September 2019

Welcome to our September newsletter.

Did you know it is only 15 weeks until Christmas?? How crazy! This year definitely flew past us.  

We have been so busy exploring and learning so many new things the last couple of months!  

Dental health week was super fun as we learnt about oral health and good & bad foods for our teeth.  We enjoyed a visit from Dr Erik from Aperture dental and the tooth fairy as we engaged in lots of fun activities and conversations about how to keep our teeth strong and happy!

Children's book week saw us dressing up as our favourite book characters and exploring sooo many new books!   

Dr Joe from the Dr Science show was also a huge hit, where children got to participate in a variety of rich and meaningful inquiry based experiments as they investigated, showed curiosity and developed a range of skills and processes such as problem solving, experimentation, hypothesising and investigating all while playing! 

We loved having our dad's here too as we celebrated Father's day together with delicious food, sack races, apple eating contests and so much more! Thank you to all the dad's that came out and celebrated with us, we hope you had a great time! Congratulations too to Natalia and her family on winning the Father's day raffle! 

Can you now see why this year feels like it has flown past us?!

What's on...

 There is soooo much more to come before the year is up.  Here's a sneak peak of what's on this month

From the Office 

​Hi parents, and welcome to our September newsletter!

• Firstly, I would like to thank you all for your cooperation and understanding throughout the month of August while I was on leave. Ms Elena and the whole Piptree family did a fabulous job while I was away, but it wouldn't have been an easy 4 weeks without your patience and support through it all.   
• I am currently in the process of ensuring all aspects of your child's files are up to date.  This includes immunisation records, birth certificates, emergency contacts and so on.  As always, I appreciate and prompt response through this.  Thank you to all that have sent through updated immunisation records.  If you haven't done so yet, please check your emails and either forward this to the centre, or drop it in.

Pips 

August was a very busy month with our different celebration, Book Character Dress Up, Dr. Science Show Incursion and Dentist Visit went very well and much enjoyed.

As you may have seen from our learning stories and from our displays around the room, we have been very busy. At the moment the children are showing a huge interest in colours as they point to a range of things around the room and ask "colour".  We are slowly taking this opportunity to introduce colours through many art and craft activities as well as books, songs and conversations. 

We've also been doing a lot of gross motor skill such as riding the bikes, trampoline bouncing and ball throwing. The children are also enjoying book time, as they all sit together and pretend to read while Ms Julie or Ms Chona read to them! What a lovely scene this is. 

Most of our Pips have started walking, and some of them have even started to help pack away!  What great accomplishments these are.  We look forward to incorporating more self help activities in our daily routine.

We would also like to welcome our new family members Blair, Archer and Daniel.  We look forward to continuing to build friendships together and getting to know you more! 

Sprouts 

It is lovely seeing our Sprouts more mature in every aspect of their development over the past months. 

They have improved their balance, gait and other physical abilities as they engage themselves more in the physical environment and activities, that challenged their bodies safely and encouraged them to make decisions. 

They became more independent and responsible in practising self help skills with exuberance and enthusiasm. They also improved their language and literacy which allowed them to communicate more, strengthening learning, relationships and social interactions.

This month, we continue to provide an environment that is rich in sensory motor opportunities and adaptive to the Sprout's changing developmental skills, ensuring that they all receive nurturing many times a day, as we encourage, coach and respond to their varying abilities and competencies.

Ms June & Ms Coralie

Buds 

Welcome to our Buds September newsletter. 

We have had a very busy couple of months. As our Buds children are gaining in confidence, we are now seeing some wonderful and funny personalities. The children are developing socially, working on building their friendships with other children in the group, which is great to see.

In the following weeks we will continue to explore dinosaurs as we further extend from the children's current interest. The study of dinosaurs fosters curiosity and a thirst for learning. Children can't help but leap into a pattern of scientific inquiry when they look at these monstrous creatures! We will also explore earth science theme- Volcanoes. Exploring the world of dinosaurs opens up the creative minds of children. Because no one is here to see them, there are only ideas- no right answers- to questions about how these creatures looked and sounded. 

Another source of great enjoyment for our Buds children is book reading. Our children love to read books and see the pictures in the books with friends and teachers. Reading books is a comforting and relaxing experience.Reading assists them to creatively build their knowledge about different features and ideas in the world around them.

Now that the weather is getting warmer, we would like to focus on toilet training. So, if you would like your child to start, just bring in plenty of spare clothes. If you have any concerns or questions about any part of the program, routine or your child, please do not hesitate to talk to us.

-Just a reminder, please remember to bring in your child own sun-smart hat or own Piptree hat when your child attend. Thanks

Miss Na, Miss Min & Miss Shahnaz

Blossoms 

Hi parents, as we look back on the few months that have passed, we see just how far our blossoms have come. The children have not only grown physically but mentally too.

The children have made great friendships and have mastered some amazing skills too - such as toilet training, letter recognition as well as some great fine and gross motor skills. As the days pass we notice the amount of self confidence that the children have found, they are able to use their words with their friends and educators and are beginning to resolve conflicts on their own too. WELL DONE BLOSSOMS!!

It has been a wonderful journey learning about the alphabet, the children learnt a new letter each week as well some words that begin with that letter. The children's interest was amazing! Because of all their interest our learning of letters continued, we are now on our last two letters – Y and Z. We plan on extending our learning of letters by exploring name recognition, this will help the children become more familiar with what letters are in their names and become familiar with what their names look and sound like.

Before we know it, it will be Christmas time. This is where it gets hard… we prepare to say goodbye to each other as we prepare the children for the big poppies room, lucky we see each other out in the yard every morning and afternoon.

We're so proud of all the children and how far they have come.

Until next time,

Miss Elena and Miss Jessie

Poppies 

Dear Parents/Caregivers,

We would like to thank you for your support and positive feedback during our transition of having Miss Corrine come into the Poppies room. This has been a time of settling in for Miss Corrine and the children. There has been positive relationships and connections made with the children and Miss Corrine. Thank you Miss Corrine for the great contributions you add to the Poppies room.

The Poppies have recently been showing a strong interest in letters and drawings. They have been excited to show how they can draw letters to their names and complete drawings of their families. Some children are still developing this skill and we encourage them to practice at home. We have guided them and give them examples to follow and some make the choice to do this. The children love also how they draw rainbows and discuss all the colours they recognise.

The children have also been investigating "superheroes, villains and fairies'. They have come to recognise that superheroes – help people, villains – don't help people and fairies – help people without them knowing about it. We explored these ideas through our art, as well as the stories we read or viewed on YouTube. The children have enjoyed painting material to portray what characters they like. These will be developed into dress-ups and allow the children to explore these ideas through role play. We are hoping to plan a special day so the children can have a culmination experience to share their understanding further with each other.

The Poppies room is starting a new focus with the children showing much interest in already. This will be about growing seeds that we can eat to be healthy, as well as insects and how they grow and develop. If you have a 'green thumb' we would love to hear from you and have some help in growing some plants in our investigation of our natural environment and the world around us. Contributions of plastic containers for growing our seeds to plants would be greatly accepted and appreciated. Please see Miss Renee or Miss Corrine to find out more information.

In addition to this the Poppies are also interested in Space and Dinosaurs. More children are wanting to know about space. We will continue our investigation about the universe through our reading of books, viewing of videos on YouTube and sharing of ideas and extending on their interest through our art and craft experiences. Miss Corrine has a strong interest in this and is keen to share her knowledge with the Poppies. Miss Renee has had her own children also study much about the universe and has knowledge to share in this area. We look forward to exploring the world beyond our Earth.

Miss Renee would like to thank all the parents who are interested in attending the parent teacher interviews. This helps to make connections for the teacher with the parents and to generate goals of learning for the children in preparation towards attending school. If you have been unable to come and have an interview with Miss Renee, please come and see Miss Renee or Miss Corrine to arrange a time that can be mutually convenient for you.

Thank you for your kind words and support in the Poppies room.

Smiles,

Miss Renee and Miss Corrine