November, December 2014 & January 2015

1

Little Pearls Educare Newsletter

Greetings & Kia Ora

A warm welcome back to those of you who have been away. We hope you all enjoyed a safe and happy holiday season and are now feeling all refreshed. We wish you and your loved ones a new year filled with peace and happiness.

Welcome New Families and Whanau

We welcome all our new families/whanau to Little Pearls. We as your children’s educators look forward to building good relationships with both your children and you. If you have any queries or questions, please don’t hesitate to ask Taner (Managing Director), Nazife (Supervisor), or one of our staff at Little Pearls.

Welcome to Olivia, Shannon, Aarush, Elly, Georgia, Mackenzie,

Adhamh, Najiha, Deepika, and Nasteho.

Little Pearls has a Full Licence now!

In December the Ministry of Education visited us for full licence assessment. We had been on a one

year probationary licence before this. We were given very positive feedback overall and the ministry

representative was very impressed with the work that everyone is doing at the centre. The MOE

granted us our Full Licence after the assessor visited us. A big thank you to everyone at Little Pearls.

Water Play

Splosh, splash, bubble, bubble, pop! Young children can spend countless

hours playing with water: pouring it back and forth, watching it spill over

the edge of a container, splashing gently, making waves, and pouring

some more.

The children love pouring, stirring, scrubbing, splashing and squirting

using different sizes of buckets, containers and materials. These kinds of

activities strengthen their gross motor skills and provide opportunities to

gain knowledge about different curriculum areas such as maths, science

and literacy.

November, December 2014 & January 2015

2

The weather has been beautifully sunny

so the teachers have been introducing

different ways of doing water play. The

children love exploring and learning about all the

different ways they can discover the water and cool

off! So, this is a friendly reminder to put at least two

changes of clothes in your child’s bag - we really

need them. Thank you.

Sun Protection Policy

It is Little Pearls’ policy that all children and staff are required to wear a sunhat, sun block and suitable

clothing at all times while outside during the summer months between October and February and

at other appropriate times. We have a strong “NO HATS, NO PLAY” policy.

We ask all parents to please provide a named sun hat for your child that will stay at the centre, as the winter ones are now too warm for them. Thank you for your cooperation.

No Toys from Home

Just a reminder; please do not let your children bring toys to the centre from home. This can cause a

lot of stress to your child for example if the toys got; lost, broken, mixed up with centre toys, caused

friction if other children want to play with them..... Can you also please check your children’s pockets

and bags for any centre toys that might accidently go home with them. Thank you.

Survey Result

Thanks to all parents and whanau who filled the survey. It is great to see how much you all value and

enjoy our centre as well introduce Little Pearls to the new families. Thank you for your great support.

The survey gave us an opportunity to assess what we are doing well, as well as ideas on what we can

improve on. We really appreciated your feedback.

Staffing News

Emily joined to our over-two’s team in December. Emily graduated

in 2012 and has taught at other centres since. Emily can play six

different instruments and children love to listen when she plays. She

has so far brought in her ukulele and flute and introduced them to

children at mat times.

Holly was a reliever in the babies’ room for a short period of time.

Her contract finished at the end of January. We

wish well her in the future.

Begum has been working as a permanent

reliever since last year and she recently

finished her Postgraduate in Education (ECE) at UNITEC and is waiting for her

graduation ceremony which will be held in April. She is now working with the

babies.

November, December 2014 & January 2015

3

Taner and Nazife As you are aware of, we have been to Turkey recently to see our

parents and extended families. It was winter there and very cold with lots of snow. Our

children experienced snow for the first time and enjoyed making a snowman. Time went

so fast and it felt like we were away for a blink of an eye. Thank you to Mr Yalcin and

Little Pearls team for looking after the centre when we were away.

Musarrat was away with her family to Fiji for 10 days from end of January. She said that it was so hot

but nice to see her extended family.

Katerina is away at the moment for her annual leave. She will be back to work on Monday the 23rd

February. Her Dad has come over from Russia to spend some time here in New Zealand.

Misa will be away for holiday between 9th to 18th March.

Family/Whanau Day

How exciting! What a FANTASTIC day we had on Saturday the 8th

November 2014. That’s right, it was our Family/Whanau Day. It

was well supported and lots of fun. We were very excited to meet

the parents and whanau and talk about their children’s learning

experiences. The food was delicious and everyone had a great

time.

To continue our gathering event, we would like to invite you on

Saturday 7th March between 2:00pm to 5:00pm here at Little

Pearls. All you’ll need to bring is your family and a delicious

dessert to share – (please make sure your dessert is suitable for

vegetarians). We are going to provide doner kebabs, rice and dips.

This event will give you the opportunity to meet your children’s

friends and their families which can often lead to life-long

friendships. Little Pearls Team would be happy to see you all there.

Please let us know whether you will be attending by Thursday the

5th March for catering purposes. Thank you.

Congratulations for the newborns

Congratulations to Ryan and Sharon on the arrival of baby son and Adalyn’s brother Daniel. Congratulations to Kevin and Jessica and Easton on the arrival of the new family member Max. Congratulation to Emine and Cuma Ali and Mirac also has a new baby sister Berre to welcome into the family. Congratulations to Christine and Benny on the arrival of your son and Christopher’s brother Richard. Congratulations to Jing and Kevin on the arrival of your daughter and Elly her baby sister. We have already visited Easton and Adalyn’s brothers and Mirac’s sister and Christopher’s brother and looking forward to visit Elly’s sister soon too.

Clothing

Please remember to name all your children’s clothing with a permanent marker. If your child’s clothes go missing and the items are not named they are very hard to track down especially some of the clothes look the same and are the same size and can be taken home accidently by another child.

November, December 2014 & January 2015

4

Chinese New Year

February brings with the Chinese New Year – the year of the

sheep. The children have been busy creating art activities to

recognise this important occasion in both under and over

two’s areas. Thank you to Nina (Ben’s Mum) for sharing her

eldest son’s clothes and some other material for us to display.

If you are able to share with us anything to help celebrate the

Chinese New Year please talk to the teachers. We would love

for our families to share this time with us.

We are going to visit some of our Chinese parents/whanau to be

part of their celebration. We already talked to couple of parents

and whanau about the visit and they are very happy to host us at

their homes.

Photos on Flickr Have you seen your children’s recent photos on Flickr? If you haven’t please Little Pearls web page

then go to Newsletter/Parent Info section and click the Gallery Page to see updated photos of

children in action.

News from the Under-Two’s room

The babies have so far spent most of their

summer time having wet and wonderful

water play. It is a unique activity for them as

it is open-ended, and provides opportunities

for extended learning. We had a variety of

water play which included scented bubble

fun, sea creatures, kitchen ware and many

more. The babies made the most of the

shining summer filled with loads of fun.

News from the Over-Two’s room

Over two’s have been very busy over the past couple of months.

December saw us finishing up our focus on our trip around the world. We visited many places and got to try snippets of lots of countries' cultures. As we moved through the New Year, we explored navigation a little; organising maps, telescopes and binoculars around the centre.

January sparked the topic of "Off We Go". It encompasses all forms of travel, transport and how things move from one place to another. This has so far included the new trollies outside; they have been role played getting fixed up at the mechanic's and taken to the petrol station to fill up to keep moving. Road markings and our understanding of them has also been a feature of outside, with traffic lights and a pedestrian crossing being important features of the trollies driving. Inside, we have been exploring tyre tracks through paint, and using clay to make physical our ideas.

To continue with this interest, we are organising a trip to MOTAT for Friday the 20th of March. We will be needing adult helpers as we need a ratio of one adult per three children on the trip. A list will be being put out soon, so if you can help, we would greatly appreciate it.

November, December 2014 & January 2015

5

Auckland International Festival

Auckland City Council is organising its 16th year International Cultural Festival on Sunday the 29th March 2015 at War Memorial Park – Mt Roskill between 10:00am to 5:00pm. Well-known for the wide range of food from around the world, this event has something for all the family to enjoy. You will enjoy the numerous stages featuring international music and dance performances, taste exotic food from the food stalls or find something special at the craft stalls. As well as entertainment and stalls, there will also be interactive kids and sports zones with plenty of have-a-go activities.

The Pearl of the Island Foundation (our mother organisation) has been participating this special

event since 2011 and some of the parents and whanau came to see us last year. The members of the

Foundation will display their presence with five magnificent stalls symbolizing the Turkish Cuisine,

culture and tradition to add vitality to the festival with some wonderful demonstrations from the

Women’s Platform. The ladies will be preparing special Turkish pastry on the premises and they will

also prepare Turkey’s well-known foods and sweets (Baklava) in their homes for offering to the

general public. There will be a coffee corner so that visitors will be able to experience the true Turkish

coffee taste and hospitality on offer within Turkey in our little place of heaven. We would like to invite

you to this special event to taste our delicious food and experience Turkish culture.

Birthdays

Aadhya, Miessha and Olivia turned 1

Alysha, Dotty, Kingi, Lilly, Lokkie, Safiyye and

Adhamh turned 2

Panash, Arwa, and Hassan turned 3

Amber, Carlos, Adalyn, Abdurrahman and

Tui turned 4

Happy Birth Day to You All..!

Thank You

www.littlepearls.org.nz