Upcoming Events

• Parent Evening, 29th July
• Parent-Teacher Interviews, 16th – 20th August

Parent Portal

We have an exciting new addition to our computer system that allows parents to access information posted by us. Over the next week all parents will be given a unique password and information on how to access the portal online.

Amongst other things this will allow us to post newsletters, daily diaries and any other material that may be of interest. In addition you will be able to access up to the minute information on your child's account.

To start us off (and to test it out!) a copy of this newsletter will be posted. If you have any problems accessing it please let us know.

Upcoming Parent Evening

We are excited to be able to announce our next parents evening...

Tools for Engaging Co-operation and Tools for dealing with the Hot Spots
Thursday 29th July @ 7.00pm
Presented by Jenny Hale from Parents Inc.

Jenny has been part of the team at Parents Inc for the last 10 years. She has a primary teaching background and spent 3 years as a parent educator with the Parents as First Teachers programme.

Jenny is easy to listen to, offers practical solutions and identifies with the challenges that face parents today. Her talks are relaxed entertaining, informative and positive. She is committed to helping parents achieve results that are workable and sustainable within their families.

Jenny also speaks regularly on radio and is a writer for 'Parenting' magazines.

Jenny joined us 2 years ago for what proved to be a very enjoyable and informative evening. For those who attended back then I'm sure your challenges are different to those you were experiencing back then and I've been reliably informed that there are lots of new ideas and strategies covered in Jenny's updated presentation.

Topics to be covered include:

• Keys to parenting
• Being intentional
• Getting a life
• Becoming more of a coach
• Investing your energy now!
• Keeping a sense of humour
• Understanding what discipline is
• 13 ways to bring your kids on board - engaging their cooperation
• Dealing with tantrums
• Types of tantrums
• What feeds a tantrum?
• Using the 'thinking' chair

Come along, enjoy some wine & nibbles and more importantly learn some practical parenting strategies that you can implement straight away!

THIS IS DEFINITELY A PARENTS EVENING NOT TO BE MISSED!

Parent-Teacher Interviews

Our final Parent–Teacher Interviews of 2010 will take place during the week 16th-20th August.

These provide an opportunity to meet with your child's teachers to discuss their progress and development. More details will be posted soon.

Managing childhood illness: what are the issues?

We have had a request from a group of final year pharmacy students at the University of Auckland who are undertaking a study to find out how parents and caregivers manage childhood illness.

Who can participate?
Any parent or primary caregiver of a child 0- 6 years of age whom they take care of when they are unwell.

What do I do if I'm in the study?
There is a 15-20 minute interview that includes scenarios and a simple measuring task.

What are the benefits of the study?
The study will allow us to understand what parents know about childhood illness and how they treat their child if sick which will highlight areas where education and resources can be developed.

What will I receive from participating?
Tea/coffee and biscuits will be provided and information on managing childhood illness.

It would be great if parents could spare some time to assist is this worthwhile research. More information and a sign-up sheet will be available shortly.

Reminder - Illness policy 48hr Exclusion

We wish to clarify the situation for those children who may experience diahorea or vomiting.

Following advice from the Ministry of Education any child who has diahorea or has vomitted must stay away from the Centre for at least 48 hours before returning.

Whilst this may appear over cautious we are only too aware how quickly bugs can spread through the centre (and the wider community). This may, in some way, help combat this!

Thank you for your co-operation.

Room News

Fantails

A number of our babies have turned one and have moved through to the Moreporks to continue the fun and encounter new challenges and adventures.

The young children left in our room continue their journey of exploring sound and engaging in heuristic play. Through interacting with each other and by setting up theories or ideas about how things work they develop and use the resources with purpose. This also encourages them to use their sense of exploration to discover the various provocations and objects in their environment.

Moreporks

We have two new investigations stemming from our autonomy focus, so watch this space, we will keep you informed as they develop.

Recently you will have seen Avon spending more time in the Moreporks room as she has now become a permanent team member. She will work every day except for Wednesday as she comes to the end of her teaching qualification. Please don't hesitate to ask her if you have any questions regarding your child.

Finally, it's that time of year again when we ask if you could please provide your child with a warm hat, gumboots and a jacket.

Keas

This month we have noticed a subtle change where the children's interest in music has now redirected towards painting.

We noticed through observing and written observations that painting was clearly something that the children enjoyed investigating both as a group and individually. From this we will continue to observe and focus on 'what the children are doing with paint'.

Tuis

The majority of our Tuis are fascinated by movement (physics), both through the use of their bodies and objects. Our ramp, built by one of our super dads (thank you Steve Scott), is still proving to be a magnificent tool for these investigations.

A discussion arose during one of our class meeting times surrounding the question 'Can we fly?' This is provoking many amazing investigations and is a major focus at the moment.

The Tuis are still interested in cooking, both the social aspect (we are very proud of our Tuis beautiful social skills) and the experimental side e.g the mixing of substances to create another. Our vast range of visual art resources are proving very useful for these explorations.

Finally, all our Tui children both past and present would like to farewell Kirsty. She has been an extremely valued member of the team and we wish her all the best as she embarks on a new and exciting challenge in another sector of Early Childhood Education.

On a positive note, however, we are very happy to welcome Linda to the Tuis team. She has already spent some time in our class room and is very motivated to become involved in our class projects.

Kiwis

Our dinosaur project is starting to slow down with story telling and the children making their own resources taking over. We have captured this by changing our meeting times so more children have the opportunity to share their laminated resources.

Do you know any special songs or stories that you would like to share? We always love the input from our parents.

Our children have also been baking a lot lately and are enjoying taking the responsibility of organising afternoon tea.

On a final note, please remember to only bring one special toy (including jewellery) on Fridays and not on the other days. Thanks


Phone: (09) 837 7300
Fax: (09) 837 7209
E-mail: henderson@bearpark.co.nz