Term 1 begins !

Term 1 begins next week on Thursday 31st Jan . The Teachers return and our normal classes and programs resume.
Children who are moving to a new class will also do this from Thursday.
Thankyou to the wonderful staff who have been here across the holiday period and provided a fun program for all the children .
There will be many new families joining us over the next few weeks so please make them feel welcome as they join our ELC community !

Jeanine

Edgerley and Chapple Rooms

Dear Edgerley and Chapple Families,

We can't believe how busy this week has been for us. We just couldn't have enough fun learning and doing all sorts of things!

This week we enjoyed making our own orange flavoured ice blocks. We all had a go at squeezing a few oranges and placed it in a cup with pop sticks and patiently waited until they froze. We loved having them on a hot day of course!

 We  shared our ideas on what we thought the Australian flag meant and learnt how the song "Advance Australia Fair" goes.

We expressed our undertstanding of the flag through painting, colouring, mosaics and drawing. 

On Wednesday our water adventure play was loaded with fun. You should have seen our faces as we had a go at the water slide and the little pool that Mrs. Nacca kindly brought. But the best part was squirting Ms Giorgio and Mrs Rocca with the water hose  and chasing them around the playground !

They were totally soaked top to toe! Ooops!

On Friday we celebrated Australia Day with Aussie Colours face paint, baking damper, and a little Aussie picnic at the back oval.

It was nice to have lunch under a tree, out in the open....the Aussie way!

We wish all the Chapple children well for their first week in their big schools!

Happy Australia Day and we hope you all have a great long weekend.

Cheers!

Coney and Juliana

Mead Room

Another great week full of exciting things to do! Wednesday's Water Play Day was engaging in fun interactions for most children. The children took part in various experiences such as slip 'n' slide, an inflatable swimming pool, big shells and buckets filled with water, sand play equipment and sea animals splashing around in icy cold water.

Sorting by either colour, size or shape was a particular interest in the Mead room. This resulted in negotiating skills, sharing ideas, new understandings and speaking and listening to communicate.

It was fantastic to see all getting into the Australian spirit on Friday. We celebrated by wearing green and yellow (or the Australian flag) singing the Australian anthem, reading Aussie stories, creating flags, making damper and having a picnic on the oval.

During group time we had a conversation about Australian Animals and Food :

Marcus: Crocodiles
James Snook: Kangaroo
William: Emu

Marcus: Picnic
Sebastian: Vegemite
James Snook: Sausages and Beef

We would like to wish Gwen and Jack 'Good Luck' at their new schools. On Thursday we had a farewell party celebrating with blueberry cupcakes and refreshing ice blocks.

Happy Australia Day Weekend!!

Cristina and Rosalie

Cooper Room

Dear Cooper families

This week we have had an exciting week of dressing up. On our water play day all the teachers and children got very wet. We had three small pools filled with toy lobsters and boats. We had a very large inflatable pool which was great to practice swimming. We also made soup by mixing sand and water together.

On Friday we celebrated Australia day with lots of different experiences. We began by decorating flags with coloured sand, pens and glitter. We did some Australian dancing to the National Anthem and" there's a hole in my bucket dear Liza". We made damper with the four year old class and went for a picnic on the oval to eat it.

We have also been on several mystery tours where we found a tractor, recycle bins, an oasis garden for playing duck duck goose and a story telling table using real flowers.

 Miss Bowden and Miss Gray

Langley Room

This week in the Langley Room we have had lots of hot weather so we've been keeping cool by playing with coloured ice and lots of water.

We made building blocks out of the coloured ice and have practised building towers with them.

We had a great time on our water fun day slipping down the soapy slip and slide and splashing around in the swimming pool.

We have also been practising our self help skills in the Langley Room. We have been doing this by putting on our own sunscreen, putting on our own shoes and pulling up our own pants after going to the toilet.

Reminder; please apply sunscreen to your child/children before you arrive at school.

Miss Jess, Miss Nicole , Miss Kerry , Miss Ange and Miss Amelia

Edgerley and Chapple Rooms

Dear Chapple and Edgerley families,

Week 4 of the school holidays wrapped up with loads of fun and learning. As the week started, we learnt that we could actually make new paper out of old and unused paper. We shredded and stripped pieces of old newspaper and magazines, blizted them in a food processor, placed the pulp in a trough and gathered them in a screen. A day later, we got new recycled paper. How cool is that to help the environment in our little way! Through this we learnt that i'ts important for us to sort and  dump our rubbish properly and that trees are very important for us. To further this knowledge, we watched Fern Gully too.

On a hot day, we made  yummy jelly and had frozen orange wedges. We enjoyed washing our cars on the wading rock and just sprayed everyone with cool water until it was time to say goodbye to the hot sun and play indoors.

Our Rainbow playground adventure (in the Prep School )was fun and allowed us to discover our climbing skills, helping us solve problems and just giving new tasks a go.


This week we have also worked on our skills on how to be bucket fillers and bucket dippers. Ask us how it works! 

Friday 25th is Green and Gold Day to celebrate Australia Day. Children are free to come in their yellow, gold or green tops.

Till then and Cheers


Coney and Juliana

Mead Room

This week the Mead children visited 'Jungle Land'!! The children were given jungle animals, blocks, and foliage as a provocation. They set to work using these resources to make a 'new' world! The setting of the jungle changed over the week, as different children shared their ideas as to where the animals slept, and hid and some empathetic feelings were expressed. It was fantastic to watch the children work as a group as all ideas were exchanged and used in different ways. Negotiating skills were high on the agenda for many children, and were successfully achieved.

HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY SUSANNAH!! We celebrated on Thursday 17th, with yummy cupcakes!

Some of the conversations that were expressed during our visit to 'Jungle Land'!

Abhi: Monkeys are falling from the tree
Jack: They're falling inside the tree
Adu: Monkey coming up in the tree
Abhi: He's a baby one, he's so small, he has to find Mum and Dad. He can't go alone. I'll help him!

Have a fabulous weekend!

Cristina and Rosalie.

Cooper Room

Dear Cooper Room families,

This week the children have been using their imagination and some face paint to become a variety of animals 

Oliver - I am a bear in a cave
Harry L - ROAR!!!!!
Ammar - I want to be a dragon
Max - I'm going to be a dragon too!
Liam - Can I be a blue cat?
Gabby - I would like to be a sheep please

Towards the end of the week we also made some jelly for afternoon tea. It was very delicious, we sang "Wibble wobble, wibble wobble jelly in a cup." YUMMY!

On Friday it was dress up day, the children had fun showing each other their costumes from home. We had fire fighters, a police officer, vet, motor bike rider, a dragon and beach girls. 

Exciting dates for your calendar are as follows –

Wednesday 23^rd January – Water wet day, please bring your child in their bathers with spare PAC uniform in their bag. We will be getting wet

Friday 25^th January – Children are welcome to dress in green and gold for Australia day.

Love Miss Bowden and Miss Gray

Langley Room

Dear Langley family and friends,

We have been exploring different textures in the Langley room this week as we played with gloop and frozen ice rings. The children have been describing what they can feel and making scientific predictions and theories.

“It’s gooey” said Archie, describing the texture of the gloop.

“The water melts it” suggested Tom as the children examined the frozen ice ring,

“I lick it?” asked Jock excitedly.

The children watched as the ice slowly melted away and released the hidden shell treasures inside!

We have also been examining our facial features, identifying the colour of our eyes and hair. We have been using collage materials to represent these on photographs of our faces. Come and have a look at our growing display gallery.

Please note that next Wednesday 23^rd January we will be having another water fun day (hopefully the weather will be a bit warmer this time!) Please send your child in their labeled swim gear, with a towel and a dry change of clothes please. Also, on Friday 25^th January we will be celebrating Australia Day so children are welcome to dress up in green and gold or something else to represent Australia.

Best wishes,

Jess, Amelia, Nicole and Ange

Updating Details

Please provide the centre with any changes to your address, phone number , email etc. We also need updated immunisation details or medical action plans if there have been any recent changes.

Uniforms

Just a gentle reminder that as most stores have "Back to School" sales starting now , you need to purchase moroon shorts/pants for this new year. The PAC uniform shop reopens on 21st January.

Door Code

We regularly change our door code to ensure security for both our staff and children . The code will change on Monday 21.1.13 so please pick up a copy of the new code from the front desk prior to that date.

Jeanine

Account Payments

As the 2013 fee increase now applies to all accounts please make sure you change your payment amounts in line with this. Please contact me if your Ezi Debit regular payment has a limit on it that will no longer cover the new fee

Jeanine

Langley Room

Dear Langley Family and Friends,


Welcome back for 2013! It has been wonderful to see so many of you back and refreshed from the Christmas break. The children have been excited to return to the ELC and see their friends again.

We have been enjoying the warm weather this week, engaging in many forms of water play. We have had the hose in the sandpit, we’ve been bathing and caring for our baby dolls, we’ve been wading in the shallow pool and making footprints, and we’ve been exploring large blocks of ice with hidden treasures inside!

On top of all of this water play, we have been engaging in small and large group social play using the train set, the puppets and the large blocks outside. It is wonderful to see the children working together, sharing their ideas and negotiating in their play with their peers. We have also had visits from some of our new friends who will be starting at the ELC at the beginning of term one. Phew, what a busy first week back we have had!


Best wishes,

Jess, Kerry, Amelia, Nicole and Ange

Mead and Cooper Rooms

This week we have enjoyed using our imaginations to create and explore a fantasy world of pirates sailing the seas. We made eye patches and pirate hats , and escaped from shark infested waters. We also explored the world around us by collecting leaves and bark, then making rubbings of them. We also measured ourselves against some giant ones that Mr Ty found for us.


On Wednesday and Thursday we enjoyed the lovely weather by having afternoon tea outside as a picnic.

Friday was Mr Rob's birthday, so we made party hats and a big card from all the children at the ELC. We sang happy birthday at lunch time and gave him a special party hat we made. He even joined us for lunch!

Rosalie, Bethany , Coral and Emma

Edgerley and Chapple Rooms

Dear Families,



We hope you all had a fantastic start to the year 2013!

First week back and we have already had lots of activities lined up to do !The children participated by
suggesting which resources to set up and what fun things to do that reminded us of our year end holidays.

We started with our sharing about our Christmas presents and where we went to spend the new year.

The children's faces lit up as they took us on an imaginary journey to  beaches, rivers and bbqs with families and friends.

On the hot days they helped make ice moulds to put in the water troughs and made layers of jellies to eat as well.
On a cool day we had a lot of fun baking Anzac biscuits. Everyone loved the smell of syrup and butter cooking in the stove and were amazed to watch it bubble up when bi carb soda was added. It was very yummy too!
In our readings, we got so interested in Michael Recycle and Michael Recycle meets Litterbug Doug by Alexandra Colombo that we discussed what happens to the rubbish that we dump and what to do to reduce our waste. we also checked out the rubbish bin that we keep in the ELC.


Its been a wonderful start of the year for us but sadly, we bid farewell to Mrs. Shakespear and wished her the best of luck in her move to NSW.



Coney, Kelly and Renee