Banyan Park News - August 2017

Welcome to the August edition of Banyan Park News. With the lovely winter weather we’re having at the moment, we are enjoying some glorious days outside. The children are enjoying the two new rafts and rediscovering construction equipment we hadn’t used for a while. Our revamped home corner continues to be a hit and our newly acquired action man toys are a favourite too.

A huge thanks to the fundraising committee for their recent efforts with the cake stall and barbeque fundraiser at Rugby on the Rock. Thank you to all parents and members of the community who contributed too. More than $3000 was raised across the two events – such a massive effort, so thank you!! The money raised will be used to purchase new equipment for the children, including a new swing for the outdoor play area. The children love the swing so this will be very exciting for them.

You may have noticed a few recent improvements around Banyan Park. We have ensured inquisitive children can’t access underneath the building, by installing a barrier between the bottom of the building and the ground. The fort roof has been removed and will be replaced in the next few months, and the front gate has also been fitted with spring-loaded latch to keep the gate securely closed.  We will continue to make ongoing improvements to the centre, however if there are particular areas you would like us to review,  please don’t hesitate to let me or one of the staff know.

Vacation Care 
We will be offering vacation care in the September/October school holidays at Banyan Park! This will be offered for 3-8 year-olds from 8.30am to 3pm every week day. Fees will be set at our standard daily rate of $42/day. A vacation care program will be available soon however if you are interested in securing a place for your child/ren please contact Katherine on 22415 or via email.

Committee News
The Committee for 2017-18 is: 
President:                            Heather Bruce
Vice-President:                  Angie Andresen
Treasurer:                           Carrie Mietzel
Secretary:                           Victoria O'Reilly
Committee:                        Crystal Fell
Committee:                        Sarah Robinson
Committee:                        Sarah Quintal
Committee:                        Leanne Webb

Our next Committee meeting 
The Committee will be meeting Thursday 17 August. If you have an agenda item, please email committee@banyanparkni.com or alternatively, you can pop ideas into the Suggestion Box at Banyan Park.  

Family Photos
We are going to create a Family display at Banyan and would love you to bring in a photo of your child with the people they call family. If you could hand it to one of the staff that would be great! 
Speaking of photos, we will be organising preschool photos for early term 4. There has been interest in having an individual one of each child as well as a group photo. Watch this space!  

What Are We Doing This Week?
As of this week the children who have mastered writing their first name will be encouraged to write their full names on any work they do. I have made name cards with their first and last names on them to help with learning. We will also move onto providing cards with key familiar words on them for those children who are keen to write letters/cards/pictures for family. Words such as mum, dad, pop, nanny, Norfolk Island etc will be available on our “word wall” for children to access whenever they need to. 
We have been working on number and shape recognition with the children. We have been playing games with squares, triangles, circles, diamonds (rhombus) and have introduced hexagons and trapezoids. We are working on numeral recognition 1 to 10 as well as counting with 1:1 correspondence. 
We’d love your cardboard boxes when you’re finished with them – cereal boxes, toothbrush boxes etc are all great for our box collage.