...where children are happy to learn
Taking Enrolments
Now for 2023!
1 Watts Place West Hoxton NSW 2171
ph: (02) 9825 8822 mob: 0426 972 893
Welcome to November!
Dear Parents/Families,
How is it November already?!
Happy Days Kindergarten has begun to wrap up our end of year formalities by locking in our Graduation and End of Year Children's Party (see below for details).
So make sure to save the date as we can’t wait to celebrate with you and reflect on what a year it has been.
Our end of year raffle will soon be on display, if you have any toys or items you would like to donate to the raffle, they will be very much appreciated.
2023 enrolments are filling up fast so please let an educator know if you are looking at booking in extra days depending on what availabilities we have left.
If your child is a graduate and you have notified us before October 1st that your child will be returning for the month of January, your spots are secured.
Unfortunately, if we still have not heard from you, we no longer have any available places for graduates in January.
Our annual end of year clean-up will begin shortly, please feel free to help yourself to the toys left at the front of the centre.
A friendly reminder Happy Days last day will be Friday 23 December at 3pm, we will return on Monday 9 January, 2023.
What's On?
Rubbish with Magic Mic Show
Wednesday 2 November
Rubbish with Magic Mic teaches young minds ways to reduce, reuse and recycle.
He turns recycled items into musical instruments or fun toys. With lots of audience participation, musical and circus skills, Mic simultaneously entertains whilst subtly educating and encouraging young children to always reduce, reuse and recycle.
The show will start at approximately 10am and will cost $10 per child. All payments will be added directly to your Xplor account on the day with permission slips to follow closer to the date.
If your child does not attend on Wednesdays but would like to participate in the show, you are more than welcome to bring them in on the day, but please note that parents will need to stay for supervision purposes.
Remembrance Day
Friday 11 November
Remembrance Day is a significant event that we commemorate in Australia.
This day is a dedication to the Australian soldiers and others who have lost their lives in wars.
As an act of solidarity, we will be stopping for a minute of silence at 11am to pay our respect to the soldiers past and present.
On the day we will also be engaging in various craft experiences and creating our own poppies to be displayed around the centre.
Recycling Week
7- 11 November
National Recycling Week was established by Planet Ark in 1996. It is held every year during the second week of November. This year’s event explores the idea that “waste isn’t waste until it’s wasted”.
This means there are over 34% of garbage that is not seen as garbage, and it would be better if it could be reused as production resources.
Happy Days Kindergarten would love to get every family involved in National Recycling Week and kindly ask that you donate recycled items such as milk bottles/cartons, egg boxes, tissue boxes, shoe boxes, toilet and paper towel rolls so that we can turn them into something amazing.
Bush Fire Evacuation
Tuesday 8 November
At Happy Days, the educators practice various emergency drills frequently and regularly. This is to ensure that in case of an emergency, all staff are fully prepared to act appropriately and ensure the safety of the children.
If your child is attending on any of the above days, please help prepare them for the drill by discussing with them what to expect on the day.
Bring your lunchbox to school!
(Graduates only)
14 - 18 November
To prepare the graduates for BIG school we ask just for this week that you bring in a packed lunch box full of fruits/snacks (something that you might pack if they were at school).
During this week the children will get used to opening containers and packaging independently preparing them for recess and lunch at BIG school.
We ask that no main meals be provided as they will still be eating our lunch here at Happy Days and please minimise packing unhealthy items such as chocolates and lollies and chips.
Feel free to get your children involved in choosing and preparing what they want to pack in their lunchbox as this experience will help you when it comes time to prepping their lunchbox next year.
Important Reminders
2023 Enrolments
A friendly reminder that 2023 enrolments are now open to the public.
If you are looking at increasing or changing days, please send an email to Miss Stefanie so that it can be noted down in our 2023 enrolments list.
If you have not made any contact regarding enrolments, your child/ren’s booked days will remain the same. Keep in mind change of days are subject to availability, come October 2022 we open 2023 enrolments to new families and the surrounding community.
If your child/ren is a graduate please email us through their end date OR if they are continuing for the month of January, when their end date will be for 2023.
Control of Infectious Illnesses
Please HELP us contain infectious illnesses by keeping your child at home when they are sick. If your child is absent from school due to an illness, please make sure to bring in a clearance form from the doctors on their next booked day.
If your child has been sent home from school on their booked day, in correspondence to our SICK CHILDREN'S Policy, your child must stay home for 24 hours before bringing them back, to reduce the spread of illnesses.
During COVID-19, staff have a right to turn down your child’s attendance if they are experiencing any flu-like symptoms or have had Panadol or Nurofen prior to attending the centre. Please do not “Dose and Dump”.
What to Pack
This is just a friendly reminder on what to pack for your child when attending Happy Days.
In your child's bag they must have the following (ALL LABELLED with your child's name):
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Spare clothes suited for the season and weather, including short sleeve/long sleeve t-shirt, shorts and pants, underwear, socks, jumpers or jackets.
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Bedding including a fitted sheet and blanket
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A water bottle
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Nappies or pull ups if required
Label Clothing
A BIG reminder to please label your children’s belongings. If an item isn’t collected within 2 weeks, they will go towards our MS fundraising bin.
COVID-19 Testing and Isolation Guide
NSW Health recommends that all children and staff get a COVID-19 test if they have even mild symptoms. Those who test positive must isolate and should not attend the service for 7 days. They can leave isolation after 7 days only if they haven't had any symptom of sore throat, runny nose, cough or shortness of breath for the last 24 hours. They do not need to test before returning to the service.
For more information, please refer to the NSW Government's Information for families: COVID-19 and early childhood education.
Graduation Photo Packs
Is your child a graduate this year?
If so, a Graduation Pack is available for purchase:
The pack includes:
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1x 2023 personalised calendar
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1x 5x7 individual image
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1x group class photo
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1x keyring
TOTAL = $25 per pack
Extras can be purchased to add onto your pack such as:
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2023 calendar = $2.00
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5x7 individual photo = $1.00
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Keyring = $3.00
Please see Miss Stefanie if you would like to order a pack. Payment can be made via cash or added to your Xplor account.
Absences
If your child is going to be absent from the centre, please call our centre landline on (02) 9825 8822 or our centre mobile on 0426 972 893 to inform the staff. Notifying us of your child’s absence allows us to open that spot to a family that might need it as a casual day.
Parents, Please Sign-In and Sign-Out
It is a government requirement for every parent or carer to sign your child in & out of Happy Days for your correct attendance.
Your Centrelink entitlements will be affected for non-compliance.
Centre Vacancies
Spots are filling fast Happy Days only has availability on Monday in our 0-3 year room.
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 westhoxton@happydayskindy.com):
Listed below are the other policies we reviewed last month. Please feel free to ask one of our friendly educators for a copy if you're interested.
- Technology
- CCTV
- Death of a child at the service
- Death of a staff member
- Safe Storage of Hazardous Chemicals
- Responsible person
- Staff Leave Entitlement
- Student and Volunteer
What we've been Up To
World Space Week
What a great week! The children absolutely loved space week and learning about outer space.
Through various arts and craft activities the children learned about star constellations, rocket ships and astronauts, the different planets of the solar system and aliens.
We watched various educational videos about planets and rocket ships and had many discussions about things we can see in space. The children loved this learning topic so much that we decided to extend the learning interest into our weekly program.
Superhero Week
The Big Explorers and Little Learners enjoyed coming into school with their cool superhero costumes each day bringing in a gold coin donation which went towards muscular dystrophy. Both classrooms had a costume rack filled with amazing costumes for all children to wear.
Each day the children showed excitement and began their day eager to find out what craft experiences and activities we had planned for the day.
Each day in the Little Learners classroom the children participated in fun creative craft experiences using their handprints and footprints turning them into superheros.
The children loved getting involved and helping Miss Feyza decorate the glass door with their creative craft and photos.
We raised a total of $100 including Happy Days management contribution.
The Shake Performance
The Shake performance was a big hit! They really enjoyed this engaging show filled with lots of important healthy eating tips.
Our special host brought along lots of different puppets which she brought to life.
These puppets helped aid our host in explaining to the children that we need to make sure we eat our fruit and veggies regularly as well as limiting our consumption of unhealthy foods. The puppets danced to lots of different songs and the children could not stop laughing.
Grandparents Day
Grandparents Day was a special event at Happy Days Kindergarten where all grandparents, family, step- grandparents or any other adults in the older generation that played an important role in children’s lives.
The children were excited to bring their grandparents inside to engage in activities such as playing with playdough, showing their masterpieces artwork, creating grandparent’s cards using stickers and colourful pencils.
The children’s favourite part of the day was getting come delicious ice cream and slushy from the ice cream truck and bouncing on the jumping castle. Grandparents helped themselves with some warm drinks and desserts from our coffee van.
I hope our grandparents had an enjoyable afternoon. Thank you for coming!
Halloween
On the 31st of October Happy days celebrated Halloween! Everyone dressed up in their scariest costumes like a Skeleton, a Dragon and a Clown.
The children completed a range of different crafts including a skeleton art work using black paper and cotton buds to create the body, and a ghost craft using cotton balls to create the shape of the ghost.
Then each room had turn at pumpkin carving, the children were very fascinated at how we gave the pumpkin a face and made it look scary, they loved watching the pumpkins come to life!
The Big Explorers participated in a Halloween sensory experience using chocolate cake and custard, then dipping in gummy worms.
The Little Learners played with a pumpkin pinata, each child had a go at hitting the pinata and were very excited when it busted open with candies gushing out everywhere!
Happy Days also had some delicious Halloween treats in their lunch today. Our cook made Halloween jelly fruit cups with chopped up pieces of fruit throughout out the jelly and a spider guacamole dip with a range of veggie sticks and crackers.
Focus Learning Programs
Eco-Warriors
Happy Days Sustainability Program
Last month we explored “Composting”!
We started off by seeing what the children already know about the topic through a brainstorm. From this, we gathered that the children understood that we have a compost bin at our centre and that worms live inside the bin.
Miss Hannah sat down with the Big Explorers children and watched a video of Peppa Pig explaining how we can compost and why it is important! We then discussed the steps we need to do to create a compost bin and how the process works. We wrote these steps down and displayed them around the centre:
Step 1: Collect fruit scraps from, our morning/afternoon teas
Step 2: Place them in our compost bin
Step 3: The worms in the compost bin/ worm farm will then eat the scraps and turn this into soil and produce “worm wee”
Step 4: We can use the new soil and worm wee on our garden to help it grow!
Miss Hannah implemented a new system at our morning and afternoon tea times using red buckets to sort our fruit and veggie scraps. Once the children are finished with their scraps, they throw them away into these red buckets and we pour these in our compost bins!
In the Little Learners room, Miss Shipra also had many discussions with her little ones about this topic as well as reading story books to further explain the process. Next month, we will be clearing out our current compost bin and starting fresh adding in new soil and fruit scraps. We cannot wait for the worms to do their jobs and make us enriched soil for our growing gardens!
Miss Hannah and Miss Shipra
Munch and Move
Happy Days Health & Fitness Program
October's Munch and Move focus was “Healthy and Sometimes Food”.
The children sat down and discussed with their educators about what foods they identify as healthy and what food they eat sometimes. Everyone was able to list a range of healthy and sometimes food. Throughout this discussion the children learned why we eat junk food sometimes and why we eat healthy food all the time.
All these discussions made the children hungry! So they completed a cooking experience with Miss Josephine and Miss Halima and made healthy Apple Cinnamon cookies. The cookies were a success, and everyone enjoyed it.
Miss Ashley and Miss Josephine
Playing and Learning to Socialise (PALS)
Happy Days Social Skills Program
This month for PALS our focus was identifying emotions in both rooms, Little Learner and Big Explorers.
The children learned about identifying their feelings, which is important for them to navigate through and express appropriately. Children who can identify, understand, express, and manage a wide range of feelings experience long term benefits to their mental health and wellbeing.
The children also learned how to understand the feelings of others and how to respond to them. Picking up on others’ emotions helps them manage, communicate, and collaborate effectively with others.
The Little Learners and Big Explores did a range of activities each week such as a matching emotion activity, flash card emotion game and the Big explores completed a brainstorm about what emotion is.
Miss Feyza and Miss Lavanda