March 2012

Silky Oaks Childcare Centre “For little people, not big profits”

NEWSLETTERA word from the DirectorWelcome to our first newsletter for 2012. The year has certainly started at great speed with a lot of events occurring within the first 3 months of the year.

Parent Learning Evenings

As part of our commitment to supporting families, the Centre organizes Information/Learning Evenings on topics our current families indicate they would like to know more about, need help with or are simply interested in.

To get us started, we really need your feedback to tell us what topics you are interested in. For example, are you interested in:

• Speech & Language • Toilet Training • Behaviour Management • Sleep Management • Nutrition, Allergies & Intolerances • Face Painting

Please keep an eye out for a list of possible topics next to the sign in sheets during April. We will provide a list for you to locate your name, tick topics of interest and/or add other topics of interest. Once collated, we will then attempt to source suitable trainers and work out possible dates and times.

Family Input into Programming

We love and encourage all members of our families to provide new and interesting ideas to the Centre’s programming. This can take the form of sharing photos and anecdotes of family trips away, birthday and family celebrations, visits to attractions or

general information about a topic your child/ren are particularly interested in. As you continue through this newsletter, you will read about the various topics of interest each group are following. At the moment, many of the children are learning about insects, arachnids, music and instruments from different cultures as well as cultural and religious celebrations such as St. Patrick’s Day and Easter. If you have any books, pictures, skills, etc. you would like to share with us, please email or send them in or write your name down on the Parent/Carer roster and spend some time with us.

Well, we have had a very busy couple of months with helping the children settle into the room. I am pleased to say the children have really done a great job settling into the group and all the children are separating from parents/carers so much more confidently than the first couple of weeks when we started. Settling and forming close attachments with carers has been a main focus for us as it is very important that the children feel safe and confident with their new carers and build a close a loving bond with us.

As the children are gaining in confidence, we are now seeing some very interesting and funny personalities. The children are developing socially, working on building friendships with the other children in the group, which is great to see.

As we get to know all the children better, we are observing that a particularly strong interest of theirs is group times with singing, finger puppets and stories. The children are now able to sit for up to and over 20 minutes at a time, which is a very long time for toddlers, but an amazing opportunity to work on our language and communication skills. The skill of attending for longer and longer periods of time is very important for preparation to enter school, but also assist the development of fantastic observational and auditory learning, not to mention the social learning of turn-taking, listening, sitting next to each other cooperatively and sharing in fun experiences. We will be further developing this with small and simple group games to enhance each child’s ability to turn take, share and negotiate in play with their friends.

Another source of great enjoyment for the children are dramatic play experiences with dress ups with a particular child-initiated focus being caring for babies. We are currently extending this interest by providing more baby props and dress ups. One particular way to extend this interest and is always a hit with the children, is when a parent comes to the centre to bath their own baby in front of the group. This was a wonderful experiences enjoyed by last year’s group when Jo’s Mum, Cassie, bathed baby Eve. We are hoping to share this experience with this year’s children

and are wondering if there are any families out there who would love to bring in their baby and bath them in front of the group. Please let us know if you’re available.

Thank you to the wonderful parents that where able to come to our parent information night. We were very overwhelmed with all the positive feedback we got from you and it was a great way to catch-up with you all. If you where unable to come, we have provided a handout for you which you will find in your child’s information pocket.

JOEYSNEWS

A Big Hi from the Joey’s Room

HousekeepingFood

We are still having a large amount of food coming in un-named. Please remember if it’s not named, we are unable to give it.

Please provide your child with morning tea, lunch and afternoon snack, plus one piece of fruit that will be used for shared fruit at afternoon tea. If your child is here after 3:30pm, they will need late snack. As we have very limited space in the fridge, please insure that containers are of a minimal size for the food they require to store this will hopefully alleviate some of the congestion with space in the fridge.

Drink bottle

Many of the children are still coming in with unnamed or with siblings names on their water bottle. As with all food and drinks, we require a clear and correct name of the child attending in the Joey’s room on the bottle to stop confusion and things being given to the incorrect child. It is also the parent’s responsibility to make sure there is fresh clean drinking water in the bottle each day they start. We will refill during the day. Please ensure this water bottle is taken home at the end of every day to be cleaned as mould begins to grow in it if you do not clean and air dry it.

Clothing

There is still a large amount of children coming in unnamed clothing. We often engage in water play on warm days where children’s clothing is removed and hung out to dry afterwards. Unfortunately we are unable to work out who owns what clothing at the end of the day.

Any clothing unnamed will be placed in a lost property basket above the sign in desk and at the end of the month all items unclaimed will be donated to the op-shop at Silky Oaks Children’s Haven

Bedding

The children require a fitted cot sheet and one flat sheet for sleep time that is stored in a named pillow case. This is to remain in the children’s lockers and taken home to be cleaned on the last day they attend childcare.

Lockers and nappy baskets

Please ensure you are using only your locker and nappy basket. Also please remember to remove all your child’s belonging from the baskets and lockers on the last day of their week they attend child care as often these are being shared with other children who require it free on the days they attend childcare.

To ensure the smooth running of the daily program we appreciate your cooperation in these areas.

If you have any concerns or questions about any part of the program, routine or your child, please do not hesitate to talk to Jodie or Kylie in the Joeys room.

JOEYSNEWS

First we would like to welcome all our new families and existing families to the Cuddly Koalas. We have been very busy getting to know each other and familiarising ourselves with the routine.

During the past couple of months, we discovered we have a very talented group, keen to play music and some very good dancers! So this month we have used musical instruments to further expand on their interest.

In January we introduced a few different instruments such as castanets, more bells and tambourines. The children enjoyed this experience as they participated with much enthusiasm.

Then Gail brought in some culturally diverse instruments for the children to explore and investigate - rain sticks, clapsitcks, and bongo drums were added to our music corner. This was a great success, we all took turns of expressing our creative side with much noise and lots of smiles. Charlotte, Heather, Thomas, Koby, Felicity, Harper, Sophie.B, Lachlan, and Halle were all very keen to try out the different sounds and noises made by the instruments. Music from other countries has also been played for the children to hear the different beats and rhythms.

Through this experience the children showed a strong sense of wellbeing by engaging in musical instruments to express their creative ideas through music. Adding the different instruments the next day followed Thomas’s interest in musical instruments and extended the whole groups experiences with the instruments. Our follow up for this experience was to continue and extend the group interest in music and instruments, with different styles of sounds and music. So, on the 23rd of February we had the “World of Percussion” visit the centre. The fabulous musician played various drums, talked about what his instruments were made of, explained about the Brazilian Carnival and shared his photos with us. In the end, he invited us all to play his musical instruments, which was lots

of fun. The show was incorporated into our program and we all learnt about other cultures too.

Gail, Anna and Elisa.

CUDDLYKOALAS

Hello to all the Cuddly Koalas Parents

To begin with Welcome to everyone as you are all new to Busy Bees this year and what a wonderful bunch you are, children and parents alike. The children have settled in really well with most happy to say good bye to their Mums and Dads each morning.

My name is Elisa Hernandez, I have moved from the Cuddly Koalas room to Busy Bees in March, taking over Trena’s position. Many of you will remember that Trena has left the service to complete a Bachelor of Education. We will see her back again from time to time when she comes in to relieve other staff whilst they are on holidays.

I will be your group leader Wednesday to Friday. I have been at the centre for 9 years now and I am very excited to work with your children and to get to know you all better.

I am married, with two boys who keep me very busy and young! Due to my family commitments I will be job sharing with Julie, but please feel free to approach me any time. I am very happy to be back in Busy Bees and hope we have a great year together!

It’s so hard to remember all the wonderful things we have worked on in the Busy Bees there have been so many already. The children have been exploring the garden and the plants, watering them, pulling weeds and yes, eating the cherry tomatoes we grew,they all loved them. Dancing to music has been a regular experience, as has the many, many meals cooked in the Chinese Restaurant we had set up in home corner. The group have also been working on opening their own lunchboxes and containers and they are getting better, also putting their own shoes on and off, washing hands and wearing hats in the sun.

Below is a story from the room that we thought you might like. It shows not only parent participation, but also the group interacting in stories and art and craft.

THE WONKY DONKEY

WITH AVA ANTOS’ MUM, MELISSA.

6 February, 2012

We had a special visit from Ava Antos’ mum, Melissa today. She decided to treat us with a story called the Wonkey Donkey and an activity to go with the story. We made some donkey ears so we could all join in with the story making lots of fun donkey noises. First Melissa asked us what our names were and how old we were and then what our favourite animal was. Ava A said “a donkey”, Harper said “duck”, Saxon and Lucy said “Zebra”, Jake and Jamie both said “tiger”, Ava S said “chook”, Jakob said “a dinosaur” and James was a little shy and nodded when I asked him if he liked horses.

We then went over to the art table and decorated our donkey ears and stuck them down on paddle pop sticks before going back over to the mat ready for our donkey story.

After the story we danced around to the Wonky Donkey song and had a great time. It was great fun having Ava’s mum visit us and share her story with us. Thanks Melissa

BUSY BEES

Hello and welcome to the Busy Bees newsletter

The children had a great time with the story and showed lots of confidence to tell everyone what their name was and their favourite animal. Most children enjoyed the story and all joined in making their ears. We all used our fine motor skills to hold the felt pens to draw. We enjoyed being a large group together while dancing and pretending we were donkeys.

In the future we would love to encourage more parents to visit us and share something with us e.g. Cooking, reading a story. We are also going to encourage the children to make more things in art area to help act out stories and then record these in photo and written form for us to share with everyone, just like the Kindergarten children do.

If at any time you want a chat about your child or anything else, remember we are here to help. If you think it might take more than a couple of minutes, please let us know and we can arrange to be replaced in the room so we can give you our total attention and know the children are being looked after as well.

Bye til next Time

Julie, Elisa and Nicole

BUSY BEES

Dear Parents, Grandparents and other Family Members,

What an amazing year we have had so far!

Australia Day sparked an interest in our national identity, finding where we are in relation to other countries in the world. Group discussions enabled us to share what is known collectively and extend ideas through shared experiences, stories and photographs. We focused on both a world map and map of our island continent. Australian animals were explored discovering how they move and live, enjoying an animal movement obstacle course we changed to incorporate new animals over the week. Exploring our beach culture and creating a beach picture made with images we associate with the beach, cut out person image adding goggle eyes, clothes cut and glued or shaded in with pencils or felt pens, colouring and placing images enabling children to practice skills such as cutting, gluing decorating, holding a pen and developing ideas about aesthetic placement of images to fit inside their picture. Overall, a wonderful and interesting celebration of Australia.

Insects a fascinating discovery - Out in the playground and amongst our fruit and vegetables, we have gone on numerous bug hunts. Discoveries have enabled us to capture and study rhinoceros beetles, looper caterpillars, worms, lady beetles, hedge and vegetable grasshoppers. Like detectives we have discovered evidence

where they have been, like the giant holes in our cabbage in the vegetable patch.

Coming inside we found more information on these creatures on the Queensland Museum web site and printed them out. Later on we found a small mini film on you-tube showing a hedge grasshopper - how it moved and what it ate. We also found out that a baby grasshopper is called a nymph!

Books both factual and story, have intrigued the children further into insects habitats and how they live.

Together we are writing small stories that incorporate this knowledge, both old and new, about flies, grasshoppers, bees, butterflies, ants and spiders. Images of insect faces have been stuck onto head bands, small stage sets have been created with simple pieces of furniture, and fabrics to suggest habitats where our story characters live. The stories are written together, children’s ideas are collected and added into the story line. Children are encouraged to help spark an idea and extend on it. We are working on encouraging children to use their own words as much as possible in conversation. Prompted with comments and questions some children have been able to carry on short, simple, repetitive and logical conversations with other characters in the story. Other children are developing nicely building confidence acting in front of other children in the group. Language development is explored using repetitive sentences and helping to say the words with me as we tell our story.

KINDERGARTEN

Welcome to all our Families, both new and old!

Are you my Mum? Story by Monday’s Group 5.3.12

Encouraged children to become familiar with insect habitats and looking at similarities and differences between insects.

How do you Move? Story by Tuesday’s Group 6.3.12

As the title suggests, explored the movement of different insects

Friends to the Rescue! Story by Wednesday’s Group 7.3.12

Looked closely at cooperation working together to solve problems and how wonderful it is to have friends who look after you and help you when you need it.

These insect stories will be displayed on the lockers – please spend a little time reading these amazing titles! There will be more to come!

The Amazing Treasure Hunt with Isa and Tania - Great excitement as children rushed out into the playground to discover coloured shapes hidden in the playground. Skills such as listening to instructions, discriminating between objects to discover shapes, stopping, observing, racing back to teachers and classmates to tell them where they were hidden and identify the name of the shape and the colour were all incorporated. It sounded like lots of fun!

Writing our names is developing nicely. A Writers Wall is being created near our room’s entry gate and is displaying children’s wonderful attempts at their individual stages of development. Teachers are assisting with name recognition, developing the shapes of letters,

following lines, naming letters in their first name and assisting with the correct pencil grip.

You can help encourage this skill development at home by using the copy of the Queensland Beginner’s Alphabet that was included at the back of yellow covered Kindergarten handbook provided to families at the Information evenings held in November and February. If you did not receive one or have misplaced it, please ask a member of the Kindergarten Team or the Directors for another copy.

Percussion instruments – Recently, children enjoyed a music show that encouraged them to think creatively. The musician suggested children create sounds using a variety of objects from nature. We would like parents to help us collect a range of these objects so that we may continue with the interest generated in the children. Could you help us with coconuts (cut in half would be wonderful), gum nuts, Poinciana or jacaranda seed pods, pine cones, lotus seed heads. I am going to find some gourd seeds we can grow and dry, they make really good shakers. Man-made objects too such as dowelling sticks (25cms long would be great), biscuit tins, plastic bottles, whatever you can think of would be fantastic and will help us create our own instruments.

Show and Tell - This has been amazing so far, thank you Parents! We have had some wonderful photo stories of family experiences, amazing creations children have made at home, stories, factual books, objects children have found on a walk, etc. We always look at ways to extend on the interests children present for us. Abigail brought in some shells to show us and amongst the shells was a cuttlefish bone! We were all curious, what was a cuttlefish? What did it look like? Where does it live? We discovered that cuttlefish look very like a small squid. Beau told us that Cuttlefish change colour and this made us eager to investigate further. We were amazed at what we found - over plants it changed green and over sand a mottled yellow - what amazing camouflage. Scientists showed us they can even try to copy in a small way the black and white squares of a checker board.

KINDERGARTEN

The children thoroughly enjoy their show and tell experiences and we learn so much from the interesting facts they have to share BUT PLEASE REMEMBER:

Only two children each day AND please ensure you write your child’s name on the Show and Tell roster above the children’s bag cupboard as the children who are written on this calendar for each day will be the only children who share the news on that particular day. Please remember all children need opportunity to practice there orating skills and thus you MUST ALLOW two weeks between your child’s last turn so others can have a go thank you!

It has been an amazing start to 2012 with many fantastic opportunities arising each day for eager, inquisitive children to explore and enjoy interests. In fact it has been exciting times for everyone, Teachers too! We look forward to sharing, learning and teaching each other so many more amazing things throughout 2012 and invite all parents/carers and other family and friends to write their name on our roster located above the lockers and spend some time with us at Kindy to share their skills and knowledge or just to come and play and have some fun with us. We look forward to seeing you!

Best wishes from the Kindergarten Staff, Tania, Isa and Caroline

KINDERGARTEN

Parent Information Evening

Thankyou to all those Parents, Grandparents and Carers who were able to brave the terrible rain and attend our Parent Information Evening on February 22nd. It was an enjoyable evening and we really appreciated the opportunity to speak with so many of you at such a relaxed and casual evening. We hope that you all found the evening very informative and the handouts useful.

Unfortunately, the rain altered the events for the evening and we were unable to hold the whole group meeting under the stars, as planned. To catch you all up, the agenda for that part of the program included the following:

Our History

Silky Oaks Child Care Centre is just one program run by Silky Oaks Children’s Haven and it has operated for just over 20 years.

Silky Oaks Children’s Haven was initially born in the heart of a retired missionary, Miss Betty Cornell, who was concerned for children in Queensland who didn’t have a supportive home environment. Her conviction was put into action and the original Children’s Home was set up in the Brisbane suburb of Toowong in August 1940.

In January 1947, Silky Oaks moved to its current location in Manly. Since that time, Silky Oaks has extended its range of services to families within the local community.

Our Curriculum & Programs

The centre’s program development is based in Emergent Curriculum theories and is guided by the Early Years Learning Framework

and Queensland Kindergarten Learning Guidelines. It is based on the developmental needs, interests and experiences of each child and is designed to take into account individual differences of each child.

We see children as competent human beings, and our programs are designed to create opportunities for them to make decisions for themselves. The educator’s role is to facilitate their decisions and provide support and assistance when needed.

Our holistic, inclusive programs are responsive to children’s lives, interests and learning styles and promote children’s physical, personal, cognitive, social, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.

To give children this opportunity the environment needs to support this and therefore the design of this environment is critical. In our learning environment basics are available to children every day. These basic areas have been adapted from “Programming to Excite” by Carrie Rose and include Dramatic Play, Creative Space, Music Area, Construction Area, Eating Area, Relaxing Area and Outdoor Area. Each area has a basic equipment list and materials in these areas are easily accessed by all children.

Educators regularly observe and record documentation of individual children as well as groups of children - their play, their interests, how they engage with their peers and other adults and how they engage with the environment.

Documentation/Observations of individual children can take many forms including written anecdotes or conversations, photos sequences, collected work and family knowledge and contributions. This documentation is saved to children’s journals and used for individual planning and extension of experiences.

CENTRE NEWS

Each journal requires an index to indicate the child’s progress against the outcomes of the education program, the National Early Years Learning Framework. It is also a reference to keep track of each child’s progress in relation to their developmental needs, interests, experiences and participation in the program.

Journal indexes are made up of the 5 Learning Outcome Areas of the National Early years learning Framework, which are:

1. Children have a strong sense of identity

2. Children are connected with and contribute to their World

3. Children have a strong sense of wellbeing

4. Children are confident and involved learners

5. Children are effective communicators

Children’s digital journals are made available to families and can include contributions from all educators, children and their families. These digital journals are recorded to disk twice yearly and presented to families as a record of their child’s learning whilst at the centre.

Educators use curriculum webs/forms to map learning possibilities and record curriculum for individual children or project work for groups of children who have shared interests.

Any activities that emerge throughout the day can also be added to webs so the web will show planned, educator initiated activities as well as activities that emerged from the children’s play and ideas and/or family contributions.

When children are engaged and want to investigate a topic or educators want to introduce a concept or resource, a project may be initiated. Project work will evolve over indefinite periods of time based on the children’s interests in a topic or concept and current documentation will be displayed in children’s rooms. When projects are completed an evaluation of children’s learning through the project is written.

Critical reflection and evaluation of children’s learning and development is used as a primary source of information for planning and to improve effectiveness of the program and teaching strategies.

The Preschool/Kindergarten planning and evaluation process embraces the National Early Years Learning Framework and the Queensland Education Departments, Kindergarten Learning Guidelines with specific emphasis on Literacy and Numeracy. These frameworks and guidelines compliment Prep programs in schools and we believe assists children to make a successful transition to their Prep year.

For those of you unable to attend, please check your communication pockets for booklets and factsheets that were given out on the evening. If you have any questions or queries you would like followed up or you would like to have the opportunity to speak to your child’s Teachers, please let me or Mandy know so that we can make the necessary arrangements.

CENTRE NEWS

CENTRE NEWS

Nursery Rhymes in Japanese for 3 to 5 Year OldsA representative from Nursery Rhymes in Japanese has recently approached the Centre enquiring whether or not families at the service would be interested in signing their child up for Japanese lessons.

This extra-curricula activity would work in the same way as the other activities we offer at the centre, such as Physikids, Gingersports, etc., whereby Parents choose to sign their child up for a weekly lesson and all aspects of this business relationship are between the Parent and Japanese tutor only and not with Silky Oaks Child Care Centre. The service only provides the space to enable the lessons to occur.

At this point, a FREE TRAIL LESSON will be held on Wednesday 11th April 2012.

The Providers of this service need a minimum of 3 children to continue on with the weekly lessons. If successful, then lessons will formally commence on Wednesday 18th April 2012 at 10.30am in a room of the Busy Bee area.

Lessons are $10 per child and are 30 to 40 minutes duration. Payment is made on a termly basis and is made to the Providers directly.

If you are interested in having your child partake in the free trial, please let Tracey or Mandy know by Tuesday 10th April 2012.

Reminders• Please place your child’s named water cup/bottle into the esky upon arrival and collect it from the esky at the end of the day.

• Please name all food containers, cups / bottles and dummies.• Please send at least two spare sets of named clothes, a named hat and named shoes each day your child attends.

• Please ensure you apply sunscreen to your child before you come to childcare or before you leave the service each morning your child attends.

Thankyou!Thankyou to all of those families who have

kindly donated many wonderful and useful

resources to the Centre the past term.

We are very appreciative of your gifts and

donations of your time.

Baby Congratulations To Breeze (Joeys), Kylie, Matt and Kaitlyn on the birth of Gemma.

To William (Cuddly Koalas), Arash, Brooke and family on the birth of baby boy number 3.

To Isaak (Joeys) and Lachlan (Kindergarten) Geoff, Ellen and family on the birth of Gabriella.

To Scarlett (Cuddly Koalas), Melissa and Aaron on the birth of a baby boy.

MarchMonday 26th March to Thursday 5th April Henny Penny Hatching

Henny Penny Hatching has been designed to give all sections of the community the experience of observing first hand the birthing of baby chicks in a safe environment.

AprilFriday 6th -Good Friday CENTRE CLOSED

Monday 9th - Easter Monday CENTRE CLOSED

Wednesday 25th - Anzac Day CENTRE CLOSED

MayFriday 11th May Mothers & Grandmother Morning Tea at the centre

June Monday 11th – Queens Birthday CENTRE CLOSED

Wednesday 20th June Ocean Life Education Show Nursery & CK - 9.30am Busy Bees & Kindergarten – 10am

CENTRE NEWS

26MAR

5APR

6APR

9APR

25APR

11MAY

11JUN

20JUN

Calendar of Events BirthdaysWe wish the following children a great big HAPPY BIRTHDAY for February, March, April and May, and hope they enjoy wonderful celebrations with family and friends

JoeysFebruary – Jackson (2),

March – Kody, Nicholas, Samuel, Charlize (all turned 2)

April – Cillian (2)

May – Matthew (1), Myah (2)

Cuddly KoalasJanuary – Halle (2)

February – Conrad (2)

March – Laila (3)

April – Reece (3)

May – William (3)

Busy BeesJanuary – Winston (3), Alannah (3)

February – Jamie (3), Rebecca (3)

April – Ava S (3), Harper (3), Lincoln (3)

May – Bailey (3)

KindergartenJanuary – Abigail, Orlando, Charlie, Syanii

(all turned 4)

February – Vipul (4), Tia (4),

March – Lucia (4),

April – Owen (4), Connor (5), Joel (4), Hannah (4),

May – Jesse (4)