HIGHWAY CHILD CARE & EARLY LEARNING CENTRE
OUR COMMITMENT TO YOU
Your child’s enjoyment is our number one concern.
Each of our team will take personal responsibility to ensure that your child has an enjoyable experience at our Centre.
Please let us know if anything is wrong as we will endeavour to fix it for you, or if we can do anything to make your
child’s experience more enjoyable. We hope you and your child enjoy your time with us.
NEWSLETTER December 2018
NEWS FROM THE DIRECTOR

We would like to wish all our families a safe and happy Christmas and New Year break!

Christmas is fast approaching and at the beginning of the month we had our annual End of Year Party. We would like to thank you all for joining us. This was a great success and we thoroughly enjoyed celebrating the end of another busy year with you.

 

Raffle tickets are being sent out to every family, we would really appreciate your support in selling a book to your friends and family as the money raised from the raffle will go towards toys and resources for the children and educators. The raffle will be drawn on Friday 21st December, if you haven’t received your book of tickets yet or if you want extra tickets to sell please come and see us at the office. Thanks to the generosity of some of our families and businesses from our local community, we have many great prizes to be won:

1st Prize: A case of wine from Treasury Wine estate valued at $250
2nd Prize: Hair Products gift pack from Haloe Hair Studio Valued at $150
3rd Prize: Hair Products gift pack from Mel Liddle – Freelance hairdressing valued at $150
4th Prize: 2 infant swaddles & Kombi-ball toy -Baby bunting & Office works Total Value $100
5th Prize: $100 Hotel voucher from Strathmore hotel
6th Prize: Fitness Vouchers – Parafield gardens Swim School, 2 bottles of wine Value $80
7th Prize: $50 voucher from the Waterloo Station road house Grill & a bottle of wine
8th Prize: $50 voucher from the Waterloo Station road house Grill & a bottle of wine
9th Prize: $50 Voucher from Bunnings Warehouse & a bottle of wine
10th Prize: Christmas Hamper
11th Prize: Children’s activity/play hamper
12th Prize: Box of Lindt chocolates & a bottle of wine
13th Prize: Bottle of wine
14th Prize: Bottle of wine
15th Prize: Bottle of wine
16th Prize: Bottle of wine

Booking Holidays
Just a reminder that if you are going on holidays this for January NOW is the time to book your dates! Give us at least 2 weeks’ notice and receive half price holiday fees.
(This applies to 4 weeks per calendar year)

DATES TO REMEMBER
14th December Last school day of Term 4
25th December Christmas Day
26th December Proclamation Day
26th January Australia Day
28th January Term 1 begins
Staffing
Vlora Will be on leave from 20th December 2018 and returning on 23rd January 2019 – Loan Luong & Iqbal Sandhu will be working in the Preschool room during this time. Bronte Ciracovitch will be on leave from 24th Dec 2018 and returns on 3rd January 2019 – Jayanti Saha will be working in the Under 2’s room during this time.
Professional Development
As you will know throughout 2017 and 2018 we embarked on a professional journey to explore and implement the principles of Reggio Emilia and be a part of the South Australian Collaborative Childhood Project.
This journey continues as we research together in collaboration with other services across South Australia. Our research question leading us into 2019 is ‘How can a sense of belonging to our community enrich children’s wellbeing’ – in our Under 2’s and Toddler room section, this question will be the overarching question to our curriculum planning and engagements with children and families. Through building relationships and listening to children we scaffold their learning and join them in research as they test ideas and hypothesis different outcomes.
Recently this journey took us to Reggio Emilia in Italy where we undertook to study Reggio principles and concepts in depth; visit the services for children and participate in understanding of their learning journey through their City, their community & their documentation.
In 2019 I invite you to follow the journey and again join us in participating in our curriculum projects and research.
Did You Know?

You are able to make appointments to see your child’s primary care giver and to look at their learning folder at any time. Folders are kept in your child’s room and reflect the curriculum that they have been involved in over the term. If you are concerned about children’s development or wish to discuss milestones you are also welcome to approach educators at anytime

Parent Committee

We are always looking for parents to join our parent committee. In 2019 we would like to have meetings bi monthly. The meetings would be from half an hour to 1 hour long.As we are continuing on our new journey of research within our service curriculum development it would be a great advantage to have parents’ input in this
You would be very welcome.

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
Sustainability

Here are some ideas for sustainable Christmas gifts.
1. Give an experience, not a thing
Tickets to events make memorable gifts.
Theatre subscriptions, tickets to sporting, music gigs or cultural events, home veggie gardening workshops, massage vouchers – these are all things that provide someone with value and proof you get what they are all about.

Red Balloon is a great resource for finding experiences that you can give as a gift. They even have a special offer that gives you a ‘love it or swap it’ guarantee on your gift voucher.
2. Give a battery-free gift
Less than 3% of all batteries purchased in Australia are recycled, the rest end up going to landfill. This is scary considering that batteries contain lead, cadmium and mercury that may leak out and contaminate groundwater. Lithium metal batteries can cause explosions or fires if inappropriately stored or disposed.
If you’re committed to giving a gift that needs batteries, then consider also giving the recipient some rechargeable batteries and a charger.
3. Give local, Fairtrade, or DIY
Buy your gifts from local businesses, artists, retailers or craftspeople and you’ll be supporting your community.
Or maybe you can get creative and give a DIY gift like some gingerbread, a seedling or something else crafty.
4. Give the gift of time
For those short on time, give someone a helping hand yourself or enlist someone to do it for you via Air tasker. Maybe your dad has been talking about redoing over the backyard or cleaning out the gutters but just hasn’t gotten around to it. Maybe you could pledge to do it for him? Put the pledge in a card with a date by which the task must be completed so it doesn’t seem like an empty offer.
5. The sustainable gift
Give people the gift of homegrown veggies with a herb plant or one of these self-watering planters from your local garden centre. Enable others to lead a more sustainable lifestyle with a practical gift. Help cut down on plastic bottles and coffee cups by giving a reusable coffee cup or plastic water bottle. If you want to be purely practical, consider giving an energy-saving device like an Eco Switch. Sure, it’s not the most romantic gift but you could save someone a lot of money by reducing their electricity bills. Cold hard cash certainly has its attractions! www.australianethical.com.au
BABIES ROOM
Ch ch ch ch changes……Over the last few weeks, you may have noticed our outdoor area changing? The babies sure have, with curious eyes and excited hands the children have marveled in the wonders of their changing environment, being surrounded by the beauty of nature and flowers of the new planter-box fence and dabbling with the potential of the safety glass panels – what can we see as we look through? The older children love to come and tell us stories through the glass. We see this as a window of opportunity, as the weather warms up; we are excited to introduce some more provocations for the children to explore using their different senses. We look forward to actively waiting and listening to the children’s ideas as they discover new textures and enquire through the language of textures, researching products like shaving cream, water pails and paint brushes and water colour paints.

Theodore is exploring the language of art with chalk on the cement.
The planter boxes have been a stem for growth in the gardening project with the children working alongside Loan to water and care for the new plants and flowers. The babies’ enthusiastic approach in actively embracing the changes and sharing with us their ideas has shown us a glimpse to them developing a strong sense of wellbeing. Through our relationships and friendships the children demonstrate their sense of belonging within our community. Belonging acknowledges children’s interdependence with others and the basis of relationships in defining identities.

The National Quality Standard says that a strong sense of wellbeing is fundamentally connected to children’s sense of belonging, being and becoming. When children feel well, happy, secure & socially successful they are able to fully participate in, & learn from, the daily routines, play, interactions & experiences in their early childhood setting.
As the Christmas season fast approaches the children will have many opportunities to begin exploring the language of art – discovering their artistic flairs as they test ideas and enquire with tools and resources to decorate, paint, build and create special gifts to send home. We will start with the provocation of creating our own Christmas tree – what will we use? What will the children share with us? what this will look like? We look forward to sharing our research with you.
Lauren, Amanda, Andrea & Bronte
2 – 3 YEAR OLD ROOM
Over the past few weeks it’s been very exciting in the toddler room. We enjoyed afternoon tea with some wonderful visitors on grandparents and special friend’s day.
Thank you to all of the grandparents and special friends that come to visit. It was wonderful to meet you all and to watch the delight the children had showing you around the centre.

In the lead up to Christmas the toddler’s room will be investigating Christmas trees and the many forms they can come in – as a part of this research we will work together to create our own Xmas trees. We will offer many different materials as provocations for the children to enquire with and share with us their own ideas. Materials like felt, paper plates, paint, collage materials, and natural materials such as pine cones and sticks. We look forward to sharing our research with you.
The loose parts table will also become Christmas inspired with the addition of many Christmas materials for children to move, combine, redesigned, line up, sort, take apart and put back together in multiple ways, we look forward to actively waiting and listening to the children’s enquiries and discoveries with this provocation. Loose parts encourage open ended learning as well as encourage creativity and imagination.
We will be continuing our journey as a part of ‘The South Australian Collaborative Childhood Project’, the project will engage in ongoing research into how childhood can inspire cultural, educational, philosophical and economic change for South Australia, and challenge current perceptions of childhood.
We will be focusing on a new inquiry question “How can a sense of belonging to our community enrich children’s wellbeing” as a starting point of our research; we will be observing children and their sense of wellbeing at particular times. For example: 1. new children embarking on their journey of their stay and play visits with their families and their first few days of care. 2. The babies and toddler children engaging in shared times of free flow play between the 2 environments 3. Children’s wellbeing as they participate in transition visits to the toddler room before turning 2years old. This will help us to actively see what wellbeing looks like in our environment and ask ourselves the question…. how do we and the children foster each other’s wellbeing?

This relates to Learning outcome 2. Children are connected with and contribute to their world.
Children develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities and understanding of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities necessary for active communication.

Thankyou
Jasmine, Zahra & Marie
PRESCHOOL

Hello and welcome to the very last newsletter from the Pre-school room in 2018. What a fantastic time we have had throughout 2018 in the Pre-school room. We’ve laughed, we’ve cried and we’ve done lots of playing and learning. It has been an absolute honor to work with all the pre-school families and to watch your children grow is just an amazing opportunity to be a part of. We’ve been having a lot of fun in the Pre-School room! Children are enjoying the music program and library school visits.

Children’s have been active participants as they got involved in different research Inquiries throughout the year. These enquiries were about Sustainability, Structure of a Tower and the Garden Project, embedded in all of our research and project work was our numeracy and literacy learning. In the garden we are doing an excellent job of working together to care for our new plants, beautiful flowers and our vegetable garden. Every day we are watering the strawberries (which is very popular and everyone wants to look after them so they are yummy) and the whole garden. Thank you everyone.
Learning Outcome 2.4: Children show appreciation and care for environments;
Learning Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators. The children are engaging in enjoyable interactions using verbal language.
Sadly for us, ( but excitingly for the children) the end of 2018 means many of our preschoolers will be finishing their journey at HCCC and embarking on a new journey as they go off to school next year.
We would just like to wish all of our 2018 Pre-School Graduates the best of luck at their new primary schools. We will miss you! Come back and visit us anytime.
Last, but not least, We would like to wish all of the amazing HCCC families, children and educators a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We look forward to continuing to share our passion of quality education and care for children with you next year.
Please stay safe over the holidays & don’t forget to relax and enjoy quality time with your family!!
Until next time, take care.

Vlora, Kylie & Loan & Brittany
FOOD AND NUTRITION
Learning about diversity through food and culture
Young children learn from their daily life experience. From an early age children observe and acknowledge that there are similarities as well as differences in the way friends and neighbors live. Australia’s multicultural richness offers many opportunities for exploring differences and similarities through food and eating.
Food not only provides a source of nourishment for children’s physical growth and development, but reinforces the cultural patterns and beliefs in family life. In child care providing foods from diverse cultural backgrounds recognizes and respects children of various cultures. Introducing children to new food types, textures, aromas and colours through food preparation, cooking activities and mealtimes enables children to learn about food and customs of other cultures as well as providing opportunities to learn new skills and interact with other cultures.

Carrot Cake Blissballs
¾ cup of dried pitted dates
½ cup of raisins
1 ¾ cups desiccated coconut’
1 large carrot (grated)
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
Place dates in a bowl. Cover with boiling water and stand for 5 minutes to soften. Drain and place in a food processor. Add raisins, coconut, carrot and spices.
Process for 2 to 3 minutes or until almost smooth. Chill for 15 minutes before rolling tablespoons of mixture into balls. Roll in extra desiccated coconut to coat., if desired. Refrigerate until ready to eat.
Thank you to our local community or supported our End of year party:

Woolworths at Elizabeth Steve Boubaris from
shopping Centre for their iPaint Painting services
donation of sausages for his time to cook our sausages 0477 884 898

Jeremy Wooster from Signs designs & things online For donating 200 sticker sheets to decorate Xmas hats with. 0416104223

Thankyou to our Local community for their generous donation to our Christmas Raffle

*Haloe Hair Studio – 84459282

*Mel Liddle- Freelance Hairdressing