What a truly amazing month May has been, talk about busy! Some of the highlights were the Fete, High Tea for the spe-cial women in the children’s lives and the Aged Care visit. The children have done such a wonderful job embracing the changes to routine with so many special visitors and guests.

The Aged Care visit in PP2 on Tuesday 30 May is the first visit of many. We would like to see this as a regular part of the program with both Pre Prep rooms visiting and hopefully some of the residents visiting us. There has been lots of re-search undertaken recently about co-benefits of the elderly interacting with young children and how it enhances both lives. The children’s and resident’s faces said it all.

XPLOR update has worked well and if you have not worked out the menu bar you need to slide the menu bar across the screen, tapping the screen no longer works. It is a legal requirement to sign your children in/out of the service within the grounds of the Service. Parents are also required to no-tify an Educator that your child has arrived or is departing. Please notify staff if you need a member of staff to do this. You can use the iPad in Reception area to sign in and out if you forget your device.

At no stage is a child to be left in a room unattended nor

ELC NewsletterIssue 5 / May 2017

ELC News

encouragement to be given to your child to open a door to enter or exit the building. Please assist staff in talking to your children about doors. Your child’s safety is important to us.

Thank you to the parents who are asking older siblings to sit in the hallway. If your older child is outside in the playground can you please ensure that they are with you and not run-ning around the yard putting the younger children at risk.

Super Max the Turtle came to the Centre and we did a fol-low up with Bryce on Wednesday 31 May. We were able to donate 10 turtles to young children diagnosed with cancer.Thank you for supporting this project this will be an ongoing project for the ELC. If you have not heard Bryce’s story he created a storybook to read with the children. Bryce’s mum has recorded his story to accompany the pages of the book and has made it available on You Tube. This is the link: htt-ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLvmTZMUQc8

Days for 2018: We are currently offering days to families on the waitlist so please if you need to change your preference come and speak to Kerrie or myself as soon as possible.

Jobs of Families package will be introduced in July 2018. In coming weeks I will be sending out a survey to gather some data to try and best accommodate parents care needs for these changes. For further information contact the family assistance office or see link below key changes for families’ fact sheet: https://docs.education.gov.au/node/38916

Dress up as a pirate, gold coin donation

If you have feedback on the service and recommendations for improvements please record them on the notice boards outside the kitchen area. This will assist us to ensure we are reviewing practices and adding to the centre QIP.

We welcome Linda to the ELC teaching team on Monday 12 June and say good-bye to Jaime-Lee on Thursday 15 June. Please dress your child in their pyjamas on this day and come, and join us for morning tea at 9.30am to wish Jaime-Lee good luck with her new teaching job in England. Thank you for your service.

Until next time, Bronwyn Waters

We have had a month full of excitement and activity. We had the opportunity to share in a successful Mothers Day afternoon tea and we thank all the special mums for sharing in our celebration and creating a memorable occasion. Re-flecting on previous learning in the Junior Kindy Room, the children have been engaged in continual role play scenarios, as they stretch those relationship skills. We turned the im-aginary play into an ice cream shop. This led us into learning more about healthy food and what is good for our bodies. The children made their own healthy ice-cream alternative and some had the chance to make some freshly squeezed juice. Thank you to our families who provide such nutritious options for lunch as we build the children’s understanding of good health.

Just a reminder about our egg and nut free policy, as we share with the class about anaphylaxis and why we need to keep these foods at home.

Our library visits have been very successful and thank you to our families for arriving earlier to carry out a smooth prepa-ration for the morning. Each week we have had the chance to visit the library in a small group, reading a range of stories. We will be using this opportunity to support our ongoing interest within the classroom, as the children find out more about a particular focus.

You may have noticed we are focusing on having the chil-dren more involved in experiences, by creating smaller groups. This enables conversations to run freely, having the children resource their own learning and encourage direct input from each child. As the children develop ownership over these decisions and ideas, they feel a sense of belong-ing and are more likely to extend their learning further as they work with others, listening to ideas, problem solve and work as a team.

We have noticed a strong interest in using scissors through-out the month, and continued to support these skills through playdough cutting, and magazines. This was extended fur-ther by encouraging the children to cut and use the pieces to stick down on paper and create. It was followed up with threading opportunities and playdough creations as the children strengthened these small hand muscles. Outside the children have been supported in connecting with many friends through group games. This assists in a range of new skills, including, co-ordination, working with others and de-veloping their understanding of fairness. The children have expressed their energy through jumping and climbing over and through obstacle courses, where we have then added ball games, bikes and small group games including, “doggy, doggy where’s your bone” and “duck, duck goose.”

The children have really worked on their ability to commu-nicate to others. We continue to support this with verbal support and problem solving as they work through differ-ent frustrations. We have been practising slowing down, acknowledging our feelings and working through what we could do next.

Junior Kindy News

Each Tuesday afternoon the children have been learning about colours in our Japanese lesson, as we explore the book, “Where is the Green Sheep.” The group is developing confidence in recalling the songs including, “Mary Had a Lit-tle Lamb, Heads and Shoulders, and Twinkle Twinkle.” We also celebrated “Children’s Day,” where the class had the chance to wear some traditional clothing. This is something we endeavour to share across the week, exposing everyone to new learning opportunities.

Reminders• Don’t forget to label everything, especially jump-

ers to help us return these to the right owner.• Please come and see us if you would like to share

in a cooking experience with the class • Don’t forget to sign your child in and out, or ask

us for help• Check for wet clothes tag on your child’s bag

Miss Stephanie, Miss Jana, Miss Emily and Miss Cathy

Pre Prep 1 NewsMay has been a very busy month full of special guests and visitors who have inspired the Pre Prep 1 children to become aspiring authors, actors and most of all great storytellers.

Mother’s Day gave the children an opportunity to create their own stories about their mothers and the children loved giving these stories to their loved ones at the Mother’s Day High Tea.

The Pre Prep children have loved seeing other children tell stories. This month they heard Bryce’s incredible story about Super Max and how Bryce has raised money to give unwell children some comfort through ‘Super Max Turtle’ night lights. Years 3C and 3B also came to the ELC and shared children’s stories as well as narratives they had written them-selves. National Storytime Day was on Wednesday 24 May.

All of the children dressed up in their favourite story char-acters from books. This led to the class telling stories about the character they were dressed as. On Monday 29 May, the class also watched a show in the College Multi-Purpose Hall ‘Bazil and Grumble Go to the Circus’.

Experiences like these have struck a chord with the Pre Prep 1 children. The Educators can see truly just how much they have learnt as the ELC children take action independently whether it may be acting out nursery rhymes, building hous-es from the Three Little Pigs stories, drawing the story of Lit-tle Red Riding Hood or putting on their own puppet shows.

Reminders:• Parent Teacher Interviews Monday 12 June and

Tuesday 13 June.• If you have not already, please fill out an inter-

view slip with your preferred times and return to a staff member so we can book you in. Currently the morning and afternoon slots are full with only 11:00am to 2:00pm available on each day.

• Miss Jaime-Lee’s last day is Thursday 15 June. The class has met Miss Linda the new teacher and Miss Linda has started transitioning into the position.

• Please come to morning tea on Thursday 15 June at 10:00am to farewell Miss Jaime-Lee and welcome Miss Linda.

Miss Jaime-Lee, Miss Stacey and Miss Ashley

Community Links & Services

Gold Coast Health offers FREE* dental care for all eligible children. Call to book your child’s dental check on 1300 300 850 *Eligibility criteria applies

For children to be eligible for free public oral health services they must:• Be Queensland residents or attend a Queensland school;• Be eligible for Medicare2;• Meet at least one of the following criteria:

be aged four years or older and have not completed Year 10; or,be eligible for the Medicare Child Dental Benefits Schedule; or,hold, or be listed as a dependent on, a valid Centre-link concession card.

Children that reside in states or territories other than Queens-land but attend a Queensland school and meet the other criteria listed above, are eligible for free public oral health services.

Pre Prep 2 NewsWhat a busy month it has been in Pre Prep 2. Our Unit of Inquiry has progressed well over the month and the children have developed a good understanding of the Unit and the language. Throughout the Unit, we have attempted to ex-tend the children’s thinking and expose them to the key con-cepts of why we tell stories and the many ways in which they can be told. As a part of our inquiry, we have particularly enjoyed looking at fairy tales, nursery rhymes and books. We have observed the children engaging in story retells, in particular fairy tales. We noticed that Jack and the Bean-stalk in particular captured the children’s interest, which over the course of a few weeks lead to several discussions about growing beans. The children brainstormed their ideas and decided that growing our own beans and measuring their progress each week would potentially be a great way to ex-tend on the Jack and the Beanstalk story.

Home corner has also become an area where familiar stories can be told and performed. Over the past month, home cor-ner has transformed into a place where the children can role-play and use their imaginations. We have seen the children working collaboratively in this area; it is here they are learn-ing to be communicators and inquirers and have developed a good understanding of the different ways in which stories can be told and from different perspectives.

This month we have also focused on self-efficiency. This is the belief that the children are capable of performing a task or managing a situation independently. We support this by encouraging the children to make and pack away their beds; tidying the toys after playtime; job roles for the day, such as watering our plants; and packing up their bags at the end of the day. It is important that the children feel they are capa-ble and responsible of looking after their belongings, giving them a sense of accomplishment and pride in themselves as learners.

Highlights of the month• Bazil and Grumble show• Jack and the Beanstalk planting• Visit from the Year 3 and 4 students - Story time• Visit from the Year 3 music class to perform songs• Mother’s day afternoon tea• Visit from Bryce (Super Max)• Book dress up day• National Story Telling Day and visit form Mr Bliss to read

The Cow Tripped Over the Moon• Aged Care visit

Reminders• Please ensure you pack a jumper and shoes every day.• Please bring a piece of fruit to share.• Pirate dress up day is Friday 9th June.• Just a reminder that when selecting items for show and

tell, that they are not toys.

Miss Teresa, Miss Mardi and Miss Sarah