"We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!"

We can’t believe it’s almost December already and we are nearing the end of another year.  We would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of all the educators, to thank you for such a fantastic year! We are truly lucky to have such supportive families that embrace all the fun and learning that happens at Little Bee. So… if you will be leaving us soon – we will miss you!  If you are here again next year – we can’t wait for the learning journey we will all continue on!!!  If you are planning holidays over the Christmas period—we much appreciate you letting us know, as this can help us to manage our staffing and allow extras to have holidays.  We wish everyone safe travels and a relaxing sunny time with their friends and families!!

Children transitioning in January and February 2021. 

Many of the children will be transitioning during January or February with their friends to the next room.  For children transitioning January, transition packs will be coming out to you in December with information on the room and some parts for you to fill in and return to us.  Please fill in the relevant details and return to our educators.  This information supports us to support your child with a smooth and happy transition.

Children who transition in January 2021, will begin visiting their new rooms from Monday 7th December.  

Each child has an allocated, regular day (or two days in some instances) during each week of December where they visit the next room with a small group.

During each visit, the same small group of children are accompanied by their current educator (or educators) who are also transitioning to the new room in January. 

Visits will run between 9-11.30 each morning.

The exact same thing will occur during January for our February movers. 

At this time, educators will plan a variety of fun and creative small group activities so the children can remember the time as a really positive experience.  

COVID - 19 Update!

We understand that it is easy to become complacent considering how amazingly well Tassie residents have been at remaining COVID-19 free for such a long time. 

We are so very lucky!

However, now that the borders are open to the rest of Australia, please remain diligent in your hand sanitizing and remaining a distance of 1.5 metres between adults at the Centre.  

We still require that where possible only one family member conduct drop offs and pick ups and if you or your child is unwell, please keep them home.  

Thankyou for your understanding and support.

Parent/Educator Conversations!

Bookings are now closed.

We'd like to give a massive, massive thank-you to our families who have  booked a parent/educator phone conversation! 

This gives us all a wonderful opportunity to share each child's hard work and give families a further insight into our 'inquiry based projects'.

We are so grateful so many families will be able to share their child's journey and hear about all the wonder of their learning. We will be emailing your child's project to you the week before your allocated conversation time so you can have a read over it before we chat.

For those of you who were unable to attend a phone interview, your child's learning journey will be in their profile book late December.  You are very welcome to have a look at any time, please just ask an educator, alternatively we can email it to you for you to share with your family!

Room teams for 2021

Howrah:

Alice, Megan, Chantelle, Katherine and Sienna

Airport: 

Baby Bees: Adriana, Nat, Sophie Y and Taiya

Honey Bees: Amanda, Tania, Allie, Petryce, Emily D

Bumble Bees: Georgie, Bec O, Anna, James, Libbie

Busy Bees: Sally, Mel, Maree, Kate B, Libbie

Queen Bees: Bec F, Sofie, Bron, Tillie

Fee Increase Reminder

In early November, families should have received a letter (via email and in their family information tray), detailing our fee increase, effective Monday the 7th of December.

Little Bee Airport

Baby, Honey and Bumble Bee Rooms - $106 per day

Busy and Queen Bee Rooms - $104 per day

Little Bee Howrah

Children’s 2 – 3 years - $104 per day, Children 3 – 5 years - $102 per day.

We are pleased to inform families our hourly rate still falls well under the Child Care Subsidy hourly rate cap of $12.20, which ensures families still receive the maximum Child Care subsidy for their assessed percentage. Therefore, if you receive Child Care Subsidy your fees will not increase the full $3 per day as some of this cost will be covered by the Government. Any questions, please contact us on 62485994.

Thank you.

What’s been happening at Little Bee …

Little Bee Howrah

November has been an amazing month, filled with creativity, construction, harvesting and expanding our horizons out to Pre-Kinder for many of the children. 

Our broad beans are producing prolifically, and the children were very adventurous in trying them straight from the pod. 

Water from our rain water tank has been a large part of our curriculum lately, with the onset of warmer weather taking us all a little bit by surprise. We had a very visual lesson in how our plants need water just like us to stand up straight. The broad bean plants were on a distinct lean before we gave them a great big drink. 

Please ensure to be diligent while entering and exiting through the gate ...

We would like to remind families to remain very diligent while entering and exiting through our main gate as it opens onto our car park.

Please wait and open the gate when your whole family is ready to leave, please ensure it latches safely behind the last person through the gate, please do not allow children (including siblings) to independently open and close the gate. Please DO NOT let any children other than your own out the gate.

We ask that everyone is proactive when entering an exiting through the gate to ensure the safety of all children.

Thank you

And at Little Bee Airport ...

Baby Bees

Throughout the month of November in the Baby bee room we had the opportunity to engage in many cooking experiences.  The children have thoroughly enjoyed taking part and having a go at using real life utensils and creating many fabulous recipes!

Our Baby Bee children's imaginative play is growing each day as they take on new experiences and are becoming more aware of their environments.

Throughout the year we have been providing children with many sensory experiences that provoked their senses, their taste, hearing, sight, touch and smell. This month we have engaged them in sensory experiences that explore their less frequently mentioned senses - balance, movement and spatial awareness. Our children have been stretching their confidence by climbing the obstacle courses, walking, crawling, and riding the bikes.

As the weather has been warming up, we’ve enjoyed a lot of water play giving the children many opportunities to develop fine and gross motor skills. Through actions like pouring, squirting, scrubbing, stirring and squeezing, the children will increase their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Water play can also be both invigorating or relaxing and calming for young children.

Honey Bees

Over the past month the children have been getting creative as they participate in a variety of Christmas crafts. We have been using a mixture of collage materials, glues, glitters and paint to create many of the different displays you can see throughout the room.

Outside the children have been continuing to build upon their gross motor skills as they work independently to climb over the balancing beams. We have also been very enthusiastic when it comes to practicing our jumping. The children have taken turns to jump with everybody cheering each other on.

We have been having lots of fun getting to know the children visiting from the Baby Bees and look forward to watching new and old friendships develop and grow throughout the next year.

Bumble Bees

In the Bumble Bee room we have been excitedly working on lots of Christmas arts and crafts, this has included: collage using patty pans, gluing with glitter and much more! We have also been focusing on using our creativity as we decorate wooden Christmas trees using a variety of natural materials!

The children have been enjoying all of our new 'dress ups' in the home corner area and putting on performances for their peers, as they use their imagination and drama skills.

We have been welcoming many of the children from Honey Bees into the room this month and we have been excited to make lots of new friends and develop positive relationships with one another. For our Bumble Bee children that are moving up, we are so happy we will still be able to explore with you in the outdoor playground.

Busy Bees:

Throughout the month of November, the Busy Bee’s have been engaging in lots of positive interactions whilst exploring our environments.

We have all enjoyed exploring the race car track and exploring different angles to make our cars go faster.  We have loved joining in with running races and enjoyed the experience of racing against our friends in some friendly competition.

We have been collecting our mail from our very own post office. We all had a great opportunity to hop inside the post van to explore and investigate all the different packaging and envelopes, and ways of posting. The children thoroughly enjoyed converting one of our bikes into a "postie bike" and doing a mail run, which was lots of fun for everyone.

We have been busy creating our appreciation gifts ready to take home, as well as starting some Christmas arts and crafts to decorate our room ready for Christmas.

Queen Bees:

The year is quickly drawing to an end!  Our baby chickens are settling in nicely outside in the big chicken coop and have grown so much!! What an amazing opportunity for the educators and children to experience their growth first hand.  November is our final month of project work and we wanted to do something really special with each child to celebrate their achievements.  We have chosen to interview each child and ask them some questions related to our project, which we will send to each family via messenger on Facebook.  In the Queen Bee room we have been busy finishing up profile books and sadly preparing to say goodbye to many children who are off to Kinder and Prep. We wish you all the best and hope you come and visit us!   The children have been working super hard on their appreciation gifts for the special people in their lives, we can’t wait to give them to loved ones over the next couple of weeks.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Katherine

at Little Bee Howrah!

We would like to say a massive welcome to Katherine, who is joining our team at Howrah in a full time position.

Katherine is very experienced educator; having worked in both family day care and in long day care for many years.  She is enrolled to study her Bachelor of Education at UTas in 2021 and is finalising the last stages of her Diploma in Children's Services.

Katherine looks forward to introducing herself to our families over the coming weeks!

Please check your Family Communication Tray to find your child's enrolment information for next year! 

If you are changing days, please sign and return one copy of the confirmation slip in your tray (there will be two copies). 

Thank-you to all families who have already returned this information.

Transitions to Kindergarten—for children who will be attending Kindergarten in 2021...

Thank you to all families who returned their child's transition to school documents. All of the packs and communication with the Kindergarten teachers has now been completed.  The information you have provided will support the teachers to get to know your child!

Bluey has a new friend at Little Bee Airport - meet Bingo!

Our Christmas Fundraiser!

This Christmas at Little Bee we continue to offer support for under-privileged children living in our Community.  You will notice we are donating to the Hobart City Mission Christmas Appeal.  Thanks to the generosity of many families, we have already built up a  fabulous stack of gifts beneath our Christmas trees at both Centres!

For many children It has been a wonderful teaching opportunity for us to reinforce the concept of giving, with some children even using their own pocket money to buy presents.

We continue to encourage our families to donate a special gift (book, craft items, toy, etc.), unwrapped please if you can!  It is sure to be so well received by those children less fortunate than us.  All gifts must be under the tree by the morning of Thursday 10th December, ready for us to deliver. We thank families for their amazing support.

Little Bee will be closed on the following dates in the coming month ...

Friday 25th December

Monday 28th December

Friday 1st January

We will be open normal operating hours all other week days, thank you!

Information for Review

We are currently reviewing the following policies and/or procedures:

* Little Bee Human Resources Manual

If you would like to have input reviewing this document it would be greatly appreciated, just let us know and we will forward copies to you. Please compose any suggestions you would like to make and place them, either in the suggestions box (at reception) or via email to: littlebee@littlebee.net.au.

Information for families

These are the links from recognised authorities we are promoting this month:

• dhhs.tas.gov.au/mwew/families
• www.hobartcitymission.org.au/

Other readings can be found on the internet from recognised sites, such as: kidsafe.com.au, rch.org.au, acecqa.gov.au, deewr.gov.au and kidswithasthma.com.au, healthinsite.gov.au

Opportunities for Family Involvement

Committee meetings are held on a bi-monthly basis. They are to reflect on our current practices, work on our Centre’s Quality Improvement Plan and continue to maintain the highest standard of, education and care possible.

Our next committee meeting / staff training will be held in early February 2020 (date to be confirmed).

All families are invited to join our Committee, your ideas and opinions are greatly valued and appreciated.

Families are also welcome to participate daily in Workplace health and safety checks and/or compliance reviews. Please see one of our staff members if you are interested.