Santa is on His Way

Dear Parents,
*Our ELC Christmas party that is being held on Tuesday the 8th of December at 11.30am.
*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 11.15am but must be accompanied by an adult whilst they are in the centre
*We will have a shared Christmas party lunch at 12.00pm and parents are welcome to join us. We will be finished by 1.00pm
*The Kindergarten term ends at 1.00pm 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
ThankyouELC staff

Dates For Your Diary

Dear Parents,
due to technical glitch we are experiencing difficulty with our blog calender in the task bar on the left hand side. The following dates should be part of that calender. Please add them to your diary.
Thank you
Mel Bishop

Week 8 - 1st December: Moving Up Morning for Mead and Chapple Students
Week 8 - 2nd December: Parent Information Meeting for Chapple Parents 3.15pm in the Preparatory School
Week 8 - 3rd December: Chapple Graduation 11.00am Town Square
Week 9 - 8th December ELC Christmas Party 11.30am (parents are welcome to join us for this party)
Week 9 - 8th December: Kindergarten Term Finishes at 1.00pm (Children enrolled on the old Little Princes system must be collected at this time)

Chapple Room Graduation

Dear Chapple Room Parents,
Our Chapple Room Students will be graduating from Kindergarten:

*on Thursday the 3rd of December
*at 11.00am
*in the Town Square, Princes ELC, Prince Alfred College

Please join us for a small ceremony, concert and farewell. Mums, Dads and Grandparents are welcome but please RSVP numbers to Mrs Julie Porter at jporter@pac.edu.au
Thankyou
Alex Marcus

In the Classrooms

Langley
At last Langley have snails
After preparing a home whilst on their 'brown hunt' in the garden, the Langley room children were pleasantly surprised thanks to Ryan Percival. Ryan found two snails in his garden, a 'Daddy snail and a baby snail' according to the children. We welcomed them into their home and discussed the type of things snails might eat like spaghetti, watermelon and sticks. We even named them 'Larry' and 'Lola'. We are all taking very good care of them and making sure we spray them with water as they can get very thirsty.
The Langley room would like to congratulate Benn, Olivia and Harry Macdonald on the arrival of Charlie David. We cannot wait to meet him.

Mead
Dear Mead Room Parents,
We have had an exciting week exploring the colour purple and beginning to look at Christmas! The children have been cutting, painting, gluing, writing letters to Santa Claus and exploring the mixing of colours to create others. Our next weeks colour for 'Show and Tell' is silver!
Best wishes,
Emma, Susan and Amanda

Cooper
The Cooper Room children have had lots of messy fun with finger paint this week. As they played with the finger paint the children described how it felt and made shapes and patterns with their fingers, nails and palms. The children mixed different red, yellow and blue colour combinations to see what new colours they could make and made prints of their shapes and patterns on paper. Some children even loved this gooey experience so much that they tried to swim in it and found themselves up to their elbows in finger paint!
Welcome to Ayesha and her family who have joined us in the Cooper Room this week.
Kind regards,
Ali Blake and Rosalie Nacca

Edgerley
Christmas has arrived in Edgerley. We have been busy completing our Christmas presents for our mum’s and dad’s (it’s a surprise!!) and making angel decorations for our Christmas trees at home. We have particularly enjoyed the challenge of paper chain making and quite a dedicated group have joined a teacher each day in the shade on the lawn to add to our growing chains. It has been a wonderful fine motor strengthening activity but has also sparked some wonderful social discussions as we have negotiated around whose chains are attached to whose and how working together on a shared project works.
Kind Regards
Mel and Pip

Chapple
We have finally planted our veggies in the garden and we can’t wait to try them! Chapple Room have planted some basil and bush tomatoes. It was unfortunate that some younger children immediately pulled the small tomatoes off, but we will definitely be making something with the basil. It was great fun digging the holes. We have also made beautiful ‘bird scarers’ out of CDs to make sure that nothing eats our veggies. Each day, someone will be chosen to water the plants. We are all very excited!

The Giving Spirit of Christmas

A big thankyou to all the families who donated to our Christmas Colour Clothing appeal. Our rainbow of clothes has been growing and is now ready to be sent to Uniting Care Adelaide East.

In our most recent communication with them they were very grateful for our donations as this Christmas promises to be one of need for many families in our community. In response to this we are now accepting non perishable goods for food hampers. We will be taking food hampers to Uniting Care Adelaide East on the 11th of December and so if you would like to donate any non perishables before this date they would be gratefully accepted.
Thankyou
ELC Staff

Making the Most of the Morning

It must be said that I am definitely a morning lark, mornings tend to be when I do my best work. Children generally are the same, whilst it may take a while for them to wake and get ready for school, the morning is usually the most busy and productive time of a child’s day. Educational studies have taught us over the years that more complex cognitive processing reaps more benefits if experienced in the morning. It is for this reason that our Kindergarten classes all begin at 8.30. This allows us the maximum period of time in which to spark our experiences off for the day.
Unlike more formal school-like settings it is not imperative that children arrive at Kindergarten right on the dot of 8.30am, however for children to gain the most from our exciting and engaging Kindergarten programs it is helpful for children to be arriving around this time. Being present for our morning meetings help children feel a sense of belonging to the group and gets them started on the right foot so that they may make the most of their morning.
Mel Bishop
Curriculum Co-ordinator, Early Years

Childcare Rebate

Dear Parents,
We have distributed a print out with information about CCB and the Childcare rebate. It appears that manyof our families are being given misleading information by their accountants about this rebate. It is NOT means tested and is available to all families where both parents are working ,studying or training to offset the cost of care. Our ElC has registered for this specifically so that parents can claim this government benefit. In order to receive this you must register for Childcare Benefit( but may be given a 0% for a weekly fee discount- depending on your income) , you will then be able to receive the 50% rebate on your fees each quarter paid directly to your bank account. For those families leaving us shortly you may be able to claim this as a lump sum by enquiring with the FAO,

regards
Jeanine

Holiday Arrangements

Dear Parents,
It is hard to believe that it is almost holiday time again and that some of our children will be leaving us shortly. Could you please confirm with Mrs Porter as soon as possible your child's final day with us ,if they are leaving, as accounts will continue to be charged until 23.12.09 unless you let us know otherwise. All children starting school next year are welcome to stay at the ELC until the start of the new school year. For those children continuing with us next year, could you please let us know if your child will be away over the holiday period (apart from our closure dates of 24/12/09-10/1/10) so that we can arrange for sufficient staff to be here. We will assume that they will be present for their normal days (and charge accordingly) unless you let us know. Mr Kerber will be organising a fun filled activity program for us again for the 3 and 4 year olds and Langley room will run as per normal!

Thankyou
ELC Staff

Spring Cleaning Donations

Dear Parents,
It seems that Spring has well and truly sprung! For those willing to brave the heat for the annual spring clean out, the ELC are on the look out for any of the following items
*Silver coloured tin pots and pans
*Silver coloured tin ladles, slotted spoons, whisks, utensils etc…
*Silver coloured tin moulds or cake tins
*Sturdy baskets
*Artificial flowers
If you come across any of these items that would like a new home please bring them into the centre for us to use in 2010
Thankyou
Mel Bishop

Rose Coloured Glasses!

We have had great fun viewing the world through coloured lenses.

From the Chapple Children

In the Classrooms

This week in our classrooms Langley, Mead, Cooper, Edgerley and Chapple students prepared for the performance of our Nativity play. We were busy practising our songs and preparing our costumes. We enjoyed performing to some of our brothers in the Junior Primary on Tuesday. On Wednesday the sun shone, making for a very hot walk to the chapel, but all the proud Mum’s and Dad’s faces waiting for us at the end made it all worthwhile. For most of us it was an exciting event and a great opportunity to perform for our parents, for some of us it was so exciting that it was a bit overwhelming!! Regardless, we all returned to the ELC feeling very proud of ourselves. Thankyou to all the Mum’s and Dad’s and special others who came to watch us, it made it even more special.
Love from the children of Langley, Mead, Cooper, Edgerley and Chapple

Costume Check

Thankyou so much to everyone for your support with the Nativity play today , the staff and your children really appreciated it !
Despite having some reluctant little stars it was very successful. As you could see it was a huge task to dress and then redress 95 children this year ! We would ask that all parents please check that their child has come home in the correct clothing. We had each pile of clothes with a name on it but as some children were anxious to change and go to their parents we feel there may have been some mix ups. Your help in ensuring that ALL clothing that your child wears to the ELC is named would be really appreciated,

thanks for your patience
ELC staff

Dear Princes ELC Parents,
Thankyou for all your support during the busy preparation for our annual Nativity play. A particularly big thanks to Catherine, Jo and Mary who have made costumes for our extravaganza! Rehearsals are going well and the big day is this coming Wednesday. We have dress rehearsals tomorrow (Tuesday) for children who normally attend on a Tuesday so please keep those extra pieces of costuming coming in.

Our Nativity will be held this Wednesday the 18th November at 11.00am in the Eric Freake Memorial Chapel which is located at the top of the path from the car park. The temperature is forecast to be 41 degrees and with so many of us in the chapel we do recommend light clothing. Cold water will be available at the back of the chapel and due to the weather conditions we do ask that people are mindful that our elderly guests are seated first.

The children have enthusiastically prepared their story about the first Christmas and are looking forward to seeing you there.
Kind Regards
The ELC team

In the Classrooms

Langley
Prehistoric LangleyThis week in Langley the children have been very interested in dinosaurs so we have introduced our very own dinosaur called Donny into the room. The children have really enjoyed spending time playing with our dinosaur figurines and have also loved doing lots of stamping with our dinosaur stamps. We have made a display to show all our hard stamping work from throughout the week.
We look forward to more dinosaur games to come. Please bring in any cardboard boxes from home so we can make some dinosaurs of our own!
Thank you
Adele, Penny, Chloe and Sarah

Mead
What a hot week. We have been very busy keeping ourselves cool washing babies, playing with water and watching coloured ice melt, creating lots of discussion about colours among our friends. Happy Birthday to Kyla who turned Four this week. We have also spent some time observing our silk worms and chatting about their lifecycle
“We cant wait until they start weaving their silk”, said Max G
Don’t forget our nativity performance next week and please visit our own stable in our class room
Keep cool
Amanda, Emma and Susan

Cooper
The Cooper children have continued experimenting with colour and different mixtures of it this week. Using bright paints they mixed two, three or even six different colours together to see what happened and often discovered that brown was the final result. The children painted individually at the easel and have also enjoyed painting in a small group around a big table, so that they could share and discuss their mixtures with their friends. We have added a variety of music to this experience to see how you can move your body and the paint brush along with the beat and then see what shapes and patterns you might make. The Cooper boys had some great moves and made a very bright and colourful painting! Kind regards, Ali Blake

Edgerley
This week in Edgerley we were posing questions about butterflies and moths. We were fascinated by the parts of them, particularly the antenna and tongues. We juiced fruit from home and pretended it was nectar and then used lots and lots of straws to create butterfly proboscis to drink with…it was little bit messy but a lot of fun. We illustrated our understanding of how butterflies eat and coloured them in with inks.
Regards
Mel and Pip

Chapple
The marble run has been helping us deal with the heat this week! As usual, it has been very popular and there have been some marvellous masterpieces. At one point, some of the children had used it as a sausage roll making machine!

End of Year Family Christmas Picnic Presents – Please Read

Dear ELC Families,
In regards to our End of Year Family Christmas Picnic we have had a fantastic suggestion from one of our Kindy staff in regards to the $10 gifts that Father Christmas will be handing out to the children!
We would prefer everyone to please buy a book for their child/children attending and then everyone will get the same thing and this way we won’t have any comparison issues. I have now put two Christmas sacks in the Mead Room Storeroom for everyone to start popping their gifts into. Don’t forget to put a name tag on the front with your child’s full name please!Looking forward to seeing you there!
Jude Searles & Brendt Parisi

Transition Visits for Mead, Chapple and Langley Children

Dear Parents,
As the end of the academic year draws to a close we have begun to prepare Mead, Chapple and three year old Langley students for their move to their new classrooms. In the coming weeks children will be participating in various transition visits. We have tried to schedule these across the school week so that all students are able to participate. Apart from the formal activities below, children will also be exposed to spontaneous and less formal transition walks and activities as the program permits.

Chapple Transition
Monday 16th November – Chapple children will be visited by Miss Hart and Mrs Leeson for a stay and play
Thursday 19th November – Chapple children will be visited by Mrs Burford
Monday 23rd November - Chapple children will be visited by Miss Hart for a story time
Tuesday 24th November - Chapple children will be visited by Mrs Leeson for a story time
Wednesday 25th November – Chapple visit Reception classrooms in the Preparatory School
Tuesday 1st December – Moving up day for Chapple Students. Students will spend the morning in the Preparatory School and will require a packed snack and drink bottle from home. Students who do not normally attend on this morning may do so by going directly to the Preparatory School

Mead Transition
Thursday 19th November – Mead children will be visited by Miss Marcus and will also have the opportunity to spend some time in the Chapple room
Tuesday 24th November - Mead children will be visited by Miss Marcus
Wednesday 25th November – Mead children will be visited by Miss Marcus and will also have the opportunity to spend some time in the Chapple room
Tuesday 1st December – Moving up day for Mead Students.
Students will spend the morning in Chapple

Langley Transition
Langley students will be invited to visit Mead in small spontaneous groups during week 7, 8 and 9
Tuesday 1st December – Moving up day for three year old Langley Students. Students will spend the morning in Mead.

Warm weather treats

Thankyou to the parents who kindly brought in iceblocks for the children during this past hot week. If you are sending these as an alternative to Birthday cake then please send only Lemonade iceblocks to accommodate children with food colour allergies or intolerances (as per our parent handbook).
As our rooms are quite cool and we prefer to stick to our healthy food (and only occasional treats ) we would prefer that you do not send these in other than for birthdays .

Thankyou
Jeanine

Children finishing at the ELC

Dear Parents ,
If your child will be finishing with us in December or January prior to starting school, could you please inform Julie or myself what their final day with us will be (we require 2 weeks notice).
We will be open until Dec 23rd and returning on January 11th and your child is welcome to stay until school commences in the new year on 28.1.10.

Jeanine

Clothing Donations

Thankyou so much to the families who have been bringing in the donations to fill our Coloured Christmas Charity Collection. Many of the children have enjoyed bringing an item to add to this collection. We hope that this will be an opportunity for the children to help you choose a preloved item and begin to understand the concept of giving to others. We look forward to seeing the colours change and grow over the next few weeks,

Thanks in anticipation,
The ELC team

Bookings for next year

Dear Parents, If you would like to book extra days for your child next year (or change the days that you attend ) could you please see me as soon as possible. Bookings are filling very quickly as I have had lots of enquiries from new families !

regards
Jeanine

Big Boys Breakfast Photos

Dear Parents,
The photos that were taken at the Big Boys Breakfast are available to purchase on Festival photos web site. The address is www.festival-photo.com.au . Once you are on their site you need to click on "view your photos" then "PAC" then 2009. You will then need to enter the date of the function that you wish to view the photos from. The breakfast was on 03-09-09

regards
ELC staff

Our Nativity Cast

Dear Parents,
Thankyou to those who have returned slips to indicate whether their child will be attending the ELC nativity. We have now finalised the cast and parents of attending children will receive a slip in their children’s pigeonhole in the coming week outlining where their child will be located on stage to assist you in your seating choice. Some children will require some additional costuming from home which will also be outlined on the slip.
Thankyou
Mel Bishop

In the Classrooms

Langley
Langley children set up shop this week, selling everything imaginable. Our boxes came into use and were sold off to customers. The children all took turns in using the cash register, taking the money in and out and speaking over the phone. We discussed the different foods and objects being sold to our friends like the weet bix and green cucumber.
Following up this shop interest we look forward to getting out the fruit and vegetables and setting up a fruit and veg shop in the week to come.

Mead
Dear Mead Room Parents,
We have continued to investigate colour this week in the Mead Room. This week's focus colour has been green and the children have mixed colours, printed, finger painted and modelled with clay. We have made a graph of our favourite colours and in keeping with the colour theme some children have brought in Show and Tell items focusing on specific colours. Hamish brought in a green fern, and we decided to try and print the fern leaves onto green paper. They did a wonderful job. We are practicing hard for the Christmas Nativity which is looming quickly.
Emma, Susan and Amanda

Cooper
This week Cooper Room have begun investigating colours on the light box. The boys looked at coloured cellophane with the light behind it and found their favourite colours. We glued the different colours to clear container lids over the light and then discovered that when you overlap the colours they change... blue and red making purple was very exciting! Many of the boys have chosen to return to the this activity over the week to see what new combinations they can make. Next we will hang these at the window to see what happens when sunlight shines through them. Kind regards, Ali

Edgerley
Dear Edgerley Parents,
This week has again been a wonderful investigation into the world of colour. We worked together to create paint from cell mix so that we could illustrate the rainbows we had created with prisms. We learned about the colour green and really enjoyed mixing up our own greens, we made a lot of different ones. Towards the end of the week we began to create butterfly prints and squashed colours together in between paper. We mixed primary colours in our super silk trays and finally looked for rainbows elsewhere in our room….we found them… on the face of CD’s!!! They were beautiful!
From
The Edgerley Children

Chapple
After some creative imaginative play with the playdough over the last couple of weeks, the children were invited to make pasta on Thursday. It is a great hands on, messy activity, with a fantastic reward at the end- yummy, fresh, home-made pasta! Everyone was left wanting more!

End of Year Family Christmas Picnic

Dear Langley Cooper Mead and Edgerley Families,
Just a quick reminder that our ELC ‘End of Year Family Christmas Picnic’ is fast approaching us!It’s being held on Sunday the 29th of November, from 11am to 1pm, next to the wading pool at Tusmore Park. If the weather is warm make sure you bring bathers and towels for the children.
Father Christmas will be visiting the children at around midday. Can parents please organize a small gift (valued at no more than $10) for their own children attending and bring them into the ELC no later than Thursday the 26th of November. I will put some Christmas sacks in the Mead storage room where you can discretely leave them.
It’s a BYO picnic, so please arrange your own food, drinks, chairs etc.If you have any questions/suggestions please get in touch with Brendt or myself.
Otherwise, we look forward to seeing you all there!
Warmest Regards,
Brendt Parisi and Jude Searles

Adelaide’s Christmas Cracker

A number of Cooper and Mead parents have expressed an interest in attending Adelaide Christmas Cracker on Friday 11th December 2009 at the Adelaide Convention Centre. It promises to be a great night of entertainment, including some from one of our own Cooper Room mums. If you would like to gather a table of 10 you can book now by contacting Aleisha Huckel on aleisha.huckel@adelaidecc.com.au or on-line at www.adelaidecc.com.au. Payment in full is required at time of booking.
Entertainment
‘A Christmas Folly’ floorshow
Lucky Seven Swing
Hepburn
Dress
Cocktail/After five
Tickets
$105.00pp (inc. GST) Groups of 10 will be allocated their own table.

Chapple Room school visit

Dear Parents, The letter that you received recently about the school visit on Dec 1st should have had your child's name in the first paragraph where it says "preferred name", this visit is for the boys only,

our apologies !!

Jeanine