...where children are happy to learn
Taking
Enrolments Now for 2023!
28 Julie Street Blacktown NSW 2148
Ph: (02) 9622 6990
blacktown@happydayskindy.com
Welcome to October!
Happy October!!!
We have a fun filled month planned for all our Happy Days Children. Please take a look at our reminders and upcoming events for October.
Please Abe reminded to put in your days you wish your child to attend for 2023 before missing out.
What's On!
September Birthdays
Happy Birthday to:
Miss Harinder, Ashita, Atilla, Matthew, Oriana, Sapphire
Wishing you a birthday full of love, fun and treats!
October 10th- mental health day children to please wear odd socks
The overall objective of World Mental Health Day is to raise awareness of mental health issues around the world and to mobilize efforts in support of mental health.
The Day provides an opportunity for all stakeholders working on mental health issues to talk about their work, and what more needs to be done to make mental health care a reality for people worldwide.
October 28th – Halloween dress up day!
Its the spooky season, we would like to end the month in a halloween dress up day. you can come dressed as what ever you with and we will have a party lunch. This means for one special day that you are able to have those special foods like chips, chocolate and lollies for our Halloween celebration.
Please ensure that you do not pack and products containing nuts.
October 4th- graduation photos (school leavers only)
Graduation Photos will be held at Happy Days on Tuesday the 4th of October. This day is for school leavers only. Any Mighty Mangoe child who doesn't attend on this day is encouraged to arrive early in the morning between 8:30-9am to ensure they get their photo taken without having to wait for a long period of time.
17th – 21st -Early learning matters week-
Organised by Early Childhood Australia, the Early Learning Matters Week brings together early childhood educators, parents, carers and community leaders around Australia to raise awareness and understanding of the importance of early learning and the difference the profession makes.
Early Learning Matters Week aims to recognise and raise the profile of early childhood education and care in children’s development and wellbeing in Australia. The theme for this year is "learning through Play" we will be having children involved in many experiences developing children's curiosity and investigation skills
October 24th 10am-Diwali
Diwali is a festival of lights and one of the major festivals celebrated by Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and some Buddhists. The festival usually lasts five days and is celebrated during the Hindu lunisolar month Kartika. At Happy days we will be celebrating by participating in craft, discussions, and also trying out Indian food. we encourage children to come dressed in the cultural dress if they wish and parents are free to attend on the day.
October 6th – Cerebral Palsy Day
Children and educators are encouraged to please wear green to celebrate we ask people around the world to come together to celebrate and support those living with cerebral palsy, to embrace diversity and to help create a more accessible future for everyone.
Happy Days Community Programs
To encourage the children’s community awareness, we are running the following community projects for which we seek Happy Days families' participation.
Community Pantry:
Our Community Pantry has had some great donations from families and is looking very full! We would like to thank those who contributed and continue to contribute greatly. Please feel free to take what you need, and donate when you can.
Bookworm Community Library:
We have our Happy Days Library located in the shelves in the foyer. Happy Days families are requested to donate children's books, new or used ones in good condition.The children are invited borrow a book to take home overnight and return the next day.
Return and Earn:
Happy Days is a great supporter of recycling and we are participating in the Return & Earn program. We're encouraging families to donate any of the accepted bottles and cans for collection. These items will be collected and then exchanged at one of the stations by staff, where the return will be used to buy resources for the children.
Thank you to those who are contributing to this community project!
Coming up in November
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1st November- Melbourne cup- children will watch the horse race and join in some fun games throughout the day.
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11th November- Remembrance Day- children will participate in many experiences & discussions
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16th Mighty Mangoes graduation @ Happy days Kindergarten 6pm
Don't Forget!
Child sign in/Out
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On drop off and pick up all parents or caregivers MUST sign their child in and out of care. You will be at risk of losing your CCS if this continues to occur. if you have forgotten your phone you can sign in using your email and password on our iPad.
Mighty Mangoes Show & Tell/News Time
Please speak with Miss Tina or Miss Tammy to check your child's allocated News Day.
We have many children who are missing out and feeling quite upset as a result.
Show & Tell time is important in building your child’s verbal language skills, confidence and comprehension skills. Their participation is highly encouraged.
Policy Review
Every month we review a set of policies to ensure that they are relevant and up to date according to regulations. You are invited to provide feedback on our policy of the month below (send your feedback to blacktown@happydayskindy.com):
Payment of fees
2023 Enrolments
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Please ensure that you have let Miss Ashleigh know of what days you require for your child next year if you haven’t done so already.
Enter the Kindy using your Fob Key
Please ensure that you are using your fob key to enter the kindy particularly in the afternoon. We cannot leave children unattended to answer the door for you.
If you require a second key please order one from Miss Ashleigh.
Healthy Lunchboxes Only
We have noticed many lunch boxes filled with treats that do not align with our healthy eating policy. Please ensure that you are sending your child with a healthy lunch box. Foods such as chips & chocolate will be sent home. If you require suggestions, please click this link: https://healthylunchbox.com.au/.
Especially for children off to big school next year, we encourage for them to have a sandwich rather than heated food for lunch. Snacks should have cuts in the tops or sides for easy opening.
At Happy Days, we provide as much opportunity as possible in developing self-help skills in the children. Please extend this learning at home by letting your child open packets at home, packing a all your children’s containers and snacks in the one regular sized lunch box (the size that your child would bring to big school).
Please do not pack food containing nuts in your child's lunchbox.
Open and closing Hours
Please be reminded that we open at 7am, Educators will not allow any child to enter the centre before 7am. Happy Days Closes at 6pm, we ask that parents please collect your child before 5:55pm as this time to allow you to ask the educators on how your child’s day was and gives the staff time to close the centre and go home to their own families on time. A late fee of $2 per minute will be applied to your account for any late pick-ups. To ensure this doesn't Occur please have an emergency contact on standby to pick up your child/ren.
What we've been up to
Child Protection Week
During Child Protection Week The educators and children were involved in some special experiences. The children grouped together and joined in a discussion about who they believe their safe people are, and who the feel they can talk to about things they feel are not right, some of the children said their mum and dad, their teachers, the police and even their grandma. The Mighty Mangoes extended on this and created a flower which the children added their safe people. The children were involved in a video that was supported by the Daniel Morcombe foundation. The children listened to this video and learnt about appropriate behaviors when it came to our public and private body parts and what is ok and not ok. Below we have attached the video link that you can watch at home with your children to continue discussing safe and appropriate behavior. The children were involved in some emotions experiences which had children talking about things that make them feel a certain way, it was fantastic to see all our children openly talking about their emotions and what they like and don’t like to happen. At Happy Days we like to promote safe spaces where children feel safe and secure in their environment. We encourage you to talk to your children about appropriate behaviors and their public and private body parts.
Educators Day
Wednesday the 7Th of September was Educators Day. Parents and children showed their appreciation towards their educators through filling out certificates as well as 2 parents giving gifts to their educators. The Girls were very appreciative of this and you couldn’t wipe the smile off their face.
Miss Ashleigh treated the girls to a beautifully made platters and gave them gifts to show her appreciation to the educators for all their hard work. Our happy Days educators work extremely hard, providing excellent care for your children as well as educating them, providing the most important type of education, preparing them for Big School.
The Happy Days Team including West Hoxton were treated to a night out at Pino and Picasso. It was a great night for both centers to get to know each other and mingle as well as celebrate what an amazing team all together Happy Days is.
Footy Colours day
Footy Colours day was a day for fun, the children and educators were dressed in their favorite football or sporting teams. Miss Dakoda and the children together created medals for them to wear. The children had a nice day showing off their favourite teams.
Movie night under the start
What an exciting Science week we had this year! The educators worked hard to create lots of fun and engaging science learning opportunities for the children to be apart of.
There was many group times and experiments prepared for the children to extend their learning on basic STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) topics. The children explored concepts such as chemical reactions, colour change, weight and mass and gravity whilst developing upon skills such as patience, personal safety, spatial awareness, observation, turn taking, team work and more!
The children explored colour and weight and mass through a water pouring activity, mixing, and making their own colours. The children explored chemical reactions through an elephant toothpaste experiment where they created their very own bubbly rising foam. The children even took part in longer experiments such as crystal growing where they got to work together to create a solution and observe change over the passing week.
The children really enjoyed all the opportunities presented over the week and the educators will be extending on these over the rest of the year!
Focus Learning Programs
Playing And Learning to Socialise (PALS)
Happy Days Social Skills Program
Miss Priya discussed three types of emotions with the children - Happiness, Sadness and Anger.
The children were highly interested in this topic and actively participated in the discussions by confidently asking and answering questions.
Miss Priya and the children together created a Mind Map on "What makes you happy?". All the children were able to share their ideas and feelings.
Miss Priya setup a Puppet Show and asked the children to role play their emotions. Children engaged and learnt about different emotions throughout the experience. The children displaying self-control and management of emotions. Expressing their feeling through words and role play.
Eco-Warriors
Happy Days Sustainability Program
The children participated lots of fun activities related to Sustainability.
We're so proud of our little veggie patch which has started to grow beautifully after a bit of a struggle through the cold weather. Through some tender loving care from the children like watering and weeding, they are now growing faster and looking very healthy! The peas are getting more and more foliages and Ms Nargis recycled the the broken tent’s pole for the beans' vines to climb on. The children happily watch the plants' progress and are marvel at how they have become from tiny little seeds.
The children have also been learning how to reuse and recycle ordinary objects. We created a 'Jungle' out of the cardboard boxes, they also recycled the paper bags and made 'Safari Jackets and Hats', we recycled kitchen rolls to create binoculars, campfire and a steering wheel for our Safari Jeep which was made by cardboard box.
We have been recycling the yoghurt tubes and the lids for the children to improve their eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills.
Milk bottles lids are very useful in our daily activities, such as for counting, adding and subtracting, learning the alphabet, measuring the objects length and weighing the objects and other craft purposes.
Using recycled material, we also made a ball ramp during Science Week to demonstrate gravitational strength. We extended the learning by making paper planes (using recycled paper) to demonstrate the effects of force on gravity by watching it fly up in the air after throwing it and then dropping down on the ground.
We are teaching the children that there is no need for expensive toys to have fun and that they have an important role to play in saving Earth. A lot of fun and creativity can be had from the use of recycled materials, and reduce our carbon footprint at the same time!
Munch and Move
Happy Days Health & Fitness Program
Happy Days children focused on the fundemental movement skill of Striking a Ball! Games such as T-Ball and Tennis were played to teach the children this skill. The children enjoyed our T-Ball games using the bat and ball stand. The children learnt the correct way to strike the ball from the stand. Breaking it into 3 easy steps assisted the children greatly: 1. Standing side on; 2. Raising the bat with the dominant hand; and 3. Striking the ball! To further develop the childrens new skill of striking, games of tennis were played which developed that swinging strength in their arms. The children had a ball (so to speak)!
We also started to focus on our new key health message, Packing Healthier Snacks! Children learnt all about what foods are best to put in their lunchboxes and which foods should probably be left at home. The children did a range of crafts as well as read stories about healthy food and why they are important to have.
A craft revolving around packing a lunchbox was set out in which the children got to collage their own lunchboxes and choose what healthy snacks to add into them.
A book called “The Carrot Club” was read to the children in which they highly engaged in. It is a story about going outside your comfort zone and giving all foods a try. The children enjoyed the story as well as making the characters from the story into masks! The children loved picking their favourite vegetables to make into masks and wearing them around the centre.
Classroom Updates
Happy Days Preschool/School Readiness Program
Mighty Mangoes
The Mighty Mangoes children practiced the letters F, G & H both upper and lower cases. They were provided templates to practice tracing the letters using the NSW Foundation font type which is the recommended way to write letters in Australia (used by all schools). We made the egg basket craft, a flamingo, practiced the "F" letter with chalk, and decorated the letter with wool art. The children tended our garden to explore the letter "G" and drew houses to explore the letter "H".
We have also been looking at numbers 5, 6, 7 and 8. We counted 1-5 plastic eggs in sensory tubs. We used playdough, loose parts, and number templates to explore the numbers. We used dominos for counting and matching them with numbers. We traced the numbers on whiteboards to gain confidence in our tracing and writing skills.
We are continually working on Scissor Skills and refining our children's Pencil Grips by regular practicing; to help develop scissor skills, we sing the fun poem below which helps a child remember where their fingers go in scissor loops:
Thumb on top,
two below,
two get curled,
and away you go!
The children demonstrated their interest in learning about cognitive development through investigation, research, and science. Through STEAM education, they learned about the engineering property of materials and how they 'stack up' by stacking cups, plates, and other resources through hands-on learning and problem-solving.
The Mighty Mangoes have also been looking at Community Helpers.So far they have looked at Police, scientists, dentists and doctors.
Science Week activities – This year's science theme was Glass. We tried the ice salt experiment, primary colours, lightbox, natural resources, magnifying glass, and the walking rainbow activities for fun and learning.
We ran a Spatial Awareness Program we we covered topics such as personal space, health & hygiene, and Stranger Danger. The children watched videos to develop an awareness of their body. We set the activity "My body belongs to me" and did the activity on "My trust network". For Health and Hygiene, we demonstrated five step washing hand technique to them.
We are also doing well in our Show and Tell program. The children confidently show and talk about their item from home to their peers. Through this program, the children are developing confidence and skills in verbal communication and public speaking.
Learning Group for 3 to 4 year olds
Sweet Strawberries
The Sweet Strawberries learnt the importance of the jungles in our ecosystem, and that the earth will not survive without them. We used the Jungle theme to extend the children's thinking skills through puzzles and animals guessing game, physical movements through a bear hunt activity and "A walk through the jungle", explored the jungle environment by watching educational clips about the animals' habitats, behaviours and living style, participating in a major art and craft activity where they created a whole jungle environment out of recycled material with Ms Nargis and Ms Dakoda.
The children improved their communication, social and leadership skills by participating in the Jungle project. They role-played as if they were visiting the safari, they wore safari jackets and hats and explored the jungle through their 'binoculars' which they created by themselves using recycled material. They roasted marshmallows over pretend flames which they created using empty kitchen rolls and the crafts papers.
They furthered their numeracy skills when they counted toy animals and learnt more about foods that can be found in the jungle such as banana, fish, leaves etc. The Sweet Strawberries also learned the initials of animal names through a matching game.
This was a fun project with lots of learning opportunities. We will continue to extend children leanings through their favourite activities.