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INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

2018

The Latest News and Information From Kidi Kingdom

HILLCREST

LetterfromtheCentreManagerWaterSafetyforBigKids

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November | December

MONTHLY

2016/17

P3 AroundtheRoomsParentsHumourBirthdays

PlaygroundSafetyforBigKids

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

P4 TeamMemberoftheMonthBirthdays

Playground Safety for Big Kids

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3. Surfacing should be at least 12 inches deep and extend at least 6 feet in all directions around stationary equipment. Depending on the height of the equipment, surfacing may need to extend farther than 6 feet.

4. For swings, make sure that the surfacing extends, in the back and front, twice the height of the suspending bar. So if the top of the swing set is 10 feet high, the surfacing should extend 20 feet.

Check That Playgrounds Are Inspected and Maintained by Qualified Personnel

1. Check with your council to make sure playgrounds have age-appropriate, well-maintained playground equipment.

2. If there are any hazards in a public playground, report them immediately and do not allow children to use the equipment until it is safe.

3. Report any playground safety hazards to the organization responsible for the site (e.g., school, park authority or city council).

© Safe Kids Worldwide. All rights reserved

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playgrounds. It won’t be hard – they’ll probably be calling for you to watch them climb, jump and swing

2. Little kids can play differently than big kids. It is important to have a separate play area for children under 5.

Choose the Right Play Area Based on Your Child’s Age

1. Ensure that children use age-appropriate playground equipment. Separate play areas for children under 5 should be available and maintained.

2. For babies who are learning to walk, the play area should have a smooth and easy surface to walk on.

3. If your baby has fairly good head control and can sit up with support (usually around 9 months old), give the baby (bucket-shaped) swings a try.

Ensure Safe Surfacing Beneath and Surrounding Playground Equipment

1. Avoid playgrounds with non-impact absorbing surfaces, such as asphalt, concrete, grass, dirt or gravel.

2. Recommended surface materials include: sand, pea gravel, wood chips, mulch and shredded rubber. Rubber mats, synthetic turf and other artificial materials are also safe surfaces and require less maintenance.

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As they get older, many kids become more adventurous in the playground. They try new tricks and games, and take more chances. Follow these tips to create a safer day at the park.

Top Safety Tips

1. Check playgrounds where your children play. Look for age-appropriate equipment and hazards, such as rusted or broken equipment and dangerous surfaces. Report any hazards to the school or appropriate local office.

2. Avoid playgrounds with non-impact absorbing surfaces, such as asphalt, concrete, grass, dirt or gravel.

3. Dress appropriately for the playground. Remove necklaces, purses, scarves or clothing with drawstrings that can get caught on equipment and pose a strangulation hazard. Even helmets can be dangerous on a playground, so save those for bikes.

4. Teach children that pushing; shoving or crowding while in the playground can be dangerous.

5. Ensure that children use age-appropriate playground equipment.

Supervise Kids Using Playground Equipment

1. Actively supervise children in

Top Safety Tips

1. Talk to your kids about how to be safe and aware while walking. 2. Tell kids to look left, right and left again when crossing the street. Teach them to

never run or dart out into the street or cross between parked cars. 3. Remind kids to make eye contact with drivers before crossing in front of them and

to watch out for cars that are turning or backing up. 4. It’s always best to walk on footpaths or paths. If there are no footpaths, walk facing

traffic as far to the left as possible. 5. Every child is different, but developmentally, it can be hard for kids to judge speed

and distance of cars until age 10. 6. Cross streets at corners, using traffic signals and crosswalks. Most injuries

happen mid-block or someplace other than intersections.

Pedestrian safety: walking and crossing roads

You can help children develop pedestrian safety skills and road safety skills by giving them plenty of practice around real roads – for example, by walking with children to and from child care or school, around the block or to the local shops.

While your child is learning, these pedestrian safety guidelines will help prevent accidents:

• Hold your child’s hand when crossing roads together and wherever there’s traffic or cars. Take special care where there’s a lot of traffic, high-speed traffic, narrow or non-existent footpaths, or things that block the view, like parked cars and trucks, trees, hill crests or crowded footpaths.

• Always cross at pedestrian crossings or corners, wait for the lights, and look in every direction to check there are no cars coming. To help your child understand about when and where it’s safe to cross, explain what you’re doing.

• Stop at driveways and check there are no cars reversing or entering. • Start talking about road safety while your child is still in the stroller. For example,

‘Uh oh, car coming. Better wait until it’s gone before we cross’. Keep talking about road safety as he grows.

As you walk together, you can ask your child simple questions to get them thinking about pedestrian and road safety:

• Where is the safest place to cross this road? • What do we need to do before we cross the road together? • Why do we hold hands to cross the road together? • When is it safe to cross the road? • What do we look for when crossing the road? • What sounds are we listening for when crossing the road?

Knowing when your child is ready to go solo

Your child’s readiness to cope safely in traffic on his own depends on his development and how much practice he’s had around real roads and traffic.

As a general guide, your child is ready to navigate roads safely on her own when she knows and understands road safety rules. She also needs to understand that even though she must follow the road rules, drivers don’t always follow the rules.

Your child must be able to pay attention to vehicles on the road and work out how far away they are and how fast they’re coming towards him.

You can still help by:

• checking your child stops, looks, listens and thinks before crossing the road • talking about road rules in simple terms • walking and talking together with your child around the streets • making sure your child wears colours that are bright and easy to see.

© 2006-2018 Raising Children Network (Australia) Limited. All rights reserved.

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Welcome to all our existing and new families to another great edition of Kidi Kingdom Child Care - Hillcrest's Newsletter. I’d like to thank you for choosing our services. We take pride in delivering the best services and strive to ensure we are meeting your highest expectations.

It has been a great year at our Hillcrest Centre, as we have been working hard on providing more extra curriculum activities. Swimming has been a new program we have introduced, and we are pleased to be continuing with this next year in term 4. Our TIP (Transition Into Prep) Program has been a great supportive program for our children adjusting to their new environment in 2019. Happy Feet has also been a new fun-filled program, hosted by Miss Ella every Wednesday afternoon, which focuses on physical movement and music.

Save the dates for our upcoming end of year celebrations of Pre-Prep Graduation on Wednesday 28th November, 2018 at Logan West Community Centre and our End of Year Family Christmas Party on Sunday 9th December, 2018 at Springfield Robelle Domain Parklands, White gum Terrace Park.

As the Christmas period is approaching, please ensure you provide notice to me if you are going on holidays to ensure your child’s booking place is secure for 2019. If you have not returned your re-enrolment forms please do so at your earliest convenience.

Kind Regards, April Hall Centre Manager

Letter from the Centre Manager

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Pedestrian Safety for Little Kids

Once your kids take their first steps, they'll want to use this new power as much as possible. By knowing a few simple tips you can encourage your kids to explore and be safe when they're out and about.

Early Learners - Dear Families of Early Learners, A warm welcome, especially to our new friends Tova and James, Aurora and their families. Having celebrated Halloween we are now preparing for Christmas time, it has come along quickly and our Early Learners are growing so fast. Some of our friends that were only rolling are now sitting on their own, our friends that were sitting are now crawling and our friends that were crawling are now walking or almost walking, such great and exciting moments watching our friends grow and reach their milestones. We have also been busy with exploring our nature through doing arts and crafts like painting, collaging and also just having a feel of the different objects and their textures. The children have also cooperated in our week of recycling by making our friend robot together out of recycled material and collaging objects from our nature onto recycled boxes and making instruments. It has been a busy but fun few months and we look forward to continuing our nature exploring, as well as preparing for Christmas. If you have any questions, ideas or concerns please don't hesitate to let me know, as your opinion is very valuable. Thank you, Miss Christina. Junior Early Years - Dear Families of Junior Early Years, The months are flying by with another month gone!!! It was a busy month in Junior Early Years as we celebrated Halloween, dressing up and going around the centre doing Trick or Treat and receiving lots of good treats from the Educators in each room! We also celebrated Day for Daniel, dressing in Red for the day and doing activities about staying safe. The dinosaurs came to our room and all of the children have shown great interest in them investigating their habitats and what their names are. We have been sharing lots of information on this theme. On Melbourne Cup Day we had two rocking horses to play on, showing good balance and movement, as well as sharing and taking turns. On Remembrance Day we made some poppy wreaths and listened to a story about a soldier and his special dog and we made a display of our poppy wreaths on the door. Please take time to have a look at your child's fabulous art works around the room. We celebrated World kindness day, creating our own piece of special artwork and having a special afternoon tea in our room. It has been a very busy month for us and this last week we have been using a lot of items that have been recycled, to make musical instruments and sensory items, as well as art works to use in our room. We have still been focusing on counting colours and singing at our group times. The children are all engaging and showing excitement at this learning experience, as we do it every day as a transition to free playtime. Any family input is always welcomed as we now prepare for Christmas celebrations in the JEY room. Thank you, Miss Julie, Miss Jess and Miss Sandy. Early Years - Dear Families of Early Years, this month has been a very busy time for us as we rush around on our world tour. We have been busy visiting the culture of Cambodia, where Jenny's family originates. We have explored Temples, and the difference in food and housing, watched a video of children in Cambodia going to school and finished off with Monkeys and Elephants as part of the Cambodian Culture. We would like to thank our families for supporting us as we have gone through these cultural explorations over the last few months; it has been a joy to learn about the different cultures in our Early Years Room. We are now heading into our Christmas theme. We have lots to get through before the big day, and it is always a busy time of the year. Any Christmas decoration donations to our room would be greatly appreciated. We would like to decorate the room with different things and would be grateful for anything involving Christmas themes. We want to also remind our parents of our hat pockets, located outside our sliding screen door, please encourage your children to collect and return their hats to these pockets daily so they always have a hat while playing outdoors, it is just far too hot for the children to play outdoors without protection. We regularly apply the children with sunscreen while they are outside and we encourage all parents to please help your children apply sunscreen upon arrival to the centre. We would like to give Lyjah and Harlow big cuddles and love as they soon depart from us to begin a new and exciting journey closer to home. They will be greatly missed by all the children around them. Thank you all for your ongoing support. We cannot wait to celebrate and see this year through with you all. Thank you, Miss Mel, Miss Kara and Miss Kyra.

AROUND THE ROOMS

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PARENTS HUMOUR

LOCAL BUSINESSES

Kidi Kingdom Child Care wishes to thank the following local business for their

continued support.

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AROUND THE ROOMS (continued...)Pre-Prep - Dear Families of Pre-Prep, We are very happy to welcome our new friends Bonnie and William. May you feel safe, secured and supported as you explore a lot of exciting activities in the Pre-prep room. We had the best Halloween Celebration this month. The majority of the children were wearing different Halloween costumes and were very active in joining the activities for the day. They had so much fun listening to the Fortune Teller with her crystal ball as she made a guess of their bright future ahead . The children also went Trick or Treating to every room and filled their bags with a lot of lollies. It was a worth remembering Halloween for the children indeed! We're still into our weekly Swimming Lessons and Big School visits. The Pre-prep children continuously gained knowledge and skills that are essentials to their growth and development. The 28th of November, 2018 will be our Pre-prep Graduation Day. Everyone is looking forward to this most memorable event in the lives of our Pre-prep children. We are currently busy preparing our song and dance presentation during the ceremony as we would like our children to have greater confidence as they make their Mums and Dads proud. Just a reminder to our dear parents, please insure that you have a copy of the program so you will be mostly aware of the important details that's going to happen during the ceremony. Thank you, Ms Nim and Mr Cory. School Care - Dear Families of After School Care, Lately we have been talking with our schoolies about the next upcoming school holiday program, where we have included their suggestions into the program. This is a great way for us to understand our children's interests and hobbies to help embed into the school care program. We want to start embedding homework time to assist our children in any areas of concern they have with their schoolwork. Recently our school care children have enjoyed networking with our pre-prep children, talking about what big school is like and how their experiences were. If you need any assistance from us to help your child to achieve their goals please let me know so we can set goals together. Thank you, Miss Christina.

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LATEST NEWS

UPCOMING EVENTS! See what exciting things we have been up to at Hillcrest Kidi Kingdom!

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CentreSnaps

Cassidy Briannah Francis Levi

NOVEMBER 2018 Wednesday 28th - (6.00pm - 7.30pm) - Pre Prep Graduation Ceremony

DECEMBER 2018

Sunday 9th - (10.00am - 1pm) - Centre Christmas Party Wednesday 5th - (10.30am-11.30am) - Christmas Nursing Home Visit

Monday 24th - (All Day) - Christmas Eve Celebrations

Employee of the Month is Miss Jessica

Awardedforallyourhardworkandcommitmentyouhavedemonstrated

throughouttheCentre.

Well Done Jessica!

ThekidshadagreattimevisitingtheCharityshop

forRecyclingWeek.

Chayse Maddison Deaygo Payton

Herearesomevegetablesgrowninourgarden,whichweregiventoourchefforustoenjoywithlunch.