Did you get your free copy of the schools and Education magazine in the Sunshine Coast Daily, Brookes Street Kindergartens upcoming 50th Anniversary was featured alongside the Naming of the sunshine coast.

This Week Brookes Street Kindergarten featured in the nambour weekly, if you missed the article you can read below what Jorgia White wrote.

Is My child ready for Prep?
This is a question many Parent/Caregivers ask themselves as we near the end of Kindy and the Beginning of Prep. There are many great resources at your fingertips to help you decided the best decision for your child.

In 2015 the decision to send my son to prep or give him a 2nd year in Kindy was a decision that plagued me for sometime. Many Discussions were had between my self and Sandy, then i turned to the internet and found a GREAT resource a book called Ready, Set, Go? by Kathy Walker.
Ready,Set, Go? was a very easy read it was hard to get a hold of in book stores, it can be ordered in by all major bookstores, however i turned to Ibooks to purchase and downloaded a copy to my ipad.

When i reached the chapter on school readiness it was very plain and simple my son was staying at Kindy, Without saying anything i shared the checklist with My Mum and with Sandy at Kindy who both came back to me and said another year at kindy that was it decision made, and now 10 months on i can confirm it still is the best decision, although sending my son off to school still seems daunting i know next year he is going to be able to manage it 10 times better than if he had attended this year. It wasn't that my child wasn't academically or intellectually ready for school it was looking if he was ready Emotionally and Maturity wise.


Here are some keypoints from Ready, Set, Go?
"An easy way to help understand the concept of readiness is to define what it is not. Readiness is NOT:"

• "being able to write your name or count to 100"
• "being able to recite the alphabet"
• "being gifted or academically bright"
• "saying you want to go to school."
• "showing interest in reading"

Ready, Set, Go? Talks about how we really need to be looking at our child's Maturity, being able to control their emotions, actions and behaviors.

"A Brief Checklist from Ready, Set, Go? The following are factors to consider and the skills to look out for when assessing your child's readiness for school:"

• "Self regulation of emotions, actions and behaviors."
• "Self-initiation and confidence"
• "Independence and self-help skills"
• "Effective communication: speaking, listening and responding.
• "Awareness of and interest in others and ability to interact with a variety of people."
• "Ability to concentrate and attend, follow through and persist."
• "Adaptability, flexibility and responsiveness to change."
• "General awareness of and interest in their environment, peers, adults and experiences."
• "Age and Gender"

"Signs that your child is not ready"

• "They just seem to be like lost little children."
• "They need me to direct them and remind them constantly of what to do next or where to go next."
• "They seem as if they are in a world of their own, not really aware of everything else going on around them"
• They seem to just follow the lead of others. They don't seem to initiate anything themselves."
• "They seem smart enough but they just can't concentrate or follow through with their workand tasks. They often lag behind the rest of the class, not because they can't do it, just because they can't concentrate long enough."
• "They just don't seem able to work at the level I think they are at. They are to easily distracted by others and can't stay on task."
• "They have difficulty making friends. They follow some children around but other children just don't seem to notice them."
• "They act like they just needed another year of play in a preschool rather than being sent to school."
• "They seem to find things overwhelming."
• " They get so very tired and find it hard to even stay awake, let alone concentrate."

Looking back through this checklist it would be suggested if you have said YES to several of the points that your child would benefit from a delayed exit from Kindergarten.

Reading Ready, Set, Go? explains all these key points much more in depth than what i can share with you here. Ready, Set, Go? will take you into some case studies of children who went straight onto prep and children who stayed in Kindergarten for that second year. Children who did attend prep before they are ready Maturity wise may find they are repeating a year further down the track in the school system. This is where I asked myself is it better my child stays in Kindy or Repeats Prep/Year One or Even Year 7, What may affect Him more Socially/Emotionally, in the future?

The checklists above help parents in two ways, confirming their child is well and truly ready or confirming that a second year at Kindergarten is what their child needs. Last year i shared this checklist with friends who were asking themselves the same question, they were very nearly leaning towards a Delayed exit from Kindy. After reading through the key points above it made their decision much easier that their child was well and truly school ready ( It was mum and dad who weren't ;) ).

We hope reading this has helped settle any butterfly's you may be having when making the best decision for your child, grab yourself a copy of Ready Set, Go? if you are still unsure and remember your always welcome to talk to your child's kindy teacher about these Key aspects.

Please feel free to share this post & I hope you have found the Key points above helpful.

Kim :) 

We will be hosting an open morning on Saturday the 29th of October from 10am to 11am for all families looking to enrol for the 2017 Kindy program. We currently have vacancies in both our Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday groups. 

Please Email brookesstkindy@optusnet.com.au to register your interest for the day. 

We look forward to meeting with you all. 

We would like to Thank Johanne Rose for a wonderful job she done capturing the children at Brookes Street Kindergarten for our advertising in the Nambour Weekly.  Jo jumped in and helped us very last minute and took many beautiful photos showing the Beauty of Brookes Street Kindergarten through its outdoor area. 

If you are looking to have some precious family moments captured be sure to give Jo a call, You can see more of Jo's work by visiting her links below. 

Website 
http://thephototin.com/

Facebook: 
https://www.facebook.com/thephototin/

Thank you Jo, your work is truly fantastic!! 

​

This year we had the great help from two of our wonderful mums to put together our Fathers day presents.

The children all decorated a Picture Frame and had a gorgeous photo of themselves to place inside the frame, accompanied by a lovely poem to let their dad's know how special they are. 

Walk with me Daddy. 

Walk alongside me daddy
And hold my little hand.
I have so many things to learn
That i don't understand.

Teach me things to keep me safe
From Dangers every day
Show me how to do my best
At home, at school, at play. 

Every child needs a gentle hand
To guide them as they grow,
So walk alongside me Daddy
We have a long way to go. 
By Helen Bush 

Many thanks to Johanne & Talia for capturing such Beautiful photos of all the children. 

​

​On Monday 8th August Peter Wellington MP  stopped by to thank Brookes Street Kindy for the Mandarins that Sandy had delivered to him.  The Mandarin tree was donated to the Kindy by Peter in 2012 and every year Sandy takes some of the Mandarins to him to enjoy.

Today we listened to four stories from the Nambour Library. Julie and Suzie talked about the services offered at the library, and some children received their own library card mail. They can use this to take out up to 30 items, including stories, CD's, toys and movies.

We then sang our Brown Bear song to them, using our signing, after singing Heads, Shoulders, Knee's and Toes together.

Term 3 began with Henny Penny hatchlings visiting our kindy for two weeks. 12 Chicks hatched in the incubator in the first week, and we ended up with 6 Black and 9 Yellow chickens. 

At the end of the chickens two weeks stay at Kindy, Our Kindy families were welcome to pick a minimum of 3 chickens to re-home with their family.

All the children enjoyed the experience of watching the chickens hatch and caring for them over the 2 week period.  Lot's of cuddles were shared.  

Today we met Michelle who came to talk to us about staying safe at the beach. Michelle is a member of Surf Lifesaving Qld, and she spoke about the Flags and what they mean, and we all played a game to reinforce this information called "Sandy Says". 

Kye was asked to dress up in the red and yellow outfit that lifesavers wear, with long sleeves and a collar, a shady hat and sunglasses, to be sun-safe. We also need to apply sunscreen. 
We tried to guess what the warning signs were telling us, and we looked at pictures of different vehicles used to keep our beaches safe.
Thank you Michelle for giving us a book to remind us about the information, which we can share with our families. If we need help in the water, we raise one hand, make a fist and wave like a rainbow above our head. 

​

Today we had Linley come, and together we enjoyed some creative dance and movement in two small groups. She followed a sea theme, which is an extension of our current areas of interest. We started with making different shapes; wide, tall, curvy and flat.
Linley then created a beach using wide yellow ribbon and blue shimmering scarves.
We collected shells to place carefully on the "sand" with little baskets.
Next Linley asked the children to think of different ocean animals and we moved and danced around the room being the various creatures. 
The children then created the flat shape of sea stars on the carpet while Linley and Alethea/Sandy slowly moved a long blue shimmering sari over the "Sea Stars". Linley used the ocean drum to create the sound of the waves.
We then went snorkelling, using masks Linley had made herself. We held our breath and swam in slow motion looking at everything under the water. We swam up to the surface to take in a big breath of air. 
In small groups we created rock pools with big rocks and small pebbles, shells and glass bead treasures all on a "pool" of silky scarves.
We pushed seed pod boats with bamboo sticks around the rock pools the children had created loading and unloading treasures as we went.
All the children were very engaged and enthusiastic. They were patient, expressive, listened well, working together sharing ideas and props and thoroughly enjoyed the creatie movement eperience. Linley is in the process of culminating all her imaginative, innovative, creative moment ideas into a book called:
"Bodysong: Exploring the natural world through creative dance"

Katie from ocean life came to visit Kindy. There were some very interesting sea creatures, sea cucumbers, sea stars, sea urchins, a freshwater turtle, and even a baby bamboo shark! We were taught all about why the sea creatures look and feel the way they do and why conservation is so important. We have to take care of our sea creatures by keeping the ocean and waterways clean by throwing rubbish in the bin and not on the ground. We got to touch all of the sea creatures except for the shark, and play with some puzzles and books about sea creatures.

On monday 7th March, Jason came to talk to us about how he lost his hand in an accident at work. He told us it is possible to do lot's of things if you keep trying and don't give up. Jason has a special knife and fork called a rocker knife and a knob that fits on his steering wheel so he can drive his car.

Jason explained that even though he looks different, he still has feelings, just like everyone else and wants to be treated the same. He pointed out that we are all different, with fair and dark hair, blue and brown eyes and different heights. Jason let us look and touch his artificial hands and lower leg, If we wanted to. He did some clever tricks spinning a soccer ball.

The Easter holidays saw important repairs to the kindergarten’s roof and guttering. This was made possible through a Sunshine Coast Council Community Grant kindy was successful in last year:

This grant allowed the kindy to:

*Replaced rusty down pipes
*Installed leaf eaters on the drain pipes
*Replaced damaged gutters with wider gutters
*Replaced damage eaves

Recent heavy rains proved the new wider guttering was working well and no leaks recorded.

We would like to thank the Sunshine Coast Council for this grant, for without the grant these repairs wouldn't have been possible.

We are proudly supported by the Sunshine Coast Council. ​

Harmony Landscapes who created our bush garden and play area has recently won the 2013 Landscape Queensland Awards in the category of Commercial 1 State Industry Award 13. Congratulations Harmony Landscapes and congratulations Brookes Street Community Kindergarten!

http://www.harmonylandscapes.net.au/