Chinese New Year

In February, we celebrated the Chinese New Year by having a meal in Lee Kee restaurant on Parnell Street. The people there were so nice and welcoming. Our preschool class made the journey down to bring in the Year of the Dog.

This is part of our community learning. We like the children to engage with their local community and make it their own. A big part of what we do is exploring. This involves visiting shops and restaurants and getting to know what is around them. Luckily, the North Inner-City is a vibrant place and there is plenty to explore. It’s all about getting out there and embracing what it has to offer and at the same time having fun. It also builds confidence in the children and it is important for them to know they are part of their community.

Afterwards, we joined the other gclasses and had a party celebrating the Chinese New Year and heard a story about a young boy from China. This is all part of embracing all cultures in the centre. The parents are an enormous part of this and we try to involve them as much as possible.

Easter Traidtions

Our Active Retirement Group and our Childcare PreSchool Classes come together to share an Easter tradition in Ozanam House:

One of our traditions in the centre is the knitting of the Easter chicks. The Active Retirement Group spend a lot of time making these and much care and attention goes into the process.They then present these to our other chicks – our childcare pre-school children. This is a great way of getting our most senior and most junior members together. The joy on the children’s faces as they collect their chicks has long been one of our highlights of the year. The Chocolate Egg’s inside probably have something to do with this!

After the children received their chicks, we had a sing-song with Old McDonald’s farm ringing through the hall. A truly great morning for all of us.

Health and Food Awareness

We have been learning about our bodies and how to keep them healthy and happy. Part of taking care of our bodies is healthy eating so we decided to prepare our own dinner.

The children chose veggie burgers as a healthy dinner to make. We learnt a lot from preparing our vegetables and making dinner! Some of the areas covered were numeracy, science, turn taking, independence and most importantly how our bodies work!