Empowering Our Team Through Volunteering: A Heartfelt Experience at Our Childcare Centres
At our Perth-based childcare centres, we believe in fostering a nurturing environment not only for the children but also for our dedicated staff. One of the ways we do this is through our robust volunteering program, which allows our team to engage with their...
Life Skills at Acacia Hill
At Acacia Hill, our educators play an important role in assisting the development of life skills in all the children that come through our doors every day. We believe it is important to share this with you so we can work together as a team to support your child. As...
Understanding and Managing Challenging Behaviours in Children 2-3 years
The 2–3 year age range is a period of rapid cognitive, emotional, and physical development. Toddlers are learning to walk, talk and navigate their emotions which can lead to a range of behaviours. Challenging behaviours in children are a normal part of their...
Acacia Hill turns 30 – Hip, Hip Hooray
It has been a wonderful milestone to achieve. Our little family business that started out with 2 migrant sisters settling in Perth, Western Australia taking on a small yet quaint 23 place childcare centre in the Western suburbs to the well-known,...
Life Skills 0-5 years at Acacia Hill
Our approach at Acacia Hill with your children is to assist them to develop skills for life, skills that we as adults can take for granted. As skills are developed, the children use them, store them, and constantly refer to them when faced with new challenges. By...
‘What is Reggio?’
‘What is Reggio?’……… our brief interpretation ‘Reggio’, ‘Reggio education’, ‘Reggio Emilia Approach’ are all terms commonly used in early childhood education especially over the last 5-10 years to describe a way of educating children. When talking to people, it...
Getting Sick in Childcare
Is there truth to this assumption and what can we all do about it.
Why does it ‘always feel like’ when your child starts childcare they always seem to ‘get’ sick.
Playdough Recipe
AT HOME PLAYDOUGH RECIPE INGREDIENTS 2 cups plain flour (all purpose) 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (baby oil and coconut oil work too) 1/2 cup salt 2 tablespoons cream of tartar 1 to 1.5 cups boiling water (adding in increments until it feels just right) Food colouring...
Keep childcare costs down
With many families needing help with the care of their children while they’re working/studying and the biggest choice being paid care, this can be a big expense and added pressure to many families. While the care is necessary, families should be aware of what is...
7 Tips to settle your child in childcare
Any child at any age can be ready for childcare. It depends on how we as adults approach the situation. If we are going to be anxious, nervous, upset and clingy with our child, then we need to expect our children to display these same behaviours. Always make the...
Benefits of Childcare
Childcare for many parents comes with the feeling of guilt for leaving your child or children in care instead of at home with you where all children should be……… so some people believe Childcare can provide many benefits. The top 10 reasons for your child to attend...
5 Tips to choose the right childcare centre for you
Selecting the right childcare centre for you and your family can be a difficult and scary challenge. As a mum myself, I know how it felt leaving my children with the educators, and that was in a centre I owned, where I knew the staff. To help you on your journey in...
Indoor Influences
"We value space, to create a handsome environment and its potential to inspire social, affective and cognitive learning. The space is an aquarium that mirrors the ideas and values of the people who live in it" - Loris Malaguzzi As mentioned in last months post the...
Outdoor Environments provide for Investigation, risk taking and stimulation
"The best classroom and the richest cupboard is roofed only by the sky" Margaret McMillan What do these 3 words in our title mean? Investigation – to look into the actions of someone or something – a formal or systematic examination Risk-taking – engaging in...
Living the Dream……….. and valuing natural curiosity and creativity
DREAMS…..we all have them, we all have the special one we hope will come true. In April we encouraged the children to dream big and take on the world. We asked them all different things about their dreaming What can we dream about? What do we dream about? What...
A month of sharing our passions……….. and looking at how to invent
We are all different, our perceptions, our paradigms, our passions, all are different. As Albert Einstein said: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” We all spend...
Meaningful Relationships with families + Singing
In February the staff delved into what we could do to build meaningful relationships with our families in the centre. Different things we looked at were What our parents did for work and how we could bring this into the centre How we could communicate better or more...
2015 Year of Best Practice
This year Acacia Hill is focusing its year on Best Practice. Each month we will look at a part of our new philosopy aswell as a part of Loris Malaguzzi's (Founder of the Reggio Approach) Hundred Languages....