Mattingley

Dear Mattingley Families and Friends,

This week was really all about our Dad's in our classroom, with the children buzzing with excitement as we anticipated the fun of Thursday morning. This lead us to thinking about what makes our Dads so special to us.

They love you- Chloe

They really love you so much- Paxton

They want cuddles- Lochlann

They give you dinner- Annaliese

They read you books- Daniel

I love to give him kisses- Eloise

I like going to the zoo with him- Audrey

Their hugs are special- Laila

When he read books at night with me- Felix

He takes me to the zoo and see lions- Oscar

They play with me- Walter

The share and they care- Sidney

We would like to say a big thank you to all our "Big Boys" who were able to make it for our special morning Thursday. It is always very special to have the opportunity to celebrate the people who mean the most in our lives. We are sure that you all wore your glittery masks all day. The really did look fantastic.  

Following on from their interest in Oliver's nest,  the children have begun to talk about the different birds that make nests. Mrs Rocca read the wonderful book 'The Nickle Nackle tree' written by Lynley Dodd. The beautiful birds illustrated on the pages inspired the children to begin creating their own representation of the birds out of clay and feathers. It took lots of concentration and persistence to mould the clay into the right shape before carefully adding the feathers to finish of their master pieces.

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend,

Kimberley and Coney

Wilkins

Dear Wilkins friends and families,

Firstly, a big thank you to all the dad's who were able to come along to celebrate our Big Boy's Breakfast! It was a great opportunity for you all to have a look around our class and see the wonderful art work your children have been busily creating. Some highlights the children shared with us were:

Tommy: "I show daddy froggy"

Belle: "Daddy read me stories and we had cake"

Jacky Boy: "My daddy take me to school"

Harvey: "Dad, cake"

Ming Ming: "Good morning dad"

Maxxy: "I love my daddy"

Hamish H: "Daddy help me climb"

Jimmy: "Daddy help with diggers"

We hope you all had a wonderful day with you children and enjoy your Fathers Day pet rocks! We will keep you informed of when the festival photos are due in and thank you for your kind donations going to Beyond Blue Foundation.

This week the children have also been busy working on their still life drawings of our Spiny Leaf Insects, playing in the sunshine and investigating our garden areas with their diggers. While the children have been drawing the Spiny Leaf Insects in the class room, it has made them wonder if we might have some outside. So far we haven't found any but we have seen some lizards, butterflies, ants, and beetles.

We look forward to seeing you all next week and hope you have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Jess, Miss Kim, Miss Georgia and Miss Ellen

PS: Next week we welcome Miss Renee into our classroom and Langley welcome Miss Georgia! The children will still be seeing both of them very often but we will miss having Miss Georgia in Wilkins!

Congratulations to Miss Nicole, Brayden, Sylas and Mason on the arrival of their new baby son and brother - Jett Nicholas Wauchope - born on 1 September, 2016, weighing in at 3.41 kg, 48 cms tall! 

Cooper

Dear Cooper families,

We have almost finished all of our beautiful Term 3 self-portraits which have been displayed on the back wall of the Cooper room. Please take some time to have a look and admire your child’s wonderful work, the children have been taking great care in creating these images.

We have continued our learning journey on chickens this week, specifically focussing on the life cycle process. During a group discussion we used pictures as provocation to discuss what happens to an egg once it is laid. The following is the dialogue from our conversation:

Ned – Starts as a egg.

Yash – An egg.

Miss Gilbert – What happens after the egg is laid?

Isaac C – Then a chicken.

Isaac B – The chicken is inside the egg.

Lotti – A baby chicken. A baby chicken hatches.

Isaac B – It grows and then it hatches.

Lotti – No it doesn’t, it just hatches.

Ned – Yes, then a chick comes out.

Lotti – Chicks and chickens are different.

Ned – This one is brown and this one is yellow (pointing to the images).

Isaac B – That’s an adult chicken.

Lotti – It stays in the egg for a long, long time, we have to wait.

It is wonderful to see the children’s developing knowledge of our inquiry into chickens growing over the weeks. We will continue this learning journey next week by welcoming our very own eggs to hatch in the classroom.

Thank you to all of the Dads who came to the Big Boys Breakfast on Thursday morning we hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did. The children loved showing you round their classroom and their favourite area of the ELC.

It is now hat season again in the ELC. All children need to have a named hat to play in the outside yard. If your child does not have a hat, then they will have to play in the Town Square. 

Apologies for the lack of photos from the Book Week parade last week, we had some technical issues with our camera.

We hope that you have a wonderful weekend.

Love Miss Gilbert and Mr Ty

Langley

Hi Langley families and friends,

This week, to commemorate Daffodil Day (August 26th) and celebrate the start of spring, we gave children the opportunity to create daffodil masterpieces using paint and mixed media. As one of the first flowers of spring, daffodils symbolise rebirth, new beginnings and vitality. We had real daffodils in a vase as a provocation and inspiration for children to create their art work from. They were able to express themselves, their ideas, and use symbols and representations to convey meaning in their work. The children's artwork has certainly brightened up the room!

Throughout the week, the Langley children have been playing with orange play dough in the home corner to make yummy orange cakes. We brought this experience to life on Tuesday as we made real orange cakes to share for afternoon tea! Our bakers were very keen to help put all the ingredients in a bowl and had a turn using the electric mixer. They certainly were a delicious treat!

We had a fantastic morning celebrating all our Dads at our Big Boys Breakfast! It was wonderful to watch Dads spending precious time with their children - having fun gluing superhero masks, reading books, making a train track or building with blocks and lego! It was a special morning!  

A friendly reminder about hats!! Please provide a named school hat for your child as our Sun Smart policy has started with Spring. Feel free to leave it in our hat basket outside the Langley room door. 

Lastly, we said a "See you next door" to Miss Renee as she will be moving to the Wilkins room next week. Miss Georgia will be in the Langley room as of next week. 

Wishing all our Dads a very Happy Father's Day this Sunday.

Sarah, Emily, Brooke and Renee

Mead

Dear Mead Room families and friends,

Our skills of observation have been working overtime this week….

We are noticing the ‘3 arrows’ in all sorts of unusual places, and excitingly the children are more determined than ever to sort our Mead Room recycling, and discuss the recycling process at home too.

We have agreed as a Mead Room community to find out the next step in the journey of our food scraps and paper recycling.  We met Joe, one of our fabulous Prince Alfred College staff members, who indicated that he might be able to help us! 

We have begun noticing shapes in our environment too. It all began with Yifan….

Yifan – my truck have rectangle and circle

Zed – I see a square

Then we were off and running! Danica, Connor, Sid, Flynn, Tom T and Sam eagerly joined the shape detective hunt.  Circles, circles and more circles.

Paper making went into overdrive – our paper pulp was very mushy and we all had the exhilarating experience of creating new paper from old brochures, newspaper, thin cardboard and discarded copier paper.  

And finally the Big Boys Breakfast festivities!  What a wonderful morning to share special moments together.

  

Enjoy your weekend!

From Melissa, Elodie and Rosalie

Chapple

Dear Chapple families

The word genius may have been over used a little during the Big Boys Breakfast challenge- “The Great Egg Drop.” But with all teams successfully completing the task, with all eggs intact, perhaps the claims were warranted.

Thanks for all the “Big Boys” that were able to turn up, we hope you enjoyed it?

Newspapers were turned into hats following our literacy focus book this week for “n” week.

The children were also full of wonderful thoughts and empathy when we read and recorded our ideas on the book “Tough Guys have Feelings too.”

Hannah: He feels sad because he wants to land to Earth.

Adi: He misses his family.

Ned: All the other people lost so he is crying. He wanted the other people to beat him.

Spencer: Sometimes you can laugh and cry at the same time.

Lucas: That car went first so he wanted to win.

Banjo: Maybe he is crying because he is happy.

Benjamin: Robot don’t have feelings. Robot is sad.

Ned: Maybe he is sad, because he has run over the flowers. It was an accident. 

Zoe: Maybe he was walking and found the squirrel.

Abi: Maybe he drove over it.

Wilbur: Maybe he is upset because his bike smashed.

Jasper: No, he is upset about the squirrel.

Banjo: He is allowed to cry. 

Benjamin: It’s my favourite part because no one is sad and they both look really happy.

Chapple Room

Edgerley

Dear Parents,

What a week! 

There has been a hive of activity in the Edgerley Room this week in preparation for Father's Day and our Big Boys Breakfast. We can't give too much away, needless to say there are treats in store! We have drawn our fathers' portraits and shared some thoughts on them. Please take time to read the children's comments on display in our room.

Following last weeks performance of 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff' by the staff for the children, the children have been asking if they could don the costumes and do their own performances in our room. There have been some wonderful renditions and acting, and some mighty mean trolls! They know the story and lines well and have added their own interesting variations.

Our colour exploration has continued this week with bubble printing. As the different coloured bubble prints mixed together we created some interesting colours, while enjoying blowing bubbles through a straw. A few children needed a reminder to blow out, and not suck in - and got bubbly tummies in the process!

In the outside environment it has been all about construction, potion mixing with sand and water and Olympic obstacle courses. Our fine and gross motor skills have had a real work out! We are getting ready for our next big event which will be Sports Day on the 29th September.

Best wishes,

Emma, Mel, Cris and Satin

Kickstart your child's productivity for the day - by Michael Grose

How does your child start his or her day? Watching TV, on their device, or doing something productive? How people start the day can make a huge difference according to Gretchen Rubin, best-selling author and happiness researcher.  Rubin says “When I was researching my book on happiness, this was the number one most impactful change that people brought up over and over.”  The same principle applies to children and young people If kids make their beds every morning, they will have accomplished the first job of the day, which unleashes a chain reaction of other habits throughout their day. It gives kids a sense of pride and reinforces the fact that it’s the little things in life that matter. And if by chance they’ve had a bad day, they’ll come home to a bed that they made. And a made bed encourages them to believe tomorrow will be a better day. So if you think they are too young to make a bed – kids should start by arranging their doonas and pillows from around three or four years of age and build from there – then substitute bed-making with preparing breakfast (and tidying plates away), tidying bedroom (properly), or packing their bags (neatly) for the day. Start the day with at least one productive activity rather than a range of sedentary activities to set your kids up for a productive time ahead.

Emma McKenzie

Teacher - Edgerley Room

Wellbeing Facilitator