Cooper

Hi Cooper families,

During one of our class discussions this week the children started to think and wonder about the sun and the moon. This was the beginning of conversation that ignited the children’s interest:

Hamish – The moon changed, it was full at Lewis’ party but yesterday it was a half moon.

Miss Gilbert – Why do you think the moon changed?

Sebastien Ha. – The cheese monster is making the moon bigger and smaller.

Aston – Because it’s shrinking.  

Zali – My mummy said when the moon changes at night into a half moon, the moon just looks like that.

Zara – When its morning I can see the moon sometimes and its white and its half.

Lexie – I saw the moon turn into rain.

William P – Maybe the moon turns into the sun in the day.

William A – It goes away and the sun comes up.

We decided that we would go to the Prep school library to collect books to gather more information about our wonderings. Over the next few weeks we will be exploring these concepts and building on the children’s current knowledge about space.

The children have been very keen on building and constructing this week. There have been some amazing creations built around the centre using various materials. What makes this experience even more amazing is the teamwork, verbal communication and cooperation that the children are displaying in the process of constructing these buildings.

We were lucky enough to have some heavy rain this week, which meant that we had big deep muddy puddles to jump and splash in. You could see on the children’s faces how much fun they were having as they freely explored the puddles using their hands and feet.

We hope you have a great weekend.

Love Miss Gilbert and Miss C

Mattingley

Dear Mattingley families and friends,

What a wet and wild end we have had to week four. The rain on our classroom roof has made us feel like we really were spending our days exploring a rainforest. Have you seen our classroom forest collage yet? It is really starting to take shape. Next week we are going to start adding animals to our forest space.

This wet and wild weather has also brought with it many fabulous puddles. Our class favorite would have to be the big muddy puddles. It is amazing how satisfying it is to jump in a big puddle. It is an instant mood lifter. If you don’t believe us just look at this action packed photos for the proof. What fun the children had jumping and splashing about together. It was wonderful to see some of our friends push past their boundaries and join in the exploration.

Watch me! I do big jump- Jed

I jump too- Josh S

I jumped so high! It went splosh!- Sammy

I jump – Lachlan B

The water went into my boots. It feels funny- Eloise

It wet- Fred

I love the puddles. I love to jump in the puddles- Lailah 

Not only is mud play extremely fun, it also has many educational benefits as well. Through exploring and playing with mud, children are given the opportunity to express their creativity, enhance their fine motor skills, practice literacy, science and math skills. The mud can also be an art medium as the children mold it in unique and creative ways. These creations can become the center of their play, often becoming wonderful dishes in the sand kitchen as not so sure friends and educators are enthusiastically encouraged to eat them for dinner. Through their play the children use the cooking utensils with control and intention as they are stirring, flipping and pouring. Other friends just love to see the reaction that their big jump has on their clothes and the surrounding environment.

As it looks like this wet weather is here to say we would like to encourage that children come to ELC with a pair of wet weather shoes and a few changes of named clothes. We love messy play in the Mattingley classroom, and feel that the children gain so much out of being able to freely explore this magnificent natural phenomenon. You never know, you might find yourself jumping in puddles on this wet weekend. Please feel free to email through any photo evidence!

Mrs Kimberley Mason and Mrs Coney Rocca

Edgerley

This week the Edgerley children have thoroughly enjoyed creating new props for the ‘Edgerley Jungle’. Early in the week they began to create a jaguar using craft materials and to their delight completed it on Thursday. I wonder what adventures our jaguar will have next week? 

We have also begun creating some more jungle animals including a monkey, a green tree frog, a crocodile and a toucan. Many children have shared their knowledge with their peers, which has enabled us to work together collaboratively.

We have also enjoyed exploring the new rope swing in the garden. We discussed the ways in which we can climb up the ladder safely, making sure that we take turns and help one another. 

The children also thoroughly enjoyed their time in the gym this week. We had the opportunity to explore the balance boards, an obstacle course and some balls. 

Mrs McKenzie, Mr Ty, Mrs Murdy and Mrs Kaur

Spare long pants

We are running low on spare long pants. 

If you have any ELC clothes at home or have any spare long pants we would love to have them please. 

Thank you. 

Morning drop offs

Dear Families

Just to confirm the procedure for children in the morning: 

All children are to go to Langley on arrival.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday Mr Charlwood (or relief teacher in his absence)  will collect all existing four and five year old children and take them to the Chapple room to help reduce the numbers in the Langley room.

Mr Charlwood will take the Chapple sign in sheet only.

Any children arriving after the 8 am move are to remain in the Langley Room.

Teachers will collect sign in sheets and children at 8.15am from Langley and then any children that have arrived earlier from Chapple.

This should mean the parents are still only dropping off in one place. - Langley

Don't forget to sign in!!

Thanks

ELC Staff Team

Chapple

This week we have continued to follow our investigation into signs. We have discovered that signs are not just on the road, they are everywhere. They don’t even need to be written down. We have discovered that we can make signs with our bodies and other people can understand without words. We have also looked at what people’s faces can tell us and how we can tell how someone is feeling just by looking at them.

We have been looking at number and we are developing into some great little mathematicians. The children have been asked to learn their house number and look for numbers in the environment.

We are collecting cardboard boxes at the moment as the children love creating with them or just playing in them. Any size is very welcome.

Dancify are coming in on Monday to teach the children some dance moves. They will be come at other days through the term so most children will get a turn.

Chapple Room

Wilkins

Dear Wilkins friends and families,

We have had a wonderful week this week, even though we had some wet days we were able to engage in some wonderful activities. This week at the centre, we acquired some fantastic new and exciting educational products. One that the children have shown particular interest in is a sensory cube, which changes colour and has an added element, a vibrating sensory tray. This resource allows the children to explore inquiry based learning through investigating cause and effect, developing ideas and sharing their thoughts with their peers.

Tom S: "Purple, green, blue yellow"

Harvey: "Wow, wow, wow, hahaha"

Hamish: "Sharks are swimming in the water colours"

Brain: "It changes colour, blue, yellow, green", "Lotti, look it has water too"

Belle: "It's making rumble"

While we have been inside quite a lot this week due to the weather conditions, we have been discussing with the children seasons, life cycles and who and what needs water to survive. It was wonderful to hear some of the children recalling previous investigations that they have explored with us. We talked about discussions that took place when we were creating our sensory garden, explaining that "plants need water or they go brown" (Belle). Max also brought us in some fruit (which we thought were lemons) from his grandmothers garden this week and we talked about what we could make from it? We decided that pancakes with lemon and sugar was a great option so we cooked some together for afternoon tea.

We hope you all have wonderful weekends and look forward to seeing you next week!

Mrs Jess, Mrs Nicole, Miss Georgia, Miss Ellen and Miss Kim

Drop off parents please note 

Mornings in the Wilkins room can be quite busy and some of our children are still going through stages of settling. While we would love having you stay for morning meetings or fruit time this can be quite distressing for our new members of the Wilkins class as it makes them wonder where their parents are. Thank you for your understanding and helping our new Wilkins members 

Mead

Dear Mead Room families and friends,

What an interesting week we have had!

This week we have put our scientific expertise to good use by investigating light.

Last week James noticed when we lit a candle that it “makes light”. When we asked James what else made light he replied; “the sun.”

So we are off and running with our inquiry!

For the past few days we have been brainstorming other things that make light –

Sienna – a torch

Danica – a light

Samuel – the moon

Flynn – the stars

Cooper – car lights

We made the Mead Room as dark as we could and lit our candle again.

We noticed that if you put something between the light and a surface the light can’t get through ……. “that’s a shadow!” Sienna.

We investigated again with the torch – same thing!

Then we explored the overhead projector!  And found that our body was a great way of creating shadows.  We observed that the light could not go through us and that’s what makes our outline on the wall.  We discovered a word -  opaque and that means  that light really can’t go through. Wow!

The Mead Room children are fantastic scientists we tested our theories,  we tried to be tricky and placed different items on the overhead projector – but each time the children easily identified what the object was by its shadow!

We will keep you posted!!!

Have a great weekend.

Melissa and Elodie.

Angwin

Dear Angwin families and friends,

We have had a great week this week. Thanks to everyone for bringing in something for show and tell that started with the letter 'P'. During our cooking this week we decided to stick with the 'P' theme and made pineapple pizza! 

Our space corner has new things constantly being added to it. On Tuesday we asked the children what they thought was missing. They came up with a list of ideas including a rocket, space helmets and space gloves. All of these items can now be found in our space corner thanks to the creativity and the teamwork the students have put in into making or collecting them.  

A few children were also interested in finding out 'How do you make space food?'. On Thursday, we searched the internet and were lucky enough to find a video showing us how food is prepared for eating in space. Since then a couple of students have suggested we make our own space food to include in our space corner.

It's been wonderful watching the children's creativity blossom this week as they have been making things or role playing in our space corner. It's also been fantastic listening to them share their knowledge about space with others or inquiring about something they are interested in.

Have a lovely weekend,

Cass and Coral

Langley

With all the rain we have had this week, we put our winter coats and gumboots to good use! On Thursday morning we got all rugged up and went out into the big yard to hunt for some muddy puddles to jump in.

Declan - "My boots are under the muddy puddle"

Sofia - "Boots"

Leo - "Puddle and boots!"

We had so much fun jumping and splashing in the huge puddles but we did get very wet, so please ensure your child has at least 2 changes of named spare clothes in their bag for days like these. Please also return any spare ELC clothes that go home with you.

Our other highlight this week was making real ice cream! Since our ice cream shop is still very popular, our pretend play dough ice cream was not good enough anymore. We first thought about what we might need to make it:

Alannah - "Some  milk"

Riani - "Ice in it"

Sebastian. B - "Lime and chocolate"

We whipped 2 cups of cream and mixed in a can of condensed milk - just like that we made ice cream! Then Claudia said it had to go "in the freezer". It was so delicious we will have to make it again!      

Enjoy the weekend

Sarah, Emily, Brooke and Renee

Mead

Hello Mead families and friends,

Apologies to all Mead room families in the delay of producing a blog.

It has been a fun filled week, as the children continue to build and strengthen their bonds between peers and educators.

Danica, Mikayla, Paige and Yifan assisted Mr. Charlwood in feeding the chickens! They were very enthusiastic to take on the responsibility of caring for our chickens. We discussed the importance of feeding and ensuring that our chickens have clean water to drink.

Paige – “I drink water too”

Mikayla – “Me too”

Yifan – “They eat seeds”

On Tuesday, we walked up to the big school to Library. We borrowed books and talked about Australian Animals.

On Wednesday and Thursday we had Chinese, it is fantastic to see the children continuing to utilize their memory skills as they recite the colours in Chinese and sing ‘Twinkle Twinkle little star” in Chinese.

On Thursday, we ventured to the work shop area for the children to be able to engage and play in another safe and secure environment. 

The Mead children really enjoyed this opportunity to explore and participate in an array of fine and gross motor experiences.

The boat was a big hit in which Tom T, Oliwer, Cooper and Zed read stories to each other. The office and computer area was also a favourite; they used the computers and keyboards to do lots of typing and printing.

Alana – “I’m typing just like my daddy” 

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Prest, Miss Elodie and Mrs Nacca