Information from the Langley Room

 

 

Dear Parents/Guardians,

 

I write to inform you that the Stacey Wybrew has taken up an opportunity to teach in the Prep School from the beginning of this term. Her replacement in Langley will be Miss Sarah Marotti from the Mead Room. Sarah has been working in the ELC for a couple of years now and is looking forward to working with students, parents and staff in the 2 year old program. Emily Downie and Kerry Rowbotham will continue their role as co-educators in Langley. Stacey will be available at different times to help with the transition this week.

I would like to thank her for her contribution to ELC life this term and congratulate Sarah on her new role.

We are currently seeking interests from our casual staff to replace Sarah in Mead to continue to work with Melissa Prest and an announcement will be made shortly.

 

Kind Regards,

Sean Watt

Deputy Head of School: ELC- Preparatory

Langley and Wilkins

Dear Families,

This week, one of the special events we had planned was to visit the Rainbow playground in the Prep school, unfortunately it was occupied at the time but we were lucky enough to go into the gym! We raided the bin full of balls and went crazy! Throwing them to each other and trying to get goals in the basketball hoops – with the help of our teachers. Miss Emily and Miss Kerry asked the children to line up on the green line, we had a running race! So much fun! So we did it again, four more times! We then gathered together to do some dancing and singing together, it was really nice to escape the class from for a little while. J

Have a great long weekend,

From The Langley Room and The Wilkins Room.

Emily, Nicole, Kerry, Karla, Renee and Emma.

Cooper, Mead and Mattingley

Dear Mead and Mattingley room families,

After hearing lots about the Easter bunny and making lots of Easter eggs using our chocolate playdough, we have welcomed a new celebration into our week - Anzac day! The children have listened to a variety of stories about Anzac day including one perspective from the families of soldiers. The children made beautiful poppy pictures using paint and pop sticks and finished the week by baking some yummy Anzac cookies which they will be taking home to share. We have started to make our table decorations for the Princesses tea party we hope to see you all there.

Next week term commences so children will be collected by their class teacher from the workshop and bought back into their own class room at 8:15. Enjoy the term.

Love Miss Bowden, Miss Sarah and Miss Gray

Edgerley and Chapple

Dear Chapple and Edgerley friends and families,

 

It has been another short, yet fun packed week for our little people.

The children have been very busy sprucing up the veggie and herb garden with the help of Mr. Ty, who happily shared his knowledge and experience with gardens with the children. There have been some sweeping, cutting, digging, planting and watering going on, not to mention, putting a STOP sign up to ensure the new plants are well looked after. We will continue to work on it next week and everyone is hoping for a bountiful harvest one day.

 

To commemorate ANZAC Day, we have been sharing stories and what we know about this event by watching the story of Simpson and his Donkey and listening to the Last Post". We have also been working on some beautiful poppy plants in our art and craft area as well as making ANZAC biscuits.  We learnt that it is important to know and remember what the great the soldiers did to keep Australia a safe country. Through our little PAC ANZAC Trail, we found out that our school has lots of Memorial places for our heroes.

 

We hope that you enjoy yet another long weekend and gear up for our upcoming Term.

 

Coney, Kelly, Ty and Rosalie

Cooper

On Monday the Cooper children started to make an Autumn tree. Miss White brought in some branches and put them into a large jar. The children glued scrunched up tissue paper onto the branches to make the leaves. We also made an Autumn leaf mobile to hang in the Cooper room. Thankyou to Alexander, Daniel, Luca and Ryan for bringing leaves in from home.

On Tuesday we went on a nature walk around the Prep school. While there we saw the men working on the playground digging up the ground with the digger and bobcat. We went to the Rainbow playground for a play.

On Wednesday we went back to the playground with the Mattingly and Mead children to have morning tea and a play. We then walked to the library to listen to Easter stories. Thank you to Daniel, Zander and Louis for bringing in stories to share with everyone.

On Thursday the Easter bunny came to visit the ELC. We had an Easter egg hunt in the garden.

Happy Easter!

Dear Families,

We hope you have an amazing break over the Easter period.
We will see you all back next week (we are open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday)
Stay Safe and have a happy Easter.

The ELC staff.

Chapple and Edgerley

Dear Edgerley and Chapple families and friends,

The first week of the holidays has been short in days but not in fun. The children have all been very busy working on some Easter art and crafts such as bonnets, baskets, snow globes and nests.

Continuing from our interest in the first ever Easter and the story of Jesus through our visits to the Chapel, we have explored more books and videos and the children were really keen to share their ideas with their friends and teachers

Jesus was a really special and clever man. Oliver K.

He died and then he came back again. Miles

What does ‘alive’ mean?. Loius

It means he is not dead anymore. Sabian

I think Judas was a bit naughty. Jensen

Those soldiers don’t like Jesus I think. Harrison

The children have also enjoyed making a carrot patch through a thumb printing activity. This sparked discussions of the character of Peter Rabbit. It was a delight hearing all the children’s story about Peter Rabbit and other characters such as Mr. McGregor, Mr. Todd, Benjamin Rabbit and so much more. Lots of role playing took place with children discussing who gets whose role and for how long. So you can imagine the time the children took to compromise, share and take turns. It all worked out in the end.

With the beautiful weather, we enjoyed the outdoors exploring the Rainbow playground, the Fisher Courtyard and lots of races on the oval. You should have seen how funny we were as we did the Japanese Walk race. Ask you children how the Japanese walk is done and you sure will have a little laugh too. The highlight of our week was the Easter Egg Hunt and we discovered where the Easter Bunny could have gone in and out as we saw his footprints. Next week we will engage in activities that will help us commemorate the lives of our heroic diggers and celebrate ANZAC Day.

Have a safe and wonderful Easter break and we can’t wait to hear about it next week.

 

Mattingley and Mead

This week the Mead and Mattingley rooms have been exploring textures in the frozen corner with snowflakes, and also with shaving foam to dye eggs. Children have enjoyed creating their own eggs with play dough, wrapping them up in foil pieces, them placing them in cartons. On Wednesday we went on an adventure up to the Prep school to have our morning fruit and a play on the rainbow playground. We then visited the library to read Easter stories. In the afternoon, children participated in an egg and spoon race around the path. On Thursday, after reading the true story of Easter, we had a secret visit from the Easter Bunny and children went on an Easter egg hunt in the garden.  

Langley and Wilkins

What a busy and exciting first week we have had in the two year old rooms for our first holidays!

The children have had lots of fun enjoying this beautiful weather and playing outside in the sun... we have been cooking in the sand pit, enjoying reading stories, climbing on our obstacle course and chasing bubbles. 

 On Tuesday some of us were lucky enough to have Miss Kerry's husband Dion and his friend come in and play their guitars and sing for us. They also showed us a piano accordion and we got to have a go at playing a tune. 

We also danced around to their playing and played our own musical instruments. It was loud but lots of fun.

 We also had wheels day this week! We enjoyed racing around the big yard on our bikes and seeing our fast we could go! Some of us were so fast the teachers couldn't see us coming! 

 To finish off before a long weekend we enjoyed watching the movie hop and doing some arts and crafts and of course having an Easter egg hunt! 

 We hope everyone has a safe and fantastic long weekend.

 

Nicole, Nickarla, Kerry, Emily, Emma V and Renee

Communication in the ELC

As you are well aware the College has had some re-structuring over the last few terms. This blog will aim to briefly give you an insight into some of the lines of communication for the Early Learning Centre.

As Deputy Head of School: ELC- Preparatory I will oversee the operations of the ELC. There is a number of key staff who have been appointed to support the teaching and learning of our centre.

 Katherine Baird and Lisa Foster are the ELC-Yr6 Assistant Directors of Teaching and Learning. Their role is to oversee the development of teachers and co-educators in their pedagogy, assessment and reporting strategies, the implementation of the PYP, Reggio and the Australian Curriculum and to provide extra support in the running of ELC-6. Katherine also takes on the responsibility as the elevated layer of support for wellbeing and behaviour management.

Jess Catt (two-year-old Year Level Leader in ELC), Coral Bowden (three-year-old Year Level Leader in ELC), Emma McKenzie (four-year-old Year Level Leader in ELC) provide leadership and support in the organisation of those year levels and work with teachers in the first instance, with wellbeing and behaviour management programs. Please find their email address in the 'contact us' section of this blog.

Pamela Veltmeyer has been appointed Centre Administrator. I would like to congratulate her on accepting this important position as she takes on the responsibility of Nominated Supervisor. Pamela will assist the admin area at the front of the centre from 9.30-5.30 weekdays.

I would also like to introduce you to and congratulate Julie Green. Julie has been appointed as our Business Administrator to help support the centre with some of the business operations required. She is currently and will continue to be OSHC Director. She will assist the admin area at the front of the centre from 8.00-9.30 weekdays.

Should you have any queries please contact either Julie or Pamela at the front desk for further guidance. You will also find the 'elcadmin@pac.edu.au' email address on the 'contact us' tab. This email feeds directly to Pamela or Julie.

Have a safe and happy Easter,
Sean Watt
Deputy Head of School: ELC- Preparatory

Langley

What a wonderful term and start to the year we have had in the Langley Room! We have made so many special friends and have all settled in extremely well.

 

This week Miss Stacey brought in a shark egg which we have been looking at, touching and talking about all week. Some of the describing words used were: 'spiky', 'sharp', 'brown' and 'big'.

The children all sat together, taking turns of observing the egg close up. We then did some further research to find out how it gets its spiral shape. We watched a few videos of sharks hatching out of their eggs and it was fascinating! Come and have a look at this amazing egg next time you come in.

 

We also had a special guess this week - David's little puppy Larry. Larry is a Dalmatian and was very well behaved when he visited us. The children sat in a circle and took turns patting him. He licked us a little bit and was a little bit wriggly! It is really nice to have visitors come into the Langley Room and see us.

 

From all of us in the Langley Room, we wish you a very happy and safe Easter. If you are going away, enjoy the time with your family and have a safe trip.

Miss Stacey will be out of the room for 2 weeks, but our wonderful co-educators will still be in the room over the school holiday period.

 

Thank you and have a wonderful weekend!

 

Miss Stacey, Miss Kerry, Miss Renee and Miss Emily

Wilkins

Dear families,

We cannot believe that it is the end of term 1 already – how quickly that time has flown by. This week we have been watching our tadpoles very closely, we think one of them may soon turn into a frog! We have been sharing some different frog stories and songs and using the puppets to explore the movement of frogs. We have also been matching shapes using everyday objects, preparing for our Princesses Tea Party, tending to our vegetable garden and lawn barrel outside, exploring and sharing different celebrations in the home corner and role playing with the Duplo. On Thursday we also had Mr Tutt, our outgoing headmaster, come to visit us so that we could farewell him. We performed a small concert for him and presented him with some special books to take to his new school in Cambodia. We wish Mr Tutt all the best in his new venture.

Best wishes,

Nicole, Karla, Amy and Jess

Mead

This week in the Mead Room we have continued our cooking experiences, notably the Gingerbread people.  We have utilised playdough to create skeletons and on Wednesday we braved the inclement weather to head over to the Red Centre where we saw Mr Gilbert's Year 7 Technology class race CO2 dragsters.  It was very exciting – the cars went very fast (Doan) and were a bit loud (Christian).  On Thursday we said goodbye to Mr Tutt by presenting him with a Mem Fox book from each ELC room and we sang some of our favourite songs in a small performance.  We've begun discussing the meaning of Easter, talked about recycling and completed graphing our Mead Room eye comparison – phew!

Take care of eachother!

From Melissa and Sarah

 

 

Mattingley

Well we have made it to the end of our first term together in the Mattingley room.
We cannot believe how the time has flown by. We have had a lot of fun getting to know each other and look forward to spending the next term learning together.

 

 "Tickets! Tickets please. Would you like a ticket to our concert?"- Angelina

 

We have had some wonderful concerts in the Mattingley room this week. The children have been busy building a stage with blocks and performing for their friends and teachers. The children have had lots of fun experimenting with different sounds using some of our schools wonderful musical instruments.

 

 

Cooper

Chapple

As we approach Easter we have had great fun making hot buns with Mrs Shakespear. We have been investigating where does the water go? We have organised an experiment with Jock’s dinosaur to see if it still gets bigger after it is out of the water. We have also worked together to build a bridge to “cross the waterhole” and worked on our fine motor skills with the Hamma Beads.  We have also worked on making leaves for our Autumn tree. Have a great Easter.

The Chapple Team

Edgerley

Dear Parents and Friends,

We have had an action packed week in the Edgerley Room this week. We have been cooking to share Easter treats with our Prep School buddies, we have been drawing some of our investigations to a close about our amazing bodies and sharing the Easter story and doing associated craft activities. The children have been fascinated about the first Easter and we have talked about God loving us so much that He sent Jesus to die on the cross. At Easter we celebrate the new life God gives us and how Jesus rose again. The children have had many questions to discuss and we have made an Easter garden together to consolidate our understanding. A big thank you to those families who have met with us for interviews. We are looking forward to touching base with a few more families early next term.

Wishing you a very Happy Easter and safe school holiday time. Thank you all for supporting us in the work we have done with the children this term.

Kind Regards,

Emma, Pip and Coney

Princesses Tea Party

Our annual Princesses Tea Party to celebrate Mother's Day is being held on Thursday 8th May. Invitations have been placed in your child's pigeon holes above their lockers with details and RSVP slips. Please return your RSVP slips by next Friday 11th April so that we can confirm numbers. We are looking forward to sharing this special morning with all the Mum's next term!

Grandies Day Book Donations

Dear families,

We still have a few books left from Grandies Day that we would love to add to our library collection that were not donated on Grandies Day. If you are interested in donating one of these books, please speak to Pamela at reception.

Thanks

Langley

 

 

We cannot believe how fast this term has rushed by us in the Langley Room! We have been so busy inquiring into our learning and havin such fun, that the time has just flown by us all.

 

Over the last couple of weeks, we have been closely observing the growth of the grass in the outside tub and also the veggies and herbs in our veggie garden. We have been watching them grow and have been making sure they are looked after with plenty of water and sunshine. We have noticed the grass growing very fast and the veggies and herbs are slower but getting bigger each day!

 

We have also been enjoying the dress up area this week. It has allowed us to take on a range of different roles and encouraged a range of socialising and turn taking skills. We have had so much fun putting on funny glasses, hats and moustaches!

 

A quick reminder to ensure your child is coming to school with a bag which contains a few spare changes of clothes. We are finding that we are running low on spare uniforms, so please make sure your child comes prepared each day.

 

Thank you and have a brilliant weekend,

 

Miss Stacey, Miss Kerry and Miss Emily