Forward December 2014 | Page 37

PR E PA R ATORY S C HO OL Out Of School Care 2014 is, in the Chinese calendar, the year of the Horse. In Out Of School Care it has been the year of the vegetable! Our vegetable gardens are a joy to behold, complete with their own scarecrow. We have so far enjoyed broccoli, snow peas and cauliflowers as well as a variety of herbs. We are even selling herbs to the parents to raise the money for the next crop. We have tomato trees ready to plant and corn to be sown. The children are learning so much from this and we are nurturing interests in gardening as well as the plants. Gardening has become an integral part of the curriculum we deliver and covers a number of the Learning Outcomes the framework expects us to deliver. We have embraced creativity here as well and discovered that with a little bit of imagination from the staff, the children can develop their own activities. We have built cubbies, gone camping, ridden horses in showjumping competitions and become superheroes. All from a few dress up costumes and some starting points. My Time Our Place embodies everything we wish the children in our care to experience and by tapping into their likes and interests we hope to create new memories and possibly new hobbies. The removal of technology from the Centre in the form of tablets and handheld computer games has been a suc