What does OAEEC offer?
All Inclusive Service
Open Arms EEC prides itself on ensuring our families receive an all-inclusive service.
This includes:
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Breakfast Bar Set Up
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Morning Tea
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Hot Lunches
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Afternoon Tea
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Dinner Options available (Not available at this time due to COVID-19 restrictions)
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Nappies
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Milk Options - varying for dietary needs
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Hats provided
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Rest / Sleep Bedding provided
Bus Pick Up and Drop Off Service
Open Arms EEC offers Taree families a unique Drop Off and Pick Up Service for children attending the centre.
For a small fee each day (CCS subsidised), children are able to be collected from their home across the Taree Region. This ensures that we are able to offer all children access to a high-quality, safe and all inclusive early learning journey.
Our bus is fitted with age appropriate car seats; ensuring the safety of
our children is the highest priority.
Our bus is driven by qualified educators; ensuring that your child knows
who is collecting them each day.
Healthy Eating Approved Menu's
We are proud that each OAEEC seasonal menu is approved by Good for kids; Good for life.
With an on-site chef; our services are able to cater to all dietary requirements for children.
Our menu is ever changing. We encourage family input into all changes, recipes, dietary options and more.
Open Door Policy
We promote our open door policy. This ensures that all families are encouraged to be active participants in our Early Education Services.
Children thrive when they are supported to be immersed in the 'wide world'. We ask that our families share their hobbies, professions, sports and more with the children at the centre. This enriches each child's learning and showcases glimpses of the wide world they belong to.
Excursions and Incursions
Open Arms EEC Ambarvale and Taree ensure that our children are provided with ongoing excursions and incursions to enrich their early years learning experience.
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Excursions and Incursions help children see learning in the outside world. They give children an opportunity to learn through new experiences, allowing them to understand that learning can happen anytime and anywhere: not just in the classroom!
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It develops social and communication skills
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Meeting and engaging with new people helps children develop their social skills!
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Through incursions and excursions, children get to meet new people as well as be exposed to new scenarios. This, in turn, helps them learn how to express themselves by describing what they like and don’t about each activity, any questions they may have and so on. It’s also a great way for them to interact with people from different ages.
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They enhance problem solving and life survival skills
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Incursions and excursions expose children to new scenarios and experiences. These experiences get their young minds working and learning about different problems and solutions!
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They create an appreciation for different cultures and traditions
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Through incursions and excursions, we introduce our children to new cultures, histories and rich traditions.
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Sports activities are always encouraged and provided
Readiness for School Program
'Letterland was created to teach phonics using a story-based approach. The story logic engages students leading to long term retention of concepts. What's more, Letterland is wonderfully multi-sensory. It activates every learning channel through music, actions, alliteration, movement, song, art, games and role-play' - Letterland Website ( www.letterland.com.au )
Our OA children are offered access to our School Readiness Program in the year before they attend 'Big School'. This program is activity based and strongly focuses on the Letterland program including - music, movement, literacy and numeracy. We also focus strongly on self-help skills, ensuring that our OA children are well equipped to venture onto their next journey - Big School!
The first 26 weeks of the program focus on the alphabet, looking in depth each week at one letter. This is done using the ‘Letterland’ program. .
Letterland makes learning letter sounds fun! In Letterland, letters have good reasons for behaving the way they do. Children love learning the reason why. It is much more fun to learn that Harry Hat Man whispers ‘hhh' in words, than to remember than ‘aitch'makes the sound ‘hhh'.
Children will also engage with staff in the following which promote literacy development:
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Singing songs
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Reading stories
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Nursery Rhymes
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Telling stories/using their imagination
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Talking to children about everyday experiences
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Using flashcards
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Encouraging children to engage in creative arts and playdough
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Children will have ‘school books’ (exercise book) to further practice writing letters and their names
Mathematics/Numeracy:
Following on from the alphabet the children will focus on recognising and writing numbers 1-10. Again, one number will be the focus each week. Following on from this children will focus on basic shapes, colours, objects and more.
Children will also engage with staff in the following which promote literacy development:
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Counting objects during play
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Playing with dice / games using dice / games with rules
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Pattern/Number puzzles
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Talking about shapes in the environment
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Recognising colours
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Talking about quantities during meal times
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Filling up their own water bottles
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Talking about and recognising numbers up to 20
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Talking about opposites
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Discussing rhyming words
Self Help Skills:
Children will be encouraged to do things on their own and educators will work with children to develop the skills they need to complete each task. Self-help skills will include:
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Putting on shoes and socks
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Putting on clothing
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Feeding themselves
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Using tongs to choose their own morning/afternoon tea
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Having lunch box days so that children get used to unwrapping lunchbox items and eating food out of it as they would at big school
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Toileting themselves
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Washing their own hands
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Children will be encouraged to help each other
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Children will be supported to problem solve
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Children will be supported to engage with peers and form friendships
NQS 1.2.Educators facilitate and extend each child's learning and development
