HIGHWAY CHILD CARE & EARLY LEARNING CENTRE
NEWSLETTER July 2019
NEWS FROM THE DIRECTOR
Our Car park is very close to being ready for use! Only one small step left to go. The children across the centre have been a part of this journey from the start, listening to the sounds of the workmen and different trucks coming and going, watching the first stages of the demolition of the building that used to be there and then the development of the carpark – every step of the way. For the children in our Preschool room, this soon became an enquiry project as they eagerly went out to see the changes each day, for a short period of time Jeff came and put in a gate panel at the back fence so that we could see the changes more closely.
DATES TO REMEMBER
Monday 7th July NAIDOC Week begins
Friday 26th July National Tree day
Monday 5th Aug National Aboriginal & Torres
Strait Islander Children’s Day
Monday 12th Aug Science Week Begins
Monday 19th Aug Book Week Begins, Theme is ‘Reading is my Super Power’
Thursday 29th Aug National Literacy & Numeracy
Week Begins
Sunday 1st Sept Father’s Day
Wed 4th Sept International Literacy Day
Friday 13th Sept Full Moon Festival
Thursday 19th Sept Talk like a Pirate Day Fundraiser
Tuesday 1st Oct Photo Day
Friday 4th Oct Space Week Begins
Sunday 27th Oct Diwali begins
Wed 16th Oct Parent night
Monday 11th Nov National Recycling Week begins
Wed 4th Dec End of year Celebration/Party
Professional Development
Jasmine Harmer and Brittany Gossink are attending the Reggio Emilia Australia Information Exchange conference in Perth from Thursday 11th July 2019 through to Saturday 13th July 2019
Staffing
Did You Know?
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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
When teaching sustainability to children, it’s not about doom and gloom environmental issues.
Learning about sustainability is actually a lot of fun and something positive that we can all contribute to with our actions every single day. Educating children about sustainability is really about teaching them healthy habits that contribute towards making our environment a healthier place. Some of these healthy habits for life include recycling, upcycling, fixing things, reducing waste, caring for pets and animals and caring for plants.
Everyday sustainability
The best place to start is to look at your own daily routines that promote sustainable practices and start to explain why you do them in words your children will understand. This is a great way to start a conversation about sustainability with your child.
- We put paper in the recycle bin so more trees don’t have to be cut down. Trees make our world beautiful, make homes for animals and keep our air clean.
- We take your own shopping bags instead of using plastic bags at the shops to help protect birds and animals in the ocean.
- We recycle our glass bottles to save resources and reduce greenhouse gases to keep our air clean.
- We try to fix things instead of throwing them out.
- We always turn out lights when we’re finished to save energy which helps our environment.
- We put our kitchen waste in the compost bin or worm farm to create food for our garden
- We reduce waste water by turning off the taps and using the half flush button on our toilet.
BABIES ROOM
A picture speaks a thousand words. Here, we capture snapshots of our program, each so rich in context. These pictures represent how children are competent, curious, creative, and capable as we look deeper into how children explore their curiosities and interests. Even the smallest interactions have the greatest significance promoting a strong sense of belonging and citizenship and displaying a supported and secure sense of wellbeing.
The National Quality Standard states, a strong sense of wellbeing is fundamentally connected to children’s sense of belonging, being and becoming. When children feel well, happy, secure and socially successful they are able to fully participate in, and learn from, the daily routines, play, interactions and experiences in their early childhood setting.
Currently in the babies’ room, we are celebrating NAIDOC week, this year’s theme is; “Voice, Treaty, Truth, Let’s work together for a shared future.”
We are looking forward to experiencing new tastes through having opportunities to make our own damper and use flavoured bush jams on damper, contributing to our multicultural communal tree and listening to dreamtime stories and native music.
Throughout this month we will also be continuing our music and movement based routine, entwining it into NAIDOC week as we will be making our very own clapping sticks to add to our musical instrument resources. How exciting!
As explained in The Educators’ Guide to the EYLF,
“Culture is the fundamental building
block of identity and the development of
a strong cultural identity is essential to
children’s healthy sense of who they are
and where they belong.”
Lauren, Amanda, Andrea & Bronte
TODDLER ROOM
As Ramadhan came to an end we celebrated Eid and learnt about this holiday together through our own celebration. Eid celebrates the conclusion of the 29 or 30 days of dawn-to-sunset fasting during the entire month of Ramadan. The day of Eid, therefore, falls on the first day of the month of Shawwal. The date for the start of any lunar Hijri month varies based on when the new moon is sighted by local religious authorities, so the exact day of celebration varies by locality. To celebrate this wonderful occasion we had an absolute ball as we decorated our room in bright colours. We had some beautiful henna paining done by Iqbal and Masooma, face paint by Jasmine and we also cooked some traditional food with Zahra. It was fantastic to able to share the wonderful cultural celebration with our community.
Madelyn has continually been nurturing caterpillars and sharing their journey to a butterfly with the children through the entomology project. Over time we have watched them grow from tiny caterpillars, to much larger caterpillars, they have built their cacoons and then we have checked in each day to see the changes, just this week our last cacoon for the season burst open and out came a 4th generation beautiful butterfly. The 4th generation butterflies live for 6 to 8 months, in order to live through the colder months they either migrate or form clusters on trees for warmth. After the colder weather has finished these butterflies will return to our centre to lay eggs on the milk weed bushes provided inside the butterfly house. Our curiosity with our entomology project will continue… but I wonder what we are going to look at while we wait for our butterflies to return.
We are looking to continue our knowledge in investigating more about the Aboriginal culture and language as we celebrate NAIDOC week. This year’s NAIDOC week massage is “VOICE, TREATY, TRUTH; we invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.” The Indigenous voice of this country is over 65,000 plus years old. They are the first words spoken on this continent. They are precious to our nation. We will be focusing on learning some Kaurna words and song to invest in the future knowledge of this language.
This is working towards the Early Years Learning Framework 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.
Jasmine, Zahra, Marie & Madelyn
PRESCHOOL ROOM
Another exciting month at preschool has flown by and it is hard to believe Term two is almost finished! We have been very busy with learning about road safety and exploring our garden for bugs and creepy crawlers. Our regular library visits to Karrendi Primary School and Salisbury Down Primary school has given us a variety of exciting learning opportunities. As we drove to and from the library we looked at the community around us and we have had many discussions about what we could see, the road signs, bumpy roads, people and birds. Once at the library we had the opportunity to be in a quiet space. We read and played numeracy and literacy games. We also have had the opportunity to visit SAPOL Road Safety Centre. Whilst at the Road safety centre, children looked at various aspects of road safety and their meaning: how to cross roads, what is safe and unsafe behaviour, staying on the footpath, using ‘stop, look, listen and think’ kerb skills. We then had a lot of fun practicing those road safety rules whilst riding our bikes.
This is working towards the Early Years Learning Framework Outcome 2.1.4 children can develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities and an understanding of reciprocal rights and responsibilities necessary for active community participation. This is evident when children broaden their understanding of the world they live in.
In the preschool room we have a strong focus on literacy and numeracy learning throughout the year. Our current plans for literacy development incorporate intentional teaching times as well as learning through play and everyday experiences as we continue to work on these as an embedded part of our curriculum. This relates to the Early Years learning framework Outcome 5.2.7 Children actively use, engage with and share the enjoyment of language and texts in a range of ways.
Vlora, Kylie, Loan, Brittany, Masooma & Jess.W
FOOD AND NUTRITION
Why are Healthy Snacks important?
Children need healthy snacks in between meals because they have small tummies and require small amounts of food more frequently than adults.
A healthy snack should come from one or more of the five food groups. Offer your child a variety of healthy snack options of different colours, textures and flavours.
Avoid having unhealthy snacks that are high in sugar, fat or salt (eg muesli bars, potato chips, chocalates & lollies)
Our centre offer a variety of healthy snacks that are easily prepared in a jiffy.
- Vegetable sticks with dips
- Cracker biscuits with (vegetables eg cucumber) cheese and dips
- Cheese slices on wholegrain crackers or crisp bread.
- Fruit (fresh or tinned in natural juice)
- Scones (plain, fruit or savoury)
- Crumpets
- Wholemeal toasted muffins
- Pikelets
DIPS AND CRACKERS
Cheese and chives dip
1 small tub of light cream cheese
½ bunch chopped chives
Avocado dip
1 small tub of light cream cheese
¼ bunch chopped chives
1 avocado
1 tspn of lemon juice
Tomato dip
1 small tub of light cream cheese
1 tomato
1 tspn tomato paste
1 tspn chopped parsley
In each recipe combine all ingredients together in a food processor or if you are using a hand held mixer, in a bowl.
Blend all ingredients together until well combined scraping down the sides occasionally. Serve with crackers or spread on toast . You can also try lightly steamed vegetable sticks.
So simple.
Lynn & Janet