know how proud the children are of you (the parents). So we thought it would be great idea to have photos of you all around our room too.
We celebrated our friends' Ruby and Jacob's birthdays last month too! The children loved taking part in singing the special birthday song to their friends, and needless to say they loved the delicious cupcakes!
This month, we are really looking forward to treating our mummies for our "'Mummy and Me Pamper Morning". The Blossoms are working really hard on their homemade gifts for all their beautiful mummies!
Wishing you all a very happy May!
Miss Elena, Ms Lyn/Ms June
Poppies
Dear Parents/Caregivers,
Welcome from the Poppies room. During the month of April, the children have been discussing and identifying the concepts of 'same' and 'different'. The children have viewed images of various people and talk about how they can be different or the same. The investigation of looking at people aids in assisting the children develop an awareness for the acknowledging Autism Awareness in April campaign celebrated in April each year.
Centre Project
Together with the children their families and the staff of the centre, we coloured in puzzle pieces to create a group wall display, that will be created outside of the Poppies room. This project has been developed to raise awareness of Autism. But to also acknowledge that it is okay to be different as all the puzzles pieces are unique in their own way.
Room Focus
To extend on this and develop the Poppies understanding of being okay and different at the same time, we held an "Odd Sock Day" on the 30th April, 2018. We encouraged the Poppies children to wear odd socks to the centre on this day. Thank you to all that took part in this!
Problem Solving Skills The Poppies have shown a great interest in the puzzles in our room. They daily select a different puzzle and are developing their confidence and strategies as they engage in these. Miss Renee and Miss Julie provide prompts as to approaching some of the puzzles. This may range from placing in the corner pieces first, followed by the pieces with a flat side, to be placed on the edges. A number of our children demonstrate their own effective approach by identifying puzzle pieces with colours or pictures on them and look at connecting these together. It has been fantastic how the children have been assisting each other working collaboratively to complete the puzzles.
Regulating Emotions
We have also been identifying emotions. This encourages the children to acknowledge emotions they experience, as well as being able to see different emotions in their peers. It is at this age, that children may still need assistance to regulate their emotions and as teachers we support them to develop strategies in being able to do this. Some children choose to engage with the sheepskin rugs near the pictures of children showing different emotions. This allows a space in the room, to feel safe and are able to go when feeling overwhelmed with what is happening around them. We have also provided 'emotion tins' and the children can choose one of our five emotions tins to focus on when needing time to focus on other interests. These have been working well and the children understand this is a safe space and time for them.
Happy Birthday's
Ms Belinda and I, would like to also wish a special Happy Happy 4th Birthday to Isobel, Karina and Brianna. Although their Birthdays have already happened we wish that they are still enjoying some of their Birthday cheer. It is extra exciting as they also got to share their Birthday month with Miss Renee!
ELLA Program
It is the beginning of Term 2 at school, so we have now been able to download two new additional ELLA apps, which look at the Mandarin language in the context of a Birthday Party and being at the Zoo. The children are eager to make a cake using the I Pads and use the mandarin language while making their cake. This will a great asset to our learning, as we can integrate the I Pads into the home corner area, where the children can make their cake and mix it on the I Pad. We are looking forward to see the learning the children will have from these experiences. If you want to have a turn of using the I Pads and the apps, please see Miss Renee or Ms Belinda and we can provide you this opportunity.
It is amazing how fast the year is moving and we are already in May! The children have settled into the room and are welcoming the new children who come and join us. This is through our room buddy strategy that helps new children to feel supported and they can develop connections with the children and the educators. We'd like to take this opportunity to welcome our new friends Theresa, Lucas and Ripley!
Thank you to all the parents and grandparents for your feedback and support in the Poppies room. We appreciate you very much. Please feel welcome to share your talents or interests with the children, we love to have you join us, as a parent volunteer. Contact Miss Renee or Ms Belinda to arrange this.
Cheers,
Miss Renee & Miss Belinda
