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INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

2018-2019

The Latest News and Information From Kidi Kingdom

SPRINGFIELD

LetterfromtheCentreManager8FamilyTravelTipsforSurvivingaHolidaywithKidscont...

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December | January

MONTHLY

2016/17

P3 AroundtheRoomsParentsHumourBirthdays

8FamilyTravelTipsforSurvivingaHolidaywithKids

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8 Family Travel Tips for Surviving a Holiday with Kids

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fitting clothes and neutral colours that can be worn in multiple combinations so if something gets dirty you only have to change part of the outfit. Use packing cubes to separate items, and if flying take a change of clothes in your carry-on just in case your checked-in luggage doesn’t arrive with you. With young kiddies, pack a change of clothes for dinner, pyjamas, or what is needed during the day in case of accidents.

Top 5 packing tips:

1. Know the weather of the destination you are visiting, which helps reduce over-packing. If possible plan your travel through one season or climate.

2. Know the activities you will be doing so you can pack appropriately.

3. Know the types of accommodation you will be staying at. If you’re camping, you’ll need to pack a lot more equipment. If you are staying in hotels you won’t need to take things like towels, hair dryers or linen.

... Cont on page 2 © Skyscanner Ltd 2002-2018

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planned. Hunger – pack enough snacks for your flight, road trip, and daily activities. If your kids won’t eat the plane food, you need a backup plan. Do not assume that you will be able to stop and buy snacks along the way as airports especially can be expensive and have a limited selection of healthy options.

3. Slow down on the road

1. The number one tip for family travel is, slow down and spend more time in fewer places. The less you feel you have to see, the more enjoyable and stress-free for everyone.

2. Plan for a slower pace than you might usually attempt if solo or as a couple. Build into your agenda time for stops along the way for bathroom breaks, snack breaks, and naptime. Be realistic about what you can see and do with kids in tow.

3. And the more you move around by taking flights, buses, trains or road tripping the more you spend on tickets and fuel. Too much transport can really eat into your budget, and it becomes exhausting.

4. Pack smart

Pack the bare minimum because you can always buy it there. Encourage your kids to choose and pack their own clothes to minimize complaints and to teach travel skills. Select versatile, comfortable and loose

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Thinking about taking a family holiday? Follow these 8 tips and you'll go a long way to creating memorable holiday and precious memories with your family.

1. Choosing your Destination

Sit down with your whole family and discuss your ideas and interests. Memorable trips are those where each member of the family gets to experience something they love. Make your kids part of the planning process. Ask them what they want to do. When your kids take an investment in the trip, they will feel like they are a part of it and will enjoy it even more.

2. Pre-trip planning

The keys to a happy holiday with kids can come down to solving three main issues. What’s going to cause the majority of meltdowns, especially if you have young children like us, are your kids being either:

1. Tired 2. Bored 3. Hungry

If you can solve those challenges, you’re well on your way to having a memorable trip. Here are some preventative measures to combat each: Tiredness – do your best to help your kids to get good nights sleep before your flight or road trip begins, and each day take frequent rest breaks. Boredom – choose a destination that has enough to do for all family members. When on transport or in transit, have an activity pack or games

7. Flying Tips

Flying with children isn’t really that bad. You can easily put systems and strategies in place to help your child cope and to train them to be good flyers.

Hot tips:

1. Take a change of clothes on board for you and your baby, especially on a long haul flight.

2. Feeding your baby with either a bottle or breast when you are taking off and landing, can help them adjust their ears to the change in cabin pressure.

3. Try to keep the same rituals as home when it comes to bedtime. Put the kids in their pyjamas, read them a book, and sing them songs. And make sure they have their favourite toy or blanket.

4. Before disembarking, make sure they have been fed and to the toilet. Trust me, standing for an hour in customs with hungry and tired children is NO FUN!

5. Check in online from home and cut out the hassle of queuing. 6. If possible, fly direct on long haul flights. Having to change flights mid-

way at crazy hours of the night doesn’t help anyone. You want to arrive as fresh as possible.

7. Give them a bag full of colouring books, pencils, stickers, reading books, games, puzzles, and activities. It will keep them entertained during transit.

8. Talk to your child before, during and after the flight, so they know what to expect. Describe the experience of flying from checking in, to boarding, to seat space, meals, entertainment, sleeping arrangements, playing, and then disembarking.

9. Book a bassinet for babies on long-haul flights. Pre-book this when you book your plane ticket, as they are limited.

8. Road Trips

We love taking family road trips. They’re practical, cost effective and instead of flying from point A to point B and missing everything in between, the journey becomes just as memorable as the destination.

By having your own vehicle and a place to store your stuff, and you have LOTS of stuff with young kids, road trips make for a more pleasant experience than having to load and unload everything constantly on planes, trains, or buses.

And by having the flexibility to stop when you want to stop, to be able to slow down or speed up, or divert from your initial route, is priceless. You can’t do that so much when relying on public transport.

The key is to take frequent breaks – preferably every two hours. Expecting young kids to sit still longer than that is unrealistic. Find interesting picnic spots, historical monuments, public parks, a beach or a playground. Let the kids run around and burn off some energy.

Attitude is everything when traveling with kids. Expect the unexpected. No matter how much you plan and prepare, things can and will go wrong. Just go with the flow and everything will work out great.

Don’t forget – good conversation, patience, laughter and an adventurous spirit.

© Skyscanner Ltd 2002-2018

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Welcome Valued Families of Kidi Kingdom Child Care – Springfield. It has been a very busy year here at Kidi Kingdom - Springfield. We have enjoyed spending the time with you and your children. Thank you to all the parents that attended our Annual End of Year Celebration and Christmas Party. I hope that you enjoyed your day with us. I would like to thank our families for choosing our swimming program this year; it has been a very successful 11 weeks. I would like to inform families that we will be starting our room changes. If your child is the correct age to move up a room, this will take place the week commencing 29th January, 2019. Please speak to your children’s lead educator for more news and updates of this current transition progress of your child. I would like to remind families that there is still time for you to book your children in to our Vacation Care/School Holiday Program for Primary School Aged children. It has already started and the children attending are having so much fun with their friends, visiting places and having adventures. Visit our Facebook page for photos of recent excursions and activities. Please be quick to get your booking forms in, as we are already full on certain days. On behalf of myself, and all the team here at Kidi Kingdom Child Care - Springfield, we would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We look forward to more fun and adventure here in 2019. Kind Regards, Amy Jones Centre Manager

Letter from the Centre Manager

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8 Family Travel Tips for Surviving a Holiday with Kids cont...

4. Pack your bags and then reduce by a third. Then do it again. You will always pack more than you need. As they say, halve your clothes and double your budget.

5. Don’t forget the baby wipes. Seriously, how did we ever exist before baby wipes? Keep a box handy for all those spills and messy hands and faces on the plane.

EARLY LEARNERS - Dear Families of the Early Learners Room, Well what can I say, we have came

to the end of the year and what a year it has been for our Early Learners! It has been a pleasure

watching them all grow and develop. We have had some ups and some downs throughout the year with

children moving on and moving into the Junior Early Years room. We have all gained our hand and eye

coordination skills with all the arts and crafts we have experienced, along with our homemade shakers

and other experiences. We have had a good year with all the children feeling safe, secure and

supported within their environment here at Kidi Kingdom and have formed wonderful relationships with

both Miss Hope and myself. The children have developed an increasing responsibility for their own

health and physical wellbeing, as they recognised communicated their bodily needs, they are happy,

healthy, safe and connected with their educators. As we continue our daily routines we still incorporate

our daily singing of ABC's, heads and shoulders and open shut them, doing the actions the children

stop and look at us and then towards the end start clapping and bouncing up and down with a smile on

their faces. Thank you for letting us educate your child throughout the year, we hope you have a

wonderful Christmas and a safe and happy new year. Thank you, Miss Natalie and Miss Hope.

JNR EARLY YEARS - Dear Families of Junior Early Years, Welcome back to another month in the

Junior Early Years room. This month we finished up our sports theme throughout the room. We enjoyed

many activities related to sports. We are now enjoying our Christmas and culture theme throughout the

room. The children, Miss Kit and myself have enjoyed decorating the room with tinsel, lights and

baubles. So far we have enjoyed taking our Christmas photos, making mistletoes, salt dough

ornaments, candlelight’s, wreaths and mittens. We have been very excited working on our Christmas

gifts to go home. Each child has added their personal touch to their gift to make it extra special. Thank

you, Miss Kit and Miss Alyssa.

EARLY YEARS - Dear Families of Early Years, Hello and welcome to the early years room. I can't

believe how quick this year has gone but what an amazing year it has been. So many new families and

children joining us here at Kidi Kingdom, Springfield, it’s been amazing as well as having our little

friends move up from the Junior Early Years room. It has been amazing looking back and at some of

our journeys that we have been on and how much we have learnt and grown over the months. It has

been wonderful! I look forward to yet another amazing year to come. Hope you all have a wonderful

Christmas and a happy and safe New Year. Thank you, Miss Jess and Miss Raquel.

AROUND THE ROOMS

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SENIOR EARLY YEARS - Dear Families of the Senior Early Years Room, Merry Christmas to all our wonderful families. We would like to thank you all for support over the last year. Mahla and myself have enjoyed sharing your children’s learning journey and have loved watching all the children grow. We have had a busy month with Christmas activities, as well as lots of children initiated experiences. After the Christmas period we will be transitioning the children that are moving to the pre prep room. In the new year Mahla and myself will be moving into the Early Years room, as well as Miss Tamiya. We hope you all enjoy the holiday period and have a lovely and safe new years. Thank you, Miss Ang and Miss Mahla. PRE PREP - Dear Families of Pre Prep, Welcome to the Pre Prep newsletter for December. We have had heaps of fun in the past few weeks with our Christmas party and Pre Prep graduation. We have also been preparing for school with our friends heading off to big school very soon. We have been learning about the uniforms we are going to wear, what classes are in big school and much more. We will continue to do this in the next few weeks leading up to school. We have been working on some Christmas activities with paintings, crafts, activities and even a visit to the nursing home to sing Christmas carols with the residents from the facility. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for a fantastic year and we would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank You, Miss Jess and Miss Taneeka. SCHOOL CARE - Dear School Care Families, Hi everyone!!! This month in the before and after school care room we are getting very excited about Christmas and have enjoyed thinking about and talking together about Christmas and what they means to us. Through conversation we have discovered the many different and similar ways that each of us celebrate Christmas with our friends and families. We have been very creative this month, as we have fun making Christmas paintings, Christmas decorations, elves, Christmas cards, Christmas colouring in and of course our Christmas presents that we are making for our parents and families. The school care children have thought hard about what their parents would like and put in a lot of effort into creating their presents, so we hope you really like them. Coming up this month we are looking forward to Vacation care. There has been a lot of chatter about the many different places that we will be going to on vacation care and it is safe to say that we are all looking forward to spending time together while having lots of fun. If you have any questions regarding Vacation care please come and ask either Miss Amy or Miss Sarah and we can help you out. Merry Christmas everyone!! Thank You, Miss Sarah.

AROUND THE ROOMS (continued...)

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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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LATEST NEWS

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

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Employee of the Month is Miss Taneeka

AwardedforworkinghardwithallourPre-Prepchildrenandcompletingsomeexcellent

portfolioworkwiththem.

Well Done Taneeka!

ClickheretofindouthowtomaketheseSantaHat

Cupcakes:https://bit.ly/2Cety7h

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DECEMBER 2018

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

JANUARY 2019

Monday 10th - Friday 14th (All Week) - National Letter Writing Week Friday 18th - (10am-11am) - Grandparents Morning Tea

Share your morning with your grandparents Friday 25th - (All Day) - Australia Day Celebrations