February & March 2015

Little Pearls Educare Newsletter

Greetings & Kia Ora The end of Daylight Savings seems to have brought the cooler mornings and evenings, but it’s still good to see the sun shining during the day. Please could you ensure that your child has enough

spare clothes suitable for the current weather. It can be cooler in the morning but gets warm later on in the day so a mix of clothing would be appreciated. Thank you.

New Families We welcome all our new families and whanau into our centre. We as

your children’s educators look forward to building good relationships with both your children and you. If you have any queries, questions etc… please don’t hesitate to ask Taner (Managing Director), Nazife (Supervisor) or one of your children’s educators.

Welcome to Ali Aras, Carlo, Rayyan

Whanau Day We had our third Whanau day on Saturday the 07th March 2015 and it went brilliantly. The rain was kind enough to stay way until we had wrapped up for the day. Everyone had a fantastic day chatting with people whom they had not met before. Taner started off the speeches, thanking everyone for having come. The honourable Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga had a

few words then, thanking everyone for having come along and sympathising with the parents about how difficult parenthood is, but what rewards it can bring as well. We recently received a thank you letter from the Minister saying

that “It was encouraging to see such a good example of multiculturalism in action and meet you and the families of Little Pearls. Seeing children learning how to live in aroha (love) in a diverse multicultural society such a young age bodes well for our future”.

Next Nia (Dotty’s mum), Sinai (Pepe’s mum) and Jumana (Arwa’s mum) had a few words to say. We really appreciated their kind words and them standing up and supporting the centre. It is somewhat of a tradition now that at these family and whanau days, we all end up having kebabs that the centre provided and desserts that all of the families brought.

February & March 2015 The afternoon was a great opportunity for everyone to get to know their tamariki/children’s friends a bit more, and for the tamariki/children to show off their centre to their families/whanau who may not always have a great deal of time to stay and chat. Thank you all for coming, we look forward to seeing you all at the next one - sometime later this year.

Programme Planning Please have a look at the programme planning boards and other notice boards that are hanging up, in and outside your tamariki/children’s rooms. They are full of interesting information about our tamariki/children’s current interests for the month.

News from the Under-Two’s room

The under two’s made some great changes to their outdoor play area. We have new sun shade, art table and a variety of outdoor toys. Our babies have been on the go exploring their new environment. Therefore, our focus was on outdoor environment. Tamariki/children gained enormous benefits from learning outdoors. Being outside supports confidence and allows opportunities for big scale play,

problem-solving and creativity. The babies are enjoying the tunnel tent to play peek-a-boo. The art table is placed under the tree to encourage art activities. They also build a relationships with the nature. We have made a beautiful art pieces using the natural resources such as sand, twigs, leaves and grass. Teachers/kaiako created art books for babies to keep their precious work and you are welcome to take it home to see what they have been doing.

News from the Over-Two’s room

In February/March our tamariki/children were engaged in activities that supported their interest of homely things and a general theme of looking after ourselves and others. There has been a lot of picnics, family play and looking after of our friends going on around the centre. Have a look on the Planning Board for some pictures. Their interest have been moved on to looking closely at neighbours from the animal kingdom, in particular, worms and birds. Our first worm farm is currently under construction, and we are hoping to take a tour around the block to the local playground and observe birds in their natural habitat.

February & March 2015

Trip to MOTAT

The day dawned bright and clear. The bus arrived and we all piled on - making sure to call the roll to check that everyone was there. We then had a quick bus ride past all of the road works to MOTAT. We arrived and were greeted by our educator for the day. She escorted us to our morning tea area and gave us our timetables for the day. We split up into two groups at this point - one of the groups going off to take their tram ride - the other sitting down for morning tea before they went around with our educator for our program - called Busy Wheels.

Busy wheels took us all around - starting with a story, then leading us through to look at lots of the old cars that were mentioned in the story. We saw fire trucks, special tractors with special wheels designed for driving in the Arctic, lots of bikes - one with a big wheel and a tiny wheel, and then we all got to sit in a car from the 1930s!

We had our tram ride, then it was time to head back to re-join the others and catch our bus back. We were all very hungry by this time, so were very happy that Hatice had lunch all ready for us. A great trip. It was a great turnout of parent helpers. Thank you all very much, we could not have do it without your support. We look forward to the next one!

Dumplings from Easton’s parents We would like to say a Big Thank you to Easton’s mum Jessica and grandparents for bringing plates of vegetarian dumplings to celebrate Chinese New Year. They were yummy. Tamariki/children had them for morning tea and teachers/kaiako enjoyed eating the delicious Chinese dumplings with their lunch.

Chinese New Year Little Pearls’ Teachers/kaiako visited Maxine, Adalyn, Joshua & Lena, Easton and Christopher’s houses on this occasion. It was a great opportunity for the teachers/kaiako to be part of the celebration and gain

better understanding of the way that Chinese New Year is celebrated. Thank you to Bryan & Sharon and her mum Annabel & her Mum and Dad, Jessica & Kevin and their parents, Christine & Benny and his dad for inviting us to be part of your celebration. We also would like to say thank you for Misa and her parents/whanau for inviting us to their home for the celebration. Our aim for the future is to visit our families for their special occasions as we feel part of the family.

February & March 2015 Breakfast for Little Pearls Team Little Pearls team enjoyed having Turkish style breakfast at Panscape in Newmarket to thank them for their hard work. It was a great opportunity to for us to get together and socialise out from the centre. This kind of gathering can strengthen the bonds by building trust and improving

communication between all staff members.

Student Teachers We welcome Sinai (Pepe’s mum), Tessa (Lokkie’s aunty) & Ivy as part of our team. Sinai and Tessa recently started their first year at UNITEC and will be working two days a week here at Little Pearls to complete their work experience hours. Sinai is working on Mondays and Fridays and Tessa is on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They have a class on Wednesdays. Ivy is studying “Graduate Diploma of ECE” at New Zealand Tertiary College and will be finishing in August this year. It is good to have student teachers and we are pleased to support our whanau and parents.

Festival Watching the heavy rain while setting up the tables in the morning made us to think cancellation of the festival. Then sun started to show itself around midday and brought lots of people to festival. It was again great experience for us to talk to people about our Foundation, Turkish food and also Little Pearls. The Turkish coffee corner again attracted lots of people to drink

Turkish coffee with Turkish delight. Thank you to Begum, Musarrat and her sister Sana for the help on the day - we really needed it. We also would like to say thank you to some parents and whanau who came and supported us.

Feijoas It is a pleasure to have edible trees at the centre especially HUGE feijoa tree. The tamariki/children have been enjoyed collecting feijoas with their small baskets and it has been a mission to do it first thing in the morning. We have had thousands of feijoas to eat and share with our parents, whanau and community.

February & March 2015 Teachers/kaiako and tamariki/children also have had experience of baking feijoa cake couple of times for their afternoon and morning tea. We are now waiting our avocados (at the back garden) to get ready then we can start sharing with our parents and whanau.

Clothing Please name your tamariki/children’s

clothing, and check the lost property regularly. If any items go missing they can be difficult to track down, especially as some of them are the same size, label and colour and can therefore be worn accidently by another child. Thank you. If you are not sure where to find the lost property please check with the teachers/kaiako. All unclaimed lost property will be donated to Hospice at the end of the term.

Policies We regularly review policies and at the moment we are reviewing Positive Guidance policy. We would like to hear your comments and feedback as your contribution is very important to us. The policies are displayed on the front entrance – by the “sign in” sheets. Please feel free to read over and comment. If you are happy with the policies and do not want to comment, please sign so that we know you have read them. Thank you. Friendly Reminder Please remember to sign your tamariki/child in and out each day. IMPORTANT please let us know if you have a change of address or phone numbers. And please remember your children cannot be picked up by anyone whose name is not on the enrolment form. If at any time you want to add or take of names please Taner or Nazife.

Birthdays February - Adhamh turned two, Olivia turned one March – Yang Yang turned five, Tui and Hassan turned four, Matthew and Sophia Carlos turned three. Congratulations…

Photos on Flickr Have you seen your children’s recent photos on Flickr? If you haven’t please visit the web page https://www.flickr.com/photos/115800224%40N04/

February & March 2015

“Every child is precious like a pearl”

Address: 2a Lorraine Ave, Mt Albert, Auckland 1025 Phone: +64 9 815 2277 www.littlepearls.org.nz