Welcome to The Little Cottage Long Day Care Centre.
Our Centre is open from 7.00am to 6.00pm, caters for children aged 2-6 years of age. The centre is open 52 weeks per year and closes on public holidays.
Fee are $72.00 per day. Child Care Rebate is available.
All meals including a cooked lunch is provided daily in accordance to 50% of the children's RDI.
Anastasia Papadopoulos is the owner of The Little Cottage at Carlton. The Coordinator of this centre Melissa Drinkwater is currently a state finalist for the Rising Stars Award. Anastasia also owns Happy Feet on Mill St and Giggles Early Learning Centre in Bexley which was nominated by the families and the community as a finalist in the 2008 St George Business Awards.
We know parents may feel anxious about leaving their children in a new environment, so we invite parents to contact us via telephone or email to check on their children.
We look forward to welcoming you and your child to our centre.
One piece of fruit daily
A yoghurt (optional)
Breakfast (optional)
Bedding a pillow and sheet placed inside the pillow case. This needs to come weekly on the first day your child attends each week and needs to be taken home and washed on the last day your child attends each week.
Nappies (if applicable) these need to be place in the nappy room and clearly labelled with your child's name. If your child requires a nappy for rest time please ensure these are brought in (you will be charged for spare nappies if you do not supply them)
Milk Bottle - 2-3yrs rest time bottle please supply, place it on the top level of the fridge
Child's Bag - filled with spare clothes, hat - spare underwear and pants for toilet trainers, all of these items need to be labelled with your child's name. Your child's bag needs to be taken home on a daily basis as other children use the lockers
A hat needs to be brought in daily - if your child does not bring in a hat they will not be able to join the children outside due to sun safety requirements
Each child will need to bring in their own drink bottle. Staff will wash these out daily and refill for the next day your child attends, drink bottles are to be taken home at on the last day of the child's attendance in the week.
The Little Cottage provides a comprehensive preschool program that prepares the children for Kindergarten. This preschool program is run on a daily basis by a qualified Early Childhood Teachers in the 3-5yrs pre-school room. The program focuses on each child's self help skills, literacy/ language learning, social, emotional and academic development to prepare them for Kindergarten and future education.
The staff at The Little Cottage have collaborated with private and public schools in the area to establish a suitable program that provides positive guidance and meets the expectations of parents and teachers of young learners. The daily learning curriculum in this room enables the children to learn through their play experiences and enhances their knowledge by introducing children to investigations and further developmental activities based on their current interests. The teachers in the pre-school room exposes the children to Phonics, fine motor development such as writing and cutting experiences, cognitive and mathematical challenges, independence, turn taking skills and much more.
WHAT OUR PRESCHOOL CURRICULUM INCLUDES........
From January of each year, the children whom will possibly attending Kindergarten the following year will participate in a wide variety of activities, experiences, investigations and excursions to prepare for the next BIG step in their life........
The annual curriculum for the Preschool room includes:
School Preparation program – this starts in Feb each year
Daily recognition of PHONICS A- Z, singing the phonics song and recognising each letters unique sounds
Exploring the upper and lower case format of each letter in the alphabet, by teaching the children letter of the week – starts Feb each year. Activities, art/craft, food, experiences that start with each specific letter are introduced.
Two library visits scheduled (at beginning & end of year) annually from the local librarian at ROCKDALE LIBRARY
Annual participating in NATIONAL BOOK WEEK – children participate in art/craft experience and have their creative pieces displayed at ROCKDALE LIBRARY- august each year.
School visits to the local primary school- CARLTON PUBLIC SCHOOL – TLC has a close connection with this school, which allows many opportunities for the children to become exposed and familiar with the school environments and boundaries.
Lunch Box week – November each year, allows opportunities for the children that will be attending school the following year to become more independent and responsible for their own belongings and food intake.
School readiness meeting – this introduces parents to their child is expected to know before they enter Kindergarten. The requirements of the child and the parents. This is held on an evening in AUGUST each year – all parents from the Butterfly room are invited to attend the information evening. Guest from the local school attend to talk with parents.
Graduation day – December each year, TLC hosts a special graduation day to say congratulations and good luck to the children that will be leaving for Kindergarten next year. Each child has a cape and graduation hat – and is awarded with a graduation certificate.
Melissa drinkwater was a finalist in the youth awards 2011.
We are winners of the best childcare centre for the Rockdale city council awards and finalist for 2011 business awards.
Please use the link above to read this article about our rising star.
I was very lucky to have both of my children attended The little cottage which have such friendly and professional staff that are always willing to help, nothing was ever a problem. I would have no problem in recommending them to anyone. Sonia
"Our son has attended TLC for the past 9 months. During this time we have seen him develop in a number of areas such as his daily living skills (independent toileting, eating), social interaction/ interpersonal skills as well as his overall learning. The staff, at TLC are always providing a positive learning environment that incorporates our son's interests whilst striving to achieve the individual goals that we have set during the year. There have been numerous fun and learning based activities within the daily routine program with verbal and written feedback available in regard to our son's participation in the daily activities. The staff have provided us with advice on toilet training and behaviour management that can then be reinforced within the home environment leading to successful implementation. We are looking forward to further development and fun experiences for our son during his time at TLC" Thank you Nicola Lenehan
‘I think the hardest thing is to put your little one in daycare and to find the right one that suits your child. Michael has made so many friends at The Little Cottage and has learnt and developed since he started school’ Niki White
Our Garden
The planting begins………….
General up keep of our veggie and fruit garden.
Sensory exploring of your herb garden.
The little Cottage has been involved in creating a more environmentally friendly centre by involving the children and their families in ideas and in pursuing these ideas. We introduced a new project in order to fix up our outside environment and have more care towards our garden and the children were very much involved in the progression of this experience. Staff underwent meetings, research and many discussions regarding the ongoing changes and how and when everything was going to happen and the commitment involved in order following through having a wonderful environment for the children, staff, families and community to enjoy. Before the children started planting they enjoyed drawing and painting artworks of flowers and gardens and enjoyed picturing what they wanted our garden to look like which also gave carers a rough idea about their expectations. Staff paid a visit to our local community nursery which is a joint venture between Rockdale Council and the Intellectual Disability Foundation. This nursery supplied up to 80 percent of the plants, soil and gardening materials that were used for our project. At the front we planted a big apple tree, some pink, yellow and white flowers and some herbs and vegetables including lettuce. At the back and the entrance we planted basil leaves and many other herbs and bright colourful flowers. This gardening experience opened a lot of learning investigations for the children and helped them understand and contribute to their natural world.
RECYCLING
Children and their families are asked to bring in recyclable materials from home in order to teach the children at a young age and raise awareness of the importance of recycling. This led to many discussions, investigations, research, and games and opened up a huge opportunity of exploration for the children, who showed a lot of interest in the matter. Although the young children may have not understood the concept of recycling, they did understand the clear message of picking up rubbish and keeping the environment clean. In order for the children to understand it in their own level we continuously read funny books that they enjoyed for example, ‘Litterbug Doug’ and played many games, for example ‘who could pick up the most rubbish’. In doing all this, our recyclable materials did not go to waste, we created many objects with the children using these for example; robots, boats, cars, wind chimes etc.
WORM FARM
During a staff meeting we discussed that the next step we would like to take into becoming an more eco friendly centre was to get our worm farm in a more productive state. To do this we researched worm farms care procedures. We had be having a special guest Laurie O’Grady coming into the centre to talk about the environmental benefits of a worm farm to the children and staff and help set up the perfect productive worm farm we are aiming to achieve. Research was undergone to ensure we can upkeep the worm farm to this standard. Discussions are constant with the children during our fruit breaks and during maintenance of the worm farm.
JENNI PREPARES FOR HER 100KM WALK
Next Friday – 26th August, Jenni and her team of 4 will commence the100km trek from the Hawkesbury
through Ku-ring-gai National park to Mosman.
Is she scared of not finishing? – “NO”
Is she afraid of never feeling her feet again? – “POSSIBLY”
Is she going to be very, very, tired, grumpy, hungry and irratable? – “OF COURSE”
Is the team and herself going to do the best they can possible do? –“ DEFINATELY “
To my wonderful families and supporters, Jenni will not be present next Friday 26th August as she will be participating in this long awaited walk of a lifetime. When she first signed up for this walk, she was endeavouring for a challenging something she never thought she would do and when she found something that was a challenge and for charity she couldn’t say no. She will be participating in this with a maximum of 48hr to complete this trek, crawl, climb and drag through unforgiving terrain and wilderness to the finish line of beautiful Sydney Harbour. After lots of practice walks with her team, she is pretty confident and with a fit team of girls, if anything our will power, mental strength and the scenery will gets us through this.
So while your all enjoying your coffee next Friday morning and snuggling into your warm beds on Friday night, think of Jenni and the thousands of others that insanely decided to ‘KEEP ON WALKING’. If you would like to make a donation to my team and OXFAM please visit our team home page and make an online donation at http://trailwalker.oxfam.org.au/Sydney/teams/team/?team_id=9728
Alternatively you can buy a raffle ticket and be in the draw to win an amazing sail around the Harbour on a Sydney to Hobart yacht for 4hrs, worth $2500.00
78 Willison Rd CARLTON NSW 2218
Ph: 02 9587 0335
Please feel free to contact us on the number above or complete the form below and we will contact you as soon as possible.
