reading Archives

Books to get off to a good start

09-03-2018/0 Comments/in Cire Children's Services, Community Support, Donations, Good news story/by Cire

In February 2018, Cire Services were fortunate to be the recipient of a $200 donation from Wandin Rotary that was to be utilised for the purchase of educational products for the children from the Yarra Junction Children’s Centre. Both Cire Services and Wandin Rotary acknowledge the importance of literacy and language development in pre-school children and what better way to contribute to the children’s learning journey than through the magic of words.

Literacy is a key part of a child’s development. Talking, singing, playing sounds, word games, reading, writing and drawing with children is a fantastic way to set up sound literacy skills. Activities such as reading together, playing with rhyme and sharing stories can all assist in a child’s early literacy journey. These skills will prepare children for primary school and for the learning road ahead of them.

On Thursday 8^th March, Mr Warwick Bisley from Wandin Rotary attended the Yarra Junction Children’s Centre to present a collection of children’s books for the children to enjoy. Selected from the shortlist of books for Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards 2017, which were aimed at promoting “quality Australian books that help children get the best, most literate start to life”.

The books were selected from three award categories: “Birth to three years”, “Three to Five years” and “Indigenous children”. A total of 12 books were purchased. Some of the donated books included:

I Just Couldn’t Wait to Meet You- Kate Ritchie (Hannah Sommerville)
At the Zoo I see – Joshua Button and Robyn Wells
Animals in My Garden – Bronwyn Houston
The Ricker Racker Club – Patrick Guest(Nathaniel Eckstrom)
Mad Magpie – Greg Dreise
Hello to You, Moon – Sally Morgan (Sonny & Biddy)
1,2 Pirate Stew- Kylie Howarth
Colours of Australia- Bronwyn Bancroft

The children were fortunate to receive a special treat when Warwick stayed to read one of the donated books. All the children enjoyed listening to the story and admired the colourful images and afterwards Warwick was invited with the children to enjoy a yummy morning tea.

When asked about the books, some of the children expressed their thoughts.

Charlye-Rae said “I think they are great”, Sam described the books as “cool” and Matilda told her teacher “My mummy and Daddy would love them”.

In appreciation for the special gift, the children presented Warwick with a thank you card then a tour of the centre. Warwick described the centre as:

“One of the best preschools he has seen in Australia”.

We would like to express our thanks to Wandin Rotary for their generosity. We look forward to children enjoying the books for many years to come.

if you would like to know more about Cire’s Children’s Services click here or call 1300 835 235. Cire also offers tours of our centres located in Mt Evelyn and Yarra Junction.

A visit to the library

16-06-2016/0 Comments/in Cire Children's Services, Information/by Cire

As a part of our kindergarten program the children visited the Lilydale library. This was the children’s first excursion on the bus, and they were all very excited. It was important to talk beforehand about safety on the bus and the children helped by thinking of ways we could all stay safe together on their first excursion. On the bus, the children spoke in quiet voices, and some held hands across the aisle. When we arrived at the library, we made our way to the children’s area. There were so many books. They didn’t hesitate and started selecting the books that they wanted to borrow, and soon we had a pile of books so high that it almost toppled over. Of course we couldn’t borrow all of them so a smaller selection was made. Next up was story time which was a huge hit and before they could say “reading is fun”, it was time to get back on the bus.

Libraries can play a strong role in early learning for all children, with the key role being in the development of early literacy skills. Early literacy is knowledge and skills required to become a successful reader and writer. These include cognitive development of the brain and its responsiveness to the environment, language development, listening and oral skills and relationship building. We’re very excited about our library visits and aim to continue them fortnightly for the year.

Children engage with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts. They listen and respond to sounds and patterns in speech, stories and rhymes in context by viewing and listening to printed texts and respond with relevant gestures, actions, comments and questions. They begin to understand key literacy concepts and processes, such as the sounds of language, letter-sound relationships, concepts of print and the ways that texts are structured. By introducing children to books at an early age they become familiar with words and appreciate illustrations that help tell the story and keep them intrigued.

As educators we continually strive to find equitable and effective ways to ensure that all children have opportunities to achieve learning outcomes. We recognise the connections between children, families and communities and the importance of reciprocal relationships and partnerships for learning. They see learning as a social activity and value collaborative learning and community participation.

If you would like to know more about our early childhood education services click here or call 03 5967 2776 Yarra Junction or 03 9736 1918 Mt Evelyn. Our services range long day care, 3 and 4 year old kinder to OSHC.

Story time enjoyed by all

31-08-2015/0 Comments/in Cire Children's Services, Cire News, Community Projects/by Cire_Admin

The children of Mt Evelyn UYCH Children’s Centre love having story time and this year we have been lucky enough to have continuing visits with Beck from Eastern Regional Library’s Outreach Flexi-van Service. We discovered this service at the end of last year and due to it’s popularity we are now approaching one year.

Beck has been a huge hit with the youngsters and they look forward to her visits every second Tuesday, during school terms. Stories are theme based to ensure the children get the most out of each book title, and sometimes include a puppet play. Beck often brings along fun activities to follow up, such as colouring or cutting and pasting, which have relevance to the stories she has read. The children are very enthusiastic when it comes to creating projects from the storybooks and characters featured in them. The children are then encouraged to choose from a selection of brand new library books that they can borrow to enjoy between visits.

Studies have proven that reading to children at any age, but particularly 4-5 year olds, every day has a significant positive effect on their reading skills and cognitive skills (i.e., language and literacy, numeracy and cognition) later in life. We read stories to the children every day at the centre, and we hope that this will help them to foster a lifelong love of reading.

This program has been a great success and we would like to extend a big thank you to Beck and Eastern Regional Library’s Outreach Flexi-van Service for your ongoing support to the children of Mt Evelyn UYCH Children’s Centre.