May 27 2016

With winter only a few days away, the cold has truly crept in. With cold wind and persistent rain we have spent even more time indoors this week. There will be a program for the upcoming pupil-free day made available soon both as hard copy and here on the blog!

Once Upon a Time

We have a new game that has been introduced this week. Once Upon A Time is a card game where players need to use the cards in their hand to make a story. The cards are characters, events, aspects, places and interrupt cards. Interrupt cards allow other players to take hold of the story and change its direction. This game asks its players to be creative, respect the importance of story elements and collaborate with those around them.

New Pillows

A large group of children have been developing their sewing skills lately. So we took the opportunity to have them produce some pillows for the long-room to replace our old ones. Sarah brought in her sewing machine and helped attach zips. We will continue making these next week as we are sure we will be kept indoors again.

Wild Weather and Jazzy Jackets

Please remember to remind your children to bring appropriate warm jumpers and jackets while the weather is chilly. We often spend time outside in the evenings but cannot allow children to be outside in the cold in just a t-shirt. For those children that bring a change of clothing for after school, please ensure what they are packing is weather appropriate (this includes footwear).

Survey

Our latest survey has informed us that the OSHC kids are keen to be spending more time on board games and crafts such as tomboys and knitting. We are taking these ideas and incorporating them in our upcoming pupil-free day. Board games usually are not initiated by children so the OSHC educators will start introducing kids to new games and facilitating the more complex procedures.

Basketball Come N’ Try

Friday night the children were able to join others in the SAC for a come n’ try session of basketball. This was made available for the reception, year one and year two. They spent time trying out different skills during various games.

‘We had to try some skills like, shooting goals, throwing the ball and bouncing. We got to play a game in basketball.’- Lucas

With many families at sporting games and out and about please be mindful of weather warnings from Bureau of Metereology. Stay safe this weekend.

May 20th 2016

This week we have finally been given a break from the cold!!! With beautiful mild nights the majority of children have abandoned the Wii, computer and indoors and chosen instead to play outdoors.

This week the D&D players have all collaborated together and designed a map of the world that their players are adventuring through. This project asked the children to imagine different environments, collaborate and work together, they developed keys to indicate different features of the map and design cities that certain races (elves, humans, orcs, etc) live in and decide how their environment influences those races. Fabulous games have been initiated by our young people this week. Outside, forty-forty has been popular when it gets dark and the wall game (which is a soccer related game) has come around again. It seems that it gets remembered about twice a year and has been an Eden Hills game that has been going for many years.Dianne has bought some beautiful fabrics and craft gear this week to fuel more craft and art projects. The sewing has progressed from simple square pillows to more intricate shapes like moustaches, love hearts and stars. We have plans to remake some of the pillows in the Long Room with the designs of the students. We believe that the students should help us in creating and developing their own environment as this will build a stronger sense of belonging and responsibility. This is another reason that we encourage the children to join in when we make milos, plant new vegetables and herbs and display artwork around OSHC.

Sarah has spent time playing cricket and teaching some of the very young children to kick a footy. It is very pleasing to see that more and more girls are joining cricket and football games and trying it out!

 

Rayman review by B.H.S.

I like Rayman because it has lots of various levels and areas. You can choose characters and you can fight each other to test your guy. This game is for four players. It is a game that I like because it has lots of my favourite things!

The Importance of Play

Play is an important aspect of children’s time at OSHC. Play is an essential component of children’s development. It can help develop social skills as children negotiate, practise and interact with different roles. Often we observe groups of children role playing classrooms with one child being the teacher and others being well behaved or mischievous students, this can be seen as the students examining different roles and making sense of them. Play is also regularly an active process and thus allows children to develop gross and fine motor skills. For more information about the importance of play visit Scholastic.

KidsMatter

If you haven’t already heard about KidsMatter, let us introduce you to it. KidsMatter is a mental health and well-being initiative for primary schools in Australia. But it is also a wonderful resource for both educators and families alike. The website provides articles, videos, stories and links to services available in Australia to help develop and support the mental health and well-being of children. But if you are a Facebook user check out their Family Page to keep up to date with their wonderful resources. 

May 13th 2016

This week we have been blown away! With all this wild weather and dreary rain we have been indoors again. We have taken advantage of the SAC as often as can be and had quick stints outside as often as weather permitted. 

D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) has been on demand again this week! While their bodies have stayed indoors their characters have been on an epic journey. They ventured into a tower and battled a dark wizard who was controlling undead. Some characters came close to death while others remained outside with all their health intact, out of harm’s way. Brandon acts as dungeon master (DM) for these games, he facilitates the activities and acts out what the enemies or extra characters do so that the players can interact with them.

As requested from one of our surveys, a group of children have started to learn how to hand sew. Working with felt, they have learnt to thread needles, a couple of different stitches and how to finish off. Some kids have made pillows for pets, others have started making Totoro dolls and some are making replicas of the mountain sitting on Dianne’s desk named Lofty.

There is also a new addition at OSHC. You may have noticed the Red Beast has left and been replaced with the Green Machine! 

We finished our week with E.T. playing in the long-room and almost everyone ignoring it outside in the sunshine. There were cartwheels on the mini-oval, Frisbee on the tiger turf and a four-a-side basketball game in the SAC. Truly the warm and friendly weather was enjoyed by many. 

We would like to provide a link to Blackwood Recreation Centre. As some of you may know we visit them occasionally for vacation care excursions. If you ask any of the children who have been there for skating and roller blading, they will tell you what a fun and wonderful place it is to visit. We have always enjoyed the friendly staff and great atmosphere. The centre provides numerous activities such as kinder gym, gymnastics, parkour and much more.  

Horse by A.P

Geometric pattern by A.W

Tom and Sarah both attended training on the weekend with Asthma SA. This is mandatory training for the educators of OSHC to ensure that we are up to date and informed of how best to assist those with Asthma. Asthma Australia provide information on their website of how to respond in an asthma emergency, They also explain some of the symptoms of asthma, to help you identify if you or your children may be affected. For more information visit Asthma Australia. Dianne will be completing this training on a following weekend.

Can't wait to see you all next week at Eden Hills OSHC.

May 6th 2016

What a cold and wet way to start term two! With wind and rain driving us indoors the children took to entertaining themselves in ways that they wouldn’t normally choose to.

Some art was inspired by the weather, with water colours being the medium of choice. But you can see by the colours that the weather did not dampen the mood! We are carrying on experimenting with mix medium art after our art day with Helen. Some used white crayon first so that the paint did not leave a mark. Others used black pen to outline objects or to highlight strong images.

The giant chess board was our substitute for Tuesday’s no electronics night. Lots of different children had a go at learning rules while some experienced players taught strategy to younger players. There were some fantastic discussions about how different pieces move and how you can trap your opponent.

With another cool evening Wednesday many students spent their time companionably together sharing interests and even sharing silence as they escaped into their stories.

Last week’s survey is in!

We asked the kids what their least favourite afternoon meal was so that we can better cater to preferences. It seems that with 21 votes for both popcorn and salami & olive, these are the least favourites. So these foods will appear less often. We also asked for suggestions of other foods we can try. Some suggestions we are taking very seriously, such as Rubbish and Jellyfish Ice-cream.  Other suggestions such as lollies, hot donuts and chips will not be a viable option as they are high in sugars and fats and are particularly costly to feed the masses. Some suggestions have been very worthwhile and have given us some ideas though!

Next week’s survey is asking students to reflect on Vacation Care and tell us what excursion or activity they would like to repeat next time.

We are also keeping an eye on our seedlings that are starting to really take off. We will be planting them soon along with some lettuce and garlic hopefully! The students have found it interesting that different plants take longer than others to sprout. The seedlings also start looking quite different than the adult plant.

UPDATE: The seedlings were planted on Thursday afternoon. With the sun shining on us, we couldn’t help but take advantage of the kind conditions and get our hands dirty. The children had lots of conversation and questions about the plants. Such as, ‘why is the carrot a thin white root instead of orange? Why do the chives and spring onions look really similar?’ We also made comparisons between the seedlings and ourselves. Like how seeds that were planted at the same time

are all different sizes and the plants need 

soil, sun and water to grow just like we need food and drinks.

We finished our week with a relaxing night watching a Scooby Doo movie and playing dodgeball and chasey outdoors.  Hope every mum and motherly figure enjoyed their well deserved weekend!

House Keeping Reminder

All the OSHC bookings get sent away to the Family Assistance Office each Friday to be processed. When the details are returned to us we print bills on Wednesday and these are made available on the desk or by request. As OSHC is a not-for-profit service we rely on prompt payments to fund our high quality service.  Payments can be made by card via EFTPOS in house or using the Qkr App available on both apple and android systems. OSHC reserves the right to cancel care to those that hold long outstanding overdue fees.

 By A. N.