What’s been happening at OSHC

We have been having some interesting conversations about Halloween, history, All Hallows Eve, The Harvest Festival, The Day of the Dead, All Souls Day, traditions, cultures, beliefs, and celebrations. OSHC is a great way for children to explore their ideas with other children and learn about other cultures.

While many families don’t celebrate Halloween, OSHC still chose to include some of these cultural festivities in the program. There were two main reasons for this, one being that we follow the children’s interest, and as you are probably aware, it was very clear that they were interested in Halloween.

Secondly, Outcome 2 of the My Time Our Place curriculum is “Children are connected with and contribute to their world”. This includes learning about other cultures and communities so that they can “respond to diversity with respect”. In other words we teach the children about other cultures so that they can understand them rather than judge them.

For us this involved labelling the activity “All Hallows Eve” rather than “Halloween”, which then led to conversations about what the difference was (there isn’t, the words All Hallows Eve over time was shortened to Halloween), and why it is called that. We looked at the festival of “The Day of the Dead” which led to questions about why our “Halloween” decorations were still up and how Halloween is the start of religious festivals and cultural celebrations, not the end.

After such impressive questioning and conversations surrounding Halloween, we can’t wait to see what happens when we add Christmas and Hanukkah to the program.

December/January Vacation Care News

Can you believe it is just over 5 weeks until Vacation Care! We have been busy preparing some amazing activities for the children. One such event is our OSHC Sleepover. Yes that’s right, a sleepover, and not just any sleepover, a sleepover at Narnu Farm.

Due to the wonderful generosity and hard work of our staff and volunteers, we will be taking the children to Narnu Farm for a night. They will be able to go horse riding, go on a tractor ride, cook all their own meals, feed the animals, play and have so much fun! This incredible opportunity will be at no additional cost! Yes you read that right, not a single cent extra. Children will need to be of school age (i.e. attending primary school or their first year of high school in 2018), and booked in for both days to be eligible to attend. We have space to take up to 40 children, so make sure you book in early so you don’t miss out. Those who are not attending the sleepover don’t miss out on the fun. They will attend the Goolwa Animal Farm that day and return to the centre for normal pick up. We certainly can’t wait for the holidays, how about you?

Please note that OSHC will be closed for the Christmas/New Period from 25 December 2017 to 5 January 2018.

If you would like to keep up to date on all things OSHC, follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/HackhamEastOSHC/ and instagram https://www.instagram.com/hackhameastoshc/.

Did You Know?

That Healthy Eating is not only an important part of OSHC, but also a legal requirement?

Quality Area 2 of the National Quality Standards is all about Children’s health and safety, which includes healthy eating. We are required to promote healthy eating in the foods and drinks that we provide as well as teach it directly and indirectly.

At our service, this is something we have been focussing on recently, with the introduction of supplying morning tea (recess) during vacation care, and talking more with the children about healthy choices and serving sizes. We have also involved the children in helping design our menu for the sleepover, with the help of the Australian guide to Healthy Eating. This is as well as our current strategies of ensuring a healthy afternoon tea menu (and no more than 2 ‘sometimes’ foods a term), having water and milk as our drink options, providing 4.5 or 5 star breakfast options, cooking afternoon tea from scratch where possible, and encouraging the children to be involved in the cooking, preparing and serving of their food.

We also encourage routines that provide children with a relaxed and enjoyable mealtime. This is why our children sit down together and eat. We introduced a ‘rule’ several years ago, where children are not to leave the table until only a couple are left eating and they have asked their permission. The reason we did this was to show children how their actions sometimes speak louder than words, for example are you saying the toys are more important than the other children when you choose to play with them instead of waiting for the other children to finish eating?

The children this year have also introduced their own ‘rule’ of no ‘toilet talk’ at the table while people are eating, which has promoted a more respectful tone to each other and teaches children that some conversations have a time and a place (and the table is not the place for fart noises/jokes while people are eating).

While it may seem ‘old fashioned’ to some, it has been embraced by the OSHC children. Many have even gone home and introduced a similar system at home. It has created a very friendly atmosphere while eating, encouraging children to share their day’s experiences, talk and socialise with others and get to know children they may not have otherwise had an opportunity to know. Indeed it has been embraced so well, that sometimes afternoon tea goes for over an hour! The in depth conversations that occur during these times are wonderful.

Do you sit down for at least one meal a day with your family? If you don’t, why not give it a try, turn off the TV/phone/tablet and see what happens, you might be surprised.

Jacky Smith

OSHC Director

Parent/Caregiver Survey