OSHC News

What’s been happening?

Recently, Science Week brought a fun focus to OSHC. It was hard to compete with the awesome Virtual Reality incursion that Raema organised for the kids’ specialist days, but we did our best! The week started by experimenting with volume, sound and vibration as we made music with water xylophones; our Educator Jody was even able to play ‘Happy Birthday’ to an audience of impressed kids. We also communicated and deciphered messages in Morse code, made ‘hoop gliders’ out of paper strips and straws, and predicted, experimented and communicated our way through Rube Goldberg machine construction. 

Our favourite science activity, though, was using our homemade GIANT bubble wands! We loved seeing how some sticks, string and bubble mix was enough to keep a huge group of all ages laughing, turn-taking, and sharing tips and tricks all afternoon. Winona, Haziq and Hazel M had particular success making the biiiiiggest bubbles, and Will D helped fill the air with thousands of little ones. Of the activity, Olivia R-M said “People really like bubbles and I think that was a really good idea and we should do it all the time”, and Haziq said “It is really fun and next time we want to trap a person inside a giant bubble!”.

Book Week also gave us more reason to celebrate our favourite stories and characters, with craft activities based around Mr Twit’s disgusting beard (filled with “a piece of maggoty green cheese, a mouldy old cornflake or even the slimy tail of a tinned sardine”) and Dr Seuss’ Tizzle-Topped Mazurkas from the Island of Yurka. 

Since our last snail update, we’ve named our pets (Gary, Slimon, Peach, Jeremy the Third, and best of all, the babies are named Ross and Luke!) and made profiles to let everyone know all about their supposed favourite things. Just by observing the snails over a few weeks, we were able to learn that Jeremy the Third likes posh dinner parties and sending children to boarding school, Slimon likes eating angry bananas, and Luke the snail likes Romanian beatboxing music with pan flutes. Fascinating!

Xplor

In the last few weeks, OSHC families were emailed information about our change of software program. From this week onwards, we are no longer using My Family Lounge, instead using Xplor and the Xplor Home app. We decided on this change as Xplor has more necessary features within the one digital program that will be a benefit to all involved.

Thank you to the families who have already followed the links to set up their profiles and download the app. If you didn’t receive a link (emailed from the sender ‘Xplor’) last week, please let us know so we can follow up and get you registered. Once you have done this, you can delete your My Family Lounge app.

Creating an account and downloading the Xplor Home app is a necessity. It will allow you to:

• Sign your child in and out using a contactless QR code or mobile and pin
• View important messages from our centre
• View your account statement at any time (the primary carer/CCS claimant only)
• View observations and photos of your child at play
• Mark your child as absent
• Request a booking (to be confirmed or approved by us, depending on availability).

Please note that we will not be changing our existing method for payment transfers. You do not need to register for direct debit/XPay.

We’ll arrange extra training resources/information pages to assist you with processes for enrolments, bookings and absences. At the beginning of Term 4, all families will be asked to re-enrol and arrange bookings for 2024. In the meantime please don’t hesitate to ask for further clarification!