Newsletter | February 2025
What’s On This Month
Key Dates
5th February | World Read-aloud Day
2nd February | World Wetlands Day
12th February | Chinese New Year & Lantern Festival
14th February | Valentine’s Day
26th February | Webinar - Navigating Hub Educate a guide for Families
27th February | Webinar - Navigating Hub Educate a guide for Educators
28th February | Clean up Australia Day
Recipe | Banana Cake
Prep 20 mins | Cook 30 mins | Serves 16
Ingredients
3 overripe bananas, mashed.
2 eggs
3/4 cup olive oil
1 cup Greek yoghurt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
1 tbs vanilla bean paste
1 cup buckwheat flour
1 cup plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon, ground
1/2 tsp nutmeg, ground
1/4 tsp ginger, ground
pinch of salt
Method
To make the banana cake:
Preheat oven to 180C (350 F) and line a 20 cm x 20 cm brownie pan with baking paper. Set aside.
Place the mashed bananas, eggs, olive oil, yoghurt, sugar, syrup, and vanilla and whisk to combine.
Sift the buckwheat flour, plain flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and salt into the bowl and stir using a wooden spoon until just combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared tin.
Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted removes cleanly.
Allow the cake to cool completely. To speed up the cooling process, feel free to pop the cake into the freezer.
Source: Image & Recipe ‘My Lovely Lunchbox’
Sustainability Corner
Keep Your Soil Happy
The benefits of composting are endless. You can improve the structure, water retention, and drainage of the soil in your garden, as well as increase the retention of nutrients, resulting in happy and healthy plants. The best bit? Once you're all set up, your compost system will mostly look after itself.
Learning how to compost isn’t difficult, Costsa Georgiadis has a very simple video explaining the steps to take to start composting at home. Find the video here: https://youtu.be/Uw5JVZSzMUA
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT COMPOSTING HERE
Send Us Feedback
Want to have your say and improve our services?
Email us at contact@kidsfamilydaycare.com
Noteworthy
Introducing Our Webinars
Get ready for our exciting Webinar Series!
The 26th of February is our first webinar for families. Find out how to navigate important aspects of HubEducate confidently and efficiently. This is followed by another webinar on the 27th of February, navigating HubEducate for Educators. Future webinars are for both families and educators, these engaging sessions will cover a wide range of topics to support your journey in early childhood education and care. From practical tips on fostering children’s development to exploring innovative teaching strategies, navigating regulations, and creating nurturing environments, there’s something for everyone.
Health & Safety
Button Batteries
They may be small, but if a child swallows a button battery; even a used one, it can burn through soft tissue in just two hours causing horrendous internal injuries and even death. Car remotes, calculators, thermometers, musical greeting cards, flashing novelty goods, and kitchen scales – button batteries are everywhere in a variety of objects in and around the home. In Australia, an estimated 20 children a week present to a hospital emergency department suspected of having ingested or inserted a button battery and children aged 0-5 years are particularly vulnerable. Roughly one child a month sustains a severe injury requiring a procedure to remove the battery or repair damage.
Who is Most at Risk from Button Batteries?
Young children (0-5 years) are particularly vulnerable to choking on or ingesting a button battery because of the relatively small size of their esophagus and because they are curious and are most likely to put objects in their mouths in their ears and up their noses. Button batteries are small, can give a slight buzz on the tongue and look appealing to small children – like a lolly – so they are tempting to a child.
How to Avoid the Risk of Button Batteries
Many of the products that contain button batteries are not classified as toys and therefore don’t have to meet the same safety standards that toys do. Follow these simple steps to be button battery aware:
Identify all items in your home that contain button batteries. Examples include children’s toys, remote controls, watches, cameras, bathroom scales and flashing novelties.
Secure the battery compartment. Make sure the battery compartment can only be opened with a screwdriver or by applying two distinct and separate movements. Use gaffer tape to secure remote controls.
Elevate button batteries and items containing button batteries out of reach of children in a locked cupboard or container.
Eliminate button battery items from your home by buying alternate products that use regular batteries or a different power source. Safely dispose of any items you no longer need. Dispose of used button batteries immediately by wrapping in sticky tape and taking to a recycling centre.
If you do need to buy a button battery buy Energiser – child seal: Colour alert. These batteries are sealed well, taste bitter and turn a mouth blue when contact is made with saliva.
Symptoms of Swallowing a Button Battery
A range of symptoms are associated with ingestion of a button battery: gagging or choking, drooling, chest pain (this may present as grunting), coughing or noisy breathing, unexplained vomiting or food refusal, bleeding from the gut — black or red vomit or bowel motions, nose bleeds — sometimes this can be blood vomited through the nose, grunting, unexplained fever, abdominal pain general discomfort, spitting blood or blood-stained saliva or no symptoms at all. These symptoms are often associated with other conditions so it is important to consider them in light of the likelihood that your child has had access to button batteries or equipment that may contain button batteries.
If you Suspect Your Child Has Ingested a Button Battery
If your child is having any difficulty breathing, call 000 immediately. Contact the Poisons Information Centre on 13 11 26 and you will be directed to the nearest hospital or emergency service that can manage the injury. Prompt action is critical. Do not wait for symptoms to develop. Do not let the child eat or drink until an X-ray is taken. Do not induce vomiting.
Educator of The Month
Congratulations to …
Jess Wu | Wheelers Hill
Coordinator: Lynsey Chen
Congratulations to Jess, our Educator of the Month! Jess has been recognised for her exceptional program planning, which beautifully aligns with children’s interests, family inputs, and cultural events, showcasing her commitment to the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF). Her thoughtful mind mapping clearly demonstrates the planning cycle in action.
Jess’s patience and dedication have also made a profound impact, as she recently helped a child overcome separation anxiety through months of collaboration with the child’s family. Additionally, Jess has recently expanded the outdoor play area to foster sustainable education. She provides various enriching excursion opportunities for children to engage with the community and connect with the environment around them. Thank you, Jess, for your inspiring work!
Fun with Literacy
The Humble Nursery Rhyme
Nursery rhymes are important for young children because they help develop an ear for our language. Both rhyme and rhythm help kids hear the sounds and syllables in words, which helps kids learn to read!
Nursery rhyme experiences, awareness, and knowledge were found to be positively related to accomplishment in early phonological and print-related skills. So, practise them in the car, on a walk or before bed. Sing them high, sing them low, say them using funny voices. It’s fun to rhyme, and so good for your little one’s early literacy skills.
Nursery rhymes are important for young children because they help develop an ear for our language. Both rhyme and rhythm help kids hear the sounds and syllables in words, which helps kids learn to read!
Fun Activities at Home
Nature Walk
Going on a nature walk and deliberately noticing things encourages children to observe with all their senses. Children can learn to focus their attention and take in the details of things around them. It can be a peaceful, reflective experience for you and your children.
All you need is somewhere to walk – You can simply venture out your front door, walk around your local area, a local park or nature reserve. You could also plan a longer excursion and head to a beach or national park.
Remove barriers – A nature walk can happen in all weather, just be prepared! Always wear appropriate shoes for your environment. If it’s sunny remember hats, sun smart clothing, sunscreen and bug spray. If it’s raining bring raincoats and chuck a towel in the car just in case there is puddle splashing along the way.
Don’t over plan – Don’t rush. Try to let your children lead you where it is safe to do so. Watch them discover and show you things.
Noticing nature walk - Encourage your child to pay attention to the environment with all their senses. You can do this by asking questions as you go. For example:
Seeing questions - what can you see? Look all around you, up at the sky and down at the ground.
Smelling questions - what can you smell? Can you describe the smell? Leafy? Like mud?
Hearing questions - what can you hear? Birds? The wind? Other people?
Feeling and touching questions - what can you feel? Is the sun warm? Is the ground rough or smooth?
Raisingchildrennetwork.com (2022). Noticing nature walk: activity for children 3-6 years
Retrieved from: https://raisingchildren.net.au/guides/activity-guides/sensory-play/noticing-nature-walk-activity-for-children-3-6-years