A home made vegetable garden designed for kids, provides healthy snacks while kids are on the go, as well as providing opportunities to learn the importance of where food comes from and how it grows.

Steps for building your family Veggie Garden

Locate the kids vegetable garden where they can reach it. The ideal position for the kids vegetable garden is in their play area.

Your kids will be able to conveniently work on their garden, make observations about what's growing well, and what needs some help and as importantly, take care of watering and weeding, as an extension of their play activities.

Vegetable gardens designed for kids, teaches ownership and responsibility. Give the kids ownership and responsibility for their vegetable garden.

Allow the child to select which vegetables are grown, encourage them to select varieties that can be picked frequently, and choose varieties that do Not have poisonous leaves. The kids vegetable garden should comprise varieties that provide easy and safe picking and grow all year round.

Options include lettuces, silver-beet, snow peas, beans and carrots to name a few. Ask your local garden centre for other options too.

At Kidi Kingdom we use our vegetable garden to extend children's learning's and understanding about science and nature... Including:

Planning... selecting varieties, working out best planting position, deciding on numbers of plants to be planted, drawing up garden plans and labelling diagrams.

Weeding... identifying and removing weeds, thinning out plants Pest Management... spotting bugs and slugs, identifying invader versus predator insects, picking invader insects off plants, spraying with organic sprays when necessary, catching caterpillars for their bug collectors. Following a watering schedule, checking when plants need extra water in hot weather.

Harvesting... observing ripening of plants, picking, eating and sharing produce.

Use kid-friendly gardening tools. Kids can use trowels and forks that have been designed for adults, but smaller handles and spades designed for children are easier for them to grip and wield.

Kids gardening tools are usually brightly coloured with cheerful patterns or smiley faces on them making the whole experience more enticing and enjoyable for the child.

With their own distinct tools, kids can also become responsible for cleaning and properly putting 'their own' tools away. So, apart from survival skills, healthy play snacks and planet-nurturing attitudes, dedicated vegetable gardens designed for kids, enable a wonderful sensory experience within a safe and playful environment. Until next time, happy planting!

Click on the Link below to watch our "how to" Video.

It has been a lovely month at the centre as we celebrate birthdays and special events such as Child Protection Week. Child Protection Week was important for the children and educators as we had 2 special guests come and visit us, the local Coomera Police Department & Local big red Queensland Fire & Rescue truck. The children experienced many open-ended questions regarding safe places, being responsible of your bodies and safe people in the community.

We value your feedback and strive on meeting your highest expectations. Kidi Kingdom Child Care Centres have an open-door policy and we want to ensure to all our families and community you are more than welcome to visit us at any time.

September School Holidays have arrived and we have a great program released for the children. Be sure to hand in your booking forms to secure your child’s position for Vacation Care / School Holiday Care. P.s. keep a lookout on Facebook for all the fun activities and places we will be visiting during this school holidays.

Regards, April Hall Centre Manager

STAY UP TO DATE!

EARLY LEARNERS - Hello to all our wonderful families and friends. This month in Early Learners we will be focusing on extending our children’s interest about the Land and the Sea. We will be covering different areas about what we can find in the sea and what we can find on land. All the children have been displaying an enormous amount of interest in animals, picking up the animals we have as toys in the room. So we thought this would be a great interest for the children to extend on. As the weather is warming up during the day please ensure you pack some summer clothes for your child. We are happy to change your child into these clothes and place the clothes they are already wearing back into their bags. All the children are improving in their developmental stages, from language and cognitive, to fine motor and gross motor skills. If there is anything specific you would like the Early Learner Educators to focus on please fill free to write it in your child’s individual books.

Thank you Miss Sarah & Miss Natalie.

JUNIOR EARLY YEARS - Welcome to our Junior Early Years families. This month has been both fun and exciting exploring various topics to cover all the children’s interests and needs; we have participated in many events this month including book week, father’s day afternoon tea and child protection week. We love special events at our service and in the community, both educators and children have gained so much knowledge on different topics in the last few weeks. The highlight of the month for the children would have to be our visit from the local fire brigade and police force. We were able to have a look inside the police car and fire truck. This has sparked an increased interest in the topic “transport “and we have been learning together different types of transport and their different purposes. To gain knowledge and understanding we have been watching videos online, reading books and using transport magnets during group time and we have also created a car wash dramatic play area in our classroom! The educators and children are very happy with our current classroom set up and our daily routine. We are very proud of how far the children have come with their learning development and reaching new milestones. Big congratulations to Savannah, Louise, Nylah, Lina and Hamza who have been doing an awesome job with their transition from nappies to toilet training! Thank you to our wonderful families and children for another amazing month.

Miss Stephanette and Miss Rebecca.

EARLY YEARS/PRE-PREP - Welcome to Pre-Prep and Early Years Room. This month the children have shown interest in outdoor adventures and in particular camping, bush walking and boat rides with family as mentioned by a couple of children. Over the next couple of weeks we will support the children's interest in camping and outdoor adventures through more group discussions. children will have the opportunity to extend on their language and communication skills through sharing more of their experiences from home. We will also take this opportunity to teach the children about staying safe when outdoors and/or holidaying in various locations. In small groups at a time the children will be able to use the tents and other relevant resources to engage in pretend play. We will be extending on these interests through arts and crafts where the children may express themselves also by creating their own mental images of outdoor experiences. We are continuing to encourage the children everyday to build on positive relationships and interactions with their peers, and pretending to all go camping together, working together as a team to add to our indoor campsite will hopefully benefit further those relationships. As the weather is becoming warmer we will be taking the children on more nature walks and therefore extend on their interest in exploring the outdoors.

Miss Antonietta and Miss Emem.

SCHOOL CARE - Dear Families of Before & After School Care, it has been a month full of learning in the school care room. This month the children have enjoyed exploring the world we live in. Our world is filled with amazing, diverse people and cultures. It is not only important to be aware of other cultures, but also to value and respect them. Over the month the children have enjoyed talking about their families, friends and important people in their lives through photos, show and tell and group discussions. We spoke about respecting and celebrating the traditions from different parts of the world as this gives a sense of appreciation for cultural differences and spark curiosity to learn more about other people. The children had the opportunity to participate in many activities and experiences to expand their curiosity, researching countries, traditional music, dance and trying international cuisine. This month the children were showing great interest in our visits from the emergency services for child protection week, during the week the children revised the importance of fire safety, stranger danger and the very important job role of a police officer. Thank you to all our fathers that came to celebrate with us for father’s day it was a great success. Footy colours day seemed to be favourite, as the children in the school care room have a great love for the outdoors and physical play, it was wonderful to see the children dress in their favourite team colours and enjoy a game of football. School Holiday / Vacation care has started its fun filled program, please see Miss April to enrol.

Thank you, Miss Bec.

PARENTS HUMOUR	BUSINESSES
	Kidi Kingdom Child Care wishes to thank the following local business for their continued support.   Mobile: 0433 762 199 www.paintking.com.au