Little Bee Newsletter

February 2019

Hi ho, Hi ho, it’s off to school they go!!

Sadly these next few weeks we will farewell most of our children who are heading to kindergarten and all those who are off to prep.  We would like to thank all the families who returned their child’s ‘transition to kindergarten pack’ and reassure them that corresponding school has received them (mostly via face to face meeting, and the others were posted).

We would like to advise families, if they did not return their child’s transition pack, we have not forwarded their Little Bee learning journey (report) to the school.  Although we are still able to do so upon request from the child’s family. 

Thank you

Welcome to all our new families!

We would like to extend a HUGE welcome to all our new children and their families. We would like to remind all families, if you have any questions, comments or concerns at any time, please chat to us.  We are here to help and we value any questions at any time. Feel free to call the centre throughout the day to see how your child is settling in; Ph: 62485994 (Airport) and 62478015 (Howrah)

Our Facebook page offers a little insight of each day in our rooms, if you would like to join up – please see a member of the management team!

Have you downloaded the KidsXap App???

Now is more important than ever ......

From 2019, child care providers are required to include children's actual attendance times in families' statements of entitlement and in session reports (except absences).
After speaking to KidsXap several times to ensure we meet this requirement. They have advised the quickest, easiest and most sustainable method for everyone is for families to download the 'KidsXap Guardian' app from the app store. If you have any trouble downloading or accessing the app, please let us know.

If you do not have access to a compatible device, please let us know and we can ensure we print statements for you monthly.
Why it is important that we report actual attendance times?
Reporting actual attendance times is intended to help families understand the relationship between the fees they are charged, the amount of subsidy paid to their child care provider on their behalf, and their out of pocket expenses.

We would like to inform families that we are currently only using the first 3 icons of the app 'manage families', 'attendance' and 'statements'. We are hoping to introduce some of the others features as the year progresses!

If you have any questions please contact us on littlebee@littlebee.net.au or

phone 62485994. Thank you

Regatta Day Public Holiday

On Monday the 11th of February, Little Bee will be closed due to the Royal Hobart Regatta. The Regatta is a three-day event that runs over the weekend of the second Monday each February. The Monday is a public holiday for a large part of southern and eastern Tasmania. The long weekend is packed with water events on the Derwent River and anyone can participate in the regatta, either as a competitor or as a spectator. More information and an events list can be found at:

publicholidays.com.au/royal-hobart-regatta

An invitation to our 

Family and Friends Committee Meeting

for 2019 

This meeting will be held at Red Square Café on Saturday the 23rd of February at 10 a.m.  If you would like to attend, we would absolutely love to have you come along and have a coffee and brunch if you fancy it!

At this meeting we will plan our Whole centre events (both internal and external) for 2019!  This includes our fundraising participation, our family fun day events for the year and our health and well-being events! 

Please email Kathy or Emily if you can make it!

littlebee@littlebee.net.au

You're Invited!!!!!!

to our February family and friends event - on Friday 8th Feb, 2019!

 

Please grab your free adult tickets from Little Bee Howrah and Airport office for the Little Bee Family Fun Day!!! 

Child entry is free! 

The event starts at 5 p.m. and ends at 8 p.m.

All welcome!  It should be a very fun evening with lots of fun and exciting activities!

What’s been happening at Little Bee Airport…

Baby Bees

During the month of January, the Baby Bees have begun to form new relationships with Anna and Emily, our new educators to the room this year!  We have welcomed some new children, spending time getting to know them, finding out their likes, dislikes and love getting to know their unique personalities!   The building of these strong relationships within the room will support the children to feel safe and secure and will therefore give them the confidence to begin exploring and learning from this secure base.

We have enjoyed lots of songs and stories recently,; ‘Row, row, row your boat’, ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’ and ‘Baa, baa’ are very popular!

We have also introduced our very own ‘Feeling grateful song’, to the tune of ‘If you’re happy and you know it!’  This is thanks to Emily’s creativity and imagination – thanks Emily!

Honey Bees

Over the last month the Honey Bees have been very busy having many transition visits from the Baby Bees, whilst also supporting the Honey Bee children visiting the Bumble Bee room. It’s been really wonderful creating new relationships and friendships within the room!

 

With educators beginning to look at topics for their next projects, there have been many purposeful play experiences set up both inside and outdoors. The children are showing great interest in all the wonderful new environments they have been exploring.

 

With the weather being so hot over the last month there has been lots of water experiences set up for the children to enjoy. We would like to remind families (if possible) to pack a rash vest in your child’s bag on those warm days or alternatively they are able to be kept within the room for those spontaneous moments too!

Bumble Bees

The Bumble Bee children have been focusing on building relationships with one another as transition visits continue. We have been exploring a variety of activities this month; such as Physical play, where we are looking at different forms of exercise and how it affects one’s well-being (this includes different types of weights and Yoga). We are delving in to the expressive arts with a focus on painting using different materials and we have now completed our musical wall outside as part of our expressive arts project. Sensory experiences have been a big hit and these will support a positive change in children’s language development. Play dough and water play have provided much enjoyment and we have even begun to look into some more riskier types of play outside, where we have been exploring the new rope area, the flying fox and monkey bars.

 

As the weather has been a lot warmer, we are asking families to please bring in a suitable outfit for water play, such as a rash vest or long sleeve swimming costume. Thank-you very much!

 

Busy Bees

This month in the Busy Bee room the children and educators have been having a great time getting to know one another by participating together in many small and whole group activities!  Our circle times have included 'naming our friends', 'choosing partners to work with at experiences' and have included many activities and games for 'getting to know each other'.

The children have helped create our new environments; we have the role play kitchen area, and a farm yard with animals, both being fantastic in the support of our imaginative role-play development!  There is a new investigation area where the children can create a picture using lots of bits and pieces from natural resources and environments.  Our craft table has lots of different materials to support the children with their cutting, pasting and drawing skills.

We have had great weather this month and can’t wait to get out into the wider Community and explore!  We have begun to farewell many of our friends this month and wish them all the best on their new adventures at school!  

 

Queen Bees

What an amazing start to the year we have had in the Queen Bee room, sadly we farewell some children as they head off to Kindergarten and Prep and we welcome new friends who are transitioning up from the Busy Bee room.

Most recently in the Queen Bee room we have began to look at Tasmanian Aboriginal Shell Stringers, we were very lucky that Kathy and her children collected us some beautiful shells that already had holes in them to use.  We have been watching a short film each morning to see how the shells are threaded on and what materials they use.  Initially we started off using a needle and cotton, however we discovered that the cotton wasn’t quite strong enough and was breaking!  This led us onto trying some soft wire to thread the shells onto, we have found so far this works the best as the wire is easy to mould, however strong enough to hold the weight of all the shells.  We plan to continue trialling different materials though to eventually find something suitable to make our own bracelets with.

You may also see some interesting photos appearing on our Facebook page! The Queen Bee children have been using cameras in the playground to take their very own photos!!  This has led to lots of interesting conversations amongst the children!

 

 

What’s been happening at Little Bee Howrah…

January has been a beautiful time for renewing old friendships as children return from holidays, playing together and recreating beach and water games. Jasper and Duncan have been showing us their balancing and coordination skills on our outdoor equipment and the warmer weather has inspired lots of ice based play. Exploration of this medium consolidates scientific concepts of mass and liquid, as well as cause and effect. Our purposeful play environments promote curiosity and exploration. We have based these on the children's observed interests and this supports educators to gather important background information to further support our 2019 Projects!

Rash vests and bathers bottoms!

 

We are so lucky to be having this beautiful, sunny weather, it has been the hottest summer we can remember! We hope February and March continue to bring us some more fun in the sun!

We will be doing as much water play as we can, so if you would like to pack a rash vest (so that shoulders and upper arms are covered) and a pair of bather bottoms for you child, it will enable them to participate in water play comfortably and then they can put their warm, dry clothes back on afterwards!

Please name any suits to ensure we don't have any go missing and also packing extra clothes along if possible (2 lots of everything would be fabulous!)

Immunisations

Please ensure your child’s immunisations are up to date, the current national immunisation schedule is displayed in our centres, so you can ensure your child’s immunisations are on track.

Post Card Walls

Our post card wall at each centre is all about celebrating our wonderful Country and the places we can visit around Australia and the World! We would like to encourage our children to bring in a post card of their recent holidays away. This also gives us a chance to chat about trips we have taken and to celebrate our family cultures. We use our wall to map all of our trips and pin the post cards up. If you have recently been away on holidays and have a post card to share, you could join in the fun!

 

At Little Bee Airport, the map is on the hallway wall outside the staff room – we have many postcards up already!  

 

Little Bee Howrah is starting a brand new postcard wall ready for 2019!  So please help us get it started by bringing in a post card to share!

Family Participation

Thank you to all families who have participated in our programs, offered help and assistance, donated toys and recyclables and given input into our programs in the past, it is so greatly appreciated. If you have any spare time and would like to share an interest or have input into our programs, we would love to have you!!! Please chat with one of your child’s educators, the opportunities for family involvement are endless.

 

Learning is EVERYWHERE...

At Little Bee our learning takes us everywhere!! Therefore, it is essential to remember to pack a spare change of clothes, for those moments we explore the garden, sandpit, water play or get involved in some messy experiments or craft.

Please ensure your child’s shoulders are covered with sleeves and they wear a broad rimmed or legionnaire style hat.  Little Bee supply’s 50 + sunscreen but if you have a particular brand of sun screen you would like your child to use, please provide this on the day and let your room team know so we can make a yellow sunscreen preference card for your child!

Information for Review

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

1.8 - Technology Policy         

1.9 - Profile book policy

2.1 - Emergency and evacuation

2.2 – Incident, injury, trauma and illness

2.3 - Medication

2.4 – Administration of first aid

2.5 – Dealing with medical conditions (including Asthma, Anaphylaxis, Diabetes and other relevant medical conditions)                                                                           

If you would like to have input reviewing these documents 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

Our chosen readings for the month of February 2019 are:

  • Move Well Eat Well - Nature Play so much to explore 
  • National immunisation register: campaigns.health.gov.au

If you would like a copy forwarded please email us and we will send an electronic copy to you.

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 on Tuesday 5th March, 2019.

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 the staff if you are interested. 

5 Llanherne Drive, Cambridge Tas 7170
03 62 48 5994

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