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 November 2018
NEWS FROM THE DIRECTOR

Hi everyone,

Well this first month has been very busy and enjoyable, I thank you all for your support as I take on this new role and look forward to continuing our partnerships together. From Monday 5th November until Tuesday 20th November I will be travelling to Italy with Judy to join a study tour in Reggio Emilia. The purpose of this trip is to gather a more in-depth understanding and knowledge of the Reggio Emilia Approach to learning and teaching in the early childhood years, I look forward to coming back and sharing this experience with you all. During the time that I am away Jasmine Harmer will be ‘Acting Director’ in the leadership role, supported by Robyn Stone as the Assistant Director.

With the end of year fast approaching we are looking forward to our end of year part and would really appreciate donations to our Christmas raffle. Please come and see us if you have anything to donate

We are also holding an end of year fundraiser, we hope to raise enough money to be able to purchase some new outdoor equipment for the children. Over the next 2 months we will be discussing this and researching this with the children so that together we can decide on what we would like to buy. We would love you all to be a part of this as well so please come and share your ideas with us.

DATES TO REMEMBER
Fri 9th Nov Grandparents and special friends day\
Sunday 2nd Dec Laura Jean Fundraising photography day
Wed 5th Dec End of Year Party
Staffing
From the 12th November to the 27th November Kylie Bird will be on leave, Loan Luong & Iqbal Sandu will be working in the Preschool room during this time

Professional Development

On The 14th November Jasmine Harmer will be attending our next meeting to progress further with our birth to 3 years project. Collaborating with 3 other early years learning centers from the North. We look forward to sharing our ongoing research with you

Did You Know?
We have changed our Wipes from using chucks cloths and water to making our own organic coconut oil wipes. One of our families attending uses these organic wipes and shared the recipe with us. Here is the recipe we are using:

Step 1: Use a sharp knife to cut a roll of paper towel in half.
Step 2: pull out the cardboard centre
Step 3: place one half of the paper towel into a sealed container with a lid
Step 4: Dissolve 1 tablespoon of Coconut oil in 250mls of boiled water
Step 5: pour over the paper towel

And then the wipes are ready to use!!!
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
Reduce, Recycle and Reuse
About reduce reuse and recycle There are a number of things that we can do to help minimise the amount of waste going to landfill, and the effects of that waste on the environment. It is just a matter of remembering the 3Rs – reduce, reuse, and recycle. Changing our habits in regards to waste, no matter how small or insignificant those actions may seem, can make a big difference. Just think about the difference it would make if everyone packed their lunch in reusable containers instead of with disposable cling wrap!
There are many good reasons for minimising the amount of waste that we create:
It conserves valuable resources, including: • minerals – copper used in many electronic goods, tantalum used in mobile phones etc. • energy – used in mining, harvesting and manufacturing of resources • timber (forests) – used to make paper, cardboard and wood products • petroleum (oil) – used to make plastics and to transport goods • water – used in large amount to extract resources from the earth and in the manufacturing of consumer goods.
It saves money: • If you waste less, you get more out of what you have. • Waste disposal costs are reduced, for example at school it often costs more to have your rubbish bins collected than it does for recycling to be collected.
It reduces impacts on the environment, for example: • Fewer natural ecosystems will be affected by mining, harvesting, and landfill of waste if we can manufacture new goods from old goods. • Fewer landfill sites will need to be built if we can extend the life of the landfill, which means that the biodiversity of a future landfill site can remain intact. • Greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced if we were all to compost and/or worm farm our organic waste.
www.wastewise.wa.gov.au
BABIES ROOM

Over the past month in the under two’s room the children have been showing an interest in sharing their creative side. The children started with drawing with pencils and mark making on paper, they had the opportunity to choose what colour paper they wanted and which coloured pencil to use to. The children took a long time with this experience, testing out their ideas, As the educators waited and watched they realized that the children wanted more so the art cupboard was then available to the children to further extend their research and see what they could find. The children chose the crayons, some of the children tried pushing really hard to make the colour of the crayon go thicker and darker and others pushed really lightly on the paper. Then they chose the chalk and as a provocation the educators opened the door and the children took the chalk outside, they loved using the chalk to mark on the concrete in the sunshine.
Many of the children have been sharing their enjoyment of group games together. Rolling balls, singing row row row your boat and peek a boo. The ultimate favourite is “who is hiding under the rug”. Lexi and Estella were playing on the mat together with the scarves. Estella placed the drape over Lexi and slowly pulled it away from her face… “boo” Estella calls out and Lexi giggles in great delight. Then Lexi had a turn and Estella sat down on the mat whilst she covered her with the drape. There was lots of laughter and fun shared between them both.
This relates to 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.
Participate in reciprocal relationships.
We will be celebrating grandparents and special friend’s day. We all very excited to see the children’s families and show them their learning story folders. There will be plenty on food for everyone to enjoy all together.
Also just a friendly reminder to all families about hats! As the weather is now warm and the UV is high you will need to supply a hat for your child when they are playing outside in the beautiful garden.
Lauren, Amanda, Andrea & Bronte
2 – 3 YEAR OLD ROOM

In the past few weeks we’ve been taking advantage of the beautiful warm weather by enjoying many opportunities to explore our beautiful outdoor learning environment, each day the children are so happy to be in this space, they engage in ‘free play as they share with us their discoveries and imaginative ideas. We can also dine alfresco at meal times, just last week the children suggested we have a picnic in the garden, it was so calm and refreshing to participate in this.
We have also been supporting the children’s gross motor skills and play, we follow their interests by waiting and watching and then setting up the climbing frames to encourage muscle movements such as; jumping, climbing, balancing and stretching, some of the children like to test ideas with the provocations set out by the educators while others relax on the mat and enjoy the weather.
Spring is surely around our garden as children can see new baby leaves on the trees, which creates beautiful shade in the garden for the children to play around. The toddlers love watering our new plants and the beautiful flowers and we are working closely with them, reminding them to be gentle with the flowers. We are looking forward to spending more time in our garden, just a short time ago we were so excited to have a ‘digger’ come……. We watched as it drove back and forth across the garden, tipping up piles of leaves…… “beep, beep beep, beep” Emi called a she heard the digger beeping. Once all the bark was piles we all ran to help the older children spread it all out over our beautiful garden.

This relates to the Early Years Learning framework, learning outcome 2:
Children are connected with and contribute to their world.
Children become socially responsible and show respect for the environment.
This is evident, for example, when children:
* demonstrate an increasing knowledge of and respect for natural and constructed environments.
* explore, infer, predict and hypothesize
*Show growing appreciation and care for natural and constructed environments.
We will be re launching 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, and economic change for South Australia, and challenge current perceptions of the children’s rights as citizens from birth. In partnership with Children, we are working towards developing an original approach that builds on highly existing practices and is inspired by the Reggio Emilia principles.

If you have any photos of Family, your home or places you like to visit in the community please share them with us and we can add them to our community wall as a part of our Project on citizenship.
Thankyou
Jasmine, Zahra & Marie
PRESCHOOL

This past month our outdoor environment has undergone some new changes; we welcomed new sand for our sandpit, fresh new bark, a beautiful wooden deck and
flowers of various colours. Firstly we welcomed the arrival of some new sand for our sandpit; we watched as John and Steven (Pride’s Father) shovelled our new sand into the sandpit and thanked Steve for volunteering his time to help us.

The children were delight with the new sand, for the rest of the afternoon it was a hot spot for play, ‘It’s so white and soft.’ Hope had explained to a nearby friend as she ran the sand through her hands. Secondly we welcomed the arrival of fresh new bark by watching the mini digger truck unloading the bark in piles around our garden, we all watched in excitement under the veranda and soon set out to disperse the bark evenly with our rakes and shovels once the truck had left. ‘Can I help?’ asked Ivy, ‘Of course you can, Here’s a shovel.’ I replied as Ivy took the shovel out of my hands and headed towards a pile of bark.
The next day we then watched as our new decking materials arrived and marvelled at the end result of our new finished deck. Lastly we all became curious and excited with the continuous arrival of our new flowers that have been displayed around the garden; we have been looking after the flowers by watering them regularly and being careful with the petals/leafs. Farah (Mother of Aleeza) noticed the new flowers and said; ‘Oh Wow, the flowers look beautiful’, as she walked towards the door and out under the veranda. The children have taken a lot of pride in the outdoor environment through on going gardening and landscaping with the help of parents and educators.
We look forward to Grand Parent’s and Special Friends day in which we are excited to share our new Outdoor environment. Grand Parent’s and Special Friends day is coming up on the 9th of November and we have a range of activities that we would like to share with you. We are excellent cooks and will cook some delicious afternoon tea snacks to share with you, along with various activity stations such as; Playdough creations, box construction and still life painting. Over the next few weeks we will continue to prepare for Grand Parent’s and Special Friends day, along with maintaining our beautiful outdoor environment through the ongoing Garden Project. We will also explore different mathematical language through real and play situations. When reading stories at group time we will view the stories though a mathematical lens by looking at subtraction and addition along with other areas of math such as; width, total amount, under, over, time and numbers.
Vlora, Kylie & Loan & Brittany
FOOD AND NUTRITION
Strong Bones and Calcium
What is calcium and why is it important for children?
Calcium is a mineral important for the nervous system, to ensure muscles work properly and for building strong bones and teeth.
Calcium is very important. During childhood as it is during this time that strong and healthy bones are being formed.
The best sources of calcium are:
• Milk, Yogurt, Cheese, Soy Milk with added calcium
Foods which provide calcium in smaller amounts include:
• Oranges, Green leafy vegetables eg(broccoli and spinach), Breakfast cereals with added calcium, Soy Products with tofu.
Tips to increase calcium intake:
• Fruit smoothies with yogurt & milk
• Serve yogurt as a snack,
• Grate cheese as a topping on vegetables, pasta, pizza and sandwiches
• Include cheese and vegetables as a snack
Cheese Muffins
1 ½ cups of self raising flour
1 ½ cups cheese, grated
2 eggs
¾ cup of milk
Mix all ingredients together
Spoon into mini muffin tins
Cook at 230° C for approximately 8 minutes