Destiny Rescue

One of our parents (Charlotte Fletcher) is involved with a group called Destiny Rescue that regularly travels to Cambodia and Thailand to rescue children from being sold into sex slavery . Charlotte is leaving on September 22nd and if you would like to help this cause you can bring in donations of  new stationery or good condition children's clothes (sizes baby to 6)
Please see the display in the foyer and leave your donations in the perspex box. You can read more about this project  ( or make a donation ) at   http://www.destinyrescue.org/aus

Sports Day

Sports Day this year is on Thursday 20th September between 9am and 12md . Please check the display in the foyer to see what House your child is in and their program for the morning. Dress your child in their  House colour and come along and join us . (the uniform shop have some plain Tshirts for around $10) We need parent help and participation on the day so please come dressed appropriately !  All children are welcome provided a parent is with them if it is not their usual attendance day.

ELC Team

artsPACes

artsPACes is a biannual event held in the Prep School as a festival of arts. The ELC will contribute a display and we invite you all to attend this wonderful event on September 12th from 6pm.

Parent Teacher Interviews

Parent Interviews will be offered from 10-12th September between 3pm and 6pm . Please see Mrs Porter at the front desk to make a time to see your child's Teacher to discuss their progress or any concerns that you may have .

Jeanine

Boys and Reading

Dear Parents,

As a College constantly looking for ways to attain better education outcomes for boys we are always on the lookout for new research and information regarding boys learning. Below is an excerpt from the website ARACY Fatherhood Research Network Blog. With Father’s Day looming it is an opportune time for us to all reflect on the important role fathers play in the lives of their children. Below Professor Trevor Cairney hints at the important role fathers play in helping their sons acquire a love of reading.

Food for thought

Kind Regards

Mel Bishop

“The Challenge of Boys and Reading

We have known for a long time that girls seem to make a faster start in reading. Many have explained this by pointing to the fact that girls are usually faster to speak. They arrive at school more articulate and with more extensive vocabularies than boys. However, in the last 2-3 decades the gap between the literacy achievements of boys and girls has widened in favour of girls. We know we have a problem with boys’ education and literacy, but what do we do about it?

Helping boys to become readers

I have shared some of these ideas in a previous post on my blog ‘Literacy, Families and Learning’. Let me share what I see as four fundamental things about boys and literacy:

1. Boys are more likely to be attracted to books and reading when the books and the reading event (whether at school, or reading with mum and dad) offer opportunities to discover, experiment, explore, learn new things, make them laugh, consider the curious or unusual, help them to play, see how things work, share trivia tricks and facts with other boys, explore the unknown, and generally do interesting things.

2. Boys need to understand the value of story and storytelling from an early age. This can be acquired through early books, the stories you share with them (anecdotes, memories, tall tales etc), traditional stories and fantasy. Until boys value story, they will struggle to cope with reading.

3. Fathers as well as mothers need to learn how to listen to and read with your sons. Reading to and with you should be enjoyable, not boring or a chore.

4. Fathers have a key role to play in boys’ literacy and learning development

Professor Trevor Cairney

The Master of New College and a Professor of Education in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales.”

Big Boys Breakfast

Dear ELC Parents and Friends,

Our annual Big Boys Breakfast was a huge success this year. Thank you to all the fathers and special friends who took the time to come and join us for some delicious pancakes and a wonderful concert. We managed to raise an amazing $480 for the HeartKids Foundation, which will be greatly appreciated by this worthy cause. Six babies every day across Australia are born with heart disease and we have several families in the ELC who are affected by it. As HeartKids is the only organisation in Australia focussed on childhood heart disease, we felt it a fitting cause to contribute to this year. If you missed out on making a donation on the day, please feel free to put one in the Big Blue Heart in the foyer of the ELC.
Thank you,
Miss Marcus (on behalf of the ELC team)

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley parents,

Another busy week in Edgerley! Time has flown and we have been as busy as bees. A large part of our week was spent preparing for our special Big Boys Breakfast for fathers day…we loved the pancakes, some of us even ate three!! Thankyou to all the dads who very generously contributed to our HeartKids Fundraiser. Don’t forget, if you didn’t have change on the day our blue hearts we live with Mrs Porter for the next week to allow you at add your donation.

We also continued to be fascinated by bees this week, hunting for them in the garden, making comb with tessellation shapes and watch Bee Movie (a special treat! It is very unusual for us to watch a movie at ELC)

Finally we would like to thank Rocco’s Mummy and Daddy for all of the special push cars they gave us to add to our block corner. We have been creating roads and cities ever since.

Kind Regards

Mel, Coney and Pip

Big Boys Breakfast

This is on next Thursday morning (30th Aug).  It will commence at 8.00a.m in the Piper Pavilion which is the glass walled building to the right of  the front of the main bluestone building ( Dequetteville Tce side). The ELC will  be open from 7.30am for you to drop your child's bag off and sign in if you wish to . Please take your child with you and go straight to the venue. Look for a table with a sign with  your child's class name on it to sit at with your child. Following the breakfast if your child is staying with us for the day and will find it hard to part from you (especially Langley children) please walk back to the centre with us to say goodbye.

PS. Your children are very excited !

Sun Policy

Despite the current  miserable weather our centre policy (based on the recommendation from the Cancer Council) is that the children need to wear hats and sunscreen from September 1st. Please put sunscreen on your child in the morning and we will reapply it before afternoon play. Please make sure they have a named ELC hat with them each day from this date until April 30th.

ELC Team

Bookings for next year

At the end of this term we will begin to allocate places for new children to enter the ELC next year. If you wish to alter your current booking in any way for next year could you please contact me as soon as possible to discuss the options ,

regards

Jeanine

Older Children in the ELC

Dear Parents ,

We are very happy for older children to come with a parent/guardian to help collect a sibling but would remind you to ask them not to play on our equipment as it is not designed for older children and it makes it difficult for our afternoon staff who are supervising the ELC children who then like to copy the older children.

Thanks for your co-operation

Jeanine

Show Day

The school allocates one day each year as a 'Show Day' and the school will be closed on Friday 7th September this year. The ELC will remain open but the Teachers will not be in attendance. If you are taking advantage of this day and your child will not be here please let Mrs Porter or myself know so that we can organise sufficient staff for the day , 

Jeanine

Langley Room

We were lucky enough to receive some new toy work vehicles this week that we have been playing with in the classroom; a tip truck, a fire engine, a school bus and a rubbish truck;

“It’s not a rubbish truck, it’s a recycle truck” Thomas explained to us

“You recycle the paper” said Angus

“Paper” agreed Charlie A

Inspired by the children’s interest, we introduced some toy rubbish bins to our play and started shredding some paper rubbish.

 “Put some paper in the rubbish bin” explained Charlie M

“A rubbish truck takes it to the dump” Dougal informed the other children, “da green bin is for weeds and the yellow one needs recycling” he continued

“What things can we recycle?” questioned the teacher

“Some cans and some paper and some bottles” answered Dougal

“Can I put my rubbish in the truck?” asked Jock

“No, full” he explained as he went and emptied his rubbish truck and returned to collect Jock’s rubbish.

We look forward to further exploring the concepts of rubbish and recycling next week.

Best wishes,

Jess, Kerry, Amelia and Nicole

Cooper Room

The Cooper children have continued their inquiry into animal habitats by investigating ocean environments. They have painted with blue wash over oil pastel and made collages on the light table. They also used playdough and pebbles to create a sea floor for the sea creature figure toys. The children played with the creatures making them swim, dive and hide in the sand…

“This whale, dad whale a’ this mama whale” Kate showed Pauline.

Pauline picked up a lobster and said to Kate, “Lobsters, they have snippers.”

“Baby whale eat them” said Kate as she swam a whale towards the lobster.

“No they can’t, they swim away” answered Pauline as she hid the lobster toy under the table.

“It’s a big one!” warned Harry A. swimming a shark around.

Later in the week we read There’s a Hippopotamus on the Roof Eating Cake and discussed where hippos might live. The farm, zoo and jungle were all suggestions and next week this is something we will be looking into further. Any related show and tells would be most welcome!

Kind regards,

Ali and Coral

Mead Room

Dear Parents,
We have another creature in residence in the Mead Room - a cheerful, chirpy, yellow Canary. He is a little spoilt and partial to boiled eggs, broccoli and milk arrowroot biscuits! Our feathered visitor has lead us into more discussions about animals and their homes.
"It's home is a cage" - Jacob
"It has a bath in it" - Izabella
"But it hasn't got a towel. maybe it just shakes itself (dry). And it has a ladder to climb up to the stick" - Luca
"If it was outside it would fly away" - Sebastian
"Yes, we would never see that bird again" - Luca
"We put it in the cage so it wont fly away and to protect it from the people" - Jacob
"It poo on it's egg - Yuck!" - Raphael
"I no poo on my food" - Eden
"Do all birds live in a cage?" - asked the Teacher
"Some live outside" - Jacob
"Some live in a house" - Luca
"Some live in a nest" - Sebastian
"That bird doesn't have a nest, 'cos he needs to stay there. 'Cos it's not safe outside. The children will get him" - Izabella
"Home" - Adu

Best wishes,
Emma, Susan, Cristina and Heidi

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley Parents,

We have had a jam packed week this week finding out more about animals houses. We were joined by Frank the apiarist who showed us the inside of a bee hive and told us about how bees live. We touched and smelt smokers, foundation plates and empty honeycomb. We also tried on a bee keepers veil as Frank told us how apiarists protect themselves from bees. (After Frank left we enjoyed making our own veils at the making table with netting from the art room…. We found a giant bee, Mrs Rocca!! on the playground and tried to trap her but she was too fast!)

Frank told us about the three types of bees that live in a hive. Mrs Bishop wanted to be the queen bee and the children divided themselves into two groups, lazy drone bees and busy worker bees. Thank goodness we had mostly worker bees with big muscles! Finally we sat in a circle and shared some bee food. Frank told us about how the bees use their wings to fan and dehydrate the nectar to make honey so we madly fanned our wings and Mrs Bishop magically found the honey we had made, even in its own bottle! Amazing!

On Wednesday we headed up to the Prep school to visit Mrs Melbourne in 5M. We had heard that she had animals in her classroom that wore their homes on their backs. We tried to guess what they could be…hermit crabs? Snails? When we arrived we spotted two very big and friendly turtles, Thelma and Myrtle. The turtles were keen to try and hide under our legs which was very funny! When they flipped over we could see the underside of their shells and were very amazed when they quickly flipped back onto their tummys. Finally Mrs Melbourne placed them in the tank for a swim and some lunch. We loved them!

Don’t forget next week that we will be celebrating Big Boys Breakfast. Please return your surveys and RSVP if you have not already done so.

Kind Regards

Mel, Coney and Pip

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,

We have been discussing animals and their homes this week. There has been some interesting discussion about whether certain animals live in cages or in the wild. Several children have been exploring a non fiction book called Dangerous Animals. The children drew an animal of their choice and their corresponding home.

‘Lions live in a den.’ Henry

‘Dens are made of rocks.’ Charlie

‘A rock cave moves up to each cave.’ Owen

‘And even they move, cause we move into different homes and cars.’ Charlie

‘Sharks live in underwater caves. Tigers live in the wild. A piranah  lives where the sharks live. It has sharp teeth and a light to see where it’s going. They have sharper teeth than a shark. A cheetah’s home is a little bit cool. He doesn’t have any lights so the other animals go in there and he eats them up.’ Henry

‘An orange arrowed frog lives in a tree.’ Oliver

‘Did you know swordfish have sharp noses. They live under the sea.’ Gabriel

‘Sting fish live under the water.’ Harry W

‘I drew a reindeer. They live with Santa Claus.’ Eric

Pictures: Tigers Live in Cages, by Sebastian and Tigers Live in Zoos, by Oliver

Chinese Curriculum Night

It is not too late to reply to this and come along and join us for a glass of wine and an informative evening on Tuesday 21st August at 7.30pm

School Clothing/Lost Property

As the weather is still very wintery please continue to send a jacket for your child for outside play and for walking up to Library or PE . We do go even when it is raining lightly so the children need a waterproof jacket with a hood.  We prefer this to be our ELC jacket . From next year we would like children to have moroon pants/shorts/skirts etc also (and only white or moroon layers underneath) .  Children in Edgerley room will not be expected to comply with this as they will be leaving mid year .
(Best and Less have moroon  in their School Zone collection on line , track pants currently $7.19 !)
There is a basket of lost property just inside the double doors , please check if any of your child's belongings are there as we will be "moving it on" shortly . Please remember to name everything and keep toys or personal belongings at home.

Thankyou

Theatre Excursion

A Lion In The Night

This week four year old students enjoyed the opportunity to leave the centre and get out and be a part of the Norwood community. They walked up the Parade to visit the Odeon Theatre to see the Patch Theatre Company play A Lion in the Night loosely based on the familiar tale of the same name by Pamela Allen.

This abstract interpretation was definitely a challenge for both our students and adult helpers alike and it will be interesting to see, as we share the stories of Pamela Allen in the coming weeks, how the children make connections between their familiar version and the version presented by the actors. Thankyou so much to all the adult helpers who joined us, and those who prayed for the rain to stay away. Our prayers were answered and the rain poured down, minutes after returning to the centre! How lucky!

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,

After finishing the DVD Rio this week, we discussed what the movie was about, and what it meant to be endangered and living in captivity. We also drew representations of Hyacinth Macaws and investigated Brazil and Carnivale.

‘Blue and Jule were the birds that got trapped in the cages. They got fown back to Rio and got free again. At the end, Blue learnt to fly.’ Tommi

‘Brids do live in bird nests and in a tree. And snails live in a house that’s a curly shell that’s a bit different to a crab shell.’ Owen

‘It is about houses and birds.’ Tommi

‘They wanted to take them to home in Rio’ Eric

‘The badies got the birdies and they tried to escape from the cages. The birds didn’t want to be in the cages.’ Dillon

‘They can’t fly if they are in a cage.’ Gabriel

The conversation then moved onto animals living in cages and captivity.

‘If there’s no animals in captivity, there’d be no zoos.’ Ryan

‘The birds want to stay in trees.’ Zach F

‘If I was blue, I would prefer to be flying around the jungle.’ Tommi

Thank you to Ryan for sharing the DVD with us.  The children really enjoyed it. We will continue our inquiry into homes, and focus on birds homes- nests, trees and cages, next week. Thank you also to the parents who came on our excursion yesterday. It was  another safe and successful outing. Keep the Dad's surveys coming in. Not long now until the Big Boys Breakfast!

Chapple Room Team

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley parents,

We have had another busy week in Edgerley, continuing to explore shadows and rainbows. We would like to create our own rainbows with prisms so if any families have prisms that they would like to share with us we would love to experiment with them. We also continued our discussions around spring and winter flowers.

“Blossoms are weak and daffodils are strong so daffodils can come out in winter” said Priyanka

“Uh oh! There maybe won’t be enough blossoms for the other days in spring!” suggested Lily, thinking ahead about possible consequences

“Daffodils are so strong so the wind can’t blow the petals away . Actually blossoms have to grow out of a tree but daffodils can grow one by one out of the ground” said Fletcher

We covered our windows in our beautiful blossom pictures and then set to work observing some bright yellow and orange daffodils. We felt them, they did have stronger petals!

We said goodbye to our crabs this week and sent them back to the nature Education Centre and next week we are looking forward to further exploring another round home for an animal. Can you guess what it is? We are also looking forward to welcoming Mr Wagenfellars brother-in-law who is coming to speak to us about bee’s homes. Maybe he can explain to us why the bees in our garden won’t make any honey in the hive we built for them using blocks?

Kind Regards

Mel, Pip and Coney

Mead Room

Dear Mead Parents,

Over the last week we have been investigating different sorts of animal homes. Following a particular interest in the book "Owl Babies" by Martin Waddell, the children have been discussing bird homes and have been enthusiastic to make their own bird nests. They have worked with clay and clay tools, and added feathers, twigs and other special treasures they collected in the garden to add support or comfort to their nests.

"I put feathers to make it (the nest) soft. Then they will have a little home. I think they will be very happy" Gwen
"I'm making a house made of clay" - Izabella
"I hammer my house to make it get fixed" - Eden
"I'm making a nest. Now I'm rolling" - Molly
"I can make lots of eggs. They can be real ones" - Jacob
"A birdie has a nest. They have bun eggs. It's an emus nest" - William
"We need sticks for our nest, birds sticks" - Raphael

Please come in and have a look at our special bird homes we have created.
Best wishes,
Emma, Susan, Cristina and Heidi

Cooper Room

This week in Cooper the children have continued with their music shows and pretend play. Harry L. found that he could play the blocks like drums and soon several children joined him in building drum kits and tapping some beats. The children sang and played favourites like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Ram Sam Sam while others danced along. Outside we turned metal and plastic containers upside down and used chopsticks for drum sticks. The children experimented with the different sounds they could make and played along to a Peter Combe CD. “It’s a drumming show!” announced Oliver as he showed us a drum roll.

Also this week, we have been busy preparing our Father’s Day pictures and presents ready for the Big Boys Breakfast. So far we have only had a very small amount of Dads’ surveys returned for this and would very much appreciate it if the Cooper dads could fill them out and return them a.s.a.p. so that they can be displayed at our special breakfast.

Kind regards,

Ali and Coral

Langley Room

Dear Langley Family and Friends,

This week we have been investigating blowing bubbles using some giant bubble wands that we have had in the classroom. The children have excitedly chased the bubbles around the yard trying to pop them and observed them floating up into the sky and over the roof. Some of the bubbles even stuck to the ground and we were able to jump on them!

The children were keen to have a go at blowing the bubbles for themselves but we soon discovered this is a very tricky skill to practice and perfect without spitting everywhere! In response to the children’s interest we tried to make our own bubble mix using cell-mix, detergent, glycerin and water. To our delight, we were able to produce some bubbles but we look forward to continuing to tweak and perfect our bubble mix next week!

Best wishes

Jess, Kerry, Amelia and Nicole

Chinese Curriculum Night

This will be held on Tuesday 21st August at the ELC . Please check out our display in the foyer and let Mrs Porter know if you are attending .

Jeanine

Toy Catologues

This week we distributed fundraiser catalogues to every family . If you would like to place an order from either of these then please return the order form with payment details to Mrs Porter by August 31st . Please note that we cannot take cash and cheques need to be made out either to Chalk or Parent Direct.

Big Boys Breakfast

Please keep those surveys coming in and your attendance replies so that we have numbers for catering .

Thankyou

Show Day

The main school will be closed on Friday September 7th but the ELC will still be open . If your child will NOT be attending on that day could you please let Mrs Dry know .

Thankyou

Langley Room

Dear Langley Family and Friends,

We have continued our inquiry about homes this week, introducing more sea creatures to our water play. We have also eagerly been looking at and talking about our own homes and the features of them, with a strong focus on the people who live in our homes with us. After examining our photographs of our homes, we have been creating black line images on them to share with others. The children have also initiated house building in the outside environment using the large wooden blocks.

“It’s a castle” explained Jada as she stacked the blocks one on top of another,

“We making a house, we making my house” Dougal joined in,

“What’s that part?” questioned the teacher,

“It’s the rubbish bin” replied Jada,

“This part is going to go here” Dougal commented as he added more blocks.

We hope that you have all found the Big Boys Breakfast information and surveys in your pigeon holes. Can you please RSVP and return your surveys as soon as possible so that we can continue to prepare the children for this special event.

Best wishes,

Jess, Kerry, Amelia and Nicole

Cooper Room

The Cooper children’s investigation of nests continued this week with cutting and collaging. Since the beginning of term we have noticed the children have been keen to cut anything and everything with scissors, so this week we set out scissors and various materials including paper, fabric and wool. Many of the children chose to stick their cut materials onto semi-circles for bird nests and used mud (brown coloured glue) to hold it all together.

“I’m making a beautiful nest” said Oliver, “it’s got a bird and eggs.”

“Birds need sticks for nests” pointed out Pauline.

The children were fascinated by a preserved magpie that we were looking at and discussed how it may have died.

“’Cos he can’t fly” thought Pauline.

“Maybe he catapulted from a pigeon… maybe he sick” suggested Hugo Sen.

“No, he not sick he died” said Pauline.

This week we have also begun to look at ocean environments following Kristian’s show and tell of a sea collection. If you have any interesting related items we would love to see them for show and tell next week.

Kind regards,

Ali and Coral

Mead Room

Dear Mead Parents,
The Mead children enjoyed investigating what happens when we blow air through water. We added coloured dye to detergent and created some fun bubble prints. We recorded our bubbles by pressing the paper onto our bubble pot. It left many of us with spotty faces and we all marvelled at how much our paintings looked like water!
Best wishes,
Emma, Susan, Cristina and Heidi

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley Parents,

We had another brilliant week, busy in our classroom. We continued to discuss why we thought some blossom trees were letting their blossoms flower and others weren’t. We decided that some trees didn’t’ know that it wasn’t spring yet! We observed some blossoms in class and painted them. Our observations of shadows also continued this week with lots of theories about where shadows go when we can’t see them.

“They go up behind the clouds when we can’t see them. That’s where they are” said Bailey

“When I went into the bathroom there were three shadows of me” said Olivia

We have enjoyed taking care of our hermit crabs this week and have been busy creating mini breakout spaces for them so they don’t fall onto the floor. We are very interested in homes for animals and hope to extend our inquiry to bee hives and birds’ nests in response to children's thoughts and interests in the coming weeks.

Kind regards

Mel, Coney and Pip

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,

Despite suffering from lots of sniffles and snuffles, it's been a wonderful week in Chapple Room. As part of our inquiry into homes, Charlie's mother came in on Wednesday morning to talk about her fundraising efforts for homeless people. The concept of homelessness has been one that the class keeps revisiting. Shecky and some of her colleagues have knitted squares to make two blankets for those in need. The children helped lay them out, and have since been inspired to work on their own woollen projects, of Tomboys and Pom Poms. Thank you again to Shecky for sharing with us.
From our conversation about what happened on Wednesday:
'We were making a blanket with Charlie and we were making eight lines.' Owen
'You can still see the knitting cause we're doing some knitting there.' Charlie
'We're making a blanket cause if nobody has a house.' Jesse
'We were doing the knitting of the blanket. She just took it home.'Owen
'It's at work. Hers going to stich it all together so it won't crack and fly away in the wind.' Charlie
'Like for a poor person.' Ryan
'First they need a bed.' Oliver
'To get money, some people don't have any home because they don't have any money and to get money you need to work.' Owen
'They might not love each other anymore. Or they might not be warm enough.' Charlie
We will continue to discuss homes, homelessness and the homes of animals throughout the coming weeks.
 Next week we have our excursion to the Patch Theatre for A Lion in the Night and several birthdays. It should be a great week! Have a lovely weekend.
Thank you,
Chapple Room Team

New Baby

Congratulations to David and Tali de Lacy on the arrival of Aston James on Thursday July 26th . A little brother for Spencer (Cooper Room)

Centre Review

On Monday and Tuesday next week we will have Laura Rodriguez and Julie Francesca from the newly formed Education and Early Childhood Services Registration and Standards Board of SA to observe and assess our centre. Please make them welcome during their time with us ,

Jeanine

Birthdays

Just a reminder that you are very welcome to bring in a birthday cake for your child to share. We find that cupcakes work well as they are easy to distribute and the birthday child only blows out candles on their own cake so that we avoid spreading germs this way . Please do not bring any other treats to share as per our policy in the parent handbook.

Thankyou

Chapple Room Parent Meeting

Chapple Room Literacy Information Session

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,

There will be a literacy information session next week, Wednesday 8^th August at 4pm. Please let us know if you cannot make it so we can pass the information on to you.

Thanks,

Chapple Room Team

Langley Room

Dear Langley Family and Friends,

We have been very busy examining our house pictures this week and talking about features within our homes. After looking at our photographs we have been recreating images of our homes using black markers.

My house. A roof and a window. Dere’s a wall. Some toys, there’s a bed and some bricks – Dougal

Alec house. William in there and Daddy and Mummy and Alec. A roof and a door and that’s my garden – Alec

Dock’s house! I go in my house, eat dinner. Was dat? (points to chimney) Dat my window – Jock

Me’s house. Pa, Mummy, Daddy, me. Mummy’s house – Alexander R

My house. There’s milk in there. My bedroom, Chloe’s bedroom, some pasta. The roof, Chloe’s bed, my bed, the kitchen, the door and that’s the milk (as drawing) – Jada

Please keep the photographs of the children’s homes coming if you have not already done so!

Best wishes,

Jess, Kerry, Amelia and Nicole

Cooper Room

This week the Cooper children were very interested in using wooden blocks as guitars inside the classroom. We decided to take the CD player outside, and play music on the stage for the children to dance to and perform their music. The children used old guttering pipes to make different musical instruments and sang along too.

“It’s a guitar!” said Jack

“A flute” shouted Ammar who put the pipe to his mouth.

“Kangaroo” sung Oliver anticipating the next words on the Wiggles CD.

When the children finished their dancing they gave a bow, and Jarrah, Kristian and Jackson gave them a big applause from their seats. Later in the week in our music lesson with Mrs B. we tried our dance moves to fast and slow, high and low music. We listened to Mrs B's beautiful piano playing and also our new favourite, Justine Clark's chicken song, and enjoyed getting up and down for high and low music and running and crawling for fast and slow.

Kind regards,

Ali and Coral

Mead Room

Dear Mead Parents,

The Thursday children entered the Mead Room to be greeted by seven small Plains Mice, who have taken up residence for two weeks in our classroom. We are investigating animals and their homes this week, and so the children are getting a first hand view of what environment these little rodents enjoy living in! Our discussions revealed we are already quite knowledgeable about these furry creatures.

"Look, he's washing his face" Eden squealed.
"Them mice. Them can creep" Izabella commented.
"They can bit your finger" Raphael warned.
"They have teeth" Andre confirmed.
"No, they don't have sharp teeth. They have little teeth and eat leaves" Abhi suggested.
"Them eat grass and people" Gwen said, with a smile on her face.
"They eat worms" Luca offered.
"I think they eat leaves. They have 4 legs, teeth, a bottom, and a long tail" Jack said.
"I think they eat seeds" Suzannah added.
"They burrow keeps them warm" Luc told his friends.
"My fishy sleeps in the day like the mouse at school" Raphael observed.
"They're sleeping now" Jacob noticed.

Come in and have a look at the new additions in the Mead Room.
Best wishes,

Emma, Susan, Cristina and Heidi

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley Parents,

Another jam packed week this week as we continued to explore our key areas of interest. We continued to wonder about where babies get food from when they are inside their mummies tummies and discovered a link to our very own belly buttons! We wanted to share some of our memories of our own births (?!) and have begun to record them. They are hidden under pictures of our belly buttons, come into our classroom next week and see if you can work out who is who.

We also continued to ponder about rainbows and it seems we already know a lot!

“To make a rainbow you need sun and water” said Priyanka

“No, sun and rain” said Toby

“Because they come out some days when it’s raining” said Sebastian R

“We like them because they’re pretty” said Fletcher

“Because they are bright” said Felix

“But we can’t touch rainbows” said Rocco

“Because the father you go closer, the father it goes away” said Alec

“No, there’s treasure at the end, they leave treasures where they stopped” said Isaac

“I think a rainbow feels warm because it is made of sun” said Owen

We also enjoyed our sessions at PE this week and are getting very good at our straight, tuck and doggie rolls. We can even do tucks of the balance beam! Wow!

Kind Regards

Mel, Coney and Pip

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,

Olympic Medalists

The children made their own medals this week, and chose what they won them for.

Running. I just keep on running. Owen (Gold)

Fencing. You just hitted someone down. Yi Bin (Gold)

Fencing. Actually, I don’t know how you win that. Harry H (Silver)

Running. You need to come first to be the fastest. Oliver

The Olympic influence has also spread to outside play. Owen, Yi Bin and Seth spent the afternoon playing Olympic soccer. They raced around the lawned area, all trying to win gold. Owen also tried to find someone to be the boss of the Olympics, however, no one was confident enough to give the role a go.

Whilst this was happening, Jesse, Dillon, Joshua and Oliver were working on digging the Olympic swimming pool in the sandpit. They dug a massive hole together, and discussed where they should put the light globes.

As many children later played Olympic basketball, Jack yelled, ‘Come on! This is for Melbourne!’ as he lined the ball up for a goal. They scored with chalk, making tally marks up the wall and on the ground.

Several children brought in Olympic colouring pages for Show and Tell. We will continue to follow the Olympics over the next week and will keep you posted on our budding Olympians and commentators.

From the Chapple Room Team

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,