Mead

Dear Mead Room families,

This week we continued our investigation of 'homes'.
Scarlett found a nest on the ground and whilst we were having a look we noticed it was made of different materials, sticks, plastic, leaves and dried grass all intricately woven together.
Loukas – it needs to be strong so the nest doesn't break
Scarlett – they find the bits on the ground and pick them up to make it
Do all birds fly and live in nests?
Annie – Penguins live on the ice
Bernie – Penguins do like living in cold water
Nicolas – they don't fly!
Loukas – they live in rocks too – I went to Victor Harbor to see them

 

We have enjoyed such a beautiful week of warm weather that the children have revelled in exploring sand and water. William, Oliver and Nicolas investigated adding different amounts of water to their sand – creating 'gooey sand' William, 'that's just right' Nicolas. 

 

Thankyou to Cristina for being our Mead Room friend for the past four weeks!  Next week we welcome Renee Neville to the Mead Room as our new co-educator.
 

Have a great weekend,

Melissa and Cristina

 

Princessess Tea Party

Dear Mums,

 

Thank you to those attended our Princesses Tea Party on Thursday 8th May. We would love to hear any feedback that you have about the morning. There are some slips for your feedback on the front desk.

Thanks

PAC ELC

 

New staff appointment - Mead Room

Dear Parents/Guardians of Mead,

I would like to congratulate and introduce to you Renee Neville.  Renee joins us from Annesley Junior School as a qualified co-educator. She has a Certificate III and a Diploma in Children’s Services (Early Childhood Education and Care) and has been working in centres for approximately 9 years. Renee fills the position that Sarah Marotti vacated when moving to Langley and will join Melissa Prest in Mead. Please make her feel welcome as she begins her journey at Prince Alfred College ELC.

Kind Regards,

Sean Watt

 

Edgerley

Dear Edgerley Families and Friends,

This week we have had fun cooking orange cake to reinforce our sound for the week “o”. Then we also cooked green eggs and ham. We started to share some rhyming books and Dr Seuss has already become a firm favourite. We have borrowed quite a few books from the Library to support our investigations! Please feel free to share one when you come in, each morning!

Cooking experiences are such an enriched learning opportunity, to work with the group and discuss, plan and participate in a joint process. Here are some of the children’s reflections of our cooking time this week…..

Oliver K: I’ve eaten all of it!

Harry P: I really liked it.

Louis: We cut up the ham with a knife.

Harrison: I loved the green stuff. I ate all of it!

Oliver H: It tasted nice!

Oliver K: I really wanted some more!

Jack: I have all the ingredients to make this at my home!

Louis: It’s hot… there’s steam!

Oscar: You need a fork to mix the eggs.

Harrison: We had to crack them open… they were runny.

Harry L: We had to melt the butter then add the egg. Then we put in the ham and mixed it altogether.

Archie: We cracked the egg on the edge of the bowl. We cracked 11 eggs! Then we added the green colouring.

Do come and check out our amazing cubby too! The children have been making cubbies with material and it was time to extend this into a cubby space within our inside learning environment. We have a beauty!!

Our trips up to the Prep School are gradually increasing as we move along with our transition programme. In the next few weeks we will be spending a few recess and lunchtimes up there to help our children adjust to these busy times!

Looking forward to another action packed week after the weekend!

Warmest Regards,

Pip, Emma and Coney

Cooper

Dear Parents and Friends of the Cooper Room,

What a fun week we have shared talking about all the different homes animals have. As we have read books the children have taken note of the animals and their environments. We have also looked at pictures and tried to create some amazing spider webs, nests and now a whole animal world with a special dark cave for the bats, birds and bears to live. Take the time to crawl in if you dare!!!

The children have continued their search outside for bugs, slugs, worms and snails. The children have found these creatures like to live in really tight small spaces and away from the light.

“They like to hide,” said Alexander

“We might find some here under this log cos’ it’s really a good home for slugs,” announced Toby

“Let’s try under the leaves. The snails go in there and eat the leaves,” Luca

“Hey here is the dirt. Will a worm be here?” asked Zander

 

Next week we will continue to study our slugs and bugs and try to find out a little more about them. Please search our gardens – we would love some snails, worms and slugs to take a closer look.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend – keep an eye out for these snails!

Susan, Jain, Rosalie and Yvonne

 

 

 

Chapple

Wow what a week! Our spider web amazingly turned into a bear cave and then a polar bear’s ice cave appeared. The children had lots of great ideas of what to add to our Artic scene.

Tom: We need more ice, put it everywhere on the mat.

Dougal: Igloos and snowflakes.

Tom: we could put snowflakes on the trees.

Kai: We might need to make some fish. Someone can dress up as a polar bear and eat fish.

Charlie M: Not real fish (waving his hand in front of his nose.)

Tom: We might need some blue sheet for water.

Then on Wednesday we went to see the Year 8 performance of “Too Many Elephants in the house” which was a great success.

Olympia: I want to do the play again. Because I want to see it again.

James: I like watching it because I like the chairs.

Patrick: I liked the giant box the elephant came.

Jock: I like Eric letting the elephants out.

Peter: I loved it seeing the story.

Zeke: I like the bit when we had to shout out the elephants.

Also I was called over this afternoon by Toby and his friends as they had set out chairs and props to put on their own performance of Too Many Elephants.

After the play Toby announced, “Come back tomorrow to see Too Many Hippos and the Too Many Monkeys.”

The children also discussed who live in houses and made comments that some people do not live in houses and they wanted to help. They have decided to make cupcakes to sell to the Senior Boys on Wednesday 4^th June to raise money for the Hutt St centre for the Homeless. If anyone would like to donate cakes on the day that would be great. More details closer to the date.

Thanks

Chapple Team

 

Wilkins

Dear families,

What a busy week we have had this week. We have engaged in many wonderful experiences this week and have been sharing our learning and understandings. We have loved creating large group pieces of artwork using paints and cars and have continued developing our understanding of animal environments and the homes in which they live by sorting different animals. Outside we have been exploring our inner performer as we take to the stage with musical instruments and different types of music. On Wednesday we ventured up to the big school to watch a performance of the book ‘Too Many Elephants in this House’ by Ursula Dubosarsky. Thank you to Mr Steer’s Drama Class for inviting us! We also had a lock down drill on Thursday which many of the children were very interested in and curious about.

We look forward to another fun filled week next week.

Best wishes,

Nicole, Karla and Jess

 

 

Langley

Dear Langley families and friends,

 

This week children have been very interested in spider webs. We've read lots of spider related stories and watched videos of different spiders spinning their webs. We've also created our own spider webs, by drizzling glue onto cardboard and sprinkling it with glitter. Children particularly loved seeing how their web had turned out once the excess glitter was shaken off. To complete these creations, children glued a little spider somewhere on their web. They look really effective!     

 

On Wednesday we went on a big adventure up to the Prep school for our nature walk. On our walk, we just so happened to see a huge spider web and the children were amazed! Once we reached the oval, we collected lots of natural materials; leaves, sticks, twigs and feathers which we will use to create a beautiful natural canvas masterpiece.

 

Have a great weekend,

Sarah, Emily, Kerry and Renee

 

Wilkins

Dear families,

This week we have been exploring animal homes and environments more closely. We have been sorting animals according to where they live, building homes for animals with blocks and making nests with playdough and recycled objects. Mrs McCauley came to visit us on Thursday to begin our new art project. We will be looking at birds and nests more closely and to begin this investigation we went on a hunt around the yard to collect sticks and leaves and other bits and pieces that birds might use to make their nests.

Best wishes,
Nicole, Karla and Jess

Mattingley

Dear Mattingley families and friends,

We been thinking a lot about houses this week and have had many in-depth discussions about 'What is a house', sharing with each other about who lives in our house with and what it looks like. 

"It has door."- Cameron
"It has bricks and lots of toys in it."- Augustin
"It has a roof, because when it rains if you don't have a roof it will get you."- Scarlett
"I live with Mum and Dad, and baby is lives in mum's tummy." - Sujay

These discussions have lead the children to build some wonderful houses in the block corner. It has been lovely to see them working together and explaining to each other the different parts that their houses have and adding them to their buildings. 

We have also begun to talk about animal's homes which we will continue on with next week. The children seem to really be loving this unit of inquiry. It has given them many opportunities to share with their peers what they know. If you have any pictures of your houses or any houses in your family we would love a copy in our classroom. We are making a class collage of houses and it would be nice for you child to have their house there to share with their friends. 

Wishing you all a safe weekend,
The Mattingley Team. 

Mead

 

 

Dear Mead Room families,

We have been enjoying many rich conversations relating to this terms unit of inquiry. We discovered that homes have many purposes –

Bernie – A home can keep us safe.

Scarlett – its for sleeping

Harrison R – for playing

We found that homes are made of different materials –

Sterling – my home is made of metal, bricks, plastic and wood

We noticed that Sterling’s home has a number on the front –

Lachlan – That’s so we know what house we’re going to
Loukas – The letters go in there
 
The children are experimenting with different materials to construct homes and this week we have had some amazing experiences with box construction and blocks.  We are also discussing animal homes, and whilst they are made of different materials (and perhaps don’t have a number on the front) their uses are very similar to ours!

Thankyou and have a terrific weekend,

Melissa and Cristina

Cooper

Dear Parents and Friends of the Cooper Room,

 

With a week filled with such glorious weather we have had some wonderful playtimes outside. The cooper room have been on the search for Ants to fill our Ant pod. The first group died and the second group escaped! The children have been eagerly searching for ants nests and following ants to see if they would lead us back to their nests.

Joe brought in a snail he found in the garden for show and tell and so our snail hunt began! The children searched everywhere but so far we have only found an empty snail shell.

“Maybe the snail found a new shell,” said Alexander

“He has gone on a holiday,” laughed Harry F

“I know you needed a new shell so he left this one.” suggested Toby

“Snails are from the garden,” said Campbell “ We have them in our garden.”

“Snails have hard back. It heavy for snail,” said Ryan

Today we found some slugs under a tree and the children have loved watching them make a “snail trail” across the black card. We would love to keep some snails in the class for a while so the children can closely observe them and investigate if they can leave their shells and how do they make their sparkly trail.  Please keep your eyes out and go snail hunting this weekend!

 

Susan, Jain, Rosalie and Yvonne

Chapple

 

Our “Home Sweet Home” Inquiry unit took a strange twist this week as spiders took over the Chapple Room. Incy Wincy became Teeny Weeny and Hugey Wugey spider as we made up our own versions. We were really glad no one got caught in Incy Wincy’s massive door web. We had a great fun making webs and adding our own spiders and bugs to them.

 

Next week we are going to watch a play called “Too many elephants in this house!” I wonder where that will lead?

Martin, Kelly and Ty

Edgerley

Dear Parents and Friends,

Our transition programme has continued this week with the children feeling more relaxed up in Reception the more time we spend up there. We also attended Chapel this week which they really enjoyed as our Reading buddies were leading the proceedings out the front.

We have had a great week sharing and discussing what are own homes are like. A big thank you to families who have remembered to bring in their photos! Please keep them coming!

We have started to discuss pets we have and made a wonderful graph that is up in our room.

The children have had some fantastic time out in our outside environment this week, enjoying the sunny weather.

Kind Regards,
Pip, Emma and Coney

Fiji kindergarten appeal

Dear families,

Our Chinese teacher, Kath House, is currently supporting a volunteer building group collecting donations for a kindergarten in an extremely underprivileged community in Fiji. To help out, we will be gathering the following items for donation.

· Skipping ropes

· Duplo blocks

· Wooden puzzles

· Balls, soccer-netball-rugby

· Blackboards, chalk, crayons

· Blackboard wipers

· Lead and color pencils

· Exercise books

· Pencil sharpeners

· Scissors for paper cutting

· Glue sticks

In addition to this, they are also seeking donation of simple hygiene packs (toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, comb, shampoo, face towel). If you would like to donate one of these packs, please enclose  items in clear plastic snap-lock bags.

If you have any unwanted shoes, second hand footy boots or sports shoes, these will also be well received.

 

The building group is going to Fiji in June, so donations will need to be in by Friday 7th June. There will be a box placed at the entrance to the ELC for donations so please give generously to this wonderful cause.

 

Thank you in anticipation of your support.