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Term 2 Newsletter 2017

Kia ora anesletter t2nd Welcome to Term 2

Can you believe that it is Autumn already! This time of year is perfect for exploring nature as we run through the fallen leaves, search under rocks and stones for bugs and slugs to be found and enjoy the mid morning to mid afternoon sun shine. We have a lot planned this term with an exciting trip to Mega Air next month and then off to an Artisan Bakery for some morning tea. We would also like to welcome three new educators, Elena, Laura and Vanessa.

 

Policy review:

We have changed the way we review our policies. Each month we will post up on our family Facebook page what policy we are reviewing with a copy of the policy. Most of our policies are reviewed every three years with some needing to be reviewed annually and we would love your input into this process, your time reading and offering suggestions is appreciated.

Booked times

We have recently passed our first Audit… YAY!! One aspect that was mentioned was our sign in sheets. Please ensure you are writing the actual time you drop off your child and the actual time you pick them up, along with signing the form daily. Please also note that our home educators have life events outside of their work hours, please be conscience of this and adhere to your booked hours.

Winter approaching

With winter soon approaching we like to revisit our policy surrounding sickness. Please keep your child at home if they are unwell, if you are unsure give your educator a call to discuss with them and decide together if attending will benefit your child or if a day at home is what is needed. If you child has had vomiting or diarrhoea please keep them at home for 48 hrs after their last episode. Outside play in winter is important for maintaining a healthy immune system. Please ensure gumboots, jackets and hats are provided daily for the children to continue to play outside.  We have added an extra wellness page to this newsletter for some tips to staying healthy this winter.

Professional Development for educators.

We have two professional development opportunities on offer this term. One is surrounding healthy eating through Nourished Beginnings. Nourished Beginnings provide nutrition and whole food professional development training for ECE services throughout NZ and Australia. The other one is a course through Child Matters. Child Matters is a National Charitable trust. They work throughout New Zealand, educating, supporting and inspiring adults to protect children. We are continually striving to provide great learning opportunities for our educators to grow and learn and for your tamariki to benefit from their new learning.

“Whaowhia te kete matauranga” – Fill the basket of knowledge.

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Term 4 Newsletter 2016

Kia ora and welcome to term 4!screen-shot-2016-10-09-at-1-00-51-pm

We have an exciting term of events planned and would love you to join in! The weather is (or will be!) heating up soon, please bring a sunhat every day in term 4 and spare clothes as water play, messy play and more outside fun in the sun will be happening! Please sun block your child/ren prior to them arriving into care in the morning and your educator will reapply as needed throughout the day.

Children’s Christmas Party
The Children’s Christmas party will be a fun filled event with Melanie Poppins, a bouncy castle, sausage sizzle and of course Santa himself! Hope you can all make it! Santa will have his sack filled with books for the children. If you are bringing siblings that are not enrolled with Organic Kids can you please provide a named, wrapped book for Santa’s sack. Flyer and map to come!
Christmas Holidays
With the Christmas holiday season fast approaching we would like you to start thinking of the Christmas leave you and your family intend to take over this time. Please email this through to Bec at bec@organickids.co.nz by Friday 2nd December.
Canterbury A&P Show, Its show time!
Our tickets have been pre-ordered by those who expressed interest last month, however we do have a couple of extra adult’s tickets ($14 each), 2 school aged tickets ($5 each), and 4 free pre-schooler tickets available, if anyone missed out. First in first served. A great discount for our group being an education provider.

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Term 3 Newsletter 2016

Kia ora and Welcome to Term 3!screen-shot-2016-09-25-at-10-52-14-pm

What glorious Autumn weather we have had this term. Our programme has been very busy this month with children getting out amongest the fallen leaves at Forest Education, preparing and making soup at Playgroup and enjoying a fun filled morning at the Air Force Museum. As we head into winter, please remember to bring warm clothing for outside exploration and lets keep those winter bugs away!

Aspirations of parents

New feedback forms were sent out early July to all families of children who have had a birthday this year to date. Moving forward these will be sent out in the month of your child’s birthday to give you a more formal way of inputting into your child’s programme. Please do take the time to express your wishes and hopes for your child’s learning for the upcoming year.

We truly value a collaborative approach to your child’s learning and our aim is to ensure family wishes and aspirations are acknowledged and respected. We ask these to be emailed back to Louise, who will then share them with your educator.

Yeah Baby Conference

Organic Kids Educators are attending Yeah Baby. This is a specialist conference concerned with the education and care of our infants from birth to three year of age. All Educators have been invited to attend this fantastic professional development opportunity with us.

The conference includes six 45 minute workshops on current topics relating to teaching in the early childhood sector, we are all looking forward to this new learning to provoke further inspiration in our teaching.

Playgroup

Another great term at Organic Kids playgroup as we work with the children supporting their interests and stages of development. This term we were celebrating a successful harvest and a new growing season due to Matariki – the Maori New Year. We made soup one morning where the children were able to use kitchen utensils such as a peeler, grater and vegetable knives. The children then took their soup home to eat for lunch.

We have been looking for a venue for an Oxford Playgroup, until we find one Katrina has kindly offered her home. Oxford Playgroup will be weekly on a Wednesday and start 17th August, excluding school holidays. 9:30am – 11:30am.

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Term 2 Newsletter 2016

screen-shot-2016-09-25-at-10-37-13-pmKia ora and Welcome to Term 2!

THANK-YOU to all our families who have been referring their friends to us, and for your amazing comments on social media threads. We both really appreciate your ongoing support! We currently have spaces available in Parklands, North New Brighton, Kaiapoi and Oxford. If you know anyone looking for childcare in these areas, let them know we have fantastic, qualified home educators with spaces available.

Winter Illness

Please have a look at the child health policy. We want to keep illness to a minimum this winter for the children and teachers. Please keep your child at home if they have no interest in play, have a temperature of 38 degrees or over, have had diarrhea or vomited in the last 48 hours or have a bad cold or cough (clear runny noses are fine, as this can be a constant in winter). Let’s keep everyone healthy!

Email update

We are slowly phasing out the louandbec@hotmail.co.nz address. Any change of hours or fee queries email Bec who takes care of these areas bec@organickids.co.nz The Ministry of Education requires us to have two-way communication with our families from time to time. We would love to hear how things are going for you and your family as feedback is always appreciated. Any programme related queries or feedback please email Louise. louise@organickids.co.nz

Aspirations of Parents – Feedback form

Our hope in creating this form is to give parents and caregivers more formal input into their child’s individual learning. Please do take the time to express your wishes and hopes for your child’s learning for the upcoming year. These will be emailed out each year during the month of your child’s birthday. We ask these to be emailed back to Louise, who will then share them with your educator. We will start this process in June, if your child has already had a birthday this year you will also get a form in June.

Immunisation updates

If your child gets a new immunisation can you please provide your home educator with a copy or take a photo and email it though to Louise so we can maintain accurate and current records. louise@organickids.co.nz

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Term 1 Newsletter feature

Term 1 Newsletter 2016

Term 1 Newsletter 2016 Welcome to 2016 and what a great year we have planned for you all!

We are kicking off the year with a fun family picnic to celebrate Organic Kids turning one and to thank you all for your support in our first year of operation. We were granted our full licence from the Ministry of Education early December and we were proud to show them the quality of our educators programmes and the policies and procedures we have been following. Thanks to all the educators and families involved in this process!

Policy Reviews
We are currently reviewing three policies. The Laundering policy, Healthy Eating policy, and the Health and Safety policy. Policy review will be an on-going process and we appreciate your input and thoughts on these. Policies under review are available on the secure section of our website, use the code orGanic to review policies. Please take the time to read over them and offer any suggestions. Feel free to ask questions or come back to us with feedback.

Playgroup and Forest Education
Our playgroup at Burwood Plunket rooms will continue at Burwood Playgroup on a Tuesday morning throughout 2016, including the school holidays. Starting back on Tuesday 19th January. Come along and join in on the FUN! All parents welcome
to attend with their child even if they are not enrolled on a Tuesday. Forest Education will start up again on Monday 25th January we will be heading to Deans Bush. Forest Education is where the children have opportunities to explore the many natural environments we are lucky to have close by in our local community. This will include native parks and reserves, forests, and other outdoor natural environments. If you come accoss any that you would recommend, please let us know, your ideas and input are appreciated. Forest Education soon to start in Oxford.

New Educators
It’s an exciting start to the year for us with four new educators joining our team. We would love to welcome Lynne in Silverstream – Kaiapoi, Michelle in Parklands, Mel in New Brighton, and Lauren out in Oxford. We are looking forward to them joining in on our programme outings and events!

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Term 4 2015 feature

Term 4 Newsletter 2015

Term 4 2015 Welcome to Term 4!

It is great to see the sun shining! With the warmer days coming please ensure your children come prepared with sunhats and a change of clothes, as our educators are excited about providing more opportunities for water play and fun outside. It would be appreciated if your children could arrive with sunblock on before they start their day, educators will re-apply throughout the day as needed. We have some fun group outings planned this term, look out for the flyers. We are always looking for fun, new learning experiences to attend as a group. If you come across an outing that you think the children would enjoy please email them through.

Policy Reviews
We are currently reviewing three policies. The Nappy Change Policy, Emergency Procedures Policy and the Excursions Policy. Policy review will be an on-going process and we appreciate your input and thoughts on these. These policies are available through our website in the secure section. Please take the time to read over them and offer any suggestions. Feel free to ask questions or come back to us with feedback.

Children’s Christmas Party
The Children’s Christmas party will be a fun filled event with entertainers, music, morning tea and of course Santa himself! Hope you can all make it! Santa will have his sack filled with books for the children. If you are bringing siblings that are not enrolled with Organic Kids can you please provide a named, wrapped book for Santa’s sack. We will be having this event at the Burwood Plunket Rooms at 10am on Saturday 19th December, flyer to come!

Christmas Holidays
With the Christmas holiday season fast approaching we would like you to start thinking of the Christmas leave you and your family intend to take over this time. Please email this through to Bec at bec@organickids.co.nz by Friday 27th November.

Professional Development Evening Tuesday 3rd November
Our Educator team are attending a professional development evening with Gill Connell. ‘A moving child is a learning child’. How the BODY teaches the BRAIN to THINK. Flyer attached to this email for more information. Families are welcome to attend.

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Term 3 Newsletter 2015

Screen Shot 2016-01-20 at 4.18.48 pmWelcome to term 3, hope you are keeping warm! Last term we welcomed many new families joining our team of educators at Organic Kids. Our educators are doing a great job at supporting the childrens interests and ensuring all their needs are met in consistant ways. Feedback is always welcomed, we hope you are as happy with your chosen educator as we are!

This term brings many more fun programme events, we hope you can come along! All family members welcome to attend our outings, events.

Mid-winter fish and chip night – DATE CHANGE Mid-winter Fish and Chip night (or any other dinner of your choice!) On Friday 31st July we are hosting a fun family event, come along with your fish and chips (or other dinner of choice) and have this time to mingle with the team, other families and educators. This will be held at Burwood Plunket rooms at 149 Burwood Rd from 5.30-7pm. See you there!

We are excited to announce that play group will now be held at Burwood Plunket rooms on a Tuesday morning 9.30am -11.30 am. We have managed to secure every Tuesday except for the last Tuesday in each month which is when Plunket have their clinics. We will now have more space to set up arts and crafts, messy play and have the newly renovated rooms to explore! Come along and join in on the FUN!

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April 2015 feature

Term 2 Newsletter 2015

April 2015Welcome to term two! Term one at Organic Kids has been action packed and we have loved every minute of it! Our first 8 weeks have run very smoothly and business is growing. Thanks to you all for your on-going support and referrals to your families and friends, we appreciate your support in increasing the number of children who are attending home based care and even better joining the committed group of educators we have at Organic Kids. The weather is definitely cooling off and our Forest Education programme is about to start. This will run fortnightly on a Monday. If your educator and child will be attending please ensure you send them with hats, jackets, and gumboots if you have them.

Celebrating Matariki
8th June brings us to celebrate Matariki, Matariki is the Maori name for the cluster of stars also known as the Pleiades. It rises just once a year, in midwinter – late May or early June. For many Maori, it heralds the start of a new year. Matariki literally means the ‘eye of God’ (mata ariki) or ‘little eyes’ (mata riki). As part of our celebrations the children will have opportunities within their home educators programmes and at our playgroups to participate in learning and experiencing art activities and stories to celebrate and grow their knowledge and understanding of Matariki.

Mid-winter Fish and chip night (or any other dinner of your choice!)
On Friday 24th July we are hosting a fun family event, come along with your fish and chips (or other dinner of choice) and have this time to mingle with the team, other families and educators. This will be held at Burwood Plunket rooms at 149 Burwood Rd from 5.30-7pm.

Baby and Child Expo comes to Christchurch!
Organic Kids are excited to have a stall at the Baby and Child expo this year. Pregnancy, babies, toddlers and children up to seven, they have it all covered! This event is held at Pioneer Leisure Centre, 75 Lyttelton St on Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th July. Children under 15 are free while adults are just $5! Spread the word on this great event, we hope to see you there!

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February 2015 feature

Term 1 Newsletter 2015

February 2015Kia ora and welcome to our very first Newsletter. Louise and I are very excited to be officially OPEN and able to spread the word of In-home Childcare. To signify this special event we are holding a Welcome Picnic on Sunday 1st March.

Please see the attached Flyer for details.

Facebook

We have started a campaign with Facebook, as it is a very powerful marketing tool, please like and share our page if you have not done already. We also have a closed group – Organic kids family, that we would love our parents and educators to be a part of. Please send a friend request to Bec Knight where you will be added into this group. We will be able to safely share photos, daily happenings, professional development evenings and our up and coming events.

Playgroup

Our playgroups will be held weekly starting on Tuesday 3rd March. Louise and myself plan these playgroups along with input from our educators. They will be based on the current interests of your children.

Events

Our first event will be a visit from SPCA. They will be bringing with them their guinea pig for us to look at and we learn about animal welfare and how to care for our pets. This time of year is very busy for the SPCA with kittens, they are seeking donations of Kitten food, blankets, towels and newspaper. If you have any donations please take them along to your educators home, we will gift our donation pack to the SPCA when they visit.