Newstletter from 17th to 21st August

As each week, we are working on the continuous improvement required by the National Quality Standard, this week we are:
–  ensuring we design and maintain the Service in ways that promote each child’s participation and learning, and comparing these practices against the Government’s exceeding measures. If you’d like more information about the practices required to achieve exceeding please let me know
– reviewing our Tobacco Drug and Alcohol Policy. A Summary follows:

Tobacco Drug and Alcohol Policy
– The consumption of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs by any person is banned:
– inside or outside the service, including in the car park
– on incursions/excursions, while travelling with a child, at educator/parent meetings, or at any work related social activity where children are present
 In relation to social events at the service involving service families:
– smoking is prohibited
– alcohol may be consumed outside work hours if children are not present. Alcohol may only be brought into the service immediately prior to the event, and only after all children have been collected. Any leftover alcohol will be removed from the premises immediately after the event ends.
– Any alcoholic gifts given to staff will be immediately removed from the premises and alcohol will not be stored on the premises
–  No-one will attend the service if affected by alcohol or drugs
– No smoking signs will be displayed at the service.
There is a copy of the policy near the sign in/out sheet. Please take a moment to read it .
We value any feedback you may have.

Next week we are going to be celebrating BOOK WEEK so choose a day or two to come to Amigoss dressed up as your favourite book! We’ll enjoy sharing stories and experiences together.

Preschoolers

This science week our preschoolers were engaged in different experiences orientated to understand what is science. We got onto the topic of colours, and how there are three primary colours (red, blue and yellow), and with these colours, you can create any colour you want.  by mixing different variations of the primary colours, we created different colours, from brown to orange or purple or green! Engaging in experiences that are hands on rather than just theory allows children to try out different methods and practice with getting the same or a different result. As scientists, we observed, hypothesised and tested to create a variety of different colours by following a set of steps.  we studied perspective as a scientific concept and way of looking at and understanding different situations. This involved looking at a variety of unusual pictures, and deciding for ourselves what each picture could represent. We talked together and children were able to state their opinion in a judgement-free zone. we experimented on forced perspective by taking some pictures of people in the class adding some objects to create fun images that trick our brains and helped us to develop our spatial skills as we moved and adjusted our bodies and the props to get the photos just right.

Then we focused on heat: What it is and how it changes things.

What is heat/something that is hot?

We discovered that as the atoms are heating up, they bump into each other as they move, making more room between them each time they bump, which is why hot air and liquids expand (including cake batter). We then delved deeper into baking, a favourite activity of ours, and we learned that cakes also rise when they have air, fat and sugar, because the air is carried on the rough surface of the sugar crystals, which the fat grabs hold of, creating a fluffy texture when baked.

Toddlers

Our week started working in cognitive skills when the toddlers came in, they found some numbers stuck on the glass door, most of them recognize the symbols showing the learning of the last few weeks is consolidated.  Then we introduced new symbols, the letters! We started with the letter “A” singing a song and then reading a book about it and doing some painting that helped develop their small muscles of their fingers and hands. Our educators are helping children increase their awareness of the relationships between oral, written and visual representations by giving them examples of words starting with that vowel.

Our toddlers are also learning teamwork in a really fun way. They started to listen to a song and created a group dance for it. All children held their hands to make a circle and start to jump with the rhythm of the music, throwing themselves to the floor and laughing. These types of transition games help children how we a team work works. They learnt about holding hand we would be moving at the same time in the same place. It’s a nice way to interact with each other, feeling part of a group, finding their sense of belonging. This type of dancing also helps to take all the stress out, shaking our body without any choreography.

babies

Our babies this week made shark headbands out of foam and cardboard. They were so excited with their shark heads that when they finished, they looked at each other in the mirror and began to dance and follow the movements of the “Baby shark” song.

Following up with their interest about cars, children helped in the creation of a recycled car using cardboard boxes and lots of creativity. They got engaged in the decoration of it and hopefully soon will be ready to take for a ride!

They also got engaged in sensory experiences like stepping on insoles with different textures with their bare feet. This experience was fun for them and for our educators who enjoyed observing how the little ones communicate their emotions in different ways. They showed both their satisfaction and pleasure as their discomfort openly and spontaneously. For example, the insole with the cotton texture charmed them every time they stepped on it, they screamed with excitement, on the other hand the insole with sandpaper surface, was not the nicest feeling our babies made very funny gesture when stepping on it. Despite that, they kept stepping on them and enjoying the exploration of the diversity of textures. By feeling different objects, especially children who are kinesthetic learners. The act of touching stimulates sensors within muscles and joints, sending messages back and forth from the skin to the brain. Essentially, each time your child touches something, the brain receives a message and makes a decision.