Bunnings BBQ—Sunday June

10th

Kinder Disco—Friday June 22nd

Kinder Closed Monday June

11th—Long weekend

End of Term Dates:

KOOKABURRA GROUP:

Wednesday June 27th

ROSELLA GROUP:

Friday June 29th

COCKATOO GROUP:

Thursday June 28th

Dates to

remember

Welcome to the South Kingsville Preschool newsletter for term 2.

BUSH KINDER

What a fantastic start to the bush kinder program we have had this

term. Children, staff and families, all seem to be enjoying this won-

derful experience of heading to Newport Lakes weekly. Thankyou

to all the parent volunteers who have ensured the program goes

ahead each session. The bush kinder program has been many

years in the making, so thanks to the staff, especially Elissa and

Dawn for their many hours of research, buying of equipment,

working on policies and commitment to making the program such

a success. Have a look at the bush kinder photo page at all the

great experiences the children are having so far.

GOODBYE AND WELCOME……

During the term we sadly farewelled Emma McLachlan, educator

for the Rosella group for the past 9 years. We thank Emma for all

her years at SKPS and wish her well with her new venture for the

future. We welcome Cathy Paleologoudias our new Rosella educa-

tor to the staff and SKPS community. Cathy has worked at the kind-

er in the past and we are very happy and lucky to welcome her

back. Cathy has settled in well and describes the feeling as “coming

home.”

SURVEY

Please look out via email for a quick survey the kinder are under-

taking on Melbourne Cup Week hours. We are very interested in

the opinion of our families so we would really appreciate your

feedback regarding this matter.

SKPS NEWSLETTERNEWSLETTERNEWSLETTER

TERM 2TERM 2TERM 2

201820182018

From the

President

Term 2 is well underway and before we know it we will be half way through

the year.

The big highlight for me as the president and as a parent has been the start of

bush kinder for the 4 year old groups. I was a parent helper this week and it

was wonderfully being part of it and seeing so comfortable in the space. I am

so thankful for the vision and hard work that all the staff have put into making

this possible.

We have decided on a contractor to update the deck area and we hope that

work will be done over the July or September holidays. This has been years in

the making, but I am feeling hopeful that we will be dance on it before the end

of the year!!!!

One of the continuing roles of the committee is to review continually review

the kinders policies. You can view all our policies on our website and there is a

list of what we are reviewing on the notice board in the kinder.

The committee is currently in the process of deciding about whether to open

the Monday before Melbourne Cup. You will receive a survey relating to this.

Your feedback on this would be helpful for us making the final decision.

I am looking forward to catching up with you all at the kinder disco on the 22

June for a boogie. It is a great night. Tanya the entertainer is fabulous, she has

all the children dancing and maybe even some parents. The disco is definitely a

highlight for my two children.

As a SKPS family, you are welcome to attend our committee meetings which

are help in the 3rd Monday of the month. If you have any ideas or would like

to help, please have a chat to myself or one of our committee members. Alter-

natively, you can email me at President@skps.vic.edu.au

Policy Update

Each year as part of the National Quality Framework the kinder is required to regularly review our

policies. Our policies are developed (excluding the Bush Kinder policies) with the Early Learning As-

sociation Australia. The Committee of Management and staff review a few policies each meeting

and then any amendments are made. South Kingsville Preschool Policies are available on our web-

site and there is a copy in the folders in the parent library.

POLICIES REVIEWED AND AMENDED 2018

Inclusion & Equity Policy Governance & Management of Service Policy

Nutrition, Oral Health & Active Play Policy

POLICIES CURRENTLY AT COMMITTEE FOR REVIEW 2018

Hygiene Policy Road Safety & Safe Transport Policy

Staff Performance Review Policy Supervision of Children Policy

Water Safety Policy

Fundraising 2018

Open Day

Saturday 17 March was our Open Day. It was a very successful event with many families attending and enjoying all the fun that was on offer, such as, the jumping castle, tattoo station, cake stall and not to mention the amazing raffle prizes everyone as hoping to win! Thank you to the staff who set up the kinder room so beautifully and spoke to many prospective families, as well as committee members for helping to organise the event. A special thank you as well to all the families that contributed to the cake stall, there were so many delicious treats on offer.

Mother’s day

The Mothers day raffle was another successful event, which raised $360 for the kinder. A special

thank you to the local businesses who kindly donated the amazing prizes – Endota Spa, Fernwood,

Indera Spa, Scowns Pharmacy, Black Sheep Cafe, Change N Heads Hair Salon and Bottle-O.

Fundraising 2018

UPCOMING EVENTS

Bunnings BBQ

This year our Bunnings BBQ will be held on Sunday 10 June. This is one of our main fundraising

events for the year. We are urgently seeking volunteers and would really appreciate if you could give

some of your time on this day to help make it a success.

If you can help, please fill in your name on the roster that is near the sign in book. A reminder too, that parents who work on the day at the BBQ, will get their $50 Maintenance Levy refunded.

Disco

Our Kinder Disco this year will be held on Friday 22 June at the Spotswood Cricket Club from 6:00-

7:30pm. The children will once again be entertained by the fantastic Tania from ‘Keep Calm the kids

are with Tania’. Further details to come, looking forward to seeing you all there!

Bush Kinder 2018

ROSELLA GROUPROSELLA GROUPROSELLA GROUP

BUSH IPAD

Bush Kinder 2018

KOOKABURRA GROUP

Term 2 Newsletter

THREE YEAR OLD GROUP

COCKATOOS

Lisa & Rachel

Wow how time flies when you are having fun! We are now in the middle of term 2 and the Cockatoo

children returned to kinder happy and excited to be back. In term 2 we welcomed two new children to

our group.

The children have been busy making their Mother’s Day cards and gifts which were given to their

mums on our Mother’s Day afternoon tea which we hosted at kinder. On this day, the children made

cupcakes to share with their mother’s. Thank you to all the mum’s who were able to attend

This term the children have been busy exploring the supermarket and hospital in the home corner.

These type of imaginary play experiences allow the children the possibilities to explore different identi-

ties, roles, create stories, practice their communication skills and join in play with other children.

Children are enjoying playing games, such as the shopping game, domino’s, zingo (a form of bingo).

While playing games the children are learning to take turns, follow rules, concentrate, persevere and

enjoy each other’s company.

This term we have been concentrating on developing the children’s fine motor skills in many different ways such as using playdough with different utensils such as scissors and cookie cutters. Pasting and painting with different materials and tools. We have been threading, beading and sewing with the chil-dren. We have used tap tap boards and many different types of manipulative equipment such as mag-netic clips, shapes and duplo. We have been focused on trying to develop children’s gross motor skills through movement and songs activities. While out in the yard we encourage the children to climb the tree, or A frames, the fort and go down the slide. We use bikes, scooters, balls and hoops to promote large body actions to help chil-dren develop their fundamental motors skills necessary to hop, jump and skip.

During our mat time sessions, we have enjoyed listening to different stories and singing and dancing to

different songs.

Thank you to the children and families for a wonderful term 2 and we look forward to what term 3

may bring.

Lisa and Rachel

Term 2 Newsletter

FOUR YEAR OLD GROUPS

KOOKABURRAS

Term 2 has been an exciting term of exploring.

BUSH KINDER

We have been so fortunate that we have been able to attend bush kinder every Monday. Bush kinder

has been a highlight for the children and have asked if we can have bush kinder every day. The chil-

dren have challenged themselves, taken calculated risks, climbed trees, rolled down gully’s, collected

seed pods, created games, drawn where x marks the spot and lots more creative play. We have

walked across the stepping stones, and planted grasses with Ranger Clem.

Nature Play provides a marvellous opportunity to explore how we can embed nature in our curriculum

and encourage children to connect with and care for the natural environment. We used nature-based

learning experiences to celebrate how much fun we can have by using the resources nature gives us

rather than relying on commercial and unsustainable resources. We collected sticks from the reserve

and added some lengths of twine. The children came up with all sorts of creative uses including mak-

ing fishing rods, magic wands and decorations for their cubbies.

Term 2 Newsletter

FOUR YEAR OLD GROUPS

KOOKABURRAS

CONNECTING WITH OUR COMMUNITY

Remembering Anzac Day: Learning about ANZAC Day helps young children to understand the life and

times of Australia and its people. We used stories and discussions to explore concepts around being

safe, resolving conflict and how rules can help to keep us safe. The children also made Anzac biscuits

and created art to help develop their understandings of this complex topic.

IMAGINATIVE PLAY

Is there a Doctor in the House? Setting up a hospital in our role play area created opportunities for the

children to engage in rich, extended play. The scenarios they created allowed them to build up commu-

nication and language skills as they used their existing knowledge to build narratives. They practiced lit-

eracy and numeracy skills as they wrote scripts, made doctor’s notes and made appointments. We ex-

tended the children’s interest by looking in detail at the medical equipment like stethoscope and ther-

mometer.

Term 2 Newsletter

FOUR YEAR OLD GROUPS

KOOKABURRAS

LITERACY

Every day Literacy- concepts of reading and writing are best and most effectively learned in context.

When children see how functional literacy can be used in their lives to enhance their communication and

enrich their play, they are more likely to use and understand it. At preschool, literacy concepts are em-

bedded in everyday experiences like creating signs, making lists, writing letters, noticing print in the envi-

ronment and reading stories. The children have been signing in on arriving at kinder and being able to

recognise their names by finding their name stone.

SCIENCE AND MATHS

Every day! At preschool, we use all of the curriculum areas to explore science and maths concepts. The

science of colour was explored as we had fun mixing paint colours to create new ones. We created a

construction of blocks looking at height, weight, balance, size, all early mathematical concepts. We plant-

ed seedlings, counting the number of seeds, cooked and measuring out ingredients. We played board

games, recognising the number on a dice, moving that many spaces. It happens all around us.

Term 2 Newsletter

FOUR YEAR OLD GROUPS

KOOKABURRAS

MOTHERS DAY EVENING

We celebrated Mother’s day in the evening and had a great turn out. It was

great to see the children interacting and engaging with their mum/

grandmother/aunt etc. and showing them what we do at kinder.

The children created a great story book about their mum. The children had

discussions prior to the night about significant females in their lives and also

discussing gender equality. Can females and males do the same job/work/

hobby/sport? This created interesting conversations and made the children

reflect on how we can make our society equal and accept differences

amongst us.

SUSTAINABILTY

With world environment day’s theme this year beating plastic pollution we have looked at many ways we

can help reduce, reuse and recycle plastic. One of the areas we focused on was plastic bags and the im-

pact they have on our sea life. The children looked at and discussed plastic

bags in our ocean and how turtles are mistaking plastic bags as jelly fish and

eating them or getting caught up in them, causing death. The children

thought we could help reduce plastic by stop using plastic bags and use bags

that we could use over and over again. We spoke about cotton and how this

breaks down into compost and the worms can eat it. Plastic bags take a long

time to decompose and the worms certainly wouldn’t eat them. We investi-

gated cotton, and planted a cotton seed which is sprouting. We are looking

at ways we can reuse plastic and glass bottles and jars and discussed we

could paint them to create a vase. So send in a glass/plastic bottle/jar to re-

cycle.

The children have been painting a calico bag to take shopping instead of

plastic bags, which are displayed and are for sale for $5.00. All the money with be given back to a charity

that supports our philosophy of sustainability practises.

We look forward to our adventures of term 3.

Term 2 Newsletter

FOUR YEAR OLD GROUPS

ROSELLAS

Hi Everyone,

My name is Cathy and I am the new teacher of the Rosella group. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work at South Kingsville again and to work with such a wonderful team of people.

Over the last couple of weeks we have had a very busy time. On Friday 4th May we had an exciting time at Bush Kinder. I could see that the Rosellas had a sense of belonging at Bush Kinder and that they en-joyed engaging with nature. Some of the Rosellas built their own cubby house out of sticks and branch-es, some created their own space inside huge trees, others enjoyed climbing up trees and some chil-dren enjoyed rolling down the hill into the gully. I observed all the children exploring and creating the most amazing things out of their natural environment.

Term 2 Newsletter

ROSELLAS

We cancelled Bush Kinder on Friday 11th May because they predicted torrential rain and gale force winds!! Dawn and I together agreed that it would be a great idea to meet at home kinder that day. Even though you can take the children out of the bush, you can’t take the bush out of the children!! When the Rosellas arrived at kinder many of them put on the wet weather gear and they went out-side to jump in the puddles and make their own chocolate factory out of sand and water.

Inside our kinder room our supermarket has now been transformed into a hospital which has been very interesting. The Rosellas really enjoy role playing and we have observed a variety of roles in our hospital which is wonderful to see.

Term 2 Newsletter

ROSELLAS

Our Imagination Table is now focusing on our environment. On Tuesday 5th June it is World Envi-ronmental Day, so we hope to encourage an awareness for the protection of our environment with everyone. We have posters on display of turtles getting caught up with plastic from our oceans, books on recycling and how important that is for our environment.

Last Thursday evening we had a very successful Mother’s Day evening at kinder. As our mums arrived with their Rosellas they found an activity to do and enjoyed playing together. We had mums being wrapped up in bandages inside our hospital, mums reading books to their children, mums creating amazing things at the playdough table and Rosellas and mums making the most gorgeous heart boxes together.

Term 2 Newsletter

ROSELLAS

We had our kinder photos and bush kinder photos taken which were a huge success. Our photographer worked really well with the children and she was able to get some very good interactive shots of the children at play.

A couple of weeks ago Dawn and some of the Rosellas found a gecko in our kinder yard, which was real-ly exciting! After studying the gecko and observing it we all decided to let it go, which we all agreed on.

Looking forward to a fun and exciting term ahead!

Kookaburra and Rosella 4 year old Educators: Elissa, Cathy, Dawn, Tina, Rachel, Vicki & Robyn