Herston First Steps Child Care Centre

Herston First Steps Child Care Centre
March- April 2011
From the Office
Welcome to all or new and existing Families,
We are committed to providing an enriching
and challenging developmental environment
where each child is encouraged to grow to their
fullest potential emotionally, socially and
intellectually. Children will learn about their
day-to-day environment and about themselves.
Our aim is to develop a love of learning which
we hope will stay with them for life.
Our goal is for all children to feel positive
about themselves and their experiences. Our
educators use a positive approach while
educating, caring and disciplining. The result
for your child will be a balance of learning, love,
security, freedom, independence, consideration
for others and a feeling of self worth.
We hope that you too will find our centre a
comfortable place for your child, where
lasting memories and friendships will be
made.
We endorse and support family values. We want
all of the families to feel that they are an
integral part of the Centre and welcome input
and suggestions. We encourage all of the
families to be actively involved in their child’s
group and in Centre activities and events. We
would like to be known as ‘like a big family’ – a
place where people really care and try to help
each other with the important job of raising
happy, capable children.
Centre Policy Review
Breakfast Policy
Policy Statement
Herston First Steps Childcare is
willing and able to serve children
who arrive at the centre early
breakfast.
Policy Guidelines
Children will be served their
breakfast if their parents are unable
to feed them before they leave
home.
Parents are required to provide
breakfast for their child to be served
in the room.
Breakfast will only be served before
7.30am.
This procedure does not include
infants or babies where they require
bottles at varying times.
Penguins Ponderings
Hello!
A big welcome to Elizabeth, our little Penguins will make her feel very welcome.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Sophie Tully and Matthew for March and HAPPY BIRTHDAY
to Rafferty for this month�, aww they grow up so fast.
March was a very exciting month for us. The children had loads of fun with
activities such as water play and body painting. These activities help them use their
sensory receptors to help make sense of the world around them.
April will be a blast! The children’s development has improved a great deal last
month. They are enjoying textural activities, so this month Rowena and I have
planned more body painting, bubble activities, multi-cultural music and more outdoor
activities.
A quick reminder to label all of your child’s belongings �
Hooroo!
Dolphins Dictations
Dear Parents,
First and foremost I would like to extend my thanks to you all for the
wonderful welcome I have received since coming into the Dolphins room. Each of
you have been very supportive upon my arrival, and I continue my thanks for
being so prompt in bringing back the information I sent out when first coming into
the room. This information helps in giving me a holistic look at each individual
child and their development at home as well as any current interests or strengths.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the move to the Dolphins room and feel this is a fresh
start for all involved.
March has brought about a wonderful variety of interests in the room. As the
children have been enjoying more time outdoors in the morning and afternoon, I
have seen strong interest grow in physical experiences as well as a strong growth
in engaging interactions between the children.
The children are really enjoying having the opportunity to practice their balance,
co-ordination and gross motor skills. Obstacle courses have been set up in the
outdoor environment, with the children taking the challenge on board each day
and discovering and strengthening their ability to maneuver up and down
different levels and move across low level balance boards, with little to no adult
scaffolding.
Herston First Steps Child Care Centre
120 Butterfield St
Herston
Telephone: 32160944
Fax: 32160924
Email: herstonbigstep@bigpond.com
Website: www.herstonfirststeps.com.au

March-April 2011
Herston First Steps Child Care Centre
.Ow! It can come as a shock when
your baby pinches, bites or pulls
your hair for the first time. What
does it mean when your baby
hurts you and what can you do?
Between about 9-18 months, many
infants develop a habit of grabbing
their mother’s or their father’s face
when they’re being held, or pulling at
hair or earrings. Biting is normal
behaviour for infants, who naturally
explore the world with their mouths.
So the goal is to teach them to know
the difference between things they
should bite (food, teething rings) and
what they shouldn’t (people).
One way to manage this kind of
behaviour is to anticipate the biting,
pulling or grabbing and prevent it,
while saying firmly and without a
smile, ‘No biting. That hurts’. Babies
want to please their parents because
they love them. On the other hand,
they are also drawn to explore and
experiment. If your baby is very
persistent, she might not stop right
away.
The key is to accept the emotions for
what they are and to set clear limits,
even at very early ages, on aggressive
behaviour
Extract from raising children.com.au
Centre Events
March:The Children have been anticipating
the arrival of the Henny Penny Hatching
program and were not disappointed, the eggs
hatched quickly in the warm weather and the
chicks have been very active. All the children
have had the opportunity of visiting and those
that are game, have had a cuddle.
April: Friday 8 th Dress differently day
*Friday22 nd Good Friday Centre Closed
*Monday 25 th Easter Centre Closed
*Tuesday 26 th Anzac Day Centre Closed
* Fees are charged for public Holidays as
per the enrolment agreement.
Dolphins Dictations cont.
The activities that have been provided outdoors have kept the children stimulated
and interested in being with their peers. They are learning co-operative play skills
really well, and combining negotiating and sharing abilities in their play
experiences, which is wonderful to see. The children have been spending more
time developing relationships with their peers, acknowledging efforts and create
positive play spaces, which is fantastic.
The room now has separate alcoves which the children are really enjoying, as it’s
giving them the opportunity to engage with a variety of provisions and create play
situations with ease. The children have become less frustrated and are becoming
more engrossed in their play, as the different areas gives them a larger variety of
things to do. Dramatic play and book corner have still remained the favorites with
the children identifying many different objects, animals and people, and re-enacting
the noise a specific animal makes. This is wonderful to see, as it shows the
children are recalling information they have learnt before and revisiting something
that is of interest, and often sharing it with friends. Dramatic play has given the
children the chance to adopt roles and create play experiences with friends, hence
promoting their creativity and imagination.
Throughout April we will still be focusing on providing a high energy outdoor
environment to foster the children interests and strengths and keep them
developing the skills of balance, hand-eye co-ordination and the ability to share
their skills with friends. I want to extend on their current skills and provide a more
challenging environment to keep them engaged as well as to help strengthen the
skills further. I will begin to offer more passive activities outdoor from April as well,
to give the children a chance to embrace something quieter and develop attention
spans further.
Now that the children are becoming more settled indoors, I will begin to offer art
experiences, to enable the children to experience different tools and let their
creativity be unveiled. We will be offering more group art experiences as well to
promote social interaction and strengthening peer relationships. Children learn
from watching one another, so by offering these types of experiences the children
can see what each other is doing and create ideas of their very own.
Dramatic play will still remain an important focus indoors, as it is giving the
children an avenue to discover different roles and ways of interacting with their
friends. Dress-ups, a cubby house and hand-bags are just some of the exciting
changes you will see in our dramatic play corner over the next month! The children
are beginning to establish positive play situations and maintaining focus in this
area, so I feel it is essential I extend on this.
Self-help skills and independence are still remaining a central focus for the
upcoming months, with the children all beginning to feed themselves and feeling
confident in letting us know when they need something- for example water. The
children are all beginning to follow simple instructions, for example taking their
chair to the table for meal times, so following through on this more is going to be
great.
If you have any concerns or want to have a chat please feel free to approach me or
Belinda.
Have a great month!
Miss Allysha and Miss Belinda.

Herston First Steps Child Care Centre
March- April 2011
Staff Profile
Hey there!
I’m Alicia Reeves and I am an
Educator in the Turtles room! I started out
in Early Childhood by chance 5 years ago
– I was a cake decorator/bakery assistant
before I came to Brisbane looking for new
work. From my first day on the job I
decided this was the industry for me. I’ve
spent all of my work years with the
younger age groups and have really
enjoyed teaching young children; they are
such sponges and take in everything you
introduce them to! Eventually I would like
to run my own business and have a few
ideas up my sleeve, but for now I’m
having a blast with the Turtles and really
enjoying growing and learning with them
and our lovely centre.
,
Turtles Tales
Howdy doo Parents!
This past month we’ve seen some great progress and developments in the children and their
learning and we’ve gotten some fantastic feedback and input from home which has helped us with
our program too. We’re so happy with the individual achievements of each of our children; they’ve
explored and discovered so much!
Our main interests over the last month have been centred around home experiences. The children
have explored roles within the home via role play in home corner with the baby dolls, dress ups
and cooking props. We extended these role plays with plenty of real cooking experiences where
the children were able to hear me explain how we make the food and where I got the ingredients,
see, touch, taste and smell the ingredients and enjoy the final product! We’d like to make cooking
a regular part of our program as the children enjoy it so much and we’d like to extend into
nutrition and healthy choices as well as Multicultural cooking. If you have a cultural dish or
perhaps a holiday traditional recipe (Easter is coming up) to share with us please let us know and
we’ll happily create a fun experience for the children.
Some other interests we followed in the last month were sand, water, transport, climbing and
physical skill development, construction and demolition and language development. We’ve
created some fun play spaces to encourage further exploration in these areas and we’ve given the
children some tools to create their own play spaces within these interest areas. One very
impressive play space the children actually created was the box city.
We put some large boxes in the room and hid several trucks inside them hoping the children
would enjoy a little treasure hunt, but enjoyed so much more! They pulled apart the boxes and
constructed roads, buildings, hiding spaces, tunnels, ramps etc. It was amazing what they children
achieved using a bunch of boxes and very little input from their teachers.
Towards the end of last month we noticed the children beginning to really enjoy each other’s
company and actually forming group play situations. This is a great step forward in their social
exploration and we’ll be extending this interest throughout April. On one occasion the children
formed a group and played a game of ‘sleeping bunnies’ together. They even sang some words!
Ways we’ll be extending this social interest is by encouraging group games like ‘Ring‐a‐Rosie’ and
‘5 Currant Buns’ and allowing plenty of space for groups of children to play in one area. It’s also
very important that we continue working on language, vocabulary and confidence in speaking to
peers at this time. As you can imagine, social development and language development go hand in
hand. We’ll be encouraging this through story time, book corner, group and individual discussion,
singing etc. Some songs the children are really enjoying at the moment are ‘ABC’s’, ‘Rainbow Song’
and ‘I Had a Little Turtle’. Their favorite stories are “Where is the Green Sheep” and “There Was
an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly”. It’s lots of fun to go on the internet and get some pictures to
go with stories or songs to help bring the words to life, we made little elephants for ‘5 Grey
Elephants’ and we’re making animals for ‘Old McDonald’s Farm’ too.
Please stop either Katherine or myself for a chat if you have anything to share, any ideas for
activities, recipes for cooking experiences, favorite stories or songs from home and as always
we’re available for a chat about any concerns or questions you may have.

Seals Sayings
Seals parents,
Hello and welcome to the start of another
month in the Seals room. Over the past few
weeks we have been continuing our
development and recognition with all things to
do with our garden and its natural
surroundings. This has sparked a fantastic
interest in insects and through our discovery we
created our own interpretation of insects to add
to our bathroom craft garden inside. After
planting our initial herbs Ena and her family
brought in some sunflowers to add to our
garden. Hopefully they will be sprouting soon.
Some photos of our garden and insect process
are below:
The gathering of materials and planting of
plants.
Seeing the growth and resourcing own
information through play to build on learning
experiences.
Creating our indoor garden and discovering
insects in play outdoors. Planting of our donated
sunflower seeds.
We will continue to build upon this interest and
our ever growing nature development skills for
many weeks and if any parents have further
ideas and input for our garden please don’t
hesitate to approach either Maria or myself.
Through exploring new interests our goals for
the coming months will be to further the
following EYLF outcomes:
� To show interest in their peers feelings
and respecting the surrounding
environment
� To understand their actions and
consider the effect it has on others
� To show respect for natural and
constructed environments
� To develop and understanding of
active and passive areas within their
daily room routine
� To build on those important math,
problem solving, shape/colour and
alphabet number recognition
� To further the creative arts in areas
such as music and movement, drama,
dance, painting and expressive ideas.
We will also be concentrating on toilet training
and furthering our independence throughout
our daily routine. If you have any suggestions,
things at home or special talents that may help
the class further their understanding of any of
the above focus points please don’t hesitate to let
us know.
Cheers Andrew, Maria and the Seals

Whales Whispers
Welcome families.
During March we farewelled Miss Vicki as she transferred to
the Seahorses Room and welcomed Miss Gloria into our
Whales family. We’ve also had the pleasure of hosting two
students‐ Miss Asuka and Miss Kathy who have also been a
wonderful addition in the room.
Our room has been incredibly busy over the past month but
the children are really settling into the routine and we have
developed a shared understanding of how we can keep
ourselves and each other safe and happy each day. The main
focus of March was on developing a community of learners
in which all the children were able to contribute their ideas
of how we can learn best. To aid in the ongoing classroom
management the children have been developing a book that
explores their input into creating a safe and happy
environment. By co‐constructing both the guidelines of the
room and the book, the children create a greater sense of
ownership and autonomy over their behaviour while at
Kindergarten.
Our French and Gardening classes have been a hit! The
children have French class at 9am every Tuesday with Miss
Corrine and they have loved learning colours, numbers, key
words and phrases in French. They’ve also learnt about the
Eiffel Tower and some songs and dances too. These can all
be seen in our French book in the parent information area.
The Gardening class is with ‘Mrs. T’ every second Friday at
12pm (this will be changing to Thursday’s at 10:30am next
term). The children have been planting vegetables, learning
about how to take care of the garden and where seeds come
from, talking about native animals and taking care of our
worm farm. If you have any vegetable scraps (no citrus
please) feel free to bring them in.
The children have been showing a great deal of interest in
cooking, often using sand equipment and home corner as
areas to engage in dramatic episodes. So this month we will
introduce more cooking activities as not only is this a great
opportunity to share information about their home cultures
but they engage with mathematical concepts such as
number recognition, counting and measurement; literacy
concepts through reading recipes; and life skills. Please let
us know if you have any great recipes to share from home.
Another burgeoning interest is in reading and writing. Many
children are expressing a desire to learn more about letters
and have been asking for support in this area. Over this
month we will have a greater focus on letter recognition and
formation during our group times as well as providing the
children with worksheets at the writing station. In addition
Gloria and I will provide the children with greater
opportunities to use literacy in their play as children can
make purposeful links with new knowledge when engaged in
meaningful exploration.
The coming month is full of exciting new experiences and
challenges which our children are more than ready to meet.
Please let Gloria and I know of anything exciting happening
at home or in the community that you would like to see
extended upon or shared in the classroom. I will be sending
out an e‐mail soon detailing all the Whales Room upcoming
events.
Miss Christie, Miss Gloria and the Whales

Seahorses Songs
Dear Parents,
Welcome to April! What an exciting month March has been! We
welcomed Miss Vicki and have been having a great time with her.
We have also been very busy in every area of our room.
In our Home Corner we have put a large play house which has
proven to be a big hit with the children. The children have really
enjoyed knocking on the door and then letting each other in. We are
also improving our sharing skills as only a few children can fit inside
at a time so we need to wait our turn.
Along with the house we have taken an interest in dressing up. With
our shirts and matching hats we have really enjoyed dressing up as
the mail man, a pilot and a fire fighter. Then we role play different
experiences with our friends and increase our knowledge of the
world around us.
Another of our key interests this month has been babies and caring
for them. We are getting very good at feeding our babies and
changing their nappies when needed. As the children role play being
mothers and fathers they are sharing their knowledge and
experience with their peers. This allows them to share what they
know and also extend on their own understanding.
We are still very creative and love artwork of any kind. We are seeing
an improvement in fine motor and gross motor control as we paint
at the easel, at the table and as we do collage.
In our Book Corner we are seeing lots of children showing an interest
in puzzles. It is really great to see that once we start a puzzle we are
all staying with that puzzle until we finish it. We are also working
well with our friends to help finish any puzzles we might be having a
little trouble with.
As we look to April we hope it is going to be as fun filled and
constructive as March.
This month we will be working with the children to develop their
number knowledge. Quite a few children have shown an interest in
numbers so we are going to extend on that. We will be counting as
often as we can, in particular getting children to count groups of
objects they may be playing with. We will also be looking at what the
numbers look like as many children are keen to see each number.
We will be working hard to incorporate counting into all areas of the
children’s play and would love any suggestions you may have to
share with us.
Also this month we will be trying something a little new. We would
like to send home with each child for one night, one of our dolls
called Kya. Along with Kya we will be sending home a scrap book and
we would love for you to write a few sentences about some of the
things you do at home. Then we will read this daily to the children
and develop our knowledge of our friends outside of the Seahorse
room. We will be sending a note home with more information very
soon.
We look forward to an exciting and productive month and we would
like to encourage you to share any ideas or concerns with Vicki or
myself.
Miss Andrea and Miss Vicki.