Hi Everyone,

What an incredible month we have just had…. Our yard has been amazingly transformed with new grass, garden beds and some much needed im-provement of our gardens and trees. Unfortunately during the wild weather, our shade sail in the 3-5 years yard was damaged and this in the process of being re-placed. The children have been learning about caring for the grass and have been very careful not to walk on it while it grows roots to the ground.

It has also been a sad month with one of our most loved educators moving on from the centre. It was sad to say good bye to Nicole Toohey, after 3 wonderful years here with us. She has contributed so much to our service with her professionalism and car-ing ways. We know you will miss her as much as we will,

yet we are sure she will be com-ing back for visits in the future…

SHEETS AND HATS

All children by now should have their own sheet set (If required) and their own hat. If you have yet to re-ceive these please let me know.

Please remember to bring your child’s hat and sheet set to the centre EVERY day. Unfortunately if you do not provide these then you will be charge a $5 fee each time we provide a sheet set for your child and $5 for a hat.

FOOD FROM HOME

We would appreciate it if families would refrain from bringing food from home. It can be life threatening if a child comes in contact with food that we have not provided. If you are con-cerned about your child’s food intake please discuss this with your child’s edu-cators and we will endeav-our to cater for your child’s needs. The only thing you need to provide

is a water bottle and milk bottles if necessary.

UPDATING PERSONAL DE-TAILS

Have you moved house lately? Changed your phone number? Changed jobs ? If so can you please ensure that you up-date all of this important information with us. This en-sures that we are able to contact you in the case of an emergency.

IMMUNISATION

If your child has been immun-ised recently please remem-ber to provide us with an up-dated certificate of immun-isation so we can update your records.

WELCOME BACK

In July we welcome back Re-becca (Director) from her extended role as Director at UWSEL Bankstown. Once this happens, I will resume my role as Educator within cen-tre.

We also welcome Yun Sun back from her maternity leave. Yun will be returning to her position in the Penguin (0-3) room.

Hello Families!

May 2015

May Newsletter

Inside this issue:

Fee Increase Dates to remember

2

Fairy Penguin News Seagull News

3

4

Upcoming community events

5

UWS Early Learning Blacktown

Until next time

Jackie Coleman

Acting Director

As you have been recently in-formed, the UWS Early Learning Board has determined that a fee increase is necessary to ensure we can continue to offer high quality care and programs. This increase is set to come into effect on Monday 29th June 2015

The new fees are as follows: 0-2 years (General community) $85

2-3 years (General community) $83

3-5 years (General community) $80

0-2 years (UWS staff) $82

2-3 years (UWS staff) $80

3-5 Years (UWS staff) $77

0-2 years (UWS students) $80

2-3 years )UWS students) $73

3-5 Years (UWS students) $75

Page 2 May Newsletter

Fee Increase

KITCHEN NEWS We have some wonderful recipes in the kitchen yet one that is a real hit with the kids and the families at our

Mother’s Day pamper recently, is the zucchini slice. We have included the recipe here so you can make it at home… ENJOY

Cheesy Zucchini Slice– Serves 6-8 people.

DATES TO REMEMBER 8th June– Queen’s Birthday Public Holiday The centre will be closed on this day . Fees will not be charged for this day.

16th June– Wild Homes Show We have another exciting incur-sion for the children to enjoy. Allowing them to be up close and personal with the homes of many wild animals.

24th June –Parent Advisory Meeting– 4.45pm-5.45pm If you would like to find out what is happening at the centre please come and join us at our meeting. Topics for discussion: Philosophy review Sustainability

Once this has come into effect your bonds will be adjusted to reflect this increase.

If you have any questions regard-ing the new fee increase please feel free to speak to Jackie or Lee .

Thank you for your understand-ing and co-operation in this

matter.

1 & 1/2 teaspoons Garlic (crushed) 1 & 1/2 large onions 3 zucchini’s grated 3 carrots grated

2 cups of grated cheese 1 &1/2 cups of self raising flour

9 eggs 18mls canola oil

Mix together

Bake for 1/2 hour in 180 degree oven..

that are happening with you and your child on the weekends, i.e traveling, park, beach etc. This in turn helps us to plan activities based on your child’s interests. This also helps us to understand things a child is talk-ing about or pointing to as they may recognise places and things in books or outside. Everyone is doing a great job bring-ing in warm clothes for the colder weather. Winter is coming and it is getting colder, especially in the mornings and afternoons. A few reminders: Please provide appropriate

footwear for your child if they wear gumboots or slip-pers to the centre. This is because they can become quite uncomfortable at times

A warm welcome to the new children starting in the fairy penguin room… Marcus, Rishaan, Dishaan and Jenon, who are all settling in well. We would like to ask families to please remember to LABEL all milk bottles. This it to ensure that the correct bottle is given to your child. This also assists all educators in the room to identify bottles especially our casual staff who may not recog-nise. Please see kitchen staff for a permanent marker if bottles have not been labelled prior to attending the centre. Another good tip is a fabric band aid with their name written on it. They tend to not come off that easy!!!!! We would also love it if you could let us know about any exciting things

and restrict children when being active outdoors, such as climbing and running.

Please label all belongings, clothing and water bottles especially as it is difficult to remember who owns what item.

Last but not least we give a big farewell to Nicole Toohey, whose last day was on Friday 22nd May. She will be sadly missed in the Fairy Penguins room and especially across the centre as she has taught a ma-jority of the children here at UWSEL Blacktown, watching them grow from the Fairy Penguins room to the Seagulls. Thank you Penguin Staff

CLASSROOM NEWS

Page 3

FAIRY PENGUIN ROOM

SEAGULL ROOM

The Seagulls have been very busy over the past few week, participat-ing in the new and exciting activities. The children have continued taking care of our vegetable and herb gar-dens, as well as adding plants to our recycled tyre garden, in the main outdoor environment. This as you can see has been moved down to the sandpit to contrast with the our new grass!!!

At the moment we are working on a new project in the room,

DINOSAURS. This topic has of-fered the children a great sense of wonder and ability to discover the unknown. Children have been enjoy-ing experiences from “being in the Jungle” to digging and smashing the dinosaur fossils out of the ice. The children have also made fossil im-prints in sourdough, using dinosaurs to make impressions before baking

them in the oven.

Other projects we have been work-ing on include, the bottle top/tree collage. This has been a work in pro-gress with a little being added each week. This not only encourages crea-tivity in children, it teaches them to be responsible for the environment around them.

As the weather is getting colder with winter fast approaching, we ask all families to please ensure their children have warm clothing packed as well as spare clothes in case of accidents.

Some reminders:

Please ensure your provide a water bottle for your child each day.

Please provide a hat for your child every day.

Please encourage your chil-dren to leave their toys and other special items at home, as at times these can go miss-ing and children can become quite upset.

Finally we look forward to many more magical moments throughout the rest of the year. Any ideas or suggestions we would love to hear from you….

Deirdre, Priscilla, Stacey, Alana and Luke.

Establishing and maintain-ingourcommunitygarden.

Composting and using theworm farm to recycle foodscrapsfromthekitchen.

Using recyclable materialsforcraft,drawing,resourcesetc.

Re-using old utensils, bas-kets, donations from familiesetc.withinourenvironments.

recyclingbinsare located inclassrooms for paper and otherrecyclablematerials

water saving taps in ourbathrooms.

Using energy suf icient ap-pliances and encouraging the"Switchingoff"oflightsandfanswhenleavingaroom.

As most of you would be aware,Sustainabilityisanintegralpartofour livelihood. To ensure we cancreateabetterworld forourchil-drenforthefuture,itisimportantto embed the importance of Sus-tainability into their everyday ex-periences.

Sustainability, as recommendedby the Early Years LearningFramework should be strongly"embeddedintoalldailyroutinesand practices" (DEEWR, 2009,p.29) within all Early Childhoodsettings.

At UWSEL Blacktown we areshowing a commitment to embedthesepractices intoourdailyrou-tinesinmanywaysincluding:

It is very exciting to see how weare contributing to a sustainablefuture for our children, adaptingpractices that we have alwaysdone as well as researching newwaystobesustainable.

We would appreciate your ideasaswell.Howdoyou thinkwecanbemoreSustainable?Pleasespeakwith Jackie, Rebecca or any staffmember if youwish to share anysuggestions!

SUSTAINABILTIY AT UWSEL BLACKTOWN

Here at UWSEL Blacktown the staff and children practice a sur-prise emergency evacuation drill on a monthly basis.

We do this to practice the proce-dure of an evacuation so that if we are ever faced with the need for a real evacuation we are all prepared and can all evacuate efficiently and safely.

After each drill we have a talk to the children about what we just did and the importance of why we did it,

We have also put together a bush fire emergency evacuation risk as-sessment. Which sets out the risks of a bush fire emergency in the sur-rounding grounds and ways we can minimise risks to the staff and chil-dren if this was to happen.

If you would like a copy of the risk assessment please email me at j.coleman@uws.edu.au and I can pro-vide you with a copy.

The NSW Rural Fire Service sets out ‘Neighbourhood Safer Places’ for each local government area.

Neighbourhood safer places are a place of last resort during a bush fire emergency

Here at UWSEL Blacktown our identified safe place is :

Riverstone Park

Corner of Garfield road west and Carlton street Riverstone

DID YOU KNOW ?????

UWS Early Learning Blacktown Building U20, Warawara Circuit

Phone: 9852 4077 Email: ncccdirector@uws.edu.au

UPCOMING COMMUNITY EVENTS

Blacktown City Festival: 30th May 2015 Celebrating 40 years of Blacktown City Festival, the 2015 Streets Alive and Parade Day is set to be bigger and better then ever before. Featuring 6 performance stages, 300 stalls, free amusement rides and heaps of attractions, this day will not leave anyone disappointed.

Commencing at 11am, a vibrant parade will travel through the CBD streets. It is a spectacular display of colour and excitement with roving characters, floats and marching bands. Special features in this years parade is the celebration of 100 years of ANZAC and 100 years of Woman in Policing!

Baby Rhyme time at Stanhope The Baby Rhyme Time program uses nursery rhymes and finger plays to develop your baby's language skills and introduces them to board books and simple stories to develop their literacy skills. Baby Rhyme Time sessions are held for parents and ba-bies 0-2 years old. Come along to one session each week. Baby Rhyme Time at Dennis Johnson Branch Library Wednesdays at 10:00am Fridays at 10:00am Saturdays at 10:00am Dennis Johnson Branch Library

Tickets Price: Free

Family Fish In

7 August, 2015

The City’s Craziest Event- The Family Fish-In, is back at

the Mount Druitt Swimming Centre over 2 weekends in

August! Around 600 Salmon Trout will be-

come game to all fishing enthusiasts at the Mount Druitt

Swimming Centre.

Prepaid bookings are essential from Wednesday 1 July

2015.

The 2015 Fire & Rescue NSW (FRNSW) Fire Station Open Day will take place on Saturday, 30 May.

Fire Stations across the state will be open from 10am to 2pm and families will be encouraged to visit their local firefighters and learn more about fire prevention. A range of free activities will be on offer including firefighting demonstrations, station tours and fire safety presentations, including advice about installing smoke alarms, changing smoke alarm batteries and pre-paring a home fire escape plan. Children will be able to see fire engines and fire-fighting equipment up close, which is always one of the highlights of this much anticipated day.

Doonside Festival

11th July 2015

The annual event is being held at the corner of Cross Street and Hill End Road, Doonside, from 9:00am until 3:00pm.

The Festival day will feature a range of food and craft stalls, stage entertainment by local performers, FREE rides, Emer-gency Service displays, and activities for all ages. The Doon-side Village Festival is set to be a great day out for the fam-ily.

On Thursday 7th May, we celebrated Mother’s Day with an afternoon tea. It was wonderful to see the children and their families engaged in the wide range of fun experiences here at the centre. We hope you all enjoyed this special event being able to engage with your children and be creative with them. We also hope you had a wonderful week-end with your families. Check out the last page of this newsletter for lots of pics from this special day…...

Mother’s Day 2015

Mother’s Day pamper Afternoon tea