Inside this issue:

Beehive News 2

Rabbits News 2

Lions News 3

Staffing News 3

Fundraising /

Project Update

4

gressing well but we

have decided to hold

a Working Bee in

June (Saturday 18th)

to do some planting

and hopefully re-

vamp the hill area in

the main yard.

Please see the last

page of the newslet-

ter for more details

and pictures from

project activities.

At the Management

Committee meeting

held this week we

discussed the 5 cent

fundraiser that the

Kindy room have

been doing over the

past month or so.

The committee has

decided to reward

the Kindy children

and their families

efforts in the fund-

raiser by covering

the remaining cost of

the iPad. In fact we

have decided that we

will purchase 3 iPads

for the room, 2 for

the children and 1

for the educators to

use.

We also had an up-

date on the Playford

Sustainability & Na-

ture Play Grant.

This project is pro-

Management Committee News

Firstly I would like

to welcome the new

families that have

joined the Hillbank

Community. Some

children are siblings

from past or existing

families, welcome

back and others are

brand new.

This month it has

been wonderful to

see the improve-

ments made to the

room environments.

Each room was given

$300 fundraising

money to buy some

resources to improve

the natural feel of

their room. Purchas-

es included rugs,

cupboards, pillows,

flooring mats, and

curtains to name a

few.

This month I have

started looking at

the budget for the

next financial year.

With this in mind it

is very important

that ALL families

ensure that their

child care account is

paid and up to date

by the end of June. It

is also important

that accounts are

paid in full especially

if you pay fortnightly

or monthly. If we

have too many ac-

counts that are over-

due each month this

will mean a higher

fee increase will be

passed onto all fami-

lies in the new budg-

et. So to keep fees

down please ensure

your account is paid

in full each week/

fortnight/month,

thank you.

Finally Happy Moth-

ers Day to all of the

Mums within our

community.

May Newsletter

Wendy’s News Important Dates:

Thursday 5th May

SA Dentist Visit

from 2pm

Mothers Day is this

Sunday 8th May

Friday 20th May is

the Families Week

Celebration at Cra-

zy Monkeys Play

Café from 5.30pm

Grandparents Day

& Biggest Morning

Tea is being held on

Thursday 26th May

Monday 13th June

is a Public Holiday

Saturday 18th June

Working Bee

Monday 11th July

is a Closure Day for

Educators Profes-

sional Development.

Hi l l bank Com m uni t y Ch i l d r en ’ s Cen t r e

I would also like to take this

time to remind parents that

as it is getting colder can

they please pack a jumper in

their child's bag as it is some-

times very cold, the weather

is a little unpredictable at the

moment.

Lastly we would like to thank

all parents/carers who have

filled in our questionnaires

recently and if you have any

queries please don't hesitate

to approach any of the staff

within the room.

The Rabbits Burrow team

Jenny, Jess, Lisa, Sam, Ni-

cole and Mukta

Hi everyone, it has been an-

other very busy month in the

Rabbits Burrow with our

emergent curriculum, we

have focused on Cultures,

Music, languages, imagina-

tion and Anzac Day. We have

made our own instruments

from didgeridoos to casta-

nets, learnt new words in

other languages and made

some very special artwork,

with some of these being

group experiences teaching

them cooperation and team-

work using their individual

skills and creativity.

The Rabbits have also been

very fortunate to have had

Maria one of our children's

mothers join us on Monday

mornings to teach the chil-

dren Spanish, the children

are really enjoying this expe-

rience and we thank her very

much.

Please don't forget to have a

look in our emergent curricu-

lum book and ask your chil-

dren about the things they

have done or learnt as we are

always busy with new experi-

ences. Currently we are fo-

cusing on Australian animals

as many children have re-

cently visited national parks

over the previous weekends,

if you have any ideas that

can assist us please feel free

to share these with us.

Hello to all our Beehive families.

This month we have welcomed

Jay, Matilda, Patrick, Madeline,

Ricky, Isobel and Aria into our

room. We would like to extend a

big welcome to them and their

families. We hope you are enjoy-

ing your time with us so far, and

look forward to getting to know

each of you throughout your

time with us.

This month we have also cele-

brated birthdays with Aiden,

Jordan, Austin, Zane and Chase.

We hope you all had fantastic

days.

Through our emergent curricu-

lum we have been focusing on

celebrations after celebrating

birthdays with our babies. Chil-

dren participated in fun balloon

games and had many shared

story times reading a variety of

different books about ways of

celebrating. Children also learnt

through our Educator Sanchoi-

ta, about the Bangladesh New

Year. Another topic we have ex-

plored with children this month

is camping, after several fami-

lies shared their weekend ad-

ventures with us. Children

painted a big cardboard box as a

group to make a giant tent to

play in, they explored mini tents

for their dolls and babies and

explored their culinary skills

making damper together, let’s

just say our babies are messy

cooks!

Most of you would be aware, as

a staff team, we developed a vi-

sion and set out to transform

our entire room into a warm and

inviting play space for our ba-

bies. Well, we have done exactly

that. We are so happy, and

think the results speak for

themselves. Thank you to all the

families for all the positive feed-

back it is very much appreciat-

ed.

Our current project that we are

exploring is bringing a space of

belonging to our room. We are

investigating and researching

ideas to display a family tree in

our room. To start this project

we would like to ask all our bee-

hive families for a family photo.

Thank you to the families who

have already provided us with

theirs. Keep your eyes peeled for

the completion of this project.

We would like to end this month

wishing all our Mums a beauti-

ful Mothers Day for Sunday.

Emma, Bec, Renee, Debbie and

San.

Beehive News

Rabbits Burrow

May Newsletter Page 2

you imagine, distressing for the

other children and also the staff.

We are trying several different

strategies to combat these is-

sues, including “Bucket Filling”.

The idea is that everyone has a

bucket and we can each fill them

by being kind and respectful.

For example; sharing a toy with

someone will help fill their buck-

et, and looking after our room

will fill everyone’s bucket. We

have a display on the wall,

which is filled with a ping pong

balls each time we see/hear

someone doing something nice.

There is a book that goes along

with the program, which we

share with the children also.

This month we wished Abbey

and Makayla a Happy Bithday

and welcomed Genna into our

room!

Please remember that all chil-

dren who suffer from Asthma

must have a current ASTHMA

PLAN for them here at the cen-

tre. This needs to be updated

each year. If your child suffers

from Asthma, please see one of

the Kindy Educators and they

can check whether we need a

new plan for your child or not.

Bye for now,

Bec, Kylie, Rachael, Mary and

Sam

This month we welcome Mary as

our new teacher and Sam to the

room. Bec s is now also the

Team Leader of the kindy room,

however she will not be working

in the room just mentoring and

supporting the educators.

The Lion’s have been doing a

great deal of learning over this

past month. The dinosaurs was

a great hit with them all, as was

our most recent subject on In-

sects. This included the book

“what the Ladybird heard” for

our book of the week. Kylie

brought in some adult and baby

crickets for us to look after for

the week. Please take the time

to have a look in our Emergent

Curriculum book, to see what

great activities we have been up

to.

Last week we introduced Sus-

tainability to the children. There

is so much involvedin this sub-

ject so we have decided to break

it down into mini subjects, our

first one being about Recycling.

So if children start telling you

that you are putting your rub-

bish in the wrong bin, then yes,

you can blame us! The Children

have responded really well so

far, we will also learn about sus-

tainable farming and saving en-

ergy. We will soon be getting our

veggie patches going again and

have already begun some plant-

ing around the yard. If anyone

has any suggestions for activi-

ties around these subjects,

please let us know. The bath-

room is starting to take shape as

a jungle and the home corner is

currently a pet shop...this was a

request of the children.

On Monday we had a visit from

Glenn, who came from Funky

Junk and Nature playground.

He brought a whole range of

used and recycled materials,

including some very long/large

sticks, rope, tarps and barrels,

plus more. The children had an

absolute ball letting their imagi-

nations run wild. They created a

cubby complete with inside

swing, a tepee, musical instru-

ments and all sorts of wonderful

things. The children were able

to explore natural open-ended

resources, challenge their own

levels of risk assessment, physi-

cal strength and social and cog-

nitive limits. This type of play is

something we would like to in-

corporate into our everyday

learning for the children…... In

one word it was AWESOME!!!!

Our goal for this term is based

around respect. Respect for our

environment and also each oth-

er. Unfortunately we have a bit

of an issue with some children

destroying things around the

room and yard. This can be, as

she is study at University but

the children are very happy to

see her again.

Once again we have a number of

students at the centre studying

either the Diploma or Certificate

III in children’s services. In the

Beehive we have Jenny and Yi

ting, in Toddlers we have Kathy,

Connie and Rachael, in the Kin-

dy we have Jessica, Reannon,

Kay and Samantha.

This month we are welcoming

Mary Oberer to the Kindy Room

as the new Teacher. Mary

knows the centre well as all 4 of

her children used the centre and

she was also a parent on the

Management Committee for

many years. Mary has a Bache-

lor in Early Childhood Educa-

tion and she is continuing her

career now that most of her chil-

dren have started school.

We also have a new assistant in

the Kindy Room, her name is

Sam Nelson. Sam will be cover-

ing the Kindy educators at vari-

ous times during the week,

mostly in the afternoons but

also all day Friday. Sam will

also be working full time in the

school holidays as Mary will be

taking leave during this time.

Last week we welcomed back

Gemma to our relief list. Gem-

ma has limited availability as

Lions News

Staffing News

Page 3

Fundraising and Sustainability/Nature Project

As you know we are trying to introduce more nat-

ural play into our childcare environment as well

as Teaching the children about sustainability.

One way to do this is to incorporate Loose Parts,

“junk” and natural resources. We would love any

donations that you may have around your home

that you no longer need, your junk may become

our treasure! This week we had a visitor from

“Mobile Junk and Nature Play”, Glenn set up the

outside yard for the children to explore. It was

fantastic!! We would love to collect some of these

resources for the centre. Here are some photos

of the activities that were provided.

We are also looking to revamp the hill area in the main yard. Our plan is to level the hill to give a flat surface to work with. We then hope to have tepees, natural tunnel, camp fire with gathering circle made from wooden stumps and as many plants as possible. This will be a real natural area that is great for dramatic play, imagination, cognitive development, lan-guage and social skills. We would like to recy-cle as much of the resources as possible, If you feel you could help in anyway with this project please see Wendy or Bec, thank you.