Happy Days Preschool and Long Day Care Centre

Miss Emily brought her pet scorpion in to the centre this week, as we continue to explore and learn more about arachnids. Stemming from a child-led interest, our discoveries are promoting more respect for our 8 legged cohabitants.

“Our challenge isn’t so much to teach children about the natural world, but to find ways to sustain the instinctive connections they already carry”. Terry Kraut Wurst.

“ Through unstructured exploration, we foster the development of imagination and creativity”.

Good morning families

As I’m sure you are all aware, the state of NSW is in lockdown this week. This means that there are stay-at-home orders in place for everyone.
We are open and operational during this period for parents who are deemed ‘essential workers’ and are BOTH working outside the home. However we must stress that if a parent is at home, children MUST stay at home.
We also need to clarify that even if a parent is working or studying from home, again, children MUST stay at home.

Thank you, and keep safe everybody. 😊

Last week, we welcomed Steve from Little Star Bee Sanctuary to our centre as we received our very own native bee hive. This has been planned for quite a while, and we were excited to finally provide a home for about 5000 busy little bees.
While we will explore and learn more about these valuable little creatures, we will also work in conjunction with the sanctuary to give regular feedback on the hive’s progress.
We were surprised to learn that the bees, once settled in their new environment, can venture up to 1km away. Since the Botanical Gardens are close by, we figure that they will have plenty of opportunity to collect their nectar and pollen, as well as exploring our own gardens.

This week in the Butterfly Room, we have been extending on our exploration of sensory-based play. We introduced bubble-blowing to our courtyard, and invited the children to blow bubbles for their friends to catch. The Butterflies were free to experiment in this space at their own pace, and over the week, many children have developed the skill in blowing bubbles. Their sense of achievement was clearly evident in their joyful reactions to the bubbles surrounding them.

On Wednesday of last week, Miss Jo, Peta and Annabelle took a small group of older Butterflies on an excursion to Fitzroy Oval. The significance of this site is important in educating our young children of the rich Gumbaynggirr history of our local region.
Fitzroy Oval was an important gathering place for Gumbaynggirr people, so we coincided this visit with NAIDOC Week, who’s theme this year is ‘Always Was, Always Will Be’, which highlights the knowledge that Aboriginal people were the first inhabitants and caretakers of this land.
We walked excitedly from preschool, remarking on all the things we saw along the way- the creek, the army barracks, the pool...etc.
When we arrived at the oval, we shared in the joy of wide, open spaces by running gleefully to the other side of the park, wind blowing across our faces. Afterwards, we sat in the shade and discussed how the Gumbaynggirr people had to use the environment to feed and protect themselves. It gave the children a new perspective on imagining how the land was without all the buildings and modern conveniences.
Before leaving, Myla played our tapping sticks while we sang our daily Acknowledgement to Country.
For our return trip back to preschool, we took the mangrove boardwalk, looking for the crabs and fish that the Gumbaynggirr people would have feasted upon, as well as marvelling at the large tree trunks that had fallen in previous years.

Today we saw in the Burmese New Year with Thingyan- a Buddhist festival celebrated in Myanmar as the ‘Water Festival’.
Traditionally in Myanmar, the celebrations include indulging in delightful water activities and praying for a better year.
The children (and brave teachers) had a brilliant time in the Autumn sun, enjoying some water play with their friends. We kicked things off with some delicious Burmese food that Miss Angela cooked for us, then were entertained by some lovely visitors to our centre, sharing traditional dancing.
Later in the day, Miss Angela made Mote Lone Yay Paw, a sweet snack in the Thingyan festival made from palm sugar inside glue rice and coconut milk, creating sticky rice balls.

We celebrated Harmony Day with our families this morning, sharing our collective cultures through traditional dance, clothing and food.
A big thank you goes out to the families of Irfan, Hunter and Francis for delighting us with your yummy foods. Hunter’s dad, Josh, also read a story for us about native Australian animals, and played some music on the didgeridoo. Seng and Lucy were keen to entertain us all with their Burmese dance.
EVERYONE BELONGS 😀

On Friday we celebrated Father’s Day with a BBQ breakfast and morning of fun. Thank you to all our families that were able to attend. It was lovely to see the children so excited to show you around the preschool and it looked like you all had a great time playing together 😊