Some events we celebrated as a whole service included:

Book Week

Book Week was such a success with so many characters and favourite books represented across the whole service. We also had the Scholastic Book Fair run for two weeks to inspire reading and the love of books for all children, families and educators.

River rooms favourite stories included Bluey, Wiggles, The Gruffalo and Where is the Green Sheep.

Sun Room focused on the story 'We are going on a Bear Hunt' by creating a sensory walk and role playing the story.

Forest Room have a love of the Grug books so children engaged in art experiences making different Grug's and decided a story line for each of their characters.

Field room put in a brilliant effort with children coming dressed as a different character almost every time!

Science Week

The theme of science week in 2023 was 'innovation' which saw multiple experiments and concepts covered across the service. This included (but not limited to) exploring sinking and floating, volcano explosions, bouncing water, melting skittles, popping popcorn, rainbow snakes and cloud dough.

Dental Health Week

Haven recognises children's oral health and dental hygiene in all age groups and their curriculums, with dedicated policies, intentional conversations, appropriate menu selections and being apart of the Smiles for Miles program. The three main focus areas are Eat Well, Drink Well and Clean Well. For Dental Health week all children at Haven received a toothbrush and toothpaste with this topic being covered through engaging learning experiences, songs and stories.

Haven will be visited by Dentists in October to conduct Oral Health Screenings on children in collaboration with EACH Health Providers and Smiles for Miles

Father's Day Afternoon Tea

A big thankyou to all the Dads, uncles, grandparents, guardians and special people that were able to attend our afternoon tea. It was great to see a busy Haven with the children loving being able to show their Dad's around the environment and spend some time playing together.

River & Sun Room

Little Sprouts visited River and Sun this month, with Rachel educating the children all about how plants grow. This included incorporating songs and rain shakers, smelling lavender, touching root systems and inspecting a large leaf. All children then participated in potting a Viola flower which they took home to continue to take care of and grow.

https://littlesproutsprogram.com.au/incursions/

Sustainability is a identified improvement area through our Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) with Haven actively working towards creating more sustainable practices and curriculums that educate children, families and staff members.

One progress area is the introduction of our community garden bed

As we head into Spring we have begun planting seeds in our garden bed, all rooms have been involved in this process with the chidlren helping to weed, mix in potting mix (wearing gloves), sew in the seeds and will continue to help water and harvest the vegetables as they grow.

In term 4, River and Sun Room have incursions from the Lizard Wizard to look forward to.

Forest and Field

My Food Allergy Friends

Jackie from My Food Allergy Friends visited the Forest and Field rooms, where she ran an interactive information session all about the top 10 food allergies. Jackie also taught the children how to keep themselves and others safe around food, including needing to wash hands with soap. Jackie has written children's picture books on this topic which Haven have purchased if you would like to read https://myfoodallergyfriends.com/

Reptile Encounters

Earlier in the Term Reptile Encounters visited our Forest and Field Rooms with Forest meeting a frog named Freddo, a turtle, a shingle back lizard called Bob, two python snakes and Pretzel the crocodile.

Field room met a stick insect - CHERYL, frogs - FREDDO AND KERMIT, turtle - MR HARDHEAD, blue tongue lizard - POPCORN, frill neck lizard - SPEED WAGON, olive python -TINY and salt water crocodile - JOHNNY.

Field room then continued the theme of animals on later in the term having a visit from Melbourne Museum where they learnt all about dinosaurs and discovered fossils. The chidlren discovered that dinosaurs are extinct and no longer live in our world, only dinosaur bones/fossils. They then became little palaeontologists and dug up all the dirt to find the dinosaur bones, cleaned them with a brush and put all the pieces together like a big puzzle.

In term 4 Forest will have a visit from inquisitive kids science program, with the Kindergarten Rooms also planning excursions out of the service (more details to come).

Community collaboration

Each term we focus on how we can continue to come together as a whole service and engage with our wider community.

-This term we have seen Field and River come together to create a colourful pair of jeans for Jeans for Genes Day

-Field and Sun children engaged together to celebrate National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s day and watch ‘Little J and Big Cuz’.

-Sun and Forest headed out to Arcadia Reserve to engage in a journey to the farm based yoga session. For the remainder of the year these two rooms will also be opening their gates and rooms each fortnight for the children to come together, collaborate and gain a sense of comfort in the older rooms as part of their transitioning process.

-Thankyou to Rowville Primary School for our continued partnership with a visit from the year 5 chidlren to read some of their favourite stories during Book Week. We also visited St Simons Primary School with the children engaging in a numeracy and literacy lesson.

Haven Newsletter

Term 3 2023 · 06 Oct 2023

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