Half Price Extra Days at North Lakes 2! Have you seen our Summer Holiday Program? It’s jam-packed with fun activities that will keep our Happy Healthy Learners busy while experiencing a true Aussie summer! We don’t want anyone to miss out on the fun activities so we are offering our families half price extra days during our Summer Holiday Program. Book any extra casual days between Monday 12th December 2016 to Friday 20th January 2017 and pay half price! Spaces are limited so please see your Service Manager for availability, and visit www.sesamelane.com.au for full terms and conditions

December 2016 Newsletter Well, here we are again, at the end of another year. I cannot believe how fast 2016 has gone. We have had such a fantastic year and I’m really happy that we got to share it together. One of the most exciting things about a new year is moving up to a new room. Every child that will transition up to the next room will do so straight after they come back from holidays. Those not taking any holidays will move in the when school goes back in January. Some more exciting News we will be having a few room changes in our Service. We are splitting Nursery and Toddlers with Nursery 1 and Toddlers 1 again on the right hand side of the Service and Nursery 2 and Toddlers 2 on the left hand side of the Service. Foundation will also be moving back to the right hand side of the Service at the end of the hallway. Kindergarten will move back to the café and to the old Foundation Room. Please see me if you have any questions. Please look out for our special Santa letter writing station coming soon for your children to write letters and drawings for Santa. There’s also a special letterbox to post your letters and drawings in the foyer. Also in our foyer we have a basket to support the Dakabin RSPCA with donations of pet food and items. If you can help please place items in the box located at the entrance of our Service. Any donations would be greatly appreciated. Let’s help make their Christmas a joy. All of us at North Lakes 2 wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Please stay safe over the holiday period. We cannot wait to hear about what you got up to. We will see you all in 2017! We are closed on the 26th and 27th December and on the 2nd of January due to public holidays.

Lisa Hill, Service Manager.

Public Holidays

Our Service will be closed on the following days: Monday 26th December 2016 Tuesday 27th December 2016 Monday 2nd January 2017 We will be open as usual from 6.30 am to 6.30 pm Monday to Friday throughout the Christmas and New Year Period.

DecemBeard--------------------------------29th Int. Day of People with Disabilities----3rd International Mountain Day ----------11th International Migrants Day-------------18th Christmas Day -----------------------------25th Boxing Day -------------------------------- 26th New Years Eve-----------------------------31st

App Reviews Summer holidays often means travel. We have found some great Apps to keep your little ones entertained and limit the “are we there yet?”

LumiKids Park FREE | Lumosity

Rudolph shortbread

PREP 35 min | COOK 25 min | SERVE 8

Ingredients

200g salted butter, softened, 2 tsp. vanilla extract, 85g golden Caster sugar, 85g ground rice, 225g plain flour plus extra for dusting, 3 tbsp. icing sugar, 8 red Smarties, 16 white sweets or white chocolate buttons, Black writing icing tube You will also need 8 cellophane bags (15 x 25cm), 8 brown pipe cleaners, labels and string or ribbon, 22-23cm round plate, cake tin or cardboard template use as guide.

Method

1. Put the butter, vanilla and sugar in a big mixing bowl and stir together until really smooth. Stir in the ground rice first, then the flour. Use hands to make a smooth dough. 2. Line a baking sheet. Flatten dough into a disk in the middle of the parchment. Roll dough out to a big circle. 3. Get your 22-23cm guides and place on top of the dough when you’ve rolled it big enough trim the edges to make a neat circle. 4. Use a knife to mark the giant biscuit into 8 smaller wedge-shaped biscuits. Prick lines from the edge to the centre of the dough. Use the back of a fork to press all around the top of the circle along the edge to make a line pattern (Reindeer hair!) 5. Cover with cling film and put tray in the fridge for 30 min. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas. Cook the chilled shortbread for 25 min until golden. Cool completely on the tray, then use a sharp knife to follow your marks and cut into 8 wedges. 6. Mix the icing sugar with 1-2 tsp of water to make a thick icing. Use like glue and stick a Smarty on the pointy end of each biscuit to make red noses. Stick your white sweets 2cm in from the edge at the other end to be eyes. Use the black icing to add dots to the white eyes - let all the icing dry and go hard. 7. Carefully put each biscuit in a cellophane bag. Twist the middle of a pipe cleaner in a loop around the top of the bag to enclose the biscuit. Now twist each end of the pipe cleaner so it looks like the reindeer’s antlers. Add labels and they are ready to give and eat.

LumiKids Park by Lumosity, Early Learning Play for Kids is the first venture into kids' territory from a lab that specializes in creating cognitive workouts for grown-ups. Each game focuses on a different basic cognitive skill such as attention and memory, sorting, and visual motor coordination, and the game adapts to your child's progress. With lots of interactive elements on the home screen and audio with kid appeal children will be able to play and navigate independently.

Tales Untold

FREE | Tales Untold Media, LLC

Tales Untold is a collection of original, episodic children's audio stories. Think podcasts for kids. Tales Untold comes loaded with the first episode of each of their original tales. The best thing about this app might be its developers' focus on the stories, not the technology, since they're most interested in using mobile devices to help parents and kids listen to a story together. Each story feels like an excellent audiobook because there's an easy-to-sing theme song for each series, and an excellent narrator reads each story slowly and imaginatively.

Lazoo Art Box $2.99 | PBS Kids

Let’s Squiggle! Let’s Color! Let’s Draw! Simply color a page, press the play button, and watch your drawings come to life. A few dots transform into falling snow. Scribbles become giant ocean waves. Squiggly line turns into water (or whatever a child imagines) trumpeting from an elephant’s trunk.

Focus Article: Parents of Young Children: Put Down Your Smartphones Too much tech and too little talk could delay communication development. Parents today are more pressed for time than any other generation of parents—and constantly connected. Largely thanks to the smartphone, parents often find it difficult to separate from their hand-held devices. Checking your phone has become both habit and necessity to manage work and family life. But, all this multitasking could also hurt your young child's ability to learn. Ways to Enhance Your Child's Communication Skills You spend so much time making sure your child eats right, has all of their recommended vaccines, and gets enough rest. Yet, his or her communication and social development is just as important. Children gain communication and social skills through listening, talking, reading, singing, and playing with their parents—interactions lost while you are on a smartphone. Here are three ways parents can enhance their child's communication skills.

Tips for Parents Who Feel Tech-Overloaded Smartphones can be a way to connect with others and make our lives easier, but their overuse can interfere with parent-child interactions. While it may be difficult to keep your phone out of sight completely (especially since most parents also use their phones to take photos and videos of their kids), carving out some boundaries to promote technology use in a healthy way can help.

1. Play Non-Electronic Games: Nursery rhymes such as peekaboo, pat a cake, and Itsy Bitsy Spider actually serve an important purpose: they promote face-to-face interaction, teach turn-taking, and reinforce essential parts of bonding and conversation. Activities like blowing kisses, waving byebye, and clapping all help a child build social interaction and conversation skills. These games all require free hands—for both children and parents!

Here are some suggestions:

2. Share a Common Focus: Read a book together, share a toy, or look at the same dog in a park. When two people focus on the same thing at the same time, they are engaging in what is called "joint attention." Joint attention is a vital part of communication and language development. It is also an important social skill, allowing a child to share an experience with another person and see someone else's point of view. Sharing focus lets a child know you are interested in what they say or do. When parents are on their cell phones, they are not fully focused on the same points of attention as their child and miss key opportunities to build this skill.

Designate tech-free outings: A trip to the farm or the zoo, a play date in the park, a day at the pool. Most parents love taking pictures of their kids and sharing moments on Facebook, but an activity can go undocumented every once in a while. Putting the phone away allows everyone to enjoy a fun, uninterrupted moments to focus on talking and communicating with each other.

3. Send and Receive Nonverbal Messages: Speaking and understanding words are just part of the communication puzzle. Non-verbal signals such as eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, and body language provide additional information. A child is able to recognize emotions and understand the intent of a message. When a parent is using a smartphone, these nonverbal cues are often reduced or eliminated completely. As a result, children miss out on receiving important nonverbal signals from their parents (part of learning to communicate). Parents may also miss information their kids are trying to send them through pointing, gesturing, staring, etc. These are subtle, but vital signals young children send—especially when they don't speak many words yet.

Create regular tech-free times: As part of the daily routine make devices (e.g., televisions, phones, computers, games or other electronics) off limits at specific times. Dinnertime and before bedtime are important ones, but more extended breaks from technology each day are desirable, especially for families with very young children.

Use technology in an interactive way: If you are using a phone or other device, use it with your kids—together. Talk about what you see, ask them questions, and otherwise engage them face-to-face. Why YOU Can't Be Replaced by Technology The development of speech and language skills is strongly linked to thinking ability, social relationships, reading and writing, and school success. In the first three years of life, 80% of a child's brain development occurs. This development is fed through consistent verbal and nonverbal interactions between parents and children, so it is important to keep the focus on quality time and not on technology whenever you can. Does this mean that we need to put down our smartphones completely? Of course not; but nothing takes the place of face-toface interaction when it comes to our children's learning and speech and language development—not even technology. Source: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/familylife/Media/Pages/Parents-of-Young-Children-Put-Down-YourSmartphones.aspx

Health and Safety: Water Safety Young children love water. Swimming or playing in water can be fun for everybody, as well as great exercise. But water safety for kids depends on you or another grown-up always watching your child when he’s in, on or around any water. Drowning can happen quickly and quietly. Drowning and drowning prevention: what you need to know Drowning is the number one cause of death for children under five. Babies and toddlers are top-heavy, which makes them susceptible to drowning. If a baby falls into even shallow water, she can’t always lift herself out. Drowning can occur quickly and quietly, without any warning noises. In Australia, children under five drown in: • Swimming pools (14 children drowned in pools in 2014-15) • Baths (three children drowned in the bath in 2014-15) • Rivers, creeks and oceans (four children drowned in a river or the ocean in 2014-15) • Dams and lakes (five children drowned in dams in 2014-15). Children also drown in less obvious locations, like nappy buckets, water tanks, water features and fishponds – even pets’ water bowls. For every drowning, approximately three other children are hospitalised from non-fatal drowning incidents. Some of these result in severe brain damage. Water safety for kids: the basics It’s important to always stay with your child and watch him whenever he’s near water – even when he can swim.

Supervision means constant visual contact with your child and keeping her within arm’s reach at all times. You should be in a position to respond quickly, whether you’re at the beach or the swimming pool, near dams, rivers and lakes, or at home when the bath or spa is full. Hold your child’s hand when you’re near waves or paddling in rivers. Supervision is not an occasional glance while you nap, read or do household chores. It is not watching your kids playing outside while you’re inside. It is always best for an adult, not an older child, to supervise. You can also teach your child about water safety and how to swim. Many children can learn to swim by the time they’re four or five. First aid is an essential skill for the entire family to learn. Learning CPR and what to do in an emergency could save your child’s life. Please take time to read more on water safety around the house. During summer we spend an increased amount of time around water, we allow our children to play in water to cool off. Be aware and be vigilant and enjoy your summer! Go to http://raisingchildren.net.au /articles/safe_fun_with_water.html to read the rest of this article.

Dreaming of a Sustainable Christmas? The holiday season is upon us and it is time to celebrate with family and friends. Whether you are planning a holiday, hosting a dinner party or buying gifts, there are many things you can do to ensure that you enjoy the festivities in a sustainable way. Here are some ideas to help celebrate the season while caring for the environment.

Gifts · Look out for locally made gifts or items made from recycled materials · Give battery-free gifts · Consider making homemade cards · Use environmentally friendly wrapping paper or reuse gift-wrap · As an alternative to wrapping paper use the comic section of the newspaper, old calendars or wallpaper. · Consider a gift certificate for a spa or restaurant or a ticket to a concert or sporting event. Most services use up fewer resources than manufactured goods and still contribute to the economy.

Meals · Source food from local farmers’ · Use produce that is in season · Limited amounts of packing · Avoid using disposable plates, cups and cutlery, but if it cannot be avoided use recyclable or biodegradable products Travelling/Holiday Activities · Instead of renting a car, try walking or renting a bicycle · If flying opt to pay a little extra to offset your travel emissions · Consider choosing a holiday closer to home · If you are going away, before you leave turn off appliances at the wall, turn down the fridge a little and make sure your air conditioner is turned off.

Lets measure - Materials: Socks, pencils, pillows (multiples of the same object for measuring) Activity: Before learning to measure objects using millimeters, centimeters and metres we use informal objects to develop these skills. Choose your informal measurement objects like socks and get measuring. You can measure anything; yourselves, the lounge, a toy, the dog (if they will sit long enough). Demonstrate how to measure using the same items (Dads socks) ensuring there is no gap between each item. Ask your child “how many socks is the dog?” Answer: 5 socks (Saying the tool of measurement is an important skill.)

CHRISTMAS AROUND THE WORLD: Festive traditions in other countries

North Lakes 2 News Christmas Parties This year we’re asking everyone to please bring a wrapped book for Santa to give out at the party to the value of $5.00 as well as a plate to share (remembering we are nut and egg free) Nursery, Toddlers and Junior Kindy rooms: Saturday December 17th 10am to 12pm Senior Kindy and Kindergarten: Saturday December 17th 1pm to 3pm

FRANCE: In many regions in France, Christmas celebrations start with St Nicholas day on the 6th of December. Then children get sweets and little gifts. Cities are decorated in France, especially in the Alsace region, where they say the first decorated Christmas trees appeared as far back as the 14th century. ITALY: In Italy, a nativity scene, a ‘presepe’, is usually put up in churches, town squares and often in houses and is for many the most important parts of Christmas decorations. GERMANY: In the weeks leading up to Christmas, Christmas markets are set up on main squares in many cities. Houses are often decorated with lights and ornaments in December, however the Christmas tree is usually only put up in the homes only in the morning of the 24th of December. NORWAY: In Norway, children wait for ‘Julenisse’, the Norwegian Santa Claus. On Christmas Eve, the ‘Julenisse’, brings presents to the children. During the month of December, children wait eagerly for ‘Jul’, that is how they call Christmas. ICELAND: In Iceland, children put their shoes on the windowsill so the ‘Juletide Lads’, the Santa Claus, fills the shoes with little goodies. SINGAPORE: In Singapore, about two in ten people are Christians. Christmas however is very commercialised in Singapore and Christmas decorations with masses of tiny fairy lights. Source: http://www.kids-world-travel-guide.com/christmas-around-theworld.html

Welcome Miss Jacelynn! Jacelynn has joined us here at Sesame Lane and we send out a big welcome. She is studying her Certificate III in Children’s Services. Jacelynn is looking forward to her exciting new challenge and will be floating in all rooms. Congratulation to Nicole N on her baby news! Fees I cannot stress the importance that your account is kept up to date, at all times. Bookings can be cancelled if accounts are not paid up to date. Seatbelts We would like to remind everyone about seatbelts. And all children must be safely fastened in the correct child car seat for their age and size. Even when in the Service carpark. A child who is properly secured in an approved child car seat is less likely to be injured or killed in a car crash than one who is not.

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