LOCKLEYS EARLY LEARNING CENTRE
NEWSLETTER November 2018
NEWS FROM THE DIRECTOR
Holidays
Just another reminder that I will be on leave from the 8th November up to and including 7th December. Whilst I am away, Kym and Bek will be here as the Acting Directors to assist you with anything you may need. Account payments can still be paid in the morning if that suits your needs as there are Educators that can assist you with this.
Centre Children’s Christmas Celebration
The Centre Christmas Party is approaching at a rapid rate. It will be on Wednesday 12th December. Please check your parent pocket soon as an invitation will be coming.
Children leaving for School and Preschool 2019
A few weeks ago I posted a letter into your parent pocket about either Preschool or School for 2019. If you could please advise the Centre of the necessary information as soon as you can that would be greatly appreciated. The information that we require is confirmation that your child is attending school and the date of their last day here at the Centre. We also require information from those children that will be attending Preschool for 2019. Will you be attending our Preschool or a different one, will you be changing days, and from what date? Please see Dionne, Paula or Sandra with these details. Thank you.
Introducing Jodie
My name is Jodie. I will be joining Kym, Paige and Stella in the Pre-Kindy room as a team leader. I am a Diploma Qualified Early Childhood Educator with 8 years’ experience.
I endeavor to build strong relationships with children getting to know their individual personalities and interests. I believe that children play, learn and develop best when they feel safe, secure and accepted. I believe that play is the universal learning language for children; children lead their own learning through play and exploration.
I am very excited and look forward to meeting you and your children. Jodie.
DATES TO REMEMBER
Photo day
Thurs 1st November
Fri 2nd November
Disco Day 80s Theme Tues 6th November
Diwali Festival Wed 7th November
Children’s Christmas Parade Tues 11th December
Children’s Christmas Party Wed 12th December
Shared Christmas Lunch Mon 24th December
Christmas Day/Boxing Day
Centre Closed Tues & Wed 25th-26th December
Regards Dionne
INFANT/TODDLER ROOM
Kon’nichiwa! Hello from the Under Twos room, it has been a busy month for the babies and toddlers!
We have been working hard on a new inquiry that has worked very well; we found the children enjoy dancing and painting, so we have combined these two experiences together and it has been very successful. We worked collaboratively together and expressed our emotions and ideas through the medium of paint using bright colours and a range of different sized brushes, sponges and our hands. As the children were brushing and using their hands they listened to upbeat instrumental music which influenced their painting styles in a positive way. We have been changing the music every week, so we can see how music impacts their painting style. The first week was upbeat instrumental music the second was Jazz, then vehicle sounds and now African and Brazilian music.
Water is an important natural material that provides hours of absorbing fun and a multitude of wonderful development and learning opportunities, that’s why we have been providing water play, as the weather warms up, with the indoor and outdoor environment. We have found that when playing with water children release energy by splashing the water or scooping & pouring and run their hands through the water using their fine motor and gross motor skills. They have found much enjoyment during these experiences.
As a part of communication about your child’s day, we write on paper slips to inform you about their daily routines, as well as verbally communicate on arrival when picking your child up. We are thinking about being sustainable with the amount of paper we are using. We are considering changing it to using a white board with relevant information, for you to have a look at. We would love to hear your input about this idea……
Please remember, as it is now spring we would appreciate it if you could bring your child’s hat (a legionnaires or broad brimmed hat without a neck cord), with a name on it. If your child has sensitive skin you are able to bring in your own sunscreen and insect repellent. The Centre uses Coles own brand 50+ sunscreen and Moove organic insect repellent during the spring and summer months, please also bring a spare change of clothes for your child to wear during our messy and water play experiences. Thank you.
Ciao,
Tati, Chanelle, Krystin, Kahla and Heather.
PRE-KINDY ROOM
Last term we started to create a numeracy and literacy rich environment to support all children’s learning. This has now been embedded into our daily rhythms, play experiences and morning meetings.
This term we are going to focus on intentional teaching opportunities to scaffold on the group’s prior knowledge and to support new understandings in the literacy and numeracy learning areas. Some of the experiences that we will have an opportunity to explore will be measurement which will include height, size, weight, capacity and length. We will also look at spatial knowledge, which will entail describing shapes of objects. During our morning meetings we will look at sequences of stories and looking at the pictures to work out what comes next. So far this term the children have had the opportunity to engage in sorting activities where they sorted objects into size and colours. We have also set a permanent writing play space with a variety of mediums to use such as pens, crayons, pencils and textas, this is where the children are developing from mark making to writing letters and drawing purposeful drawings. Recently the children have been very interested in drawing shapes and becoming familiar and practicing to write the letters in their names.
With the weather getting warmer the children have been very interested in water play, over the past few weeks we have provided a variety of mediums in the water such as bubbles and glitter, during these experiences the children were able to explore their senses and develop their hand/eye coordination skill using a range of tools which included scoops, ladles and containers. Throughout this time the children enjoyed using the scoops to collect the water then pouring into the containers, we have also noticed the children enjoyed scooping and pouring using different mediums such as sand and bark this indicates the transferring schema.
This term we have introduced new guidelines in the room, they are based on and relate to the children learning to interact with one another with care, empathy and respect. The children are getting to know the new guide lines and putting them into practice, we have also noticed the children reminding each other of the guidelines as well as role modeling positive behaviors when an issue arises, which is great to see.
Kym, Paige, Jodie, Stella, Lil, & Andrea.
PRESCHOOL PROGRAM
This month we have continued to watch as the bulbs we planted have begun to sprout. The children have enjoyed returning regularly to our bee garden to document the progress of their growth. This gave the children the opportunity to use their scientific minds to observe, document and hypothesise. Last month the children documented little growth but in the following weeks we continued our visits to this space and look what had happened!
The children noticed the movement and growth of the plants but were perplexed… where were the flowers? The children were super excited to document the growth of their flowers this time using the medium of photography. Following this the children began to once again predict their thoughts on what the flowers would eventually grow to look like.
Watch this space and we will keep you updated on the progress of our garden.
This month we were invited to the Westpac Building’s Herb Garden. We went along with our very own chef, Belinda. We were provided the opportunity to help prune their garden and take some ingredients back with us. The children discovered that when they tear the leaf or snap the stem, a strong aroma came from the plant. The children enjoyed smelling the Mint, Parsley, Sage and Oregano and even decided to bring them back to the Centre to share with the other children.
Belinda challenged us to research some new recipes so that we could use these fresh ingredients. We decided to make a nut-free parsley and mint pesto with pita chips! And what a hit they were. We cannot wait to continue to come up with more ideas to incorporate these herbs into our recipes.
IMMUNISATION
Is your child up to date with immunisation? Remember that children who are not immunised will be excluded during any outbreak of a government scheduled preventable illness within the Centre
With the warmer weather upon us, we ask that you send extra pairs of clothes as we will be regularly engaging in water-play.
As always, if you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to see Sandra or Bek.
Thank you,
Sandra, Bek, Nicole, Asmita, Renae & Nisha.
HEALTHY EATING & NUTRITION
Great news: I am starting to write up a new menu, I am looking for your support. I would like any suggestions or contributions that I can adapt for the childcare environment.
It might be something small like different spices, flavourings or herbs that you may use in certain dishes. If you feel more adventurous, I am happy to look at recipes, special dishes for your family that your children like. I may need to adapt them but happy to try.
Feel free to come and talk to me or drop a note in the kitchen. Hope to hear from you.
Thank you, Belinda
ADMINISTRATION
Absences:
With the changing of the Sign In/Out system to digital you will need to be vigilant with regards to when your child is absent. When you return to the Centre after being absent and you sign your child in, the system will let you know that there are previous signatures required. After you press ‘OK’ the first day of absence will appear; you need to sign in the white box as per usual but you must press the blue button ‘mark as absent’. Once you have signed all old absences the current day will appear and you can sign your child in.
Thank you.
Ciao, Paula