Buttercups Childcare and Early Learning Centre is sited in a stunning heritage house in Aberdeen Street, Northbridge opposite to the beautiful Russell Square park very close to Perth CBD. We have converted the house to make a superb centre, mindful of retaining the fabric of the history.
Picking up and dropping off your child at Buttercups is very convenient with free 5 minute drop off and pick up parking bays at the front gate of our centre.
Freeway entries both north and south are easy access and only five minutes away.Exits are at Charles Street and Roe Street.
Buttercups is central to public transport with Perth’s blue cat bus route stopping outside our Centre and Perth’s central train station an 8 minute walk.
We are just minutes from the city centre, East Perth, West Perth, North Perth, Highgate, Leederville, Mount Lawley, and a short walk from North Metropolitan Tafe, SAE Institute Perth, Stanley College, the State Library and the Western Australian Museum.
Our Entrance and Aquarium
Our entrance is designed to calm and catch the imagination of every child with a three metre fish aquarium complete with a variety of fish. The aquarium is sure to brighten your child’s imagination.
Inside the Pre-Kindy room your child can sit, watch and learn about the sea life through our porthole.
Five Outdoor Play Areas
Each playground is designed to provide nature play combined with fun and early learning experiences specifically for each age group – Babies, Wobblers, Toddlers, Pre-Kindy and Kindy. Each playground has the benefit of fully shaded wrap around veranda.
- forts
- slides
- sand pits
- vegetable gardens and fruit trees
- climbing equipment
- stepping and balancing blocks
- a mound with tunnel to investigate
- dedicated courtyard for arts and craft
- water pumps
- quiet areas
- a figure of eight bike track
- yarning circle
The Baby (Poppy) Room
In our Poppy room (1-4 ratio) we provide a caring and nurturing environment for the babies whilst developing our relationship with the children and their families. We also have a monitored separate baby cot room. The sleep times are recorded and the babies are physically checked every 10 minutes to ensure their safety and wellbeing. We work in partnership with families to maintain the routines that are currently embedded at home. The baby outdoor area has a wonderful protected area for the babies to enjoy and explore with a wall feature of lovely Australian animals’ artwork along with their aboriginal names.
The Wobbler (Lavender) Room
Our Lavender room (1-4 ratio) caters for those children that have now become more mobile and eager to explore their new environment.
This room provides a variety of fun based experiences that suit individual needs, abilities and interests, from music, art, gardening to dance in both our indoor and outdoor play areas. The Lavender room environment encourages learning through play and stimulating experiences that gives the children the opportunity to explore their environments, allowing them to continuously learn and discover their new found abilities. The outdoor area provides a large fun maze, cubby and a sandpit backed with delightful artwork, allowing children to investigate and try out new challenges in their outdoor space.
The Toddler (Tulip) Room
The Toddlers (1-4 ratio) are very active children excited about their surroundings. They love to try all activities available and where they can investigate and explore their environment. Open shelved activities allow for them to self-select and they are also learning about parallel play. The Toddlers have a choice of two outdoor areas. One allows for more indoor-outdoor playtimes and has a lovely large tree in the courtyard adding to make it an enjoyable space for art, small play and dramatic play. The other larger outdoor area has a large veranda area and the beautiful lemon, orange and mango trees provide shade throughout the day. Astro turf provides a bigger area for running and added gross motor activities. A yarning circle of fixed large logs is where the children enjoy sitting and listening to stories or singing songs.
The Pre-Kindy (Daisy) Room
The Daisy rooms (1-5 ratio) main highlight is the large painted submarine that provides a porthole for the children to sit and look through into the aquarium and enjoy watching the fish. This is a very calming and popular space for the children. Many children of this age group are developing a strong sense of independence so dress ups, construction and dramatic play is very popular. The outside area is shared with our Toddler room where there are many activities in which to explore, including bike riding, sand pit and relaxing under the shade where the children enjoy eating lemons, oranges and mangoes straight from the tree. At times they may also make use of the Studio area at the front of the Centre has many natural trees and tables creating a pleasant area and experiences are available for the children to self-select.
The Kindy (Daffodil) Room
The Daffodil room (1-10 ratio) is set out with a separate adjoining dining/art room. This busy room has an Early Childhood Teacher that leads the program to provide the educational play based early learning program. The open shelved activities where children are able to self-select to enhance their own interests and a sense of wellbeing makes for a fun day and development of friendships. Our Kindy room has many creative, challenging and interactive activities to inspire children with their fine motor and cognitive skills as they further develop their social & emotional skills.The outdoor nature play area with a wide veranda, boasts a sandpit, castle fort, a stilted cubby with slide and a figure eight bike track. A beautifully appointed separate nature art area allows for smaller groups in which to be creative.
Buttercups Childcare is located in 156 Aberdeen Street, the house built and occupied by Richard Adolphus Sholl, first Post Master General of Western Australia. The building sits in the Aberdeen Street Historic Precinct, one of the few remaining areas of late nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings close to the city.
Buildings overlooking Russell Square were much sought after, and their architectural presence reflected the social standing of their owners. Richard Adolphus Sholl, who with his brother Robert, owned much of the land at the eastern end of the precinct was the first to recognise the potential of the site and built Lancewood at number 156 in c.1884.
Richard and Robert Sholl both held prominent public positions in Western Australia – Richard as Post Master General and Robert as member of the Legislative Assembly for Gascoyne.
The building appears as one structure, but closer inspection reveals that there are four distinct parts. The front, eastern, portion has the layout of a traditional four room cottage with the front door directly off the Aberdeen Street façade. To the rear of the cottage portion is an area possibly used a stables and which still has the original timber shingles under the corrugated iron roof. These parts of the building are much simpler than the later western wing with the large bay window and decorative plasterwork which displays the characteristics of a grand house, possibly a demonstration of the growing wealth of the owner as he was promoted from Clerk to Post Master General. The final development stage was the construction of the two storey building to the rear laneway which occurred as this part of Northbridge was redeveloped following the completion of the Graham Farmer Freeway in 2000. The freeway runs east-west through the subterranean tunnel located directly behind the house.
The house is highly valued by the community for its cultural heritage, and is entered on various heritage registers noting it as an example a substantial Victorian Georgian style residence with characteristics of a spreading rural homestead.
