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April 2020 News

From the Office 

  I would like to start today by expressing a sincere appreciation for our team. I wish to thank each of you for the creative and collaborative ways you have stepped up to support families and children during this crisis.  It's times like this that remind us that we all have an important role to play and something to contribute. Every educator who is providing comfort to our children and their families is to be applauded. It's a team effort that highlights the importance of coming together. We will get past this by focusing on the little things that matter.

Families, I appreciate your patience during this time and would like to thank you for keeping your children home when they are unwell and assisting us in minimizing the risk and preventing the spread of contagious illness. Our service is open and we are following the priority of access recommendation from the Government and our priority are families and children, with both parents working and children deemed as vulnerable. It is a new world for us all and during the emergency state, I ask that we work together to assist with flattening the curve of coronavirus infection within the community. These measures have been put in place to not only protect us all but to ensure our front-line workers can continue to go to work and support those in need. 

I am looking forward to our community coming out safely and stronger on the other end.

Keep smiling, Natasa

Our service will be closed on Monday, 4.5.2020 for the Labour Day public holiday

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 Hi everyone,

We hope you all are doing well in this uncertain period of time. It is an incredibly challenging and overwhelming situation. In the past couple of months, we have welcomed three new babies in the room: Levi, Rhea and Michael, who will be starting this week. Levi and Rhea have settled in well into the room. We have also missed Tomas, who moved into the Sprouts' room.

Last week, we created hand printed 'Poppies' as an Anzac Day tribute. We placed all our babies in the high chair and took their red colour hand prints to create poppies. Currently, the babies are busy making their Mother's Day art activities. In the Pips room, the babies have also done chalk and crayon drawings. Emilia is very close to walking independently. This week, Rhea started to crawl and explore all over the room. Levi and Eugenie are walking with the support of furniture and push bikes. At the moment, all the babies are interested in playing with small musical toys, discovery bottles and stacking rings.

As the weather is getting cooler, please pack some warmer clothes in your child's bag. If you have any queries about your babies, please feel free to talk to Annie or myself.

Cheers, Sanchita and Annie

 Hello and welcome everyone in our little sprouts Room. I would be like to welcome Tomas and his family to the Sprouts 1. Tomas has settled very well into the Sprouts routine and enjoying to play with his new friends.

Because of this weather changing can I please kindly request the families to put some warm clothes in their bags in case the they feel cold so we can use.

Here are some of our focuses in our room:

We had small group of children but we still enjoyed our activities and learning new things in the room. We celebrated our egg hunt for Easter and also made the poppy flower for Anzac Day to remembrance of the soldiers who gave their life for us and our country. We also focusing on our social and emotional interactions as well.

Now we start learnt to set in our group time. children develop their social skills by getting to know their friends and learn through play with their peers. Besides, we will start with colour recognition, number cards 1 to 5, body parts and we also singing our favourite songs. Children in our room will continue developing their language skills to express our emotions as well learning to take turns in our learning and play.

children have been exploring their world with their sensory capability. For instance, children have a great time participating in different sensory activities such play dough, sandpit, paper cutting, water play, we also been exploring the different area in our room such as home corner and science area. We also being focusing on our fine motor and hand eye-coordination through threading and changing the pages in books.We also been busy exploring our gross motor abilities through challenging ourselves on the obstacle course and all these activities help children to develop their fine motor skills, manipulation skills, hand-eye coordination and imagination.

The curriculum in our room emphasises the outcomes in the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) and our intentional teaching strategies support children's independent learning. We would like to encourage family input regarding our learning stories which are displayed.

We look forward to work collaboratively with you on the children's learning and development. Thank you.

Miss Amanpreet Kaur 

 Wow, end of April already!

A lot has happened since the last newsletter! In this time of uncertainty, we just want to let you all know that we are still here, happy and safe.

In Buds' room, we are building the children's identity as we teach them good behaviour such as greeting their friends and using good manners. Furthermore, this will also build on their communication skills and confidence.

We have also been busy doing a lot of artwork and group activities. Last week, Buds' children commemorated Anzac day by making poppy flowers with hand print painting.

This month's learning focus is colours and the weather. We have been looking at colour flash cards and doing colourful painting. Personal hygiene is also extremely crucial, especially in these hard times, so we are actively instructing the children to often thoroughly wash their hands.

Until next time,

Sharon and Sawraj 

 Hi all Blossoms 1 parents,

It has been a tough a few weeks for everyone but let's all stay positive and stick through it together! And to keep ourselves safe during the coronavirus pandemic, we have been teaching the children in Blossom's 1 the importance of personal hygiene and keeping a safe distance. Not only have we been watching various videos on how to wash or hands properly, we wash our hands together in a group multiple times a day. Our children are being reinforced to remember to cough into their elbows and not towards others, to avoid touching our faces during the day, and to remember to always keep a safe distance. Our children are doing an amazing job at keeping themselves safe and therefore their family's safe.

Although we have a small group of children attending class, learning is still important! Kindness week was at the end of March, where our children learnt what it means to be kind with Ms Briohny. The children got to discuss and have their own input on different ways to be kind. Harmony day was also in the month of March, where the children were able to understand the different cultural background of their classmate, improving their culture awareness and understanding the importance of inclusivity. Furthermore, the children are still continuing to develop essential skills such as fine motor, communication and creativity skills to name a few, via the many activities planned. These include activities such as threading pasta wheels, coloured bead sorting, puzzles and group reading.

Hopefully everyone had a lovely Easter weekend! I know for sure our children had lots of fun celebrating Easter at school. For Easter, the children had lots of fun making Easter bunny hats, Easter baskets, and even did an Easter sticker collage. They got to take some of their prized Easter eggs home from the Easter egg hunt as well!

In the next coming month, we will continue to focus on personal hygiene, with hand washing being our main focus, along with ways we can keep ourselves and our family safe from the virus. This month we will be focusing on developing our fine motor and language skills with more activities to help improve our scissor and pencil holding. We will be doing a show-and-tell for our children to practice speaking to a small group to not only improve on our language skills but also their confidence. It will be another month full of learning!

Finally, just a reminder for all parents to bring your children's water bottle and an extra change of clothes. The weather is starting to get chilly so remember to bring jacket/warmer clothes.

Stay safe everyone and till next time!

Ms Nikki and Ms Briohny

 Blossom 2 (3.5-5)

Dear families from our Blossom 2 Room,

Firstly, we would like to thank all everyone for their patience and understanding during these uncertain times. We are also here to support the learning and wellbeing of our children, so please feel free to talk to us!

The past few months, we have focused on a number of different skills including fine motor skills, learning our alphabet letter sounds and letter names, developing our language skills and hygiene practices. During quiet time, children practiced their pencil grip to trace patterns and alphabet letters using colouring pencils, Q-tip and paint brushes. Early literacy skills is very important to establish well so children head into prep with some foundational knowledge. We start with our letter knowledge and letter sound through various mediums including, painting, making collage and through music. A highlight for our learners was the alphabet hunt around the room! Children searched high and low for our alphabet letters. Our learners are also growing confidence in the classroom and so we have introduced shown tells during group time to develop their ability to express themselves in front of their peers. There were some great story sharing and we all enjoy listening to everyone talk about their real-life experiences.

It was important in the last few months that we made a particular emphasis on good hygiene practices in our classroom. Children learnt how to wash their hands properly with a song. They wash their hands regularly before and after meal time and during transitions between activities. It is great to see the majority of children getting into this good habit and routinely remind each other. We also make sure that our tables and equipment are also regularly sanitized.

Next few months, we will continue to focus on early literacy skills, number counting and continue with our good hygiene practices.

Take care and until next time!

Ms Yu-mei and Cindy

Poppies (4-5)

Greetings from the kindergarten room, otherwise known as Poppies!

First, we would like to congratulate Eden and her family with the new addition to their family of baby boy, Jude.

What a month it has been. Coronavirus has the world hard bringing significant changes and adjustments in all sectors of work industries. Although numbers have dropped drastically in the childcare industry as well, as educators we continue our duty of teaching while providing security and stability for the children, and their families in our care.

In the kindergarten (Poppies) room the small numbers provided ample opportunity for more quality and one-on-one interaction and learning with the children. We started with more structured learning regarding literacy and numeracy as each week we focus on a letter, shape and colours. With each letter we introduce weekly, the sign letter (Auslan) is also incorporated which brings awareness and an understanding to the children of people and children who are deaf or hearing impaired. Supportive activities through arts and craft, stories, songs, music and movement, posters and learning areas provides additional cognitive developmental learning.

We are so excited as the kindergarten rooms had an influx of new resources! This of course means new challenges with new educational games and activities. We also received a box of new books which sees the children reading and sharing their perception to their peers and lots of discussion during group times.

Lately, the children have been displaying interest in rocket ships and we facilitated them with information about the solar system, planets with supportive activities and information. From my laptop I showed them how rocket ships launches, what it looks like in space and pointing out where our planet Earth is.

Show and tell have really kicked off! The children are bringing in books and proudly share their stories with their peers. What a great way to build on their confidence and public speaking. Some are not quite ready yet. They are not pressured and we continue to encourage and build on their confidence and self-esteem until they feel ready to share. So, please continue to send books, photos, a souvenir, something from their heritage country, ANYTHING except toys to share with us all.

Health and Hygiene; The cooler months are here. We are continuing emphasising physical wellbeing with hand washing, tissues, where to sneeze into and cleaning our room and resources on a daily basis. If your child has a fever or temperature, please keep them at home for their own and others wellbeing. Thank you.

Please stay safe. Isolate. Keep your social distancing. Wash your hands. Let's all work together in getting rid of Covid-19.

Cheers, Ms Tertia and Raazia

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