Centre Review

We have now been given the dates of  30-31 July for a visit from the new Early Childhood Services Registration and Standards Board to review our centre. This will involve a 2 day review process and then a  rating will be sent to us several weeks later. We will keep you informed !

Jeanine

Staffing

Miss Coral Bowden will join us on July 9th and will be the Co-Educator in the Cooper Room .  Please welcome her.


Jeanine

Home Sweet Home

Our unit of enquiry next term is called "Home Sweet Home".  If any families have any small animal homes that they could send in /donate we would be happy to have them . We are looking for things like  bird's nests, wasps nests, honey comb etc. (We are happy to have small birdcages donated but please check it with your child's teacher for size)

regards
ELC Team

Animal Capers

On Tuesday July 10th we are having a visit from a group called Animal Capers. They will set up in our Art Room and bring various small wild animals for the children to see and touch. All children here that day will be able to visit the exhibition. There will be a small charge of $5 to cover costs. We will send a form out next week,

Jeanine

Lost Shoe

Last week the children uncovered a shoe that had been very well buried in the sandpit !  It may have been there a while but if your child is missing a white sneaker it is in the lost property basket just inside the double doors

ELC Team

Coles sports vouchers

I have had several parents enquire as to whether we are collecting these and I have now been informed that the school is . So bring along any vouchers and give them to Mrs Porter who will forward them to the school. The ElC uses equipment purchased this way in their PE program.

Jeanine

Health Checks

Our Community Health nurse, Carol ,will be at our centre again on July 25th to do 4 year old Health Checks. All children who are at least 4 years and 3 months can take advantage of this free Government screening program . Carol checks things like ,height, weight , hearing , eyesight, language and co-ordination, and can discuss any other concerns parents may have. It is a valuable service to use.  Please book a time with Mrs Porter if you would like to use this opportunity. A parent needs to accompany their child and bring along the form provided and the child's Blue Book.

Jeanine

4's Holiday Fun

Our trip to the Jungle!

This week the children have displayed very keen interest in venturing to the jungle, loving our stories pertaining to the lives and adventures of jungle animals, talking about their various abilities and special characteristics such as speed, means of catching their prey and how they communicate. We read our  " A Nice Walk to the Jungle" and we put a slight twist to it. The children became the characters in the book, Mrs. Rocca as the teacher taking the children to an excursion and Ms. Freer as the boa constrictor. Through this activity, the children learnt about safety, listening and telling the difference between hervibores and carnivores. We've taken this journey on our stroll around the school the children called the "PAC Jungle".

To further this experience, we also watched the movie "The Jungle Book". But not only that, we had some yummy popcorn with it and we even made our own popcorn cones made out of animal printed paper! How cool ! We loved munching on the popcorn as we followed Mowgli on his adventure with Bageera the panther, Kaa the snake, Baloo the bear and Shirkan the tiger.

What a fun-filled week this has been and we are looking forward to more.

Coney and Kelly

3's Holiday Fun

Dear Families,

During the week the 3 year olds have been actively engaging in various experiences. The highlight would have to be cotton tip painting on black and white paper. The children have taken an interest to this fine motor skill. Jack Trotter brought in some gum nuts that the children have been painting and printing patterns onto paper. A week full of exploration and interest.

Enjoy your weekend!

Cristina, Rachel, Renee, Rosalie and Amelia.

Langley Room

Dear Langley Family and Friends,

For the last couple of weeks, we have been using the Connect Sticks to create all different types of objects. We’ve made magnifying glasses, spiders, space ships, rockets, towers and even the Millennium Falcon from Star Wards! This week, Pauline joined together a heap of the straight sticks. She brought it over to show some of the other children.
“It a fishing rod” she said proudly.

The other children were fascinated by Pauline’s fishing rod and many of them copied her and made their own fishing rods. To support the children in their exploration, we made a pond with magnetic fish and attached magnets to the ends of their fishing rods. With much excitement, they were able to catch fish from the water with their fishing rods! We even pretended to cook some of them up on the stove to eat!

Best wishes,

Jess, Kerry, Pippa and Ange

Miss Pippa will be finishing in the Langley room next Friday 6^th July to go on maternity leave. We wish her all the best and thank her for her hard work in the Langley room. Miss Amelia who has been working in Edgerley will be joining the Langley team from Monday 9^th July.   

Policy Updates

Thankyou to those parents who contributed to the updating of our Centre Policies.  The updated versions  are now in the red ELC Policy folder that is kept on the sideboard in the entrance area. Please feel free to read these at any time and offer feedback


Jeanine

Edgerley Parent Information session

The information session for the parents of children moving to Edgerley next term will now be held on Tuesday 17th July at 4pm in that classroom.

Jeanine

Holiday Program

The program for the next 2 weeks is on the display board near the cafe area. We will be having a visit from Animal Capers in the last week and will publish more information shortly.

Missing Jacket

There is a PAC winter jacket missing that belongs to a child in Mead Room . It is a size 3 and is named RATANATRAY under the tag . Please check that your child has the correct jacket
Thankyou

Photos from Edgerley Graduation

These photos should be available in a few weeks on Festival Photos website. Go to www.festivalphoto.com.au  then click "view your photos"  The user name is PAC and the client admin number is ELC2012 . You will need to put in the year and the event. You can then order from here,

regards
Jeanine

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley Parents,

On behalf of Pip Cooper, Amelia Kasauskas and Coney Rocca I would to thank you all for your support during the year. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to celebrate with the children at the graduation yesterday and I know they were particularly enchanted with the balloons (thankyou Michelle!) It has been a wonderfully exciting and jam packed year where the children have explored their world around them (and further beyond) in depth, never happy with a  quick comment, always eager to share, discuss, propose and hypothesis. Together we reached some amazing conclusions! On behalf of the Edgerley team I would like to wish all our Edgerley 2011-2012 children the best of luck in the future and we look forward to updates over the coming years! I would also like to thank Mrs Emma McKenzie and Mrs Susan Lock for stepping into the breach in our last frantic week, they went above and beyond. Thankyou also to the English-Obst family for allowing us to visit their bakery in Hanhdorf, it was an amazing hit with the boys!

We wish you all a happy and safe holidays and look forward to seeing most of our big boys up at Reception next term!!!

Lots of love

Mel, Pip, Amelia and Coney

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,

We had a wonderful excursion to Otto's bakery on Wednesday. It was a great way to end our investigation on machines, looking at all the big bakery machines and how they made the baking process so much easier. Thank you to Aidan's parents for having us all up there, and for the special treat at the end! Yum! Thank you also to the parents who joined us.

‘You know when I went up to the bakery, I liked it there cause we looked at everything and we had donuts.’ Flynn

‘After all the guys had gone on the bus I got a gingerbread man and a jelly cake.’ Harry H

‘I liked it because the bakery was nice.’ Tommi

‘I like the bakery because I thought it was going to be too loud, but it wasn’t too loud and I liked feeling the dough.’ Owen

‘The dough felt like a marshmallow.’ Sebastian

‘On the way back to school we played eye spy.’ Grace

‘I liked looking at how they make the bread.’ Ryan

‘I liked when they made the pigs ears.’ Zach H

‘D you know I likeded the part when all of the round things popped out, 30.’ Gabriel

It's been such a great term. Have a wonderful break. See you in three weeks!

Chapple Room Team

Cooper Room

We have had a lovely last week in Cooper! The children have enjoyed many favourite activities, including clay, trains, finger puppets and lego. On Tuesday they visited Edgerley for 'Moving Up Morning' and came back full of excitement and news about what they will be doing next term. We celebrated the end of our year with a class party and used various machines to cook our own party food, played party games and shared our learning porfolios with our families. Thank you to Chanel's mum, Danielle, who made a beautiful 'graduation cake' for us too. What a great way to end a fantastic year! Have fun in Edgerley everybody!
Best regards,
Ali, Rachel and Renee

Mead Room

Dear Mead Parents,
Sadly this week we are farewelling Stella Spalvins. As we have been practicing our counting skills recently in the Mead Room, and playing a cookie counting game, we decided to make our very own cookies for a little farewell surprise party for Stella. We also made her a special goodbye card and recorded the children's comments on it.
"I go and play in the castle as fairies with her." Gwen
"I play with her and I going to miss her." James W
"I'm going to miss sitting down with my friend - going outside and going in here." Raphael
"She is my favourite friend." Suzannah
"Stella always smiles at me." Izabella
Good luck Stella and we wish you all the very best at your new school.
Best wishes,
Emma, Susan and Cristina

Langley Room

Dear Langley Family and Friends,

We have had a busy week further investigating machines and how they work. We were lucky enough to be able to borrow Harrison’s ice-cream machine so that we could churn fresh vanilla ice-cream on Monday and Friday.

“It’s making a sound, it’s mixing it all up” observed Angus,

“You can’t open it, it’s mixing” Erin told the other children,

“It’s mixing” agreed Joshua.

“Mixing ice-cream” suggested Jack,

“It’s turning” commented Joshua,

“It’s turning Miss Jess, look!” said James excitedly,

“Mix” observed Alex.

“My chine (machine). What’s it making?” questioned Harrison, “it making milkshake” he answered,

“It’s making ice-cream” suggested Charlie M,

“It making ice-cream” agreed Harrison.

Jess, Kerry, Pippa and Ange

Martini Ball

The school's annual Martini Ball is on again !
It is a great night to get a group together ,frock up and party the night away. Flyers are in each classroom , put your name and contact number down if you are interested in going or call Linda MacAuley  (0411 114 663) 




Theme :Moulin Rouge
Saturday, 15 September 2012
at 7.00pm

Adelaide Entertainment Centre
Black Tie Ball
$155 per person
Tables of 10 available

School Holidays

Next Friday is the last day of term , please make sure you mark the roll sheets if your child will be absent over the 3 week period.



Jeanine

Edgerley Graduation

Don't forget this is next Thursday at 11.00 am in the Town Square , parents ,Grandparents etc are all welcome !

Jeanine

Langley Room

Inspired by some of the children somersaulting off the concrete plinth onto the blue mat, we have set up a long tumbling mat to practice our rolling and somersaulting. The children have been trying a range of different strategies to propel themselves along the mat. Each attempt has been celebrated with cheers and applause from the other children waiting their turn. We have set up some audience viewing chairs for the children to watch their peers. This has resulted in children trying out other children’s strategies for moving along the mat. We have been talking about how to somersault safely in order to look after your body by tucking your head right under, making sure you stay on the soft mat and having only one person at a time on the mat. You might like to have some practice somersaulting at home over the weekend!

Best wishes,

Jess, Kerry, Pippa and Ange

Mead Room

Dear Parents,
The Mead children have been showing an interest in using scissors and cutting. To practice this skill, we offered the children a variety of papers and various textures to cut. We collected a large assortment of cuttings and decided to glue them onto a canvas. Our collective cuttings are displayed in our classroom. Please come and have a look!
"It beaudiful" Eden said, admiring the finished product.
"I cutting gold" Gwen described as she cut an old Easter egg wrapper.
Marcus sat patiently and cut his paper into tiny pieces. "Look, I will put this in a special spot. I will make it the middle of a flower" he said.
"That my piece. Look I stuck it there!" Leonardo showed his friends, pointing to the piece he had just glued on.
Best wishes,
Emma, Susan and Cristina

Cooper Room

The Cooper children worked together to create a cafe outside this week. We wrote a menu and gathered together aprons, pots, pans and plates. The children cooked for their friends, made coffee and served at the drive-thru window!

“Here’s your coffee” said Chloe.

“I’m cooking some lunch… I’m cooking one of my foods. I’m cooking some bacon” said Caleb.

“I need to make stuff and clean the tables and the chairs so people don’t get dirty bums. You park over there” said Cooper directing Owen and Felix.

“I want some coffee please” asked Felix.

“And me please” added Owen.

“I want a pancake please. Woohoo, I get a pancake!” exclaimed Felix.

The service at the cafe was great and we all enjoyed our coffee in the sunshine!

Ali , Rachel and Renee

Chapple and Edgerley Rooms

Dear Parents and Friends,

The highlight of our week was definitely presenting the assembly for the Prep School on Wednesday. It was very exciting for both classes and all the children did a wonderful job. Some of the Edgerley children held up deconstructed machine parts for the older boys to guess what machine they had come from. It was lots of fun! They then explained what we had been learning about in our unit, Mighty Machines, before the Chapple children performed the play of The Little Red Hen and sang our song, I'm a little robot.  it was a new experience presenting in front of so many people, but one that we all enjoyed!

Chapple and Edgerly Teams

Child Care Rebate

There is an information sheet about this that will be in each child's locker next week . The Rebate is not means tested and can be paid straight to the Centre to offset your fees. If you wish to change how you receive this you must contact the Department of Human Services  (formerly Centrelink) before June 30th.

Jeanine

Princess' Tea Party

The photos from this morning are now on Festival Photo's website.  There are some great shots there so please check at   www.festivalphoto.com.au    The User name is PAC and the password is ELC2012. You need to put in the year, the school name and the event.

Thankyou to all the families who made a donation either on this morning or afterwards to the Loreto Program in Vietnam for underprivileged children. We raised a total of $500 and there is a Thankyou letter posted on the wall in the foyer area for everyone to read


Jeanine

School Holidays

Please cross out any booked days that your child will not be attending over the school holidays (25/6-15/7) on the sheets in your child's classroom.


Thankyou

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley Parents,

We were busy four and five year olds this week as we began to discuss feeling as a class group. Our discussion was instigated by an interest to know the difference between the feelings of anger and jealous. We found some books that we shared together and were keen to share our own examples of those feelings. Ms Kasauskas shared a book with us from France about knowing the monster inside that makes you angry and silly and how to tame him. We loved it and so decided to explore some other feelings as well. We used some posters as discussion starters and sorted them into three piles. One pile was full of feelings that make us feel good, the second pile was full of feelings that don’t make us feel good but that we can work to solve, and the last pile was a pile of three feelings that don’t make us feel good but are OK to feel. Come into our classroom and have a look on our wall to see how we sorted them.

We also continued our investigation of tee pees as a structure this week, saw the transit of Venus (thankyou to Fletcher Tippins Dad, Duncan) and observed a very friendly kookaburra on the way back from gym!

How much can we squeeze into next week!

Kind regards

Mel, Pip, Amelia and Coney

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,

It's been a very exciting week in Chapple Room. As our inquiry into machines continues towards space, the solar system and rockets, we were treated to a special visit from Fletcher's father Duncan who set up his camera for us to view the Transit of Venus. It was great to finally see! We then continued to explore light and shadows with our very own shadow puppet show. It's been lots of fun. We've also had some more great cooking experiences with machines that children have brought in from home. Thank you to everyone who has sent something in. We've loved exploring kitchen machines and sampling the delicious treats that come from them!
Have a wonderful long weekend!

Chapple Room Team

Cooper Room

Dear Cooper Parents,

This week we continued our exploration of machines, with the Cooper room children making “machines ‘using various sized boxes and glueing collage pieces on the boxes. Many children made “cameras” with the boxes. Caleb was very proud of his camera!

We also had fun learning new songs “thumbs up” and “The wonkey donkey”. We danced and sang using our bodies to move in time to the songs that were played on the CD player. Rocco and Fletcher particularly enjoyed the body movement, while Sebastian R and Lara sang enthusiastically.

Early in the week the Cooper room children made an airport construction using the large wooden blocks, with a garage for trains. It was a great team effort and the children continued to enjoy the “airport” construction for the whole day. There was  lively discussion and excitement shown by the children as they worked cooperatively to build their airport!

Have a great long weekend,

Ali, Rachel and Renee

Mead Room

Dear Mead Parents,
The interest in machines just keeps on flowing in the Mead Room. This week the children have found another use for a salad spinner. Not only can they spin off water from lettuce leaves, they can also be used to create interesting 'splatter paintings'.
"Look, I spinning it," Eden commented.
"It spinning the paint inside,"Abhi said excitedly.
"I put on the lid. Now I'm spinning it. Now I finished. Now I will look inside," Leonardo gave a running commentary.
"The machine did make my painting" Sebastian described.
Come and have a look at our wonderful works of art!
Best wishes,
Emma, Susan and Cristina

Langley Room

Following on from the children’s interest in body parts and bones, we have been examining some nonfiction books about the body and a mannequin of body parts. The children have proposed some interesting theories about the body that we are going to investigate further in future weeks.

“It’s the same, like wiggly worms” said Jackson looking at the stomach part, “the wee goes through the worms and down and down and down all the way out and into the toilet” he continued.

“There’s something in your brain. That’s what my Dad tells me” said Jack.

“My teeth are strong” commented Hugo Sen as he looked at the teeth in the body book, “I’m young cos I’m not tall now. I’m young, young like the other children” he suggested.

“I got a bone in my tummy” Erin commented.

If anyone has any x-rays, ultrasounds images or bones (!) at home that they are happy to share, we would love to borrow them.

Best wishes,

Jess, Kerry, Pippa and Ange

Holidays

It is now only 3 weeks to the end of term !  Please let us know if your child will be away over the school holidays (25th June to 16th July) so that we can ensure we have the correct staffing ratio while the Teachers are on leave ,


Thankyou

Signing IN and OUT

Please make sure you do this everyday but if you do forget  please sign where we highlight the spot. If you are absent we will write @ in the space , please initial these days when you return .


Thankyou

Updating Details

Dear Parents ,

Please remember to update any change of details for either you or child.  A few email addresses have "bounced back " recently so please let us know if you have changed yours . We also need updates of immunisation as the older children have their final booster and any changes to any health plans .


Thankyou

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley Parents,

We have had a wonderful week at the carpentry table this week. Children have been building entire squadrons of aeroplanes as well as houses and even a wonderful chess playing machine that Cooper crafted. We have also developed an interest in animals from the jungle and have researched a few books to look for different animals to illustrate. We created a jungle in our breakout space that is now populated with all sorts of animals (some who didn’t live in the jungle thought it might be fun to join us as well!!) Just watch out for the boa constrictor who keeps trying to eat us up!

Some of us have continued to create personal posters this week, they look great so keep your eyes peeled as they slowly go up over the rest of the term.

Kind Regards

Mel, Pip, Amelia and Coney


PS ,  as the end of the term is not far off please let Mrs Dry know when your child's last day will be.

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,

We have had a fun yet sad week in Chapple Room. We shared our last day with Jack O'Brien on Wednesday. It was sad to see him go, however we wish him all the best for Noosa and several children in the class are apparently going to visit him in the July holidays! The little cupcakes from Lucy also softened the blow. We took a class photo to send away with Jack so we can all remember the special times we've shared in Chapple Room this year.

Chapple Room Team

Mead Room

The Mead Room would like to thank all the families for the wonderful and interesting kitchen machines brought in for show and tell this week. We have shared a range of diverse appliances that the children have learnt a great deal about. The popcorn machines have been an exciting one for the children, cheese graters, coffee perculators, egg beaters, slushy machines, and the juicing machines.
We went for a walk to the School's Laundry and learnt about the washing process. The children got to see the big washing machines, dryer and irons. They were extremely intrigued at the big machines cycles.
A productive week in the Mead Room with lots of acitivites inside and outside.




The Mead Team

Cooper Room

The Cooper children have shown great interest in electricity and other
power sources as we have investigated machines this term. This week we
looked at circuit boards in the classroom and Olivia brought in a
simple circuit set for show and tell.
“I brought electricity that my brother showed me… you put this thing
on this yellow… it just does the light turn on and there’s power
coming out of the cords” explained Olivia connecting the power to a
battery and light bulb in a circuit.
“’Cos there’s a battery” added Rocco.
“It’s flashing, it can also do electrical for the power” said Bailey.
“Electricity is coming through the cord and it’s flashing” said Angus.
We looked at a torch that runs on batteries which Priyanka brought in
and Emerson's battery operated car track. Archie showed us a coffee
grinder and Alec his bread machine, both needed to plugged into the
power point. It's amazing how much learning comes from things found
around the home!
Kind regards,
Ali, Rachel and Renee

Langley Room

We've been busy baking beautiful fresh bread this week in the Langley room this week. Our friend Harrison let us borrow his bread maker from home. We observed the machine very closely before putting in all the ingredients to make the bread.
Zara- is that a microwave.
Toby- it's a toaster.
We talked about the ingredients that go into making bread.
Dougal- a box you put flour in it.
Max- a bread box.
Harry L- put it in.
Thomas- yeast
Jack- yeast mixes it, it makes it go big and fat.
On our first day of baking called the Loaf Birthday Bread for Gabby we placed 3 candles in it and sang Happy Birthday to her. We had butter and vegemite on it.
As we cut it we noticed something happening.
Angus- It is hot.
Jackson- I love fresh bread.
Alex- fred (bread)

Harry P- the steam is comeing out of the crust.
At the next day's baking Jack suggested we have jam on our freshly baked bread. As you could imagine it was a real hit !


Langley Team