Vacation Care March 2017

It seems that autumn is truly here, with a stormy start to the week.

We have finally started getting some good use from our shelter that was built last year. On Monday a group sat at tables playing card games while the rain poured down around them. This shelter was added so that when OSHC is fully booked we could allow children outside even when the weather was wet.

Tuesdays are our Wii and computer free day; this is so that students are encouraged to spend their time engaged in a variety of activities. Indoors we had a city built in the long-room, from waffle blocks and anything that could be found. In the SAC we had balls flying everywhere with children playing basketball, soccer and tennis. Outdoors a large group of girls used cones to design new games and challenges with their gymnastics. 

We have been really lucky lately with how confident our young people have been, sharing their artistic skills in singing and dancing. We had a showcase of talents on Wednesday with everyone’s favourite tunes. A group of girls even made up dance moves and routines to share.

On Wednesday we were baking in the kitchen. Three of our year ones got covered in flour while making banana choc chip cupcakes. They turned out delicious and fluffy, perfect to go with a milo at the end of the day. We love that when we bake something that it gets shared with others. When everyone is saying how yummy the food is, it is nice to see the looks of pride on the bakers’ faces.

The hair salon was back this week. Dianne supplied us with hair ties and bobby pins to make buns and up-dos. We trialled everything from Viking styled braids to sophisticated buns.

Our Vacation Care Program is below! Please be advised that families that are working have priority on fully booked days. All bookings must be handed in person to staff or dates emailed/messaged to Dianne.

Some housekeeping: There will be fee changes effective week one of term 2.

Fee type	Term 1	Term 2
Vac Care at home	$50	$51
Vac Care excursion	$60	$61
After School Care	$18	$18.50

We would also like to notify everyone of the upcoming pupil free days. They are:

May 16^th (Tuesday)

June 9^th (Friday)

August 14^th (Monday)

September 1^st (Friday)

November 17^th (Friday)

WEEK ONE

Monday 17/4/17– Friday 21/4/17

Monday 17th April PUBLIC HOLIDAY EASTER NO CARE

Tuesday 18th April HOME day – chocolate making In a salute to easter eggs we will use both white (with different colours added) and dark chocolate to make a variety of chocolates to package up and take home. Please provide snacks, lunch and a drink bottle.

Wednesday 19th April Home Day – OSHC talent and skills show The children, individually or in small groups and with the support from staff, will prepare a short performance to present to the group. The performances can involve – acting, singing, dancing, circus skills, magic tricks etc. The morning will be spent script writing, making props, choreography and rehearsing. The show will be after lunch. This is not a competition J Lunch will be provided, please provide lots of snacks.

Thursday 20th April Excursion Day – Roller skating/blading at the REC We will leave OSHC at 9am and walk to the Blackwood Recreation Centre to take part in a roller skating/blading session from 9.30am-12.30pm. Weather permitting we will have lunch and a play in the playground at Karinya Reserve. We will be back by 2pm Please wear appropriate clothes and shoes for walking, the weather and roller skating. Please bring socks J Please provide lots of snacks, lunch and a drink bottle.

Friday 21st  April Home Day – OSHC movie theatre … movies TBA Welcome to the ‘OSHC MOVIE THEATRE’ we will be having two sessions (am and pm). Tickets can be obtained at no charge from the staff at the OSHC booking office, please choose your seat from the seating plan on the theatre door, popcorn can be pre-ordered from the theatre kiosk and choc tops will be available in the pm session J Please provide lots of snacks and lunch.

wEEK TWO

Monday 24/4/17– Friday 28/4/17

Monday 24rd April Excursion Day – SA Museum We will leave oshc at 9am, catch the train to the city and walk to the Museum. The Museum is one of our favourite places. We enjoy the crystals & gems, the Egyptian room, the giant squid, the Nature Education Centre, the dinosaur bones and putting our hands on the ice wall at the Mawson exhibit. We will catch the train back and be back at oshc by 2pm. Please wear clothes and shoes appropriate for walking and the weather. Please provide lots of snacks, lunch and a drink bottle

Tuesday 25th April PUBLIC HOLIDAY ANZAC DAY NO CARE

Wednesday 26th April Excursion Day – UNI SA Planetarium We will leave OSHC at 9.45am and travel by bus to UNI SA at Mawson Lakes. We will take part in a presentation that explores our solar system, the stars and how stars were part of Indigenous stories. We will then watch ‘tilt’ a new movie … ‘Join Annie and max for a whirlwind adventure to find out how the seasons work. It’s surprising what a new angle on the world can do!!!’ We will be back by 1.30pm Please provide lots of snacks, lunch and a drink bottle.

Thursday 27th April Home Day – Nature Art We will walk around the school and railway station garden collecting natural objects. At OSHC we will turn these natural objects (gumnuts, bark, feathers, flowers, rocks, leaves) into art using glue, paint, glitter etc. Lunch will be provided. Please bring lots of snacks.

Friday 28th April Home Day – Wheels day Bring your bike, scooter, skateboard, rip-stick, rollerblades, remote control car. Please bring your helmets and wear suitable clothes and shoes for this activity. We will supervise at all times but can’t guarantee there won’t be any crashes! Please provide lots of snacks and lunch.

March 17th 2017

We’ve had lots of variety over the last couple of weeks, from hair salons to creating intricate mazes.

We have seen more children enjoying time in the playground while the weather has been fine. We are always pleased to see children swapping skills. We have seen people teaching others how to do stunts while jumping off the playground and landing in different ways to different twists and turns on the monkey bars.

Paper planes are back in vogue. We have tried out many designs and tested a lot to see which works best. We have compared these to some toy men with parachutes. It is interesting to see how the kids make guesses about why things work better than others. We have found the best place to throw from is the SAC balcony.

We have spent more time on the ripstick this week. There is lots of improvement, from just learning to balance to being able to navigate around objects and people! This has been leading up to a wheels day during vacation care.

One evening we took it easy and just had a hair salon. This was a great opportunity to take it slow and chat about everything under the sun. We are all probably familiar with how hair dressers seem to have us talking about anything and everything while they cut our hair. Here are some of the pictures.

We’ve had lots of variety over the last couple of weeks, from hair salons to creating intricate mazes.

We apologise for the lack of posts, our writer has been away doing her professional placement.
Our next post will have the vacation care program!

See you in OSHC! J

March 3rd 2017

We have had a big ‘making’ week this week. We have baked, constructed buildings from pop sticks, built waffle block houses and sewn toys.

We have set a challenge this week to build a tower that is at least 30cm tall and can hold 1kg of weight. The children can only use skewers, pop sticks, pegs and masking tape. So far every is designing slowly and trialling different techniques. This has been a great chance for everyone to develop their problem solving and teamwork skills when working in groups.

While everyone has avoided the outdoors and the heat, some have relished the air con and developed different skills indoors.  Sewing has become popular again for some people, with one student producing a felt gnome.

We have been enjoying watching some David Attenborough documentaries in the last couple of weeks. Although the picture quality is not as good as what we are used to, the sense of adventure and wonder is still engaging from Sir Attenborough. We were even lucky to find a baby blue-tongue lizard during our hot weather! Not fluffy and cuddly, but still adorable.

In our kitchen we baked banana cup-cakes and apple and cinnamon cupcakes on Wednesday. On Thursday we ditched the cooking because of the heat and made chocolate crackles instead.  The groups were challenged to do as much as they could on their own. They had to rely on their reading and comprehension skills to cook.

Our Vacation Care program is being developed as we speak. If there are dates that you know you will definitely need, you can always let us know ahead of time.

 

February 27th 2017

Blog 24/02/2017

We have had a quiet week, with lots of children going to play sports and some leaving early for Parent/Teacher interviews.

This week has been heavily focused on art and sports. Craft has also been popular, with dream homes, hotels for snails and lots of different objects being constructed out of recycled materials. Here is a water park that was designed with slides, swings and showers. 

Our young people have also been putting together some collages, displaying images that they liked or felt represented them. Some people also made mashed images with different heads on different bodies. We even had a couple of girls construct a magazine! 

We have also seen a bigger interest in painting lately, particularly abstract images and shapes. Because we have a hot week next week, we will be supplying a lot more art and craft activities to help keep everyone cool.

With the cooler weather on its way, football has started to reappear. Along with cricket being a constant, we have been playing lots of soccer, badminton and basketball. Gymnastics is being practised frequently. But not just on the blue mats, we are seeing it practised on the oval, in the play ground….inside the OSHC building. But it is great to see!

Roller skates and roller blades have been used a lot lately. It is always a source of great pride when we see our older students lending a hand to our receptions, helping them balance, strapping on the shoes and giving advice. This supportive behaviour is seen during sports, arts and helping out with afternoon tea. We are very impressed!

There seems to be many people reading at OSHC lately. Harry Potter seems to be back in vogue, along with Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events and Northwood. A bit about Northwood from Gemma:

“A girl called Cecilia, lives with her mum and dad in a six story balloon house. She finds out that a man who was once kind, turned mean owns a dog called Rocky, who he treats badly. When Cecilia steals the dog, the man takes revenge”. – Gemma C.

Board and card games seem to be rising in popularity. Uno, battleship, Super Fight and Fluxx are played the most. But we see other games being played too. These games are a great way for the adults to get involved and spend more time with the kids.

We will soon start planning the April Vacation Care program. If you have any excursions, incursions or activities that you have liked in the past, please let us know! Also if you know you will be away in the lead up to the holidays please come see us early to arrange dates.