Closure Dates

The centre will be closed from 6 pm tonight and will reopen on Monday 13th January 2014. Term 1 and normal classes begin on January 30th and children moving to new rooms will do so on that date.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a safe Holiday !

The ELC Team

Typhoon Haiyan appeal

Dear families,
I would like to say thank you for your generous contribution to the appeal to raise money for a small community in Northern Iloilo, Philippines severely affected by typhoon Haiyan. With your help and the Year 3 MC, we were able to raise nearly $2000 dollars which helped provide food for over 100 families as well as starter school packs for 2 community schools in Carles, Iloilo where buildings and resources were totally wiped out. On their behalf, I would like to say thank you again for making their Christmas a little happier and may you be blessed even more for your kindness. Have a wonderful 2014.

Coney

New Door Code

Please note that we will have a new door code from JANUARY 20th 2014. Please pick up your code from the front desk .  Please do not give the code to people who are not collecting your child or to any children (big or little!). Could we also remind everyone not to allow the children to use the code pad as it gets "out of sync" very easily when pressed by little fingers.

Thankyou

Fees over the Holidays

There are no fees payable for the 3 weeks that we are closed for. Please note however that fees will be processed during the closure period to keep payments in the correct timeline and up to date.

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Families,

What a lovely, playful last week we have had! We said goodbye to a few more of our friends who are off to ‘Big School’ next year. We wish them all the best of luck!

On Monday we  put our best face forward – and we had them painted! We were so excited, and we chose many different things to be painted, but ‘ladybirds’ were the going theme!

Tuesday was our cooking day – we made marshmallow Christmas trees – they were super yummy! It was tricky getting the coconut to turn green, but we worked it out in the end – and they looked just as good as they tasted!

Wednesday was such a hot day – we were lucky enough to watch a Christmas movie, and one of our special friends Christian turned 5! He brought in balloons and yummy vanilla ice cream. Happy Birthday Christian!

Thursday and Friday were such busy days, and boy were they hot! Thursday saw us making our Foam Gingerbread House and Christmas Tree. We hope you checked them out, they were on top of the lockers! Friday we had our Elves in the ELC dress up day! We had a great time being green or red and loved singing our lovely songs!

Thankyou so much for joining us in the holiday program. If we don’t see you next year, have a great time with your children at big school and have a lovely Christmas and New Year.

See you in 2014!

Have a great holiday break,

Miss Veltmeyer and Miss Karla 

Dates to Remember – Wednesday 15^th Jan – Dress in Flouro Day and Tent City

                                  Thursday 16^th Jan – Tent City

                                  Friday 17^th Jan – Bring a Beach towel for our picnic 

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley families and friends,

As the year draws to a close, we made sure we ended it with a bang and what would be more exciting than days of face painting, ice block making (and eating), fun water play and a little centre event. Lots of children opted to be pirates and we didnt know we had Blackbeard in our class. This week has been so hot that whenever the sun was a bit kinder with its subtle rays, we tried to enjoy as much water play as we could. We all had a great time splashing ourselves and others with any container we could fill from the water feature. It felt like we were just at the beach and lots of trousers flew off too! We also made our 'tutti frutti' ice block that we enjoyed while resting under the shade of our loved gum tree. Oh so yummy!
We also received some yummy treats from magical elves Flicky and Flashy who have been working for Santa as we helped fill up our "Bean Jar of Good Deeds"! It was so exciting to know our efforts have been rewarded. But of course, the highlight of our week was our ELVES in THE ELC day, when we all dressed in our elf outfits and made our own elf hats. We also presented some beautiful Christmas carols along with the Chapple Children. What a great year it has been and we thank you all for being a part of it. We wish you a wonderful Christmas and a prosperous 2014. Till we see you next year.


Coney and Renee

Cooper and Mead Rooms

Dear Cooper and Mead families,
Wow!! What a hot way to end the year!!
With lots of water play to help keep us cool, the children have had fun jumping, splashing and throwing water all over each other. Needless to say, they had the most fun getting the teachers wet. Poor Miss Bowden got soaked!
On Ice World Wednesday, children experimented with frozen ice cubes and water to see how ice changes and melts over time. They began by feeling the frozen ice and noticed how cold it was.
Sebastian - Brr, it too cold... feel! (then puts his cold hands on Miss Bowdens leg)
Angus - Yeah its well cold!
Zander - It's cos it comes from the fridge you know
After touching the cold ice the children worked out that it would melt quicker in the sun to get the hidden treats out. The children watched it melt quickly in the sun and could finally reach the sea animals, shells and glitter that had been frozen inside. Lastly the children tried coloured ice, a yummy treat on a very hot day.
To finish the week, we celebrated all things Christmas by making cookies shaped like gingerbread men. Children loved getting involved with everyone getting a turn to put something into the bowl before the noisy beater turned all the ingredients into a dough. But of course the best part was eating the cookies! On our last day for the year, the ELC was transformed into Santa's Workshop with our elves in the ELC . Children dressed up made elf hats which they wore to our mini parade and carol singing in the Chapple room.
We thank all the friends and families of the three year old classes for all your beautiful Christmas words and gifts. We look forward to seeing you next year.
We wish you all a very Merry Chirstmas and Happy New Year!

Love Miss Sarah, Miss Bowden, Mrs Nacca and Miss C. 

Langley Room

What a fantastic finish to a wonderful year!

This week we have enjoyed making baubles to take home
and hang on our Christmas trees. We used coloured glue, confetti and
stickers to create some beautiful masterpieces.

On Monday we made our own delicious juice using a variety of fruit and watching
it turn into juice using Miss Emily's juicer.

On Thursday and Friday we stayed inside under the airconditioner to keep cool.
We created some amazing crowns to wear around the room and also some elf hats to
wear on a parade around the ELC.
Miss Sue also cut up some oranges and froze them for us so we could enjoy a cool treat.

The children have loved spending as much time as possible out in our new yard!
It looks fabulous!!!!!!!!
We have enjoyed rolling around on our new grass and pretending our
sandpit is a big swimming pool!

What a lot of fun we have had!

We hope everyone has a safe and happy Christmas and New Year
and we look forward to seeing you all on the 13th January!

Nicole, Emily, Emma and Adele

Reminders

Please make sure you let us know if your child will be away over the next few weeks. Over the closure weeks there will be lots of building ,sorting ,cleaning ,unpacking and shifting happening , Please clear your child's locker and check for any lost property to help us with this ,

Thankyou

Langley Room

Wow, how quickly this first week of the holidays has flown by in the Langley Room!
This week we have been busy welcoming some of the new children who will be
starting with us next year as well as cooking, dancing and lots of arts and crafts.

Before the holidays Miss Emily asked the children what they would like to do during the
holidays. These activites have been reflected in our programs.

The children have enjoyed making art pieces by blowing through straws into a bubble mixture and
then pressing our paper onto the bubbles, decorating and making paper lanterns and doing
their own drawings using pencils or textas on paper.

We were also lucky enough to make some yummy marshmallow bubble slice with Miss Emily which
was so yummy!
Next week we will be doing the following activities:
Monday- Making fresh juice with a juicer
Tuesday- Doing some christmas craft activities
Wednesday- We will be making our own bird feeders
Thursday- We will be having some dress ups in our class (please still wear your school uniform to school)
Friday- Elf dress up day- Please wear red or green to school ready to take part in some
"elf activities" with the rest of the ELC.

We would also say a big thankyou to everyone for our lovely gifts!

Enjoy your weekend!


Nicole, Emily, Emma and Julia

Cooper and Mead Rooms

Dear Cooper and Mead families,

The first week of the holidays we have been exploring different textures and sensations by feeling and squishing jelly, snow and play dough.

We made red and green jelly and put lots of little treasures in it for the children to discover.

Joshua – It feels like jelly. I found treasure! (Holding up a bell)

Olympia- Ooohh its cold! I found a bauble.

Alec – We are putting the red in the green one.

Tom – It’s like dark red now.

James W – it’s all squishy

Luca – Wow, it’s so cold

Sebastian – It’s jelly for touching not eating no!

To play with snow, the children curiously watched the teachers add water to white powder and excitedly watched it grow!

Olympia – Oh it’s like magic

Knox  -  Look the animals are skating

Archie – Mine are hiding, ha ha where are they?

The children have also been busy building with Knex and creating lots of interesting structures.

Tom – Look at Miss Sarah now! She doesn’t need legs, she can slide on the snow. And you can fly.

To finish the week the children wandered over to the ‘secret garden’ at the senior school to eat their morning fruit, it was a beautiful and tranquil way to end the week. We have also been enjoying singing and dancing to wonderful Christmas Carols.  Since we have fewer children in the holidays, the Cooper and Mead rooms have spent all week together and have been forming new friendships. We will continue to spend time together until term resumes. Therefore in the morning could you please bring your child to the Mead room.

Thankyou

Miss Sarah, Miss Bowden, Mrs Nacca, Miss C and Ms Kerr.

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley families and friends,

Week 1 of the holidays has been quite a relaxed one as we ventured into new activities in the classrooms. We have continued to add to our Christmas decorations by threading through coloured pasta and patty pans creating patterns in the process. This develops our fine motor skills as well as concentration as we try to stay on tasks. Look around and it's really "looking a lot like Christmas "indeed. We have also been going for our playground adventures in the prep school and we just love exploring the slides, monkey bars, and swings. We just love the challenge and although sometimes it can get a bit tricky, we are just happy to give it a really good try. The children have also been busy tending to their shop and making sure that everybody gets a yummy breakfast before they start their play. And if you are really good, you might score yourself a blueberry pancake and a hot chocolate (or coffee) to go with it.

Next week we have quite a few fun things lined up so please mark these dates in your diaries.

Monday: Face Painting day :)
Tuesday: Ice block making day.
Wednesday: Bring a Christmas Book to share.
Thursday: Christmas hat making.
Friday: ELves in the ELC. Please dress your children in green or/and red. We will be making elves hats and will have little parade and a few songs.

We are looking forward to seeing you next week.
Coney and Renee

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Families,

What a busy first week of holidays we have had! We said a final farewell to a few of our friends, who we wish all the best for their new ‘big school’ times ahead.

We have been having a ball decorating our Chapple Christmas Tree, so please come in a have a look – we love it! Our Christmas decoration making and wrapping presents has been making us feel like little elves working on Christmas Eve J

The office has at times turned into a Police station, Vet, Daddy’s Work and even a Farm Office! We love using our imaginations to see what we can create, we even got Miss Veltmeyer involved – she was our Police Chief!

Over the week – several boys with Miss Karla’s help – have been building a farm in the block corner. We collected some hay from the Prep school and have been using the farm animals and the blocks to make the stables. Come and check it out!

On Wednesday, we loved making our Christmas Gingerbread cookies – and the best part of that was definitely the eating bit – they were yummy!

Friday was a slimy kind of day – we made some green slime – it felt "really runny and a bit gross" ( one of the observations!)

We look forward to our last week before our Christmas Break – and some exciting water play – as we hear it’s going to be hot, hot, hot next week!

Dates to remember: - Friday 20^th December – our ELC Dress up Day. Elves in the ELC (dress in green and/or red) Parade With mini carols singing in the town square

Have a great weekend,

Miss Veltmeyer and Miss Karla xo

End of Term 4

Dear ELC families and Friends,

As term 4 comes to an end and Christmas approaches, this week we have gone out in style;

Tuesday was our move up day when we were able to meet our new teachers and see our new classrooms.  It was such a busy day! This next stage in all our learning journeys is pretty exciting and we are looking forward to getting into our brand new classrooms and learning spaces in the extension.

Wednesday was our Christmas dress up day and we had a special visit from Father Christmas.  Everybody looked fabulous in their costumes.  Such a big effort was made by everyone to make this a truly fun day.  A big thank you to all the people who donated to our Typhoon Hyan Relief Fundraising.

Thursday we congratulated the Chapple children who graduated from the ELC to School.  The Chapple children looked very smart and grown up in their mortar boards.  We would like to wish all the children good luck as they go on to school and we hope that you all come back and do a twirl for us in your school uniforms.

On Friday we had a very special High Tea Christmas lunch that Miss Sue lovingly prepared for the children.  A massive thank you to Sue for all her hard work.  Each class beautifully decorated the café for our lunch.  We had Christmas crackers as well as our lovely tasty treats.

From all the ELC staff, we would like to wish you a very merry Christmas full of joy, fun and family.  And a very safe and happy new year.  See you in 2014!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Missing uniforms

Please check all your child's uniforms to make sure they have the correct ones as it is easy for them to become mixed up when children put their belongings away themselves,

Thankyou

Edgerley Room

What a gorgeous Edgerley Community we have. Thank you all for such a special week. It has been very difficult to say goodbye to your little ones, but I know they are in wonderful hands. Thank you all for the lovely gifts I received on Thursday morning – and to the Manera and Grice Families for organising. I feel very spoilt. I’m looking forward to continue in sharing your child’s education for the remainder of their time in the ELC and perhaps at the Prep School if they continue on to PAC.

Have a lovely and very special Christmas. All the very best,

Katherine Baird

Festival Photos

Festival Photos photograph all our main events at the centre and their photos can be viewed and purchased via their website : www.festivalphoto.com.au
Go to 'Log in to your Photos' and put in PAC. The user name is PAC and the school admin # is ELC2013.
The photos from the Nativity and Chapple Room's Graduation should be on there in the near future.

Classes and Staff for 2014

As most of you know, we will be opening 2 new classes at the beginning of next year and a third one in Term 3. As there will be several new staff, classes have been planned to offer the best support  for both the children and the new staff.

The classes and staff for next year will be as follows :

2 year olds :
Langley Room - Miss Stacey , Miss Emily , Miss Kerry (and Miss Renee on Thursdays)
Wilkins Room - Miss Jess, Miss Nicole plus a new staff member
plus a second new staff member supporting both rooms.

3 year olds:
Mead Room - Mrs Prest, Miss Sarah
Mattingley Room - Miss Mason, Miss Bowden
Cooper Room - Mrs Lock , new staff member  (Cooper room will be relocating to the current Chapple Room)
plus Miss Cristina supports in all 3 rooms

4 year olds:
Chapple Room - Mr Charlwood (Miss Renee on Fridays), Miss Veltmeyer (the class is relocating to one of the new rooms)
Edgerley Room- Mrs Mckenzie , (Mondays and Tuesdays) Mrs Cooper (Wednesday to Friday), Mrs Rocca
plus Miss Karla supports both rooms

Term Dates

Next Friday - 6th Dec is the last day of Term for PAC and the Teaching staff will be on leave from then . They will return on Thursday 30th January 2014 at which time new classes will commence and children moving rooms or having additional days will do so from that date.

ELC Team

Working Bee

Dear Parents,

On Tuesday 10th December we are holding a working bee to start cleaning and sorting resources in preparation for our expanded ELC next year. We would love some parent helpers to assist us with some jobs so if you are free at any stage on this day, even if it just for a portion of the day, we would love for you to join us! Please express your interest and indicate your availability with Jeanine Dry by Friday 6th December.


Thankyou

Congratulations

Congratulations Zac Grice from Edgerley! Zac has been awarded the STATE WINNER for his preschool entry in the Primary Maths Challenge. Zac’s entry was titled ‘Music, Maths and Me’ and he was able to incorporate his passion for music and maths in both the classroom and at home. Congratulations Zac! What an effort - we are all very proud of you! 

Langley Room

Dear Langley Family and Friends,

We have been getting into the Christmas spirit this week collaging our classroom Christmas tree, making paper chain decorations, retelling our own versions of the Nativity story using the dress ups and props, painting individual Christmas trees, listening and dancing to Christmas music and even pretending Miss Kerry was Father Christmas and sharing our Christmas wishes with her!

The children have also enjoyed role playing in the hairdressing salon. You should see some of the amazing hair styles we have created as we wash, blow dry and style each other’s hair! We have excitedly watched our silk worm moths come out of their cocoons and begin to lay eggs. We have observed the moths and used mirror image printing to create our very own silk worm moths. During group times and play times we have been identifying and sorting different coloured balls into baskets. Some children have been very tricky and purposely mixed them up to see if the other children will notice they are in the wrong baskets!

A few reminders for next week – the parent information session for children moving up to the three year old rooms next year is being held in the Cooper room at 4pm on Monday 2^nd December. Moving up morning for children transitioning to three year olds next year will be held on Tuesday 3^rd December between 9.15am and 10.30am. Even if it is not your child’s day, they are welcome to join us for this time under the supervision of a parent. Christmas dress up day is being held on Wednesday 4^th December – we can’t wait to spread some Christmas cheer with our outfits! Children who do not normally attend on a Wednesday are welcome to join us for our parade at 10.30am under parent supervision -  a man in a red suit and big black boots might even make an appearance!

                                   

Best wishes,

Jess, Kerry, Nicole, Emily and Rosalie

Cooper Room

With the lead up to the end of the year our room is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. The children have been busy creating baubles for the tree, adding tinsel and sharing family photos of Christmas past. Through our Show and Tell sessions we have been learning how our families all celebrate Christmas in a different way. We have discovered:

·        Australia has a hot Christmas but other countries can play in the snow and build snowmen.

·        We all take turns to put the star or angel on top of the tree each year.

·        Some families open their presents on Christmas Eve and some wait until Christmas morning.

·        We all love to have lots of yummy food on Christmas day

·        Some families go to church and sing songs or play in the band

·        We have loud cracker poppers.

·        Father Christmas has lots of letters to read every night

·        Father Christmas has a big white beard cos’ where he lives it is really cold, but he must get hot when he comes to Australia cos’ we don’t need beards.

We have also been completing our gorgeous family mobiles. Please take the time to come and read all about your family and how they work together and the roles everyone has. Such delightful comments!

Next Wednesday we will be having our Cooper Christmas morning tea. Everyone is invited to come and share the morning from 9.30-10.30 (if it is not your child’s day then parents must stay). We will then move out to the Christmas dress up parade. A filled Merry Christmas festival! We wish you all a wonderful weekend – hopefully not too busy!

From Susan and Coral

Mead Room

We had a very special guest visit the Mead room this week, Joshua’s brand new puppy Nahla! Joshua’s mum Alex told us that Nahla is 8 weeks old and explained that she is a cross between a Maltese and a Poodle, called a Moodle. Nahla was very excited to have a little run around on the mat while we sat around in a circle. She went up to all the children and gave them a bit of a sniff before letting them have a pat.

James W - She’s not going to bite me

Dougal - She has very soft fur….She looks a little bit like Cleo when she was a puppy!

Charlie A - She has a little tail

Eriks - Gentle (when patting Nahla)

Jock - Do you know my dog Mac sleeps on my bed and she jumps on me

James S - She’s smelling your flowers Mrs McKenzie! (Mrs McKenzie was wearing floral pants on the day) 

 On Thursday we borrowed the silkworms from the Langley room because something very exciting was happening!! Five moths had hatched out of their cocoon and one was even laying eggs on the side of the container.

Jacob – The moths flapping their wings like this (flapping his arms in the air)

Angus – I can’t hear the moths flapping their wings  

Joshua – the worms aren’t little anymore

Toby – the eggs are yellow

Just a few reminders about next week:

Could you please return your child’s library book if you have not done so already.

Monday: Parent Information Meeting at 4pm in the Chapple room to meet your child’d new teacher

Tuesady: Moving up morning for the children 9:15-10:45am. Mead children will spend the morning in the Chapple room with their new teachers.

Wednesday: Dress up day and Christmas parade 10:30am. Class Graduation Party 2:30pm.

Have a great weekend

Emma, Pip, Sarah and Heidi