Playing is learning for life.

TG’s NewsWauchope - September 2016

News from your Centre Managers

Amy, Coryl & Laura

Upcoming EventsMonday 3 October

- Labour DayPublic Holiday - TG’s will be closed.

Friday 28 October - Canteen Bandanna DayRaising awareness & funds for

young Australians living with cancer.Tuesday 1 November

- Melbourne CupLearn more and have fun at TG’s

Thursday 1 December - Christmas Concert

Celebrate a fantastic year with TG’s.

Amy

A rea M anager

Laura

High Street

It has been a while since our last TG’s newsletter – and we have had lots of things happen in the past couple of months!

By now, you will be well aware that Tony has moved on from TG’s, and that Laura has stepped up as Centre Manager at High Street. Coryl has replaced Amy’s original role at Hastings Street, and Amy will now oversee and support the management of both campuses, with some time spent at each. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we transition through these changes.

We have also been busy with some sensational events – including NAIDOC week, the Wauchope Thunder Rugby Game, Book Week/Book Fair, Father’s Day, International Talk Like A Pirate Day and the Olympics, to name a few. The children have been busy and engaged in the classrooms as well, exploring and discovering as they socially construct their understandings of their world.

The weather is warming up and we have lots to look forward to as we head (with incredible speed) towards the end of 2016: - Our Preschool class have some planned visits to ‘big schools’ with an event at each in the near future.- Our toy catalogue fundraisers are currently running. - Preschool photos are scheduled for October / November. - We will begin to send home re-enrolment forms within the next couple of weeks. - We have also begun preparing for our end of year Children’s Christmas Party and Concert.

Please keep an eye on each of our facebook pages for updates and reminders. Search for TG’s Child Care – High Street and TG’s Child Care – Hastings Street.

We shall endeavour to keep you as informed as possible about upcoming events and occasions, as well as our regular posts about what’s happening at TG’s. Please speak to our teams if you have any questions.

As always, we thank you for your ongoing contribution to our service, and supporting our environment as one filled with love, trust respect, compassion and fun!

Re-enrolment / School Leavers: Notes will be distributed during the last week in

September. Please return the completed form as soon as possible to ensure your place at TG’s is secure. Please ask if you need more information.

Toy Catalogues Due Back Soon:

HIGH STREET - Friday 30 SeptemberHASTINGS STREET - Friday 14 October.

Preschool Photos:HIGH STREET

- Wednesday 26, Thursday 27 & Friday 28 October.HASTINGS STREET

- Monday 31 October, Tuesday 1 & Wednesday 2 November.

PLEASE NOTE:

H

astings Street

Coryl

JoeysNews from your Team Leaders

Bec Bronte

Teagan

High Street

Faye

What we have been up to ...Over the last few months our Joeys have enjoyed learning through play, exploring, investigating and interacting positively together.

We had fun in August interacting in Olympic inspired experiences and events. Our Olympic ring paintings and body tracings decorated our walls and we enjoyed active play including running, jumping on our crash mat, ball games and more.

What we are looking forward to ...Our Joeys are looking forward to extending on a new interest in ‘Our Bodies.’ We are currently enjoying singing, head, shoulders, knees and toes!

We are also very excited about the arrival of spring and the warmer weather arriving. Soon we will implement the summer routines and incorporate lots of water play!!

What we have been up to ...Exploring our senses through exciting learning experiences. The Joeys used their sense of touch and sight to explore textures of a number of different experiences including, coloured pasta and rice, slime, paint and shaving cream. Using their sense of smell the Joeys took turns to use their noses to take a big sniff of the variety of smells offered to them. It was so exciting to see the Joeys interested in this experience and sharing their excitement and smells with each other. The Joeys showed such a strong interest in this experience, so to extend on this, the educators gathered lemon, vinegar and a range of sauces for the Joeys to taste. It was wonderful to see the Joeys confidently explore each of the flavours using their sense of taste with little to no hesitation!!!

Spring has sprung in our Joeys room and the Joeys have been enjoying the warmer weather. The Joeys have taken a strong interest in their natural/ outdoor environment, noticing the birds flying around, bugs coming out to say hello and the beautiful flowers blooming in the garden. The Joeys have demonstrated their caring and loving natures by watering our gardens. It is beautiful to see our Joeys carefully handling their watering cans, then pouring the water over the plants.

What we are looking forward to ...We are looking forward to extending further on our interest with our outdoor environment. With the Joeys making bird feeders as well as creating some more exciting and intriguing outdoor learning spaces.

Hastings Street

Educators

HighStreet

Educators

Try this at home: Textural craft. Mix sand and paint colours for an effective artwork or cut up a variety of fabric scraps and other materials for a

gluing and collage experience.

H

astings Street

Kim

AnneJaclyn

Try this at home: Encourage a little helperThe Joeys love helping us care for our environment,

watering the plants, sweeping and picking up toys etc. We’re sure they would love to help at home.

Ashton taking care of the TG’s garden.

Joeys Olympic Display

Laci having fun with sensory finger painting with sand.

Jess

Sensory fun with ice.

September arrived and we began to explore some new textures. We played with goop, slime, rice, jelly, spaghetti, fabrics, sand and playdough. Our friends created artworks from these materials to display on our walls.

We have welcomed a number of new little Joeys to our High street family, so we

are looking forward to creating amazing relationships with them and their families.

Hastings Street

Educators

HighStreet

Educators

BoatiesNews from your Team Leaders

What we have been up to ...The Boaties have shown great interest as we have celebrated the Olympics and Paralympics over the last few weeks. Through the Olympic and Paralympic ceremonies, the children explored diversity, observing cultural

differences in traditional dress, flag and song, and physical differences as we explore the achievements of Paralympians. We have promoted inclusion while celebrating these differences, instilling empathy and care for all of our peers.

Educators have provided various learning experiences around team sports to explore physical movement and balance, and have guided and supported the children to value team work, showing pride in their efforts and achievements and praising their peers for their efforts with a thumbs up and ‘good job buddy!’. We have shared lots of smiles and giggles as we have played soccer, volleyball, hockey, running races, basketball, etc and cheered as we viewed the wonderful athletes on the computer.

What we are looking forward to ...The Boaties have shown great curiosity in the letters they can find around the room, on labels, posters, in books and on our name tags. They have shown great excitement finding ‘their letters’ and matching them with the letters in their names. To allow children to further their pre writing skills, educators have introduced a writing table with various writing materials and letters to trace and recreate. We look forward to introducing the letters of the alphabet to the children, supporting their writing skills and helping them to make sense of the world around them.

What we have been up to ...In the last week of August, the Boaties had lots of fun celebrating Book Week. The children enjoyed dressing up as their favourite book character. We had princesses, Alice in Wonderland, Ninja Turtles, dinosaurs, a butterfly, Anna, Superman, Kings, Buzz, a crocodile and Chase the dog. All of these costumes were a fantastic catalyst for dramatic play and interactions. The children also enjoyed showing off their costumes in the parade and dancing to the music.

We have also been exploring the children’s interest in spiders and their webs. This came about when our friend Samarli made a spider web with blocks on the mat, which inspired Mel to teach the children about spiders and their environment. We talked about how many legs they have with a book called “Eight Legs are Great”. We then went outside and looked at a real spiders’ web and talked about why spiders make them.

We explored this topic further with some spider web arts and craft. The children each drew their own representation

of what they think a spider web looks like and then used different water colours to decorate their page. Mel helped guide them by speaking about how webs have many lines and are all connected. In another craft activity we used string tied to a peg to create web like lines – the final products were fantastic.

Jamie

High Street

Mel

H

astings Street

Kiara

AnneMakayla

Simone

Kayla

Try this at home: Pre Writing SkillsThe Boaties are fantastic at singing the alphabet! Maybe you could start a duet? Or ask the children

to find ‘their letters’ in your bedtime stories.

Try this at home: Let your child be the teacher.We have been practising the song “Slippery Fish” as a group. If you play it on YouTube at home

I’m sure they could help you with all the actions.

Lots of fun dressing up in Book Week Costumes.

Lucinda recreating the letters in her name.

Gymnastics Fun

What we are looking forward to ...We will be learning more about other insects in our environment. We are also looking forward to lots of fun Halloween and Christmas activities.

Myah concentrating on her spider painting.

Team Boaties getting ready to play soccer!

What we are looking forward to ...To extend on the children’s interest in the Olympics, different countries and their flags, we will be moving on to the topic “Exploring our world”. The children will learn about different cultures, will use a map to locate the countries and will be researching how long it takes to fly there. At the end of October, Hannah and Libby will be setting off on an adventure to America (30 Oct to 12 Nov). The children will be marking their travels on a map and will keep in contact with some Skype calls.

PreschoolNews from your Team Leaders

What we have been up to ...So much has happened over the past three months in Preschool as the children continue to learn and grow in confidence through positive interaction with educators and peers and further exploration of their environment.

In July we created our new cultural area as children wanted to learn about their own community and country. We created a map of Wauchope, with the children drawing their homes and writing their street. Educators then added resources such as a world atlas and Globe for the children to explore, ask questions and learn about other countries. This interest was revisited with the beginning of the Olympic Games.

With the purchase of some new blocks and some remodelling we were able to make a construction area. Block construction has continued over the past few months, with children engaging in both solitary and cooperative play to build. The children’s constructions have been spectacular and they have shown amazing respect and recognition of both our own constructions and those of our peers. This enables us to re-visit and add to these constructions over many days.

This month with the purchase of some insect catchers and magnifying glasses, the children’s interest in nature has been sparked. The children have been exploring our outdoor areas in search of insects and creepy crawlies to add to our new nature table. Educators have extended this interest, teaching the children about the life cycle of different insects, such as bees.

We look forward to the coming months and their ever changing interests.

What we have been up to ...We have been learning all about the Olympics. The children were very keen to study the different flags and to learn more about the meaning of the Olympic rings. They were also very interested in the different sports, which lead to running races and relay races in the Munch and Move area. We then decided to host our very own TG’s Olympics and asked the Hastings Street Preschool children to join us. We competed in lots of fun races, made new friends and had fun.

Hastings Street

Educators

HighStreet

Educators

Janette

High Street

Hannah

Libby

Try this at home: DIY Magic SandYou need coloured sand and scotch guard (fabric). Spread coloured sand onto a sheet of alfoil. Spray sand with scotch. Mix sand around and repeat the process 2 to 3 times. Place sand in a small shampoo container. Now it is ready to use. Fill a bowl with

water and squirt the coloured sand into the water to make patterns. When you scoop up the magic

sand in your hands, it stays dry (amazing).

Try this at home: Counting SticksYou will need 2 wall plugs, 1 skewer and lots of

colourful beads. Push a wall plug securely on one end of the skewer. Thread 15 to 20 colourful beads on to the skewer and then secure them on to the stick using the second wall plug. Now you have a counting stick. Ask your child to slide one bead along the stick and count out loud as they slide.

Olympic Tug-o-War competitors giving it their best & having fun

Ellie threading and counting.

Felicity exploring with the magnifying glass

Brax and Noah hard at work.

We have also been exploring science concepts. Hannah set up our very own Science Centre where the children could participate in range of activities to discover the concepts of cause and effect, trial and error, weight and volume, estimation and motion. Some experiments included the capture and release of air using a balloon attached to a string, the process of preserving apples, bubble blowing painting and the concept of shadows.

H

astings Street

Mel

Coryl

Laura

Education Leader’s Update

What do you do at ‘Big School’?

Hastings Street Feedback

High Street

Kayla

School Readiness refers to the ‘Life Skills’ gained from a child’s experience within their environment (Family, school and the community), which become the foundation for a child’s learning and behaviour throughout their lives.

The first five years of a child’s life are the most crucial, with the brain developing at the fastest rate in their lifetime. At TG’s Child Care we believe in the importance of a ‘play based’ curriculum, as the things your child sees, hears, touches, smells and tastes, stimulates their brain, enabling children to make connections to their world and gives them the ‘life skills’ needed to trust, learn and grow. “The pleasure and satisfaction associated with play and the freedom from pressure to perform in play supports the development of a strong wellbeing” (Gordon, O’Toole & Whitman, 2008).

‘Life skill’ development is about building relationships, growth of their senses and the emergence of motor skills. From the moment the children enter TG’s Child Care they are developing ‘life skills’ as they build a sense of security and trust through their positive and supportive relationships with educators and peers. As children engage in ‘Play’ and work collaboratively and cooperatively with others, they develop social and emotional skills. These skills enable children to adjust their behaviour, negotiate with others, develop empathy and understanding for others, and encourage a sense of independence. Play fosters cognitive skills such as imaginative ideas and creative thinking, imitating others (scaffolding), concentration, persistence, curiosity (what, why, how), as well as language and literacy which are all important ‘Life skills’ for learning.

In each of the rooms the educators provide the children with fun and safe sensory exploration experiences such as water play, painting, sand play and goop. These experiences stimulate brain growth and cognitive development such as language (describing what they see), pre-math (pouring, filling, sorting, scooping) and early science concepts such as the properties of different materials (wet vs. dry, light vs. heavy) as well as cause and effect (what happens when you combine). Co-ordination, dexterity and muscle strength are also developed through play. As the children squish the playdough they are developing hand strength. Picking up small objects encourages the use of the pincer grip between thumb and index finger. Walking, crawling, running, rolling or jumping over and along the crash mat or completing an obstacle course fosters large muscle growth as well developing a sense of confidence and self-esteem as they children become more confident and achieve new goals. Having trust and a sense of security in their environment gives children the confidence to explore their senses, try new things and ‘Learn’. Schools Readiness is not all about being able to recite the alphabet recognise and name numbers to 20 or write your name. It is about gaining the ‘Life skills’ essential for dealing with the inevitable ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ associated with everyday life. It is about having the independence, confidence and self-esteem to believe in yourself and your abilities, it’s about being able to communicate and build strong relationships and it is about having the skills needed to learn and grow.

What is School Readiness?

High Street Feedback

H

astings Street

Kiara

Hastings Street

Kim

Coopa “Drawing, playing with friends, listening to teachers”

Lewis “You have to listen, you have to do homework. They have recess”

Nicholas “When it’s time, you sit on the mat with your legs crossed and hands in your lap”

Ella “You learn to listen so you don’t get kicked out of the class”

Jaxtyn “I will do playdough, I will cut paper, I will play with my friends, I will learn songs”

Eli “Play with animals, learn about animals”

Tahnee “Colour in neatly”

Felicity “The teachers don’t let you catch ants at big school”

Daelan “Paint dinosaurs, learn about dinosaurs”

Ruby “You can play at the park and maybe learn stuff.”

Ruairi “We will play, sometimes colour in and help the teacher.”

Zahli “When you be naughty at big school the teacher puts you on the red light. You also eat outside sitting on chairs when the teacher reads books.”

Dawson “Dress up week. You can make some friends and also play with them.”

Alyssia “You can get icy poles from the food shop that mums work at.”

Luda “I don’t like the big school, too much kids.”

Lexie “You play! And you can watch TV.”

William “We will learn to read books and learn to write”

Father’s Day 2016Photos from

Father’s Day was a very special event for our children and their Dad’s. On the 2nd of September we asked our Dads to join us in some fun bonding experiences at TG’s. Some of the fun activities included nail painting, tie making, biscuit decorating, hair styling and

colouring in. We also enjoyed a sausage sizzle to fill up everyone’s tummies.

Hastings Street High Street

From our

Chefs

Helen

H

astin gs S treet

MarianH igh Street

We are a month into our Spring Menu and everyone is enjoying it! We have a few new recipes as well as our loved favourites. If your child has a favourite recipe, let us know and we might be able to give it a try.

This easy pasta recipe is one of our all time classics. We hope you enjoy it.

Ingredients4 cloves Garlic, crushed4 Onions, finely chopped1.5kg Lean beef mince1.2kg Spinach, finely chopped230g Shredded cheese, reduced fat2 1/2 Lemon, zest and juice900g Dried pasta

Method1. Spray a large pan with oil and place over medium heat.2. Add onion and garlic, cook untl golden brown.3. Add mince and cook until well browned.4. Add spinach and cook until wilted.5. Meanwhile, cook pasta according to packet directions.6. Combine cooked pasta with beef mixture, cheese, lemon juice and zest to serve.

Hayley

Both C a m puses

Lemony Beef and Spinach PastaThis recipe makes 30 children sized servings. Why not freeze some for later?

Fun at TG’s

Mini Olympics Action“High Jump” “Balance Bar”

“Sprint” “The Medals”

Janette (from Hstings Street)

I have worked in the Child Care Industry for the past 17 years. I love working in Child Care because every day is different and I love watching the children grow in confidence. I love seeing them smile and above all, watching the children develop a love of learning as they engage in play. I enjoy providing stimulating and exciting experiences for the children to explore and engage in.

My hobbies are outdoor picnics with my family, fishing, gardening, and I also have a great passion for animals, which I love to share with the children. I regularly tell the children funny stories about my pets which they enjoy.

I have been married for 35 years and am a mother of three children as well as a grandmother to 10 children. My grandfather was one of the first settlers to Port Macquarie, where I was born.

TG’s Wauchope - High Street223A High Street,

WAUCHOPE NSW 2446Phone: 02 6585 3331

Email: tgshighstreet@hotmail.com

TG’s News edited & designed by Lucy Main. Email: designsbylucy@outlook.com

Trevor

Gayle

The T & G behind TG’s!

TG’s Wauchope - Hastings Street33B Hastings Street,

WAUCHOPE NSW 2446Phone: 02 6585 1033

Email: wauchope@tgschildcare.com.au

Meet our

Educators

TG’s BabiesCongratulations ...

www.tgschildcare.com.au

Hastings Street

High Street

* Jason & Tonie welcomed baby

Charlotte

Simone (From High Street)

Growing up, my family and I moved around a bit before coming to Wauchope 9 years ago. My husband and I ventures off on our own to Newcastle, where I was a full time nanny for 3 years. Missing home and our beautiful scenery we moved up to Comboyne. I was then given the opportunity to work at TG’s Childcare.

It’s a blessing to work and play with amazing educators and children every day.

The TG’s Wauchope end of year Christmas Party & Concert will be held at

Join us for some special songs & fun. All friends & family welcome. BYO chairs, picnic rugs & dinner

(picnic hamper / takeaway). DRESS: Wear something “Festive!”

* Jarrod welcomed baby Skyla.

* Willow welcomed baby Harper.

* Alexis welcomed baby Amity.6.30pm on Thursday the 1st

of December at Bain Park

* Ty welcomed baby Lauren

* Dakota welcomed baby Toby

* Naomi welcomed baby Oliver

* Otis welcomed baby Frankie

* Joel welcomed baby Tyler

Educator Sheridan got to spend 12 days with her ‘Rainbow Baby’ Sonny.

Fee Structure Changes

In the last 2 months, we have re-structured our billing process in order to streamline fee structures across all our TG’s services and to allow families greater flexibility in the timeline in which they pay their fees.

WHAT HAS STAYED THE SAME- Your child’s daily education and care fees (0-3yrs $91.50 full fee, 3-6yrs $85.50 full fee).- As always, fees are to be paid and maintained two full weeks in advance as per our TG’s fee policy.

WHAT HAS CHANGED- Statements of account now show fees charged for the upcoming month, to allow forward planning for families.- Reminder notices now indicate what payments will be required by the end of the week, rather than payments that are already overdue, to allow for a few more days in organising payments.

Please see Amy, Coryl or Laura if you have any queries or concerns about your

account.Thank you for your understanding as we transition to our new systems.

SAVE THE DATE