Little Bee Newsletter

January 2023

Happy New Year to everyone!!

 

A big welcome to all our new families and welcome back to our existing and returning families. We are looking forward to a very happy and eventful 2023, filled with fun, laughter and exciting new challenges for everyone at Little Bee!

 

Leading into 2023, we thank our educators for your enduring commitment and dedication to children’s learning and thank all families for your continued support and partnership in assisting us to positively influence learning and build genuine, lasting relationships.

We also give a massive thanks to each and every child at Little Bee. The excitement we get every day as we see you playing, investigating and learning is truly fabulous.  We can't wait to see the expressions of wonder and joy on your faces, as we observe you play and learn in 2023!

 

We are thinking of all of our families, especially those who have contracted COVID 19 or been close contacts of those with diagnosed COVID 19.  We thankyou for your support and understanding, for following guidelines, keeping us informed, and for many of you, going above and beyond what is required to keep us all safe.  

 

If your child develops COVID symptoms (respiratory symptoms including fever, cough, sore throat, and/or runny nose) they should stay home or away from others. For the month of January, please arrange a PCR (State-operated testing clinics will close on Tuesday, 31 January 2023) or a rapid antigen test (RAT – not supplied for children under 2 years) and please do not send them to Little Bee, while they are unwell.

If your child returns a positive PCR or RAT result, please advise Little Bee and keep them home until their acute symptoms have resolved. You can request more RATs from us, as needed.

 

We are continuing to monitor COVID 19 at Little Bee and will keep you informed of any more cases. We have further increased our cleaning as per our COVID safety policy and thank families for their support.

 

We will email families if this information changes.

We appreciate you letting us know if you have contracted COVID 19, or if you are a close contact of someone with COVID 19.

 

We already have many COVID 19 vaccination status certificates on file from families.  Thankyou, we are so grateful for this, we really appreciate you letting us know your vaccination status.  Please keep them coming in. 

At Little Bee Airport ....

Children transitioning in February 2023. 

January children transitioning are now settling very well in their new rooms with their educators and friends!  Children transitioning in February will receive their packs by the end of this week. This pack has 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 positive transition.

 

Each child has an allocated, regular day, (possibly two days) where they visit the next room with a small group of peers through-out January.

During each visit, the same small group of children are accompanied by an educator. 

Visits will run between 9.30-11 each morning.

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.  

What's been happening over the past month at Little Bee .......

Little Bee Howrah....

December at Howrah saw many different forms of artwork take place. Using scraps of different materials and colours of paper the children had the opportunity to collage using these mediums, using the scissors and glue to cut and stick their desired shapes, creating magnificent artworks to share with their peers and families.

We discussed all things holidays, with children sharing their knowledge of the different holidays and celebrations they participate in at home. Lots of stories and songs were enjoyed to celebrate the season.  

With the weather being extra nice, we spent lots of time outside enjoying the sunshine. Using collected rainwater from our tank, the children filled up different pots and pans, adding sand to some of the water, creating different mixtures, as well as some dips in the clam shell.

December also saw us having to say goodbye to some of our dear friends who left us to get ready for big school next year. To those children and families, we wish you all the best and will miss not seeing you all.

At Little Bee Airport ....

 

 Baby Bees

 We are so grateful to have watched our babies grow in 2022. We wrapped up the year seeing our children developing new skills and honing others. Their gross motor skills and muscle strength were tested through and through, both indoors and outdoors. The children were drawn to the obstacle course in the playground, climbing the frames, bouncing and building on their balance skills. In our room an environment with lots of big foam blocks allowed them to bring the same experience indoors. They loved climbing, jumping and standing on the blocks.

The box of dress ups proved to be very popular among the babies, who were very happy to try on different outfits.

We certainly had a merry December celebrating Christmas all month long. We danced and sang along to Christmas carols, decorated our room, enjoyed Christmas themed artwork, such as: painting using red and green paints, making a festive pinecone with lots of glitter. Our Christmas interactive wall, featuring a Christmas felt tree and felt ornaments, encouraged the children to use their fine motor skills and sense of agency to change and rearrange the tree decorations daily. A Christmas themed  ‘treasure basket’ also got our children’s hands very busy, while manipulating pipe cleaners, pieces of ribbons, and bottle shakers with bells inside.

 

Honey Bees 

 During the month of December, we have been engaging in outside play by showing off our physical abilities and movements (climbing the obstacle courses and exploring the wonders of water play). We have been begun our transitions to the Bumble Bee room. During these times the Honey Bee Children have enjoyed adventuring in the big play ground and meeting new peers.
Throughout December we got creative with Christmas craft and decorating the room ready for Christmas. The children have engaged in reading Christmas books and singing Christmas songs, We had another of our regular visits from Priscilla who comes to play her ukulele and sing Christmas songs for us to dance to.
As a gift from the Honey Bee room, the children created their own individual calendars to take home, using paints, textas and gluing paper down. Each child created their own pictures to place in the calendar along with photos from their time in the Honey Bee room.
We wish everyone a lovely new year and we look forward to seeing you next year from more exciting fun in the Honey Bee room.

 

Bumble Bees

During the Month of December, the Bumble Bee children enjoyed engaging in a multitude of festive experiences. We explored glitter glue, and collage with a variety of materials including: tinsel, glitter, and wrapping paper. We completed our seasonal gifts and decorated some giant pinecones for our families. We stretched our hand eye coordination and created paper chains to hang up. We made some new friendships with the children who will be joining us from the Honey Bee room and strengthened our existing ones. We engaged in sensory experiences outside with shaving cream, glitter water with sea creatures, and slime. There have been some awesome inventions with the magnetic blocks, as the children have worked together as a team to build what have been monster creations. Some of the children have had the pleasure of visiting the Busy Bee room ready for our transition up to the big room and meeting and making new friends. We have had an absolutely fantastic time as we end what has been a fun filled and jam packed year with our friends. For those of you moving up for the start of a new adventure in the Busy Bee room, we wish you all the best and look forward to hearing all about it in the playground and we welcome our new friends from the Honey Bee room and look forward to growing and having loads of fun together in the year ahead. 

Busy Bees

 In the month of December, the Busy Bee children have been focusing on everything Christmas. With programming winding down, we have been working on our appreciation gifts. In conversation with the children, they decided they would like to make jam for their families. With all the ingredients, the children were able to measure out what they needed, watch the process of the fruit turn into a liquid form from the heat and then once cooled, put them in jars. Cooking with children develops fine motor skills. Cracking an egg or filling a measuring cup full and leveling it off are hard. Cooking is a great way to improve skills, build muscles, and master skills. This will help with later writing and other tasks.

Stirring and lifting builds muscles too. Don’t forget there is a little gross motor skill building that goes on in cooking. We also made Christmas photo frames with the children taking pride and leadership in their designs, and once they designed their frame a photo was taking which they then stuck to it adding string for a lovely decoration that could be used on their tree or in their home.

Queen Bees 

 The month of December saw us farewell many of our Queen Bee friends as they begin their school life journey. We wish them all the best and hope they will come and visit us in the new year. We also welcomed many new friends into the Queen Bee family who have settled in well. 

As our sustainability projects wrapped up, we were thrilled to be able to take home our home-grown vegetable plants and seed balls to share with our family and friends.

We also offered many exciting and creative art and craft experiences with many focusing on a Christmas theme.  Glitter paintings, cutting and gluing whole group collages, glitter play dough, creating and decorating clay ornaments and our festive Christmas sensory table were all enjoyed together.  These fun seasonal activities helped build new friendships and the children felt a sense of pride in their unique creations. The children also had an opportunity of a Christmas photo being taken, many with their siblings. These are so special and will no doubt become a treasured keep sake.

We enjoyed the warm sunny days outside with lots of water play experiences in our new tuff trays.  Children explored water with glitter, shaving foam and practised their pouring, scooping and measuring skills.

 

Loose Parts Play at Little Bee Airport!

As we head into January 2023 we continue our journey to build even further upon our 'loose parts' resources. 

 

So why are we choosing ‘loose parts’ in our play?

 

Do you remember building cubbies with branches and anything else you could get your hands on as a child? Loose parts in a play space will enhance our fixed play items already available and are one of the most valuable resources we can have.

 

‘Loose parts’ are items and materials that children can move, adapt, control, change and manipulate within their play. They provide a high level of creativity and choice, as there are endless possibilities for how they can be used.

The theory of Loose Parts was developed in 1971 by Simon Nicholson who said that in any environment, the degree of creativity and inventiveness was directly proportional to the number of variables!

 

Do you have any ‘Loose Parts’ we could use in our play space?

 

Loose parts can be anything from branches, sticks, small rocks, pine cones, shells, tyres, ropes, pvc pipe, logs, wooden off cuts, craters, seed pods, stumps, nuts and bolts – the possibilities are endless.

Most loose parts don’t cost anything to obtain, it could be things you already have lying around your home.

If you can help us out, we would be extremely grateful, especially any large pipes or tubing is always a big hit with the children!

We are also after any old electronic equipment, such as; old computers, printers, phones, stereo or radios, etc. that the children can pull apart and try and put back together using real work tools!

A risk benefit assessment is available at the Centre for all of those more ‘risky play type experiences’ for families to access if you so wish. 

Little Bee is closed on Thursday the 26th January, due to the public holiday. 

Keeping our children safe

We would like to remind everyone the importance of wearing ‘Sun Smart’ clothes during the summer months. To ensure we are all working under the guidelines of our Sun Protection and Weather policy, we ask that all children please wear clothes covering their shoulders (no strappy tops please).  Please make sure you provide a wide brimmed or legionnaire style hat to protect the whole face from the sun.  Please make sure that your child brings along shoes with an enclosed toe (to wear while riding the bikes).

Thank-you.

Information for Review

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

2.12 – Pest Control      

2.13 - Bomb Threat                             

2.14 - Emergency Telephone numbers

2.15 - Child Safety (Policy for Dealing with Suspected Incidences of Child Abuse or Neglect)

2.16 - Nappy Changing and Toileting Procedures 

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 are:

  • All about the benefits of tai chi, visualisation, yoga and stretching with young children

  • Partnerships: The key to successful transition to school

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

Professional Learning sessions 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 staff professional learning session will be scheduled in late February 2023, with learning on Quality Improvement and Creative environments, we are hoping we will be able to go ahead.

All families are invited to join us. 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. 

We acknowledge and pay respect to the Elders past, present and future. The Traditional Custodians of Lutruwita (Tasmania) and pay homage to the traditional owners of the land our centres stand on, the Moomairemener people.

5 Llanherne Drive, Cambridge Tas 7170
03 62 48 5994

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