Town and Country Children's Centre

🌟 What a night! 🌟
Last night the Town & Country educators attended the Advance Childcare Annual Awards Ceremony. It was so special to bring our team together and celebrate all the hard work, achievements, and dedication that goes into providing the very best opportunities for children at T&C.

We are beyond proud of every single member of our team—both for their individual accomplishments and the incredible things we achieve together. Here’s to many more years of growth, passion, and teamwork. 💛

Stay tuned… our award winners will be announced soon! 🏆✨

👟💙 Let’s Step Up for Our T&C Educators! 💙👟

This September, our amazing T&C educators are lacing up their sneakers and taking on the Steptember challenge — aiming for 10,000 steps a day to raise awareness and vital funds for cerebral palsy research and support.

These incredible teachers already go the extra mile for our children every day — now they’re going the extra 10,000 steps! 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️✨

Let’s show them the same support they give us:
✅ Cheer them on in the comments
✅ Join them for a walk
✅ Or donate to their team if you can! 🙌

Every step counts — and together, we can make a real difference.

We're stepping up! Step up and support us this Steptember to support babies with cerebral palsy!

Today, our focus was all about creativity and self-expression as we explored sunflowers in our own unique artistic styles! While Van Gogh’s iconic sunflower paintings gave us a little inspiration, our imaginations led the way—and no two sunflowers looked the same, which made it even more special! 🌻✨

We began by experimenting with drawing tools like crayons, pencils, textas, and oil pastels. The children observed petals, stems, and seeds closely, then chose their own colours and designs to bring their sunflowers to life. 🌈🖍️

Next, we moved into a hands-on craft session, using coloured paper, paint, icy-pole sticks, and brown buttons to build textured sunflower artworks that popped off the page. It was creative, messy fun! 🎨🧷🌼

What a joyful, colourful day it was—filled with creativity, texture, and new ways to express ourselves through art!

During group time, the Lilly Pilly children explored the letter P and the “p” sound! We brainstormed fun P words like pumpkin, popcorn, pig, and pizza—and then we dove into a very exciting topic… pirates! ☠️🦜

We imagined that pirates might have parrots and sail to faraway islands with palm trees. 🌴 Then we connected this to our ongoing map inquiry, revisiting the types of maps we’ve learned about so far—like zoo maps, neighbourhood maps, and the world map. 🌍

To bring it all together, the children were invited to create their very own pirate treasure maps! Each child:
📜 Ripped the edges of their paper to make it look old
👊 Scrunched it up and flattened it again
🖌️ Used charcoal (we learned it’s old burnt wood!) to draw their maps
🍵 Painted over them with tea to give them an aged, authentic look
🏴 And finally—each pirate got their own eye patch to take on their next big adventure!

This creative experience was packed with learning: letter recognition, vocabulary building, history, sensory exploration, and imaginative play. We can't wait to see where our little pirates’ treasure hunts take them next!

Today was a hands-on sensory adventure as our Gumnut Room friends made sand dough—a fun follow-on from their ongoing inquiry play. With a smaller group, we gathered close on the mat so everyone could see and take part. 👀💬

Ellie showed us all the ingredients, and our friends made sure our bucket had just the right amount of sand to get started. 🪣 Chan read out the recipe, and we worked together to mix everything in the bowl. We had our official spoon-holder who gave the mix an occasional stir, while another friend held on to the shells and starfish, waiting patiently. 🐚⭐

We carefully added our dry ingredients first—flour and sand—followed by the wet ones. Ellie gave it a good mix and the children eagerly joined in, each taking turns to stir and poke the dough with their fingers once it was ready.

Chan brought out a tray and we transformed it into a beautiful sensory space, adding shells, pebbles, and little crabs. The babies loved the new texture and used their hands to squish, poke, and explore! 🦀👶

This sensory experience gave our children the chance to:
🧠 Explore textures
👐 Build fine motor skills
👂 Listen to new words
🧪 Follow a recipe
👩‍🍳 Measure and mix like little chefs

It was a wonderful way to blend learning, creativity, and sensory discovery. We can’t wait to play with our sand dough again soon!

With help from Kelsey, our little gardeners got busy mixing the soil with shovels to make it soft and ready for planting. It was beautiful to see everyone working together so carefully to prepare our garden bed.

We then planted our bright, colourful flowers! Each friend had a turn placing flowers in the soil and giving them a big drink of water using their own little watering cans. 💦🌼

While we planted, we talked about why flowers need water and sunshine to grow. This sparked a lovely conversation and that led us to explore how plants grow big and strong. 🌞🌿

We also had a thoughtful chat about how we care for our flowers. “Can we touch the plants?” we asked. Some said yes, but together we decided that flowers are delicate—we should use our eyes to look 💕

Then we wondered who might visit our garden next. “Maybe bees?” we said—and sure enough, our friends excitedly chimed in: “Bees!” 🐝 We talked about how bees might collect nectar and how we must be gentle with all the tiny bugs who visit.

Our garden is now full of colour, care, and curiosity—and we can't wait to watch it grow! 🌸💚🌻

💖🌈 Our Self-Love Journey in the Lilly Pilly Room 🌈💖

During group time, Tal shared a heartfelt story that sparked important conversations about emotions, self-regulation, affirmations, and self-love. The children were invited to reflect on the question, “What do you love about yourself?” While some responses focused on favourite activities, it was clear how eager the children were to connect and be part of the conversation. 🗣️💬

To build on this, we invited children to take part in a special self-love activity using a worksheet titled “What I love about me.” 💕 With Kelsey’s gentle guidance and a short affirmations video to inspire reflection, each child shared something they loved about themselves. Their responses were recorded, and then they set about decorating their pages with creativity and personality.

It was a beautiful reminder of how children are beginning to develop self-awareness and emotional expression, especially when supported by open-ended questions and meaningful language.

We’re so proud of our little learners and the growing confidence they show in exploring who they are. 🌟

Join us for our 2026 Kindergarten Information Night!

Come along to learn all about our wonderful kindergarten programs, the pathway to school, and how to enrol for next year.

📅 Date: Monday June 23rd
🕔 Time: 5:00pm – 5:30pm

On the night, you’ll have the chance to:
👩‍🏫 Meet our passionate teachers
🧩 Explore our engaging programs
💬 Ask questions and get the information you need
✏️ Learn about the enrolment process

Whether you're a returning family or new to our community, we’d love to welcome you and support you through this exciting next step in your child’s learning journey.
We look forward to seeing you there!

The Wattle children whipped up a super sweet ice cream parlour–themed sensory tub — and it was a huge hit with the children!

The setup featured fluffy shaving foam as our pretend ice cream, along with cones, patty pans, scoops, and sparkly sequin “sprinkles.” From the moment they discovered it, the children dove into joyful, messy play — scooping, swirling, and creating their own imaginative ice cream treats. 🎨🖐️

The air was filled with laughter and storytelling:
💬 “I have ice cream at my home!”
💬 “Me too! I have strawberry!”
💬 “I love strawberry ice cream!”
💬 “Yummmmm!”
💬 “I put sprinkles on my ice cream,”

The children loved the tactile sensation of squishing the foam between their fingers, discovering sequins beneath the surface, and carefully decorating their cones. Not only was it wonderfully fun, but the activity also supported fine motor development, coordination, creativity, and social interaction.🍓🍦🍫