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 June 2019

NEWS FROM THE DIRECTOR

As you all know Jess Warne will be going on maternity leave in July, her last day here with us before her leave is Friday 12th July. Sheridan has been opening the Centre with Lauren and will continue to do this. Masooma is also a member of the Preschool Room educators; both Sheridan and Masooma will share the responsibility of taking over Jess’s Primary Care group when she finishes.
Lauren will also be going on maternity leave in September 2019; her last day with us will be Friday 30th August, Zahra will then open with Sheridan. Over the past weeks we have discussed in length our options for the leadership position in the Under 2s room. After a great deal of consideration as to the best and most supportive option for children and families, we have decided that Jasmine from in the Toddlers will be based in the Babies Room, and lead that program. The children in both Babies and Toddlers know Jasmine as their programs plan for open door times where both age groups learn together. Jasmine will start in the Babies Room on Monday 8th July and work with Lauren until Lauren commences her leave and she will take over Andreas’s primary care group. Jasmine will work closely with Lauren in order for her to have plenty of time to strengthen her relationships with the children and families. Closer to the time of Lauren’s departure we will engage in a team reflection process and consider the children and families in Lauren’s Primary Care group and allocate them with either Jasmine, Bronte or Amanda. So whilst there will be changes, the children are completely familiar with all of the Educators involved.

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

Zahra will take on the role of Team Leader in the Toddler room where she has been working for the past 3 years and Marie and Iqbal will remain in the toddler room each with a primary care group. Monday 8th July they will be joined by Andrea, who will move from the babies’ room. Andrea and Iqbal will share Jasmine’s Primary Care Group together to ensure continuity of care for families and children.
By making these changes progressively with time for children to adjust, we believe it will support all of our children, families and educators into a smooth transition for when Lauren and Jess depart and begin their journey of motherhood. Jasmine will continue her role as Educational Leader of our birth to 3 years section.
We are fortunate to have a very skilled, mature and stable team of Educators who have sound relationships with all of the children across the Centre.
As we have a large team of Educators, therefore we do not need to bring in new Educators to cover this leave but extend hours of existing long term Educators. This means the children will feel a continuity of ‘wrap around’ care and education.
If you have any questions or queries please come and have a chat with one of our educators or me in the office. We look forward to exciting times ahead.
Kind regards
Jess

Professional Development
On Wednesday 26th June Sheridan, Marie, Iqbal, Kylie, Brittany, Andrea, Jasmine, Jayanti, Madelyn, Loan and Masooma are all going to attend an introduction to Marte Meo, focusing on ‘well-being and connection everyday’
Marte Meo was founded by Maria Aarts in the Netherlands and is now established in over 40 countries. The term Marte Meo derives from Latin, meaning ‘on one’s own strength’. The method provides a practical approach to supporting social and emotional development and wellbeing in everyday interactions. It has application in a wide range of settings, including disability, foster care, aged care and early childhood services and schools. When training in Marte Meo you learn how to improve the quality of relationships, how to build connection instead of disconnection, and how to lead without losing connection. Marte Meo gives teachers, educators, parents and carers a reflective space to see how they interact and to examine ways to support children’s development and wellbeing.
Staffing
Zahra Khanum is on Annual Leave from 17.6.19 – 28.6.19 Iqbal Sandhu and Loan Luong will be in the Toddler room with Jasmine and Marie.
Did You Know?
Our Center closes at 6pm & we encourage families whose children that are booked into the session that finishes at 6pm to be here by 5.50pm. This enables us to have the time to give you valuable feedback about your child and their day in care. Families arriving after 6pm will incur a $1 per minute per child late fee which must be paid in cash on the night or at the latest, the very next day. This also supports our educators who also need to be able to finish work on time to attend to family commitments & appointments that they may need to get to.

We are coming up to the end of the Monarch Butterfly season and will have to wait until after winter to see anymore caterpillar eggs on our plants. We still have four more chrysalis (cocoons) to emerge as butterflies and these four butterflies will migrate to warmer places in Australia until it starts to warm up again. The last of the Butterflies to emerge will live up to 8 months in order to be able to migrate to warmer climates. Please have a look inside our butterfly house when visiting and take a look for yourself!

Please come and see Jess if you are interested in joining us to form our new committee this year.

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
In Our service and all educational facilities we always welcome donations of paper, cardboard, tubes, house hold items such as containers and boxes for children to draw on and use in their projects. If you find yourself with excess items such as this we would love to take them of your hands.
This is one of the ways we assist with recycling and reusing products that would end up in the bin.
Children get great joy from using recycled products and creating something new from them, expressing their ideas and trying new mediums in their research.
BABIES ROOM
In the baby room, we have been working on building strong, secure and respectful relationships with the children. We have been actively listening to the children and giving them the opportunity to make decisions about how they would like to learn and what activities and learning experiences they would like to participate in. One of the most common learning experiences is exploring the great outdoors and having the opportunity to engage in outdoor activities. Over the past couple of weeks, we have been watching with eager anticipation as the Centre car park has taken shape. We have enjoyed watching the demolition of the house, the rubbish being removed from the house and the flattening of the dirt. We followed up this experience by reading several books about demolition, bull dozers, cranes and dump trucks. Last month we thoroughly enjoyed spending time celebrating special friends and Grandparents day. This was a wonderful opportunity for our families and friends to visit us at the Centre, share in our beautiful gardens with opportunities to enjoying conversations, connect with each other and our service and share a lovely snack for afternoon tea.
Mother’s day was also a special event in our calendar which we recently celebrated. The children made special cards with glue and coloured paper, which we lovingly sent home with our families. We hope you all enjoyed these creative, handmade gifts.
We recently celebrated Reconciliation week at the Centre. To prepare for this event, Amanda, took a small group of children for a walk in the front garden of the Centre and together they explored the different elements of nature and began to collect some items.
Amanda and the children collected a variety of natural materials, and then used them to create a collage. We look forward to sharing with you, our imagination and artistic ideas through our final creations.
Lauren, Amanda, Andrea & Bronte
TODDLER ROOM
Language development is our ongoing focus in the toddler room, it is a critical part children’s overall development, It supports children’s ability to communicate, and express and understand feelings. It also supports thinking and problem-solving, and developing and maintaining relationships. Learning to understand, use and enjoy language is the critical first step in literacy, and the basis for learning to read and write. By the time children join us in the toddler room they are beginning to speak in longer, more complex sentences, and are getting better at saying words correctly. To support our citizens as they challenge their language skills every day we use nursery rhymes, playing rhyming games, reading stories, using flash cards and photographs, being available for the children to communicate, repeating sounds and words they say and also lifting up the social information to the other children in the group. This supports children to come into connection with each other as well as support them to build their language skills. We will be continuing this focus on language and we share this journey and listen to all the new and exciting forms for communication from some of our smallest citizens.
Last month there were lots of events that were celebrated throughout the Centre and the toddlers were very excited join in the celebrations. We noticed that the children showed a lot of interest in cooking and they were very excited to cook on grandparent’s day and reconciliation week. For grandparents day the children participated in making scones and during reconciliation week they decided to make cheese muffins, they helped with measurement, pouring, stirring, mixing and cutting. They focussed a lot of attention on the details, making sure they looked perfect and the taste was wonderful.
Reconciliation week was another great learning experience for the toddlers. They participated in pasting (red, yellow and black) tissue paper to make a poster, and made red, yellow and black playdough to represent the Aboriginal colours and to represent the week. During group time the educators read Aboriginal stories to give the children more opportunities to learn about the culture and language in Australia. We are looking to continue our knowledge in investigating more about the Aboriginal culture and language as we celebrate NAIDOC week next month.
As the month of Ramadan has come to an end we joined in the celebration called Eid and learnt about this holiday together through information shared by our educators and participating in our own celebrations with henna tattooing, face painting and making traditional pastry snacks for afternoon tea.

This is working towards the Early Years Learning Framework Outcome 1; 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.
This is evident, for example, when children begin to recognize that they have a right to belong to many communities.
• build on their own social experiences to explore other ways of being.
• participate in reciprocal relationships.
Please remember to pack plenty of warm clothing, spare socks and shoes as well as a beanie now that the weather is getting colder. Thankyou
Jasmine, Zahra, Marie & Madelyn
PRESCHOOL ROOM
We hope all our lovely mums have had a wonderful Mother’s Day and enjoyed their beautiful gifts created with love by the children in our room.
In the Pre Kindy room we have been continuing to enjoy opportunities to engage in quiet spaces. This time we were in awe as we watched the lava liquid flowing in the jars. We found this to be calming as we turned jars over to see the lava liquid slowly fall and form patterns. We also explored the texture of shells by feeling the different surfaces with our fingers and using magnifying glasses to investigate closer the details on the shells.
This was a lovely way to share our room with some of our friends transitioning from the toddler room.
Another successful Grandparents and special friends day last month with our children engaging in activities with their families as well as sharing afternoon tea. Masooma lead our Cooking Club session in preparation for the event and the children participated in making flat bread which was delicious and shared across our little community with all our wonderful families.
National Reconciliation week was, May 27-June 3.The theme this year was Grounded in Truth….. Walk Together with Courage.
Children had the opportunity to participate in creating a poster and together we discussed how we are mindful and respectful to each other.
Aboriginal people want to move forward with all Australians to create a nation strengthened by respectful relationships. In the Pre School room we made Nhiki Manhu (Aboriginal bush bread) and enjoying this warm with Kakadu Plum jam. Learning Kaurna language is an embedded part of our curriculum and Kylie shares a lot of knowledge with us from her own family and background. We will continue to research more about the Kaurna language and new words that we can learn together in our day to day practices. Our newest phrase is ‘Marlam loogar booma’, (wash your hands).Stay tuned for NAIDOC week in July.

Vlora, Kylie, Loan, Brittan, Masooma & Jess.W
FOOD AND NUTRITION
Recipe Modifications
(Recipe ideas to make dishes healthier)

Milk Yogurt & Cheese
Use low fat or reduced fat varieties (except for children under 2 yrs old who require full fat dairy)
Cream
Use reduced fat evaporated milk for cooking.
Use ricotta cheese whipped with small amount of icing sugar, fruit & reduced fat milk instead of cream.
Butter & Oils
Choose olive oil and canola instead of lard.
Reduce amount used in cooking.
Fruit
Stew fruit without sugar
If fruit is tart or sour 9EG Rhubarb or plums) add apple for sweetness
Add cinnamon and or cloves for extra flavour
If using tinned fruit, chosse fruit in natural huice.

Singapore Chicken Noodles
350gm fresh fried chow mein noodles
1 ½ tbsps vegetable oil
500gm Chicken mince
2 tsps mild curry powder
1 tbspn ginger paste
250gm snow peas, trimmed thinly sliced diagonally
3 green spring onions finely chopped
150gm Singapore noodle recipe base
250gm bag of bean sprouts

Cook noodles in a large saucepan of boiling water for 2 minutes. Drain. Stir in 2 tspns of the oil. Toss to combine.
Heat remaining oil in a large, non stick wok over a high heat. Add chicken mince. Cook stirring to break up mince for about 4 minutes or until browned.
Add curry powder and ginger paste. Stirfry for 2 minutes.
Add noodles, snow peas, onions and recipe base. Stirfry for about 3 minutes or until hot. Stir in bean sprouts. Serve

HIGHWAY CHILD CARE & EARLY LEARNING CENTRE
RE Fee increase week commencing the week commencing Monday 1st July 2019
Dear Parents

From the week commencing 1st July 2019 we will need to increase the daily fees by $1 a day.
This increase is to assist in the cover of the cost of the 3% national Fair Work wage and increases, insurance, food and consumable costs.
There will be an indexation of the Child Care Subsidy which will cover a large portion of the increase. For most families the out of pocket increase will be approximately 50 cents a day.
Our fees still remain lower than most centres and we will continue to ensure that they remain so whilst providing high staff ratios and high quality education and care.
Please speak to Jess or Robyn to find out what this increase will mean for you.

Yours sincerely

Judy Atkinson
Approved Provider

How to encourage your child’s early language development
The best way to encourage your child’s speech and language development is to do lots of talking together about things that interest your child. It’s all about following your child’s lead as he shows you what he’s interested in by waving, pointing, babbling or using words.

Talking with your child

Talk to your baby and treat her as a talker, beginning in her first year. When you finish talking, give her a turn and wait for her to respond – she will! And when your child starts babbling, copy your baby and babble back. You’ll probably find that she babbles back to you again. This keeps the talking going and is great fun.
Responding to your child

As your baby grows up and starts to use gestures, you can respond to his attempts to communicate. For example, if your child shakes his head, respond as if he’s saying ‘No’. If he points to a toy, respond as if your child is saying, ‘Can I have that?’ or ‘I like that’.
When your child starts using words, you can repeat and build on what your child says. For example, if she says, ‘Apple,’ you can say, ‘You want a red apple?’
When you tune in and respond to your child, it encourages him to communicate. You’ll be amazed at how much he has to say, even before his words develop.

Everyday talking

Talking about what’s happening in your daily life together is a great way to increase the number of words your child hears. You can talk about things that make sense to her, like what she’s seeing or doing – the key is to use lots of different words and in different contexts. For example, you can talk to your child about an orange tree and about cutting up an orange for lunch. This helps your child learn the meaning and function of words in her world.
It doesn’t matter if your child doesn’t understand, because his understanding will grow as he develops.
From the time your child starts telling stories, encourage her to talk about things in the past and in the future. For example, at the end of the day, you could talk about plans for the next day, by making a shopping list together or deciding what to take on a visit to grandma. Or when you come home from an outing together, you could talk about it.

Reading with your baby

Read and share lots of books with your child, and read more complex books as he grows. Reading lets your child hear words in different contexts, which helps him learn the meaning and function of words.
Linking what’s in the book to what’s happening in your child’s life is a good way to get your child talking. You can also encourage talking by chatting about interesting pictures in the books you read with your child.
When you read aloud with your child, you can point to words as you say them. This shows your child the link between written and spoken words, and helps her learn that words are distinct parts of language. These are important concepts for developing literacy.
Your local library is a great source of new books.