Clipsal Excursion

Thankyou to all the parents who have volunteered to come on this excursion . If you have not been on an excursion with us before you will need to fill in a Statutory Declaration with Mrs Dry before going.
Please be at the centre by 9.00 am for a briefing with Mrs Bishop. The weather forecast looks perfect but remember your hat and sunscreen and water bottle !
We will have the tickets that were purchased on line at the centre but if you did not order one of these you will need to buy your ticket at the gate.


Jeanine

Curriculum Evening

Thankyou to all the parents who joined for our 2012 Curriculum Evening. We hope you found it enjoyable and informative. Thankyou for stepping out of your comfort zones to work on your art works, we look forward to displaying them for the children next week
Kind Regards
The ELC Team

Langley Staffing

Dear Langley Families,
Please note that Miss Jess will be on annual leave from next Thursday 1st March, returning to work on Tuesday 13th February. Have fun on your vacation Miss Jess, you’ve earned it!
Thanks

Chapple Staffing

We are pleased to welcome Ms Tracey Vickers as a co-educator in the Chapple Room. We look forward to getting to know her and welcoming her into our centre. We would like to thank Miss Lucy for all her work filling in in Chapple Room in the last few weeks and wish her all the best as she continues on at University.
Thanks
ELC staff

Cooper Family Get-together

Dear Cooper Room Parents,
Please bring your swim gear to our family BBQ in the park on Sunday at Tusmore Park, as it will be hot.
Thanks
Rose, Cleo and Jules

Clipsal Reminder

Dear Parents,
we still have outstanding permission slips for our excursion to the Clipsal 500. Please pass them to Mrs Dry as soon as possible so that we can ensure adequate child:adult ratios for this trip
Thanks

Our Annual Grandies Day!!!

Please put the 28th March in your diaries for Grandies Day. Children are currently preparing invites to come home soon
Thankyou

Illness in the Centre

Dear Parents,
It is very important for you to inform us of any illnesses your child may have so that we can watch others for symptoms. Thankyou to those parents who keep their children away when they are contagious. Don’t forget to let us know the reason for their absence.
Thanks

Centre Policy Review

Thankyou to the parents who have taken the time to read and in some cases, comment on our centre policies at the big table in the entry way. We will be reviewing five different policies in the coming fortnight
and look forward to your feedback, ideas and suggestions about arrivals and departures, waiting lists, enrolments and orientation
Thankyou for assisting us in this necessary process

In the Classrooms

Langley
We have been experimenting with mixing some colours at the easel this week. We started with yellow and blue. Many of the children were keen to predict what was going to happen when you mixed the colours together and were then excited to see the results;
“It turns to dark blue. It turned to yellow dark” said Hugo Sanders,
“It dween (green)!” cried Harrison excitedly,
“How did Hugo make green?” asked the Teacher,
“Yellow and blue, it goes green” answered Kristian.
“He painting yellow, green and yellow. He make green on there and there” observed Angus, “blue and yellow maked green” he continued.
What an exciting discovery the children have made! I wonder what other colours we will be able to create next week?
Best wishes,
Jess, Kerry, Pippa and Amy
Mead
Dear Mead Parents,
Our yellow week began with bananas and ended with bananas! The children have loved bringing in yellow items for 'Show and Tell'!! Andre brought in a banana, Raphael brought a lemon from his Nonna's tree and James W brought in a yellow capsicum. We decided that once we peeled the banana the yellow skin might change colour, so we are eagerly watching every day to see the different colours it is changing into. Nicholas painted a wonderful picture about cats and we all painted our self portraits in our favourite colours. Sebastian's mum baked us a delicious banana cake, (made from..........yes, yellow bananas!!) and we celebrated Marcus's birthday on Friday with cupcakes! What a week......
Best wishes,
Emma, Susan, Cristina and Heidi
Cooper
The Cooper children combined their investigations in colour with their interest in dinosaurs this week. The children used fine motor skills to pick up the little dinosaurs with chop sticks and practised sorting and categorising skills to identify the dinosaurs by colour and type. The dinosaurs hid in the long grass and the children found them and sorted them into groups and lines...
“I catch green” said Fletcher.
“I catch a big tail” said Cooper.
“I wanna catch the green ones. I’m gonna catch four more” Sebastian R. told us.
“I gotta big one, yellow one” exclaimed Fletcher.
“One red, ten red” counted Chanel, “The flying ones go down here, only blue can go here.”
“I’ve got the green group” explained Lara.
“I’ve got a flying group here” said Chanel.
The dinosaurs came in many different shapes and colours which made this activity a real challenge!
Kind regards,
Cooper Team
Chapple
Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,
The children had a wonderful start to the week, with Mrs Mackenzie popping back in whilst I was at professional development. It was a nice treat for everyone! We have again been very involved in mixing colours and trying experiments with dyes and paints. We investigated the colour of water and looked at the properties of colours such as black and white. One of the highlights has been using the dress ups during outside play. Belts, flippers, hats and ties were used to create various characters for imaginative play. We will continue this next week with the doctor’s room we are setting up in the classroom. We are all looking forward to yet another busy and exciting week!
Chapple Room Team
Edgerley
Dear Edgerley room parents and friends,
The children have been very busy mixing shades of the same colour. We explored different shades of blue, red and green! The children spent a lot of time putting their shades of blue in order from darkest to lightest. They came up with some great names for the shades of blue,
“ocean blue” suggested Noah
“Midnight blue” added Oliver
“and Navy blue” said Chester
The children really enjoyed deciding on names for their shades!
We have a growing interest in growing. Can you please begin to send in family photos so children can share the different stages of people in their families.
Kind Regards
Sinead, Emma, Pip and Amelia

Unwell Children

We have had a confirmed case of "Slapped Cheek " in the centre . This is a mild virus which begins with cold like symptoms then 2-5 days later the child develops a 'slapped cheek' rash on the face and a lacy red rash on the trunk and limbs. Although the virus is mild in children it is quite dangerous in early pregnancy so please keep children at home if they display any of these symptoms to prevent spreading it as the contagious period is prior to the rash developing. Information on this virus will be on the dresser inside the double doors.

We have also had a case of "paediatric shingles" reported to us . This is fairly rare but as it is caused by the same virus as chicken pox children who have not been immunised against this are at risk. Information about chicken pox will also be available to collect. Children must stay at home with any sign of a runny nose , cough or fever particularly those who have not had this immunisation.


Jeanine

Curriculum Evening

Curriculum Evening will be held next Thursday at the Centre at 7pm . Come along and join the fun and discover how your child learns ! Please rsvp to Mrs Porter so that we have numbers for catering but BYO wine to share on the night,

ELC Team

Clipsal

If any parents have not replied but would still like to join on us for this excursion on March 1st you are very welcome . All parents who did not purchase tickets through the school website (or do not have their own pass) can buy tickets at the gate on the day for $39.


Jeanine

Older Children at the Centre

Could we please remind all families that older children accompanying their parents at pick up time must not play on the outdoor equipment and must remain with their parents under their supervision. Pick up time is usually a very busy time of the day and it is important for staff to be able to supervise the ELC children without other older children in the play area,

Thanks for your help
ELC Staff

Langley Room

We have used coloured card and straws to create rainbow threading this week as we use and develop our fine motor control and coordination to get the little wires carefully through the little holes! Whilst threading, the children have engaged in conversations about colour and shape;
“It’s black, a black rectangle” said Kristian, “pink triangle” he continued,
“Black straw - and that’s a green square, I got it” said Hugo Sen.
“I got a green one” commented Hugo Sanders, “pink and blue, yellow and pink and purple and red, yep on da stick” he added.
“I do pink” said Gabby,
“Triangle, put it there” said Ammar.

The children have enjoyed sharing their family photographs with their peers as they identify the members of their family - we look forward to sharing some more photos next week.

Best wishes,

Jess, Kerry, Pippa and Amy

Edgerley Children

It was another busy week in the Edgerley Room as we squeezed in lots of fun. We had a great time visiting the monster trucks…it was VERY loud!! We made our own cold rolls again (this time without teacher help!) and addressed envelopes to our houses for our recipe (watch you mail boxes!!) We continued to explore colour and created lots of different coloured drinks at our mixing station in the garden. Our interest in ‘pale’ grew this week and we will use white paint next week to further explore this concept. We enjoyed a story about primary colours visiting a deserted island and created our own colour wheel to see the relationship between primary and secondary colours…. Phew! What a week!
Next week we welcome Miss Gray on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday
Kind Regards
Mel, Pip, Sinead and Amelia

Cooper Room

The Cooper children were delighted to have the monster truck visit us this week and decided to create their own monster trucks in the classroom. They used large boxes, paper plates and other collage materials to build their vehicles. Emerson covered his with blue paper and yellow headlights and told us it was "Batman's truck". Rocco made an enormous green monster truck and Louis made a black one. Alex's had many headlights around it and Toby added long strips of paper between the wheels of his and told us they were "coupling rods", making it into a train. The children discovered that the trucks slid well across our wooden floors if they sat in them and pushed along with their arms. We had our own real monster truck show right there in Cooper!
Kind regards,
Cooper Team

Mead Room

Dear Mead Parents,
The children have enjoyed exploring colour in more detail this week. We have been focusing on a specific colour every week which has given a specific focus for our 'Show and Tell' sessions. This week our room has turned to blue investigations. We have tasted Jack's blueberries, painted with different shades of blue, made blue collages, done blue spray painting outside at the easels, sorted objects into colour groups and mixed colours using droppers onto blot paper.
We have also discussed our favourite colours and put our individual photos on them so we can see which colours are the most liked in our room! At the moment it is looking like yellow is the most popular colour.
"I like black. Cars are black and the storm is really black" - Raphael
"I like red. Red is like a picture of fire engines" - Jacob
"I love pink. It's my favourite colour. I like it because colours are mixed pink. Pink and white" - Gwen
"I like black. I have a black pencil and black makes me happy" - Sebastian

Best wishes,
Emma, Susan, Cristina and Heidi

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,
This week we've been focussing on our letter awareness and game skills through many fun activities. The children have enjoyed completing the crocodile alphabet puzzle, writing shopping lists for our cooking and reading menus in the Chinese Kitchen. We've also been developing our fine motor skills through lots of cutting and sticking to make the beautiful bunting. At the light table, children have been experimenting with colour mixing. Many new colours were made with the dye, and then used on special paper to make some wonderful pieces of art. We've all had a lot of fun playing UNO, which has also helped us explore number, colour and turn taking. We are looking forward to having Mrs Mackenzie with us on Monday and Tuesday next week, when Miss Marcus is at a conference!
Have a lovely weekend.
Chapple Room Team

National Quality Standards

As from this year all kindergartens and Childcare Centres in Australia must operate under new National Standards and regulations. All families have been distributed with an information pack explaining this process.
At the end of April we are required to submit a centre "Quality Improvement Plan" that all staff are currently working on. We will then be reviewed later in the year by the new regulatory body.
As part of this process we will be reviewing all our practices and procedures as a centre including our policies. We will display these, several at a time, in the foyer and invite you to read and add any comments or suggested changes that you feel are appropriate.

Thankyou

ELC Team

Curriculum Evening

We would like to invite all parents to join us for an enjoyable evening of wine and cheese and a little bit of learning at our Early Learning Centre Curriculum Evening
Date: Thursday 23rd of February
Time: 7.00pm
Place: Prince Alfred College Early Learning Centre
BYO: The ELC will provide some yummy nibbles and would love it if parents could bring along a favourite bottle of wine to share.
RSVP: to jporter@pac.edu.au before the 21st of Feb
Join us for some enjoyable socialising and investigation into how children inquire. Please note this function is not for children.

Portfolios

Could any families that took home their child's portfolio over the holidays please return it now ready for more to be added this term,

Thankyou

ELC Staff

Food in the Centre

Just a reminder that no food must be brought to the centre or left in children's bags during the day. This is a safety issue as there are quite a few children in the Centre with severe allergies that occur when coming into contact with various foods. Please ensure that if you send a Birthday Cake for your child you speak with your child's teacher first and provide us with a list of ingredients (guidelines are in the Handbook) .

Thankyou
Jeanine

Updating Information

Could all families please make sure any changes to children's Health or Dietary Action plans have been passed on to us so that we can update our records and ensure your child's safety.

Thankyou

Excursion to "White"

White Theatre Excursion

On Wednesday the Cooper, Edgerley and Chapple children went to the Festival Theatre to see a performance of White. We all enjoyed this beautiful play and were delighted by the characters Wrinkle and Cotton. The play was perfect for our current unit of inquiry too. After the performance the children shared their thoughts on what they had seen...
“The man was crying, because he want the egg. The man said to the man ‘put the egg in the bin’ because he wanted no red – he counted 1,2,3,4,5” said Owen C.
"He got the egg out of the bin, it was in the bin because he would count to five. And then he sneaked out and got it and the eggs changed colours, and then they looked up and all the colours was coming on their heads” said Henry M.
"Maybe the light is magic so maybe it could make the colours turn. The light is magic" thought Noah.
"Everything was white, white, white, white" said Joshua S.
"They put the egg in the bin and the person got it out in the egg house and all the stuff come out green and blue" remembered Rocco.
"We saw different things. They put everything in their bin and all different colours come out" said William.
At the end of the play we got to talk to the actors and collected confetti from around the stage and everyone went back to kindy with their pockets full of colours! A big thank you to all the parents who helped us on this trip, we hope you enjoyed the play too!

Langley Room

We have been experimenting with mixing different coloured play dough this week as well as creating coloured masterpieces at the easel. The children have been engaging in interesting conversations around colour as they describe what they are painting.
I doing dots, blue and pink dots, blue and pink. Pink is all everywhere – Erin
A dinosaur, roar, dats green – Hugo Sen
Yellow, green and blue, yeah – Pauline
Colours, colours, yellow – Joshua
I doned a dragon. He’s red, yellow, bue and geen. The geen just came from there – Thomas

Thank you to those families who have already brought in a family photo for their child to share, we would love to collect all of them to add to our ‘Who We Are’ display.

Kind regards,

Jess, Kerry, Amy and Pippa

Mead Room

Dear Mead Room Friends,
This week we have really begun to explore colour. The children have been bringing in RED items to share for Show and Tell, a lobster, yummy red tomatoes and even red undies! We have explored mixing colours with red to see how they change, sorted shapes into colour piles, and looked through different coloured water to see the world in a new colour. The children are beginning to recognise colours in all sorts of places - even on their shoes, clothes and Miss C's lips! Many children have expressed a preference for a favourite colour and others just love them all. Let's talk about COLOUR
“Red is a colour. I like red” said Eden
“I like green. Green is a colour.” added Oscar
“I like green too!” said Andre
“But green is my favourite colour!” said Oscar
“There is light and dark green.” suggested Susannah
“Pink is my favourite colour. I love pink.” said Molly smiling
“I think orange is a colour too.” suggested Andre
“What about brown.? We can see brown.” said James W
“Purple too.” yelled Gwen showing us her purple clip from her hair
“I can see blue too. Blue is in the sky.” said James pointing outside
“Oh look there is silver on my shoes. Silver is a colour too!” said Susannah showing us the silver flowers on her shoes.
“I have black on my shoes. Black!” added Gwen “Mrs Lock you have black shoes too.”
“White is a colour. There is lots of white.” said Molly

Kind regards
Emma, Susan, Cristina and Heidi

Cooper Room

Last week Chloe brought a paint roller to show the class at show and tell time (she had been painting the house with her dad in the holidays). Everyone was interested in having a go at roller painting and we thought that this would be a good extension of our work with primary colours. The children used the rollers to create large bright paintings, stretching their arms up high to make big rolling marks. They found that when two colours overlapped new colours were created and when all the colours were painted on top of each other it made brown...
"Well I changed it green" said William.
"Look at mine... blue, yellow, orange" Asher showed us.
"When you mix it, it turns into a different colour" explained Sebastian R.
"Oh look, it's turned green" said Jacob, "I put yellow on the paper with the roller and then dark blue went over it when I used the roller."
Kind regards,
Cooper Team

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Parents and Friends,
Week two has been very busy, but lots of fun. We completed our first successful exscurion- thank you to the parents who helped! We have also been working hard in the Chinese Kitchen. Many dumplings, chicken chips and choccy biscuits have been coming from our pretend kitchen. Some children have been experimenting with chopsticks, fry pans and corks, whilst others have been busying themselves waitering and cooking. It has been a wonderful opportunity to develop many skills, including working with others, taking turns and sharing roles. We are looking forward to taking this further in the coming weeks.
Chapple Room Team

Miss Gray returns from holidays next week but will be leaving us on February 22nd as she has decided to further her career and will be studying Early Childhood at University this year. She will continue to work with us in a casual role . We will appoint a new assistant to the Chapple Room as soon as possible. We wish her all the best in her studies this year !

Edgerley Room

This week in Edgerley we continued to explore the world of colour at the easel, on our table tops, at our drink shop in the garden and even in the city!! In the classroom we enjoyed mixing colours onto paper plates and exploring and describing our results. We discovered that you could make lots of different types of the same colour. At the easel we discovered that you could make even more versions by adding white!In the garden we began to discuss colour combinations and mix them up like potions to create drinks for our customers at our drink shop. We discovered if you mix red, yellow and blue you can make coke!!! (We also discussed that Coke is only a sometimes drink and we limited our customers to only a little bit!!) Finally we enjoyed a trip on the public bus into the city to see Cotton and Wrinkle in the show White. Come and have a look on our wall to see some pictures of this wonderful excursion.We would like to welcome Amelia Kasauskas to our class and thank Miss Rachel for all the work she has done with us in the last semester.Kind RegardsMel, Pip, Sinead and Amelia

Clipsal Excursion

As many of you may know, the Early Learning Centre takes an excursion to the Clipsal 500 every year. We have had many queries from parents who would like to be a participant on this excursion.Three Year old and Four Year old Thursday classes will be taking a short trip to the track and, as in past years, we will sit to watch part of a race, walk to see the go carts, cross the bridge for a snack, walk through the display alley and then return back to school. It is a short trip but is usually noisy, dusty and can be warm. As in past years we will not be able to attend the Clipsal unless we have a strict ratio of 2 children to 1 adult or better. Parents who are planning to join us must buy their own tickets. PAC offers this service through the school website. Log on to http://www.pac.edu.au/ and follow the prompts through Event Bookings through to Clipsal 500 to purchase a ticket at the discounted rate of $23.50. We apologise for the short notice but this needs to be done by Thursday evening 9th Feb ! This ticket enables you to attend our excursion but also to return to the track for the remainder of the day. Parents who already have an event pass do not need to purchase an extra ticket. Parents who miss the PAC ticket deadline will be required to purchase a full price tciket at the gate on the day. This is a wonderful trip that is a particularly good opportunity for fathers to join us. We will visit the track on Thursday the 1st of March and no child will be able to attend without a signed permission slip that teachers will distribute closer to the date. In the intervening time if you have an interest in joining us please make your interest known to Mrs Dry via e-mail at jdry@pac.edu.au
Thankyou
ELC staff

Excursion to "White"

The children who are in Cooper, Edgerley and Chapple Rooms and attend on Wednesdays will going to the Festival Centre next week to see this performance by Windmill Theatre Company. Edgerley and Cooper rooms will be going at 9.00am and returning around 11.30am. Chapple Room will be leaving at 11.00am and returning at approximately 1.30pm. They will take lunch with them . (please note that the bottom of the excursion notice had the wrong time for Chapple room)
Any parents who are accompanying us need to bring their bus fare in small change , children travel for free. Thankyou to all who offered to help but as we had to purchase our tickets last year we can only take a limited number of helpers.

Jeanine

Excursion to "White"

Excursion to "White"

Softfall surface in the centre

Please do not walk across the rubber softfall area if you are wearing narrow heeled shoes as you will "sink " as some sections are softer than others ! (It also leaves holes )

Jeanine

Uniforms

Just another gentle reminder that pants or skirts MUST be in plain neutral colours (ie no stripes, checks, patterns or large logos). Any tops worn under the school T shirt must be plain white . As we are part of the school we are expected to adhere to a strict uniform policy,

Thankyou for your co-operation

Jeanine

Langley Room

A big warm welcome to all our new Langley children and their families! It has been an exciting and busy week as we settle into classroom life and routines and get to know all our new friends. Our unit of inquiry this term is ‘Conversations in Colour’ and the children have taken great pleasure in peering through the coloured water bottles as they discuss how their view changes and talk about which colours are their favourites;
“All bue (blue)” commented Max,
“Red, red, red” said Kristian excitedly,
“Everything changes colour” observed Thomas.

We are also inquiring into ‘Who We Are’ as we settle into the Langley room and would appreciate it if each child could bring in a family photograph to share with their peers next week.


Kind regards,

Jess, Kerry, Pippa and Amy

Mead Room

Dear Mead Parents,
Welcome back! We hope you all had a lovely Christmas and holiday break. It is wonderful to see all the new little faces this week in the Mead Room. The children have been settling in very smoothly, becoming familiar with the more"grown up" routines and expectations, renewing old friendships and making new ones. Our week has very much been a 'settling in' week, with our focus being social and behavioural. The transition from the Langley Room is a significant one, so we are spending time discussing the dynamics of their new environment (in 3 year old terminology!). Our unit of enquiry this term is "Conversations in Colour" and the activities set up within the classroom have provoked discussions and explorations in relation to this. They are really enjoying exploring the larger outdoor environment too!
Best wishes,
Emma, Susan and Christina

Cooper Room

The Cooper children quickly embraced our new unit of inquiry, 'Conversations in Colour', when they came back to Cooper this week. We mixed coloured dye to colour our playdough, sorted coloured cars in their garages built with blocks, made new paint colours by mixing blue, yellow and red and mixed and matched transparent plastic colours on the overhead projector. The children also made collages with coloured celophane and tissue on plastic and tested them out on the overhead projector...
"I can see mine" said Angus and Bailey.
"You can only see the red" noticed Lily.
"It's just a rainbow. Some of the colours have gone away" commented Chloe.
You can check out the children's collage work on our Cooper windows when you go past!
Kind regards,
The Cooper Team

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Parents and Friends,
We have had a wonderful start to the 2012 school year in Chapple Room. All the children have had a lovely time meeting new friends and catching up with old ones. We have started our exploration into our unit of inquiry, Conversations in Colour, and have had some in depth conversations about colours. We have listed our favourite colours, explored painting with primary colours and have had a fun time making our own kaleidescopes.
Many thanks,
Chapple Room Team

Edgerley Room

Wow!! What a fantastic first week of Term One we had in Edgerley. We all busily engaged in our new unit, “Conversations In Colour”. There was a lot of enthusiastic mixing and we made all sorts of discoveries, particularly about green. We also learned something new about the colour blue after sharing the story “Blue Chameleon”. Did you know that sometimes when people feel sad we can say that they feel a little blue? We created some very blue pictures with big sad faces… lucky Lao Shi provided us with an antidote…red!! We splashed lots of that happy colour around our Chinese New Year kitchen and cooked up lots of stir fry!
We would like to welcome Jacob and his family to our classroom and are also thrilled to invite Miss D to join Edgerley Room
Looking forward to next week
Kind regards
Mel, Pip, Sinead and Rachel