Little Bee Parent/Educator Conversations are coming up!

We are super, duper excited to be winding up children’s projects.  

The educators are very proud of our projects and we are so excited to see the sequence of learning that has occurred during the project duration. We can’t wait to share your child’s work with you via a phone call. Phone interviews will be held with one educator from the project team.

At Little Bee Howrah, Parent - Educator Conversations will be held on:

Alice and Pauline: Wednesday 25th from 9-11.30 a.m. and Thursday 26th November

from 9-11.30 a.m.

Chantelle and Nikki: Wednesday 2nd December from 9-11.30 a.m and Thursday 3rd December from 9-11.30 a.m.

 At Little Bee Airport, Parent-Educator conversations will be held on:

the week of Monday 14th December - Friday 18th December,

each morning from 9-10.30 a.m.

The purpose of the Parent/Educator Conversation is to discuss the goals your child has achieved during the year and goal setting into 2021. To support and maximise the time at each conversation, we have provided the following three areas we would like to discuss during our conversation.  Please think about these areas in advance of your phone call. 

1. Your child’s strengths
2. Areas your child is developing
3. In 2021, what would you like your child to achieve?
 

Further details for making a phone booking will be shared with families through email the week beginning Monday 16th November. Please look out for this information. If you have any questions or queries following this email correspondence, please do not hesitate to contact Emily (Airport 62485994) or Alice (Howrah 62478015).

We look forward to speaking with you!

Thank you.

Projects and a child's "poise moment"

When working with children on their enquiry based projects, we are continually reflecting upon and recording their learning progression.  One of the most powerful ways we can begin to embed the learning of a new skill or development for your child is to offer them what we call a "poise moment".  This is that beautiful moment when a child realises they have mastered a new skill or achieved something they could not do before!   They may shout out: "I can do it!"  "Look what I did!!".  We see a great sense of pride, satisfaction and excitement in their reaction.  This is when our educators stop and take careful notice, we acknowledge and congratulate the child and share in their achievement together!  

This "poise moment" supports that new skill to be embedded forever in the life of the child.  They may continue practising, or extend their learning even further in other contexts or settings!

NAIDOC WEEK 

8-15 NOV 2020

Always Was, Always Will Be.

Always Was, Always Will Be; recognises that First Nations people have occupied and cared for this continent for over 65,000 years and are spiritually and culturally connected to this country.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were Australia’s first explorers, first navigators, first engineers, first farmers, first botanists, first scientists, first diplomats, first astronomers and first artists.

Australia has the world’s oldest oral stories. The First Peoples engraved the world’s first maps, made the earliest paintings of ceremony and invented unique technologies. They built and engineered structures - structures on Earth - predating well-known sites, such as the Egyptian Pyramids and Stonehenge.

The adaptation and intimate knowledge of Country enabled them to endure climate change, catastrophic droughts and rising sea levels.

Always Was, Always Will Be acknowledges that hundreds of Nations and our cultures covered this continent.  All were managing the land - the biggest estate on earth - to sustainably provide for their future.

Through ingenious land management systems like fire stick farming, they transformed the harshest habitable continent into a land of bounty.

NAIDOC Week 2020 acknowledges and celebrates that our nation’s story didn’t begin with documented European contact whether in 1770 or 1606 - with the arrival of the Dutch on the western coast of the Cape York Peninsula.

The very first footprints on this continent were those belonging to First Nations peoples.

Our coastal Nations watched and interacted with at least 36 contacts made by Europeans prior to 1770. Many of them resulting in the charting of the northern, western and southern coastlines – of our lands and our waters.

This nation’s story began at the dawn of time.

NAIDOC 2020 invites all Australians to embrace the true history of this country – a history which dates back thousands of generations.

It’s about seeing, hearing and learning the First Nations’ 65,000+ year history of this country - which is Australian history. The aim is for all Australians to celebrate that we have the oldest continuing cultures on the planet and to recognise that our sovereignty was never ceded.

Always Was, Always Will Be.

Our quality improvement goals during 2020 have been to continue the implementation of our Reconciliation Action Plan

We continue to embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture in our everyday practise with pride.  During the special week that NAIDOC falls, we have some special activities coming up - please watch out for these on Facebook.

  The next few months and leading into 2021, we hope to finalise many areas of our RAP and it is our hope to have a gathering in the new year where we can celebrate our journey to date, sharing with our families all of our strengths.

Children's Christmas Party Cancellation

COVID-19 has brought about many changes to the way we live, and we continue to adjust and adapt to the ever changing circumstances we find ourselves in, however there is so much to be thankful for and reasons to celebrate our Little Bee Community.

During 2020, the support from families has been incredible, as we all adjusted and adapted our way forward in such a weird situation during 2020. With a period of free education and care, plus many families and children isolating at home, muddling our way through home schooling (for those of us with older children at school) we banded together and have come out the other side.

As families returned to the centre from isolating at home earlier this year, many family and friends centre events were very different with limitations on social gatherings stopping Community involvement. 

The resilience of all our educators, children and families throughout this year has been outstanding as we continue to focus on what we can do, and not what we can’t.

We are most comfortable continuing to follow suit of the many educational facilities in Tassie, and are cautious now that Tassie borders are open to the rest of Australia.

The Christmas party is always a very fun time, although a very hectic and busy event, where most families attend, we are unable to practise social distancing at such a big event.  While we have made the decision this year to cancel our Christmas celebrations at each centre, we will be focusing on celebrations internally, as the children make a special appreciation gift for members of their families. 

Queen Bee excursion to the Daly Potato Farm

We offer a huge, huge thank-you to the Daly family- Susie, Gerard, Ruby Jacinta, Emma and Nathan for your wonderful hospitality and invitation to attend your beautiful farm.  We are so grateful for all the hard work you put in getting ready for us to come and visit!

With the sun beaming overhead, it was such a wonderful lead in to NAIDOC week, with Aunty Lee-Anne joining us for a welcome and smoke cleansing of the land.  We performed our welcome to Country around the fire and sang Aboriginal animal songs.  Afterwards, the children created some ochre paintings on fallen sticks and bark they collected from the land.

We learned all about the growing of potatoes and how they are graded before making it to the supermarket shelf, the adults learnt a little about the Award Winning Gin they make from the second grade potatoes (no tasting of course).

We saw the cattle being fed (also with the second grade potatoes) and ran across the paddock barefooted and fancy free, taking in the breath taking views.

The highlight of the day was definitely the tractor rides, where each child had a turn going around the paddock with Gerard, who is a very patient farmer!

Suzie cooked the BBQ for us, yummy sausages and we all had such an enjoyable day!

Thanks again to the Daly family for your hospitality!

Some changes coming to Little Bee Howrah!

Best of luck, Nikki and Pauline

We would like to say a very sad farewell to two of our very amazing Howrah educators; Nikki and Pauline, leaving us in late November.

Nikki and Pauline have worked at Little Bee for many years, both at our Airport Centre and most recently for 3 years together at our Howrah Centre.

Nikki is looking for a change in career to administration and Pauline is also ready to begin  a new chapter in her life; looking for a change in direction.  

We cannot thank Nikki and Pauline enough for their commitment and dedication to Little Bee over the many years and we wish them all the best in their future endeavours.

You will both be greatly missed!

A warm welcome to Megan!

Megan; from our Little Bee Airport Centre is heading up to Howrah to join the team.  She is a very experienced and knowledgeable educator with the Diploma of Children's Services.  Megan has been in Education and Care for over 8 years, having worked for a number of these years at Little Bee Airport in close capacity with both Nadine and Chantelle who have also joined the Howrah team.   

Megan is excited to introduce herself to you all and looks forward to building beautiful relationships with the Howrah families and children.

We are currently interviewing for the second position at Howrah, please watch this space!

Curriculum News...

Howrah

Moving on through our examination of real life work, we have been discovering all there is to know about cleaning. Together, we've engaged in real life work by empowering the children to have control over the daily routines, which has included problem solving to discover how to most effectively sweep the carpet, clean a spill or wash our hands. We have empowered the children to take ownership of their own health and hygiene and educate the children on how and why we need to care for our bodies.

We have set challenges; How much mess can you make? Followed by active group problem solving, trial and error and development of self help skills to find an effective way to clean up our mess together.  

We have seen that through the ‘real life work’ style of experiences, we can foster a sense of research, wonder and enquiry.

The activities offered to the children have been consistently provided over a long period of time to allow the children to practice and build on skills overtime.  

Airport

Baby Bees

Throughout the month of October the children explored sensory experiences involving different sounds. We presented to the children an interactive music board where they could explore the sounds coming from different daily utensils; such as: pans and spoons. Later in the month we also had a play with clapsticks and castanets and had such great opportunity to watch James playing the Didgeridoo.

The children did some beautiful colourful paintings to celebrate Spring. What a great job they did mixing the paints and handling the little brushes.

The children loved having our ‘Garden Shop’ environment where they manipulated the flowers, taking them out of the pots, exploring textures and smelling them.

We also continued offering experiences where the children could be in contact with natural resources and environments. They helped plant herbs in pots and then tried to pick them, some of them even tried using scissors for that. It was very tricky, but they did very well. 

Honey Bees

In the Honey Bee room we have enjoyed different ice experiences where the children used their senses to investigate the ice. They were curious and enthusiastic in their learning, as they used hammers to crack the ice and saw it breaking away from the bowl. The children were very persistent, even when they found it difficult to crack the ice.

We also watched a film clip of babies in China eating with chopsticks.   We offered the children rice bowls, chopsticks and other resources resembling noodles.  The children concentrated on the clip as they began to experiment with the chopsticks, holding them and pretending to eat from them.

Outdoors the children enjoyed the sunshine while riding the bikes, digging in the sand and filling and pushing the trucks.  We saw the children develop their gross motor skill by climbing the big tyres and climbing over the bridges, balancing carefully over the wooden planks.

Bumble Bees 

As the weather is getting warmer, please ensure to pack a wide brimmed hat and appropriate clothing/ footwear to continue enjoying all of our fun activities outside. In Bumble Bees, we are beginning to introduce water activities, please  pack a rash vest/swimming top or spare clothes for water play!

We have been painting, painting, painting using our hands and feet to paint as well as brushes and sticks.

Through our programming this month we have been exploring different ways of how we celebrate, focusing on Birthdays and parties. This led on to party games; such as 'pass the parcel' and 'wrapping presents'. The children have enjoyed participating in many discussions on dancing in many different styles and in particular dances for ceremony e.g. Festivals from around the world. We have read lots of books about festivals and special dances and have been practicing our dance skills daily!

Busy Bees

During the month of October our room has set up Post Office.  During roleplay in the new space, we have learnt about writing, addressing envelopes, what stamps are used for and how to post a letter!  We were so lucky to have Linda (Anthony's mum) from Australia Post visit and explain everything about the delivery process to us!

We have also been continuing on with extending our mathematical vocabulary and responding verbally to questions, this has supported the children in their thinking process.  Our new interactive board has been a huge success, where we have raced cars on a track and used playdough to make our own construction.

Queen Bees

 What an amazingly busy time we have had in the Queen Bee room over the course of the last month.  Programming is starting to come to end and things are winding up.  The children have been reflecting on what they have done through the course of the year and have began making a short video on what they have liked the most during this year.

We have undertaken some amazing project work on birds and their habitats and are now looking at mutton birds.  We all enjoyed our excursion to the Daly Potato farm on Monday. What a day!   We had so much fun running through the paddocks in bare feet watching the cows being fed and finally a tour through factory to see the process of how the potatoes get from paddock to supermarket.

We enjoyed lighting the fire with Aunty Lee-Anne and shared with her our ‘Acknowledgement of Country’ song and listened as Aunty Lee-Anne did ‘welcome to country’.

 “Excursions form a vital part of a child’s early education. They expose a child to a range of different experiences and enable them to gain a sense of the world in which they find themselves. Excursions encourage a child to embrace the unfamiliar and often every sense is employed in observing and understanding what they’re experiencing.” 

Small jar donations please!

We are hoping for a donation of some small food jars (around baby food size), if any families can keep these for us, that would be amazing!

Some rooms hope to use them in the creation of their end of year 'family appreciation gifts'. Thank-you in advance!

Bookings for 2021!

Thank-you to everyone for returning your 2021 Booking forms.

 Booking confirmations detailing children’s leave dates and any change of days will be out in your child’s communication tray mid November. We thank families for their patience with allocating places; we have had an overwhelming demand for additional days.

If you have any questions please see Emily at Airport  (littlebee@littlebee.net.au) or Alice at Howrah (howrah@littlebee.net.au). Thank you.

Are your child's immunisations up to date??

If your child has recently had their immunisations please provide a copy of their immunisation status to Little Bee, please see schedule below to ensure your child's stays on track. If your child's immunisations are not current you will not be eligible to receive Child Care Subsidy (CCS) unless you qualify for an exemption. Any questions please chat to us.

Fee Increase

Earlier this month 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.

With the weather warming up and the days getting longer, here are some ideas around swapping screen time for active play ...

Remembrance Day 11th, November 2020

This time of year is when we remember all those who served our Country during times of war. Although our children are very young and may not yet be able to understand the sacrifices that were made by the service men and women, we still acknowledge this day by exploring the colour red and the Poppy flower (the Flanders poppy was one of the first plants to grow on the blood-soaked battlefields of France and Belgium).

Showing our respect to those who have served and are currently serving.

Do you have any Little Bee bowls at your house?

Recently we have noticed many of our afternoon tea bowls have gone missing, if you have any at home we would be grateful if you could return them.

Many thanks

Information for families

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

• www.naidoc.org.au
• awm.gov.au/commemoration/remembrance/tradition

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 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 staff professional learning will be held in January 2021 (date to be confirmed).  Heid is an experienced occupational therapist and is coming along to train educators on regulation and sensory processing. 

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.