In the Classrooms

Langley
With the weather warming up Langley have been experimenting with water and ice.
When Miss Chloe’s water bottle froze the children began to become very curious, wanting to listen, feel and look at the ice frozen inside the bottle.
Following up this curiosity we filled up the outside water trough with lots of ice and water for the children to explore.
“ooo it’s cold” said Lucy,
“Yummy” said Zac, rubbing a cube on his tongue.
We look forward to having more ice experiences in the near future particularly with this warm weather!
Warm regards
Adele, Penny, Sarah and Chloe

Mead
Dear Mead Parents,
We have had a colourful week! The children have been experimenting with colour using all of their senses. They are discovering some interesting things about what happens when you mix colours together and how to create new colours. We have discussed favourite colours and talked about what colours remind us of and how they make us feel.
We did an experiment to watch colour (yellow dye) creeping up a flower stem and changing white carnations to yellow ones.
"The flowers are drinking the yellow water. The flower is turning yellow" Olin explained.
"They (the flowers) don't like the yellow water" said Katie.
"Yellow is in a rainbow. Rain and sun go together and a rainbow appears" Regan told us.
Emma, Susan and Amanda

Cooper
The Cooper Room children have been great builders this week. We have seen all sorts of constructions including animal houses, roads and train tracks, cranes and vehicles, vacuum cleaners and very tall diving boards. We have been building with big and small wooden blocks, soft blocks, duplo and gears. The boys have enjoyed playing with these with their friends, sharing ideas and all the talk and action that goes with construction play. Brilliant building boys!
Kind regards, Ali Blake

Edgerley
Dear Edgerley Parents,
We have been working hard to complete our statues this week. We thought about what statue we would like to make and then modelled it with our bodies, letting a friend take a photo. We used the photo to create a plan and have begun to use boxes to put our shapes together. They are receiving their final coat of paint and next week we will type our titles on the computer and put together our statue gallery!
Kind Regards
Mel and Pip

Chapple
We are continuing to explore colour in the Chapple Room. We have been investigating mixing colours and the rainbow colours in bubbles. It’s been very exciting and has created a lot of intrigue and curiosity!
Thank you, Alexandra

Please Return Nativity Slips

Dear Parents,
Thankyou to those of you who have returned your slips indicating wether your child will be participating in the ELC Nativity. If you haven’t returned your slip can you please do so as our deadline has already passed. As ever, feel free to e-mail your response directly to Mrs Porter at jporter@pac.edu.au
Thankyou
Mel Bishop

Clear Yogurt Tops

Dear Parents,
Cooper room students require clear round plastic tops from yogurt and sour cream containers for a project they are working on. If you have any can you please pass them to your child’s teacher who will send them to the Cooper Room
Thankyou
Ali Blake

Child Youth Health Visit

Dear Parents of Chapple students,
As students are about to move to school we have scheduled Child and Youth Health services to visit us so that children can have their final check before school. Parents have received a form to complete in their pigeon holes this week. If you would like to avail yourself of this opportunity please complete the form and hand it back to Alexandra Marcus. Then simply pop into the classroom and choose a time slot on the published schedule. Please note that a parent is required to attend the health appointment with the child and that you will need to bring your blue CAFHS book with you (if you can find it). Participation in these health visits are not compulsory and they are offered for your convenience only.
Kind Regards
ELC staff

Christmas Party 8th December

Dear Parents,
We have received many queries about our ELC Christmas party that is being held on Tuesday the 8th of December at 11.30am and we would like to clarify what will happen on the day.
*We would like to ask families with surnames beginning with A-L to bring a small plate of sweet finger food treats to share
*We would like to ask families with surnames beginning with M-Z to bring a small plate of savoury finger food treats to share
*Children who do not normally attend on this day are very welcome to join us from 11.30 but must be accompanied by an adult whilst they are in the centre
*We will begin at 11.30 with some shared songs and a Christmas story.
*Children will receive a small gift. Please note: if your child would like to share gifts we recommend cards. If your child would like to share or exchange gifts with only a few of the children in their class we would ask that you do this outside the centre to avoid upsetting other children.
*We will have a shared Christmas party lunch at 12.00 and be finished by 12.30
*The Kindergarten term ends at 12.30 on this day and although our centre will remain open *Children who do not normally attend on this day and children who are part of the old kindergarten system must be collected at this time. Parents of other students are welcome to collect and take children home after this time as well if they would like to.
*Our holiday program begins from Wednesday the 9th of December
Thankyou
ELC staff

Summer Uniform

Dear Parents,
As summer has well and truly arrived it is now timely to reflect on our summer uniform policy. We would like to remind parents that sandals are wonderful footwear options. Children are not allowed to wear thongs, slip on shoes or crocs. Also shorts are to be navy, maroon, khaki or cream in colour. If you have any queries please refer to the section on clothing in our parent handbook.
Thankyou
ELC staff

Missing Clothing

Dear Parents,
With the warmer weather the children are now often removing their rugby tops during outside playtime. Unfortunately as the tops (and hats) all look the same the children often pick up the wrong one before returning to their rooms. Could we please ask you to assist us by checking the name in your child's clothing on a regular basis.
We are currently missing a couple of rugby tops and hats. If you find that your child has brought the wrong articles of clothing home would you mind phoning us so that we can let the families concerned know their whereabouts.
Our children in Langley room are currently particularly fascinated with getting out their bags frequently which has also resulted in some mixing up of belongings recently. We apologise for this and are working on teaching them to leave things in their lockers but we would appreciate it if you could help us by checking their clothes when you collect them at the end of the day,

Thankyou in anticipation,
The ELC Staff

Cooper and Mead groups

Dear Parents,
During this term our Speech Therapists who regularly work in the ELC will be offering free speech and language assessments for all our 3 year olds. This will be done during your child's normal day and parents will not need to attend. If they have any concerns about your child's development you will be contacted through the school. We are offering this service as part of our belief that early intervention is always best practice.
If you do not wish your child to be involved in this screening process (or have already had an assessment) then please let me know as soon as possible,

Jeanine

In the Classrooms

Langley
This week, the Langley children have enjoyed having their morning meetings with stories, songs and games. With the beautiful weather and the energy our boys and girls have, the children have been visiting the 'big boys' yard to have a run around in the morning. The children are loving this time as they ride around on the bikes, play in the 'fire station', climb and even do some gardening with shovels and wheel barrows. We look forward to more beautiful weather and fun times in the big yard. Thank you also to all the parents who brought in some recycle boxes for us to use in our box construction activities.
Adele, Penny, Chloe and Sarah

Mead
Dear Mead Room Parents,
This week the children have drawn wonderful self portraits in white chalk on black paper.
"I have flat hair but sometimes I make it spikey with hair gel. I am learning to draw my hands and ears" Luke told us.
"I have a head with hair. That's light brown. My eyes are dark brown and I have a long tongue" Tyler described himself.
I have really, really, really long legs. That's why I run so fast. Better not forget my lips. Arms now! I need to do little spots inside my eyes" said Sebastian.
"This is me.....Lloyd. I have big eyes.... see them here. A little bit of black, a little bit of brown and then lots of white" explained Lloyd.
Emma, Susan and Amanda

Cooper
On Wednesday Aadi's mum, Ruchi, joined us for his show and tell time. They told us about Diwali which their family has recently celebrated. Aadi showed us his special clothes and we found out his favourite sweet is called laddu. We talked about the meaning of Diwali and how it is celebrated with many lights for decorations. We lit candles and sparklers and even had sweets for a celebration treat. Thank you Aadi and Ruchi for a special show and tell!
Warm regards,
Ali Blake


Edgerley
Edgerley students enjoyed investigating and creating rainbows with prisms this week. We proposed theories about rainbows and tested them in class. We discovered pink is not in the rainbow, colours stay in the same order in rainbows and red always comes first. Next week we will continue to discuss whether black and white are actually colours… the jury is split at the moment!
Mel and Pip

Chapple
Our investigations into colours and their properties have taken an interesting turn. This week, we used mirrors in shallow dishes of water to make rainbows on the walls. It was a wonderful time of experimentation and discovery. We will continue to look at rainbows and other properties of colour in the coming week. And just in case anyone is confused, indigo is a colour in the rainbow, not Bendigo, as some of the Chapple Room children are saying.
Thank you, Alexandra

Mulberry Leaves

Dear Parents,
In the coming term some classes will be attempting to hatch silk worm eggs and grow silk moths. If you have a mulberry tree easily accessible to you we would love it if you could let us know via e-mail if you are willing to assist us in providing us with leaves once our worms have hatched.
Thanks
Mel Bishop

Parking in the Loading Bay

Dear Parents,
Some parents have begun parking their cars in the designated PAC Grounds Staff Loading Bays. This problem has gotten a little out of control and is causing ongoing issues with the work schedules of our grounds staff who have been forced to find alternative parking around the college and carry heavy loads quite some distance. Please assist the wonderful work that these men do for us at the college and do not park in these bays.
Thankyou
ELC Staff

Reminder for Get Together for Edgerley Cooper and Mead

Don’t forget our get together next Friday night 30th October at the Alma Tavern, 66 Magill Road, Norwood from 6.30pm @ the inside bar
See you there
Brendt Parisi

Coming to the Nativity?

Dear Parents,
We have begun preparations for our annual Nativity play. Please check your child’s pigeon hole for a newsletter regarding your child’s attendance on this day. We would be very appreciative if parents would be able to return this slip to Julie Porter as soon as possible so that we can begin to assign cast roles.
Thankyou
Mel Bishop

The Bower Bird Bag

As a centre we would like to record the children’s understanding of the relationship between different colours. Each child has been provided with a Bower Bird Bag. This bag is a place for your child to collect bright coloured threadable or hangable treasures. During show and tell children can add their treasures to our shared weaving.

A Coloured Christmas Collection

As this is the last term before Christmas we would like to help the children participate in some community service for those less fortunate at this special time of year. We would appreciate it if you could help your child find old items of clothing (for children or adults) or a toy that you would be happy to donate to the Wesley Mission. To tie in with our unit we would love it if you could add items to our donation clothes line in order of colour
Week 3: White (26th – 30th October)
Week 4: Red (2nd – 6th November)
Week 5: Green (9th – 13th November)
Week 6: Yellow (16th – 20th November)
Week 7 : Blue (23rd – 27th November)

Premier Visit

We were pleased to show Premier Mike Rann around our centre this week. He was interested to hear about our response to the Reggio Emilia project and was also interested in the construction of our centre. He commented on the pleasant feel of the centre, use of natural light and evidence of the children’s investigations.

Free Family Sessions - Burnside Council

Saturday 7th November – Family Information and Play Day. 11am – 1pm at the Burnside Council’s Community Centre. 401 Greenhill Rd. This FREE event will have various displays from different services that assist families and/or children in the East. There will be a huge amount of activities for children to participate in; including art/craft experiences, face painting, hands on interactions with animals from Animal Capers, Cool 4 Kids will be performing as well. There will also be food and drinks available to purchase on the day, feel free to BYO. Please register your interest today.
Monday 9th November – FREE Parenting Information session on How to facilitate children’s learning of speech language, reading and communication. Presented by Speech Pathologist, Debbie James 7.00 – 8.30pm at the Burnside Council Hall – Taking bookings now
Friday 13th November – FREE Parenting Information Session on Terrific Toddlers, making a difference in your toddler’s behaviour presented by well known author Mel Hayde. To be held during the day 1.30 – 2.30pm in the Burnside Library. Children welcome to attend. – Places are limited, so please be quick to book

Missing Hats

Dear Parents,
Would all parents mind checking the name inside their child's hat as we seem to be having a problem with hats being either mixed up or going missing. We appreciate that it is difficult as the children often put them down and then they all look the same ! To help us out could all parents ensure that their child's hat (and all clothing) is clearly named and perhaps check that they have the correct hat when collecting their child's belongings at the end of the day.

Thanks for your help
Jeanine

Cooper Families Christmas Party

Cooper ,Edgerley and Mead families will be all joining together on 29.11.09 at Tusmore Park as per the Term 4 Dates schedule that has just been distributed. We inadvertently added another date of 6.12.09 for the Cooper families, please ignore this,

regards
ELC staff

Missing Rugby Top

Ryan Percival's rugby top is missing from the Langley room . Could all parents from this room check their child's top as it is clearly named,

thanks

Langley staff

New Arrival

We would like to congratulate the Roberts family on their new arrival. Brodie would like to introduce the arrival of his baby sister, Chelsy Maree Roberts born Wed 7 October at 9.39am weighing 8 Ilbs 3. Brodie has been very helpful and singing Chelsy train and dinosaur songs!! Both Chelsy and Tatia are doing well.

Congratulations again from the ELC staff

In the Classrooms

Langley
Welcome back to those families that went away for the holidays. The start of a new term brings some changes to the Langley room routine. We have started to implement a ‘Morning meeting’ time at 8:45am to 9:05am. In this time the children get a chance to talk about the weather, the name of the day, gain a social awareness of taking turns to talk as well as a time for stories and songs. It is a great way to get the day started and also have some formal routine with the children. We look forward to a great term with all the children.
Adele, Penny, Chloe and Sarah

Mead
Dear Mead Room parents,
The children have settled back in well after the holiday break. We have had a busy week culminating in our Sports Day this Friday. We defied the odds with the weather and our little Olympians did a fantastic job!
It has been lovely watching the friendships in the room rekindle after the break and new ones developing.
Here's to a wonderful fourth term.
Emma, Susan and Amanda

Cooper
We have had a great first week in the Cooper Room and enjoyed meeting with old friends from Mead and our new friends joining the Early Learning Centre. The children have discovered their new play spaces in the room and have settled well into our Cooper Room days. We have been considering colour in our play with different toys and materials and have talked about our favourites. We were amazed to watch a bright bunch of poppies open up and to discover the different colours of petals hiding in their buds. We finished the week with a very energetic sports day - a big thank you to all the parents who helped us with this event.
Warm regards,
Ali Blake

Edgerley
We had a wonderful week back at school, enjoying each others company and catching up about our holidays. We began to investigate colours by blowing ink. It was lots of fun but very messy!
Mel and Pip

Chapple
Ready! Set! Go! The race to the end of the year has started well with Sports Day. It was a wonderful morning and the children all enjoyed the activities. Thank you to all the parents and friends for their support! We are looking forward to a busy, but lovely term. Thank you, Alexandra

Sun Screen and Hats

Dear Parents,
It is now the fourth term and so we must remind parents that children need sun screen applied before they come to school in the morning. This allows the sunscreen to begin to work before the children venture out to the playground. We will reapply sun screen after lunch but are relying on the fact that you have applied the first application in the morning. Please ensure that your child’s hat is hanging on the hook inside their locker door as if they do not have a hat they cannot participate in outside play.
Thank you
ELC staff

Attendance Changes

Dear Parents,
Thank you to those who participated in our round of Parent Teacher interviews last term. Many interviews included discussions about changes to children’s attendance patterns. If you were interested in adjusting your child’s day please ensure that you contact Jeanine at jdry@pac.edu.au as soon as possible so that she may check on day availability for you.
Thank you
ELC staff

Only a few seats left!

Just a quick reminder that there are a few seats left at the ELC table for Cup function at Sparrow. If you are interested please speak with Sharon Laing (Chapple Room)

Dates for the Chapple Diary

Friday 23rd October – Friday night drinks and nibbles from 6.30 pm. at The Archer Hotel, Cnr. O’Connell St. and Archer St. North Adelaide. Nibbles have been organized @$16.00p/person; purchase your own drinks from the bar. We’d love to see as many of our group as possible. Please place your name on the list near sign in if you’d like to come so we can pre-organize the nibbles.
Friday 6th November – Coffee Morning after drop off at The Store, Melbourne Street, North Adelaide. (On the corner of Jerningham Street)
Sunday 6th December – Christmas BBQ at Burnside Swimming Pool cnr. Greenhill Road and Howard Tce. Bring your meat and salads to cook on the Barbecue’s there or purchase something from the café. We’ll be located beside the babies and toddlers pool. We’ll be there from 12.00 – fingers crossed for perfect weather!!
Julie Watson and Karen Gough (class reps)

Welcome back !

Welcome back to all our families who have been away over the holidays ! This term we have quite a few new children starting so we would like to welcome them and their families also. There are a few changes this term as our final room (Cooper) opens with Mrs Blake as our teacher and Mrs Nacca assisting on Tuesdays and Thursdays at this stage. We anticipate our numbers continuing to grow and a full time assistant being appointed with that group shortly.
Mrs Nacca will also be helping in the Chapple and Edgerley rooms on Mondays and Wednesdays.
As we say goodbye to Miss Andrea we welcome Miss Sarah Betteridge into the Langley room joining the team of Miss Adele, Miss Penny and Miss Chloe. We thank Miss Andrea for her contribution in setting up Langley Room and wish her all the best for her endeavours in the future. We understand that changes can be difficult for children at times and we have tried to keep as much continuity as possible with this in mind.
A big thank you to Mr Kerber and the team who worked across the holidays and provided lots of fun and learning activities for the children !

Jeanine

Week 2 of the Holidays for 3’s and 4’s
After the long weekend break our holiday program continued with new themes, experiences and discussions. This week we immersed ourselves in role play, dress-ups , experimentation and creating with a broad range medium.

Tuesday – Art and Craft
Wednesday – Water play
Thursday – Dress up and movie day
Friday – cooking

With art and craft we made our own play dough recipe, and then created many different sculptures, cakes, people, shapes and racetracks. In the art room we honed our skills with scissors, masking tape and glue, then outside we painted pictures, wrote letters to post and drew maps with textas and pencils.
Even though the weather was a little cool Water play experiences were still very popular. We painted with coloured water, built boat racing canals using the water fountain, and experimented with brightly coloured ice cubes! We used the freezer to transform water to ice and played with the ice in the warm sun to reverse the process.

Many children took part in the Dress up and movie day by becoming different characters all morning with the different costumes. We saw singing princesses, clowns, fairies, footballers, cooks and chefs (just like Mr Wagenfeller). There were even police officers at the station to keep us all in line. Not to mention the movie “Cars” we all enjoyed watching; even if we have seen it many times over!

Monday the 12th of October is the last day of the holiday program, where we will ask the children to decide what the course of the day will involve. We have had a great time third term break and are looking forward to beginning term 4.

Until next holidays, Todd, Sarah, Trish, Rosalie and Eleanor

Term 3 Holidays

Holidays with the 3’s and 4’s
Although the term has ended the fun and learning never stop!
In the first week of holidays we have been busy little beavers exploring, discussing and creating with different focuses each day.

Monday – Wheels
Tuesday – Mini Olympics
Wednesday – Box Construction
Thursday – Nature Walk
Friday – Face Painting

Some of our favourite experiences included:
- The Mini Olympics; where we raced, balanced, climbed, flipped, jumped and rolled very energetically competing in many different events. We also made medals at the beginning to be presented on our own winner’s podium!
- The Nature Walk; where we discussed the differences between natural and artificial, and the kinds of items we may find in our school environment. After we compiled 2 lists titled “Nature” and “Made by People” we set out to the senior school to collect items and take many photos. When we arrived back we put together a fantastic 3D Nature walk Mural.
- Face Painting; where we chose different animals to be painted on us by Mr Kerber. Much zoo and jungle play ensued as we became these creatures; such as tigers, cheetahs, butterflies and crocodiles.

From next Tuesday we are looking forward to more exciting experiences, learning and fun.

Todd, Sarah, Trish ,Rosalie and Eleanor

This Week In Langley

LANGLEY ON A BEAR HUNT

While some of the ELC have been on holidays the Langley room have been as busy as always! This week we went on a Bear Hunt!! The room was turned into Michael Rosen’s “We’re Going On a Bear Hunt” story book and all the children were encouraged to participate in a bear hunt of our own. We acted out each scenario, crossing the long wavy grass (Created by green pillows), a deep cold river (blue mattresses), thick oozy mud (the brown carpet) and so on. The children called out the words to the book as we stumbled across each hurdle saying “Oh ooo. We can't go over it, we can't go under it, oh no, we have to go through it!” The children had their own cave to crawl through which was big enough for all to fit in. A teddy bear was sitting waiting for them to reach at the end of the cave! We all had so much fun going on our bear hunt and look forward to going on more again soon!

Adele,Andrea Chloe and Penny