Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,

You may have noticed that the children have been very busy measuring things in Chapple Room this week. This was inspired by Oscar's Show and Tell session last week. He chose to bring in a tape measure of his father's and shared his love of measuring things with the class. The children were fascinated, so the following week we put out some rulers and measuring tapes for the class to explore. They have been intrigued and enthusiastic about measuring everything and anything in the room. We have measured each other, measured the furniture and their building projects, recorded numbers and used the rulers to draw pictures. All the children have been involved. It is a wonderful example of how the Show and Tell program affects the whole class in Chapple Room. By allowing children to make their own choices on what to bring in each week, they choose things that are meaningful to them. Their passion and enthusiasm during their session captivates the class and promotes better listening skills from the group. Teachers can then use each individual child's interests as a provocation for the program, producing learning experiences that are more meaningful and interesting for the class. We have had many other great Show and Tell sessions, such as Jacob's photos and stories from the ferry to Tasmania, James W's book, program and CD from Cirque de Soleil, books, cards, games and stories of interest to the children. Keep up the good work and thank you for your support with the Show and Tell program.
Chapple Room Team

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley Families,

You wouldn’t believe it, just after Show and Tell time, the Edgerley children got ready to go outside for a play… we got outside and there was tons and tons of rubbish: newspapers, bubble wrap, crepe paper littering the whole entire yard! What was also surprising was that Mrs Rocca and Mrs Baird were ready with clipboards for notes and cameras for pictures just to record what the children’s reactions would be.

Alex: “What happened over here?”

Toby: ”Oh my goodness! ”

Jacob: ”There’s heaps of rubbish!”

Angus: ”There must have been a party here last night!”

Rayan: ”So much people have messed up the PAC track.”

Caleb: ”Look at the tennis court. There’s so much rubbish!”

Bruno: “I’m a rubbish man – I’m picking up the rubbish.  Then the children can play.”

Angus: “We don’t want it to be dirty.”

Cooper: “I’m taking rubbish to the rubbish dump to make it clean again.”

Owen: “Get the green bin! Get the green bin for all the paper ones.”

Felix: “Bubble wrap in this one. Bubble wrap! Bubble wrap!”

Owen: “We can use it again – we can make stuff with it!”

Cooper: “Don’t mix them. The rubbish man might not know what’s in there and he’ll collect the wrong one.”

After the big clean up, most of the boys and girls chose to play in other areas but a small group of boys turned the bikes into rubbish trucks, one for the paper and one for the plastic and did laps and laps of the circuit picking up rubbish and advertising to the other children to keep the area clean! We’re very proud of the Edgerley children for taking action to make our areas so clean and safe.

Next week you will find in your child’s locker a blank poster (with instructions). We would like you to record in any way you choose just how your family looks after the environment from your home. You might like to draw a map, write notes, draw pictures, make a collage etc… This will then be your child’s Show and tell for Week 7.

Have a lovely weekend!

Coney, Juliana and Katherine

Curriculum Night

Don't forget our Curriculum Information Evening next Thursday 28th Feb at 7pm.  All parents are invited to join us for a relaxed but informative evening !

ELC Team

Clipsal Road restrictions

Next week is the Adelaide Clipsal . This means that many of the roads between PAC and the city are closed from 23rd Feb until 4th March. This causes huge traffic delays and you will need to allow lots of extra time at peak periods to get to the school. You may also need to change the route you normally use to get here.  Please be particularly mindful of this at the end of the day in order to arrive by 6pm.

Jeanine

Sleep and your Toddler Seminar

A seminar run by Dr Sarah Blunden for parents of 1-4 year old children  with sleep concerns will be held at WCH on 12.3.13. The flyer is on the parent noticeboard inside the first double doors.

Door Code Pad

Dear Parents ,

Please do not allow your children (even school age ones) to use the front door security pad. It tends to get "out of sync" when several numbers are pushed at the same time and then does not work for the next user. As its main purpose is security we also ask that you do not give the code to your older children or allow them to use it.
Please also be aware that you should not allow other people to enter without the code if you do not recognise them as ELC families.

Thankyou for your help

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley Families,

If you’ve missed our children when you have  dropped by this week, that’s because they’ve been climbing the beanstalk! We have been reading Jack and the Beanstalk, role playing the story, writing our own versions and publishing them, using magnifying glasses to study Magic Beans AND conducting science experiments by growing our own magic beans two ways! Mr Wagenfeller even put beans in our No Chilli Con Carne ! Please stop by to view (but please don’t touch) our science experiments – we are waiting for our beans to grow… or perhaps they’ve already started…

Coney, Juliana and Katherine 

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,

We are continuing to have a great term and are now feeling very settled and at home in the Chapple Room. Each day, as part of our relaxation program, we participate in a short Yoga session. It's been great learning all the new stretches and positions. We are all developing and progressing well. Some of the poses we have learned include the butterfly (which Raph is doing in the photo), the washing machine, the swinging tree, shining star triangle and dancing hands. After the warm up, we act out the story Blast Off,  where we travel to space in our rockets and walk on the moon. It's a fun way to exercise and rest our bodies. Next week, we will also include the story of Out in the Garden, which will introduce us to new and fun poses.
Namaste!
Chapple Room Team

PS- an interesting article on the link between folic acid and the risk of Autism can be found at http://theconversation.edu.au if you're looking for some weekend reading!

Cooper Room

Dear Parents and Friends of the Cooper Room,

It has been a fun week in the Cooper room learning a new song about "Green Jelly Beans," taking off to the moon, fighting fires and inviting our Mums in for Show and Tell. We even managed to finish our Chinese Dragon - ready for a noisy and vibrant Dragon Dance. Wearing our red clothes for good luck and making as much noise as we could we toured the ELC sending away any bad luck from last year. The children loved dancing and singing with Lau shi. Tomorrow we will head up to the Prep school to share our wonderful dragon with the Reception classes.

“The lion came while we were eating. It was so noisy,” said Henry

“Red! It means stop at the traffic lights.” said Harrison

“My lion didn’t look like that, my lion had a little mouth and it tickled me!” laughed Henry

“I can see money. The red envelopes mean giving money,” said Liam

“I go to the restaurant and Mummy give me money to put it in dem (them) envelopes.” added Henry.

“They buy toys with the money. They get money in the red envelopes.” said Jarrah listening to the story carefully.

 “I saw the lion, dragon dance. It’s tail is so, so long.” said Pauline

Good luck for 2013 from the Cooper Room!
Coral and Susan

Mead Room

Dear Parents and Friends,
We have had such a busy week in the Mead Room, deepening our investigations about birds and their habitats.. The children are fascinated with ways we can observe birds in their homes and have become fascinated "bird watchers" with our home made binoculars. Jock brought in some special binoculars belonging to his great grandfather and we had lots of fun testing them out....
Jock: "Dey my gwampa's.."
Tom: "Dey so great"
Alec: "Can I have a turn?"
Jock: "Be careful with my gwampa's binoculars!"
James: "I going to the jungle"
We all tried a yummy homegrown rockmelon from Jock's vegie patch this week too. The children thought it was delicious!
Toby: "It's orange on da inside"
James S: "Dere's seeds!"
Harry M: "I love it"
Angus: "Can I have some more please?"
Harry M: "Me want more... bit slippery!"
We are really excited by the way our inquiry is moving along... Hoping to see lots of you at our Curriculum meeting next Thursday night.
Many Thanks,
Emma, Pip and Amelia

Langley Room

Dear Langley Family and Friends,

This week we have continued exploring the concept of sustainability by using recycled materials to create new pieces of artwork – come and have a look at our growing gallery of masterpieces!

A owl. There is a owl. Got big nose- Knox

I making a fish. I making a rainbow- Tommy

I making something. I make elephant. You like it?- Zander

It’s a box. I sprinkle some things on it. It’s a fing (thing). It a cage for dad- Harry F

It’s a circle. I use stinky tape. I write my name- Patrick

A gokidile- Angus RR

Thank you to all the families who have brought in their family photos. We have been using these to talk to the children about who is in their family and have then been creating our own family portraits – we can’t wait to share them with you when they are finished. While creating our portraits we have been talking about our families.

Harry, H for Harry. Bernie, my not got sandals. Me draw Mummy, that’s Mummy. Dat’s a big Daddy, Daddy got legs, Daddy go to work, Daddy silly – Bernie

I know Harry,     Mummy and Daddy, Charlie, Zo Zo, dat Digby – Harry CH

Mummy, dat Daddy, yeah, Sophie – Angus T    

Daddy, Mummy, dis Gabby - Rachel

Best wishes,

Jess, Kerry, Nicole, Sarah and Emily

PAC ELC Curriculum Evening

“A Play-Based Curriculum and Natural Environments”

Dear ELC Parents,

The ELC Staff invite you to join us for our first Curriculum Evening of the year!

When: Thursday February 28^th

Time: 7pm – 8:30pm

Where: ELC Café

Provided: Cheese and nibbles

Please Bring: A bottle to share

We encourage you to come along as we take a closer look into our Play-Based Curriculum and how we can incorporate our Natural Environment to further enrich our children’s learning experiences.

Kind regards,

ELC Staff 

Recycling

We are always in need of plastic bags if you could bring them in for us please !  We would also currently like any cardboard cylinders you could provide (all different sizes ).

If your child has come home in spare clothes please remember to send them back (washed please )as soon as possible for us to use for other children.

ELC Team

New Staff

This week we welcomed Miss Emily Downie to the Langley Room and Miss Pamela Veltmeyer to the over 3's team . Please introduce yourself as they try to get to know both the children's and parent's names!

Hats and Headlice

In order to try and prevent spreading headlice when it is around we try to ensure that children wear their own hats. As it is difficult for the children to recognise theirs when they all look the same we are quite happy for you to put their name in a more visible place on their hats.

Jeanine

Langley Room

Happy Chinese New Year from the Langley Room

We have been discussing Chinese New Year Celebrations in the Langley Room. This week Mrs Dry bought in her rice cooker for us to cook rice in. We tried eating the rice with chopsticks which tested our fine motor skills.

We discussed the rice cooker, its components, how it works and what would happen to the rice
"Ri ooker," said Sterling
"Lid," said Domenic when Ms Kerry held up the lid
"A snake," said Angus RR when Ms Kerry held up the power cord
"What are these?" asked Ms Kerry holding up some chopsticks
"Hopsticks," said Alexander
"Copsticks," said Domenic
"Chopsticks," said Nathan

We placed the ingredients into it and hypothesised what was going to happen to the rice.
When the rice was cooked we ate it out of little Chinese take away containers and used our chopsticks.
"What happened to the water?" Ms Kerry asked the children.
"It's in the rice," said Nathan
Some of us were very clever at using the chopsticks and enjoyed trying the rice.

Thank you

Jess, Nicole, Kerry, Sarah and Emily

Mead Room

Dear Parents and Friends,

Our investigations are following the particular interests of our children and this week we have developed appreciation and curiosity by hearing about the Rainbow Lorikeet that Miss Amelia rescued from her neighbour's wheelie bin. The children were fascinated to see images of the bird and look at the food Miss Amelia gave to the bird. The children have created their own colourful birds on our light table, using a range of collage materials. It has sparked a lot of interest about where birds live adn what birds we see at home and in our school grounds. We are hoping to start a feather collection, go bird watching and look at some taxidermis birds over the weeks to come.
The highlight of the week had to be seeing the monster truck up close! Look how big those wheels were!!
Best Wishes,
Emma, Pip and Amelia



PS,  Could you please return your child's portfolio if you still have it at home . We would also love the use of a pair of binoculars if anyone has a set that they are happy to loan us. 

Cooper Room

Dear Parents and Friends of the Cooper Room,

This week the we have been celebrating Chinese New Year. We began on Monday cooking Chinese dumplings, kindly made by Henry and his family. The children loved dipping the dumplings into the soy and sweet chilli sauce.
"Ummm they taste so good." said Jack
"I love that sauce. There's meat in the middle." said Sebastian
"My big sister eats these too. I will tell her I eat them now." added Pauline.
Together we read "Celebrating the Chinese New Year," and Liam and Henry told us all about going out for dinner and how they saw the Chinese dragons. We have now begun making our own dragon. Next week we hope to take it for a dance around the ELC to show all the classes with Lao Shi.
"It needs to have scales like a snake on the tail." said Hudson
"Let's put a red mane on it like a lion." said Oliver
"It needs to have a really long tail." said Kristian
As we have been talking about the traditions and meaning of the Chinese New Year the children decided the dragon needed to be be painted red for good luck. We wish you all good luck for the year ahead.

Kind regards
Coral and Susan

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,
It's been a busy, but exciting week in Chapple Room. We've had a lot on, both in and out of the classroom. This week the Monster Truck visit, cooking activities, a tour of the senior school library and mixing colours on milk were some of the highlights. We also explored the concepts of love and giving through Valentines Day. We made a heart shaped cookie for someone we love. It was a great chance to develop our sharing and turn taking skills, as well as measurement and number concepts throughout the cooking process. Our discussions about who we could give our hearts to were interesting, as some of the children were keen to give their cookie to themselves. Even Mrs Dry was on the list of worthy recipients. We hope the biscuits were enjoyed by those who received them and a happy Valentines Day was had by all. The recipe we used can be found at www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/shortbread-biscuits-L788.thml It's very easy and child friendly!
If you're looking for some light weekend reading, I read an interesting article about a new app that will change the way children can read the newspaper. It's an interesting concept. Go to www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21366825 to read about it.

Have a wonderful weekend.
Chapple Room Team

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley Families,

Another jam packed week in the Edgerley Room ! Whoever would have thought we’d end up using our Rubbish Show and Tell to make a Rubbish Castle? It’s just lovely – complete with sparkles, exits for the King and Queen and even a turret!

“It needs decoration. It’s just a Rubbish Castle. It needs sparkles. You don’t want it to be an ugly witches castle,” Lily was determined to make it a very beautiful castle.

We have been learning a lot about leaves and why some leaves are brown and some are green. Some even have green bits AND brown bits.

Fletcher explained to us, “The green ones are bendy because all their connects are filled with water. They are stronger because of the water. The brown ones are dead. They don’t have any more water left.”

“It’s alive cause it’s bendy. It can bend,” Max exclaimed.

Thanks Archie for bringing in your wasp for us to look at under the microscope! We have also been looking at plankton, flower stem cells, bug antennae and fabrics. Do you have anything interesting at home that we could observe?

Mrs Bishop and her gorgeous daughter Chloe came to visit us!! Chloe is adorable and Mrs Bishop just loves being a mum! Chloe can’t stand up yet, but she can poke her tongue out – what a clever girl!

Next week promises to be a very exciting week as we begin experiments with beans, use natural resources to make stick people, learn about Aboriginal bark painting and write our own books about Jack and the Beanstalk! It’s all very exciting in Edgerley!

Next week Mrs Rocca will be using eggs shells with the children to make some fabulous ‘Egg Shell Mosaics’! Please bring in a drained, clean and dry egg shell in a named sandwich bag and place (carefully!!) in the box on top of the lockers. Don’t worry if the egg shell is already cracked!

(Don't forget our parent information session on Tuesday 4pm)

See you all very soon!

Juliana, Coney and Katherine

Edgerley Parent Meeting

Dear Edgerley Parents,

We would like to meet with you on Tuesday, February 19^th at 4pm in the Edgerley Room to discuss with you our Literacy Program in preparing your child for school. During this session we will share with you how we intend to implement Literacy in the Edgerley Room for the remainder of the year and give you lots of fabulous ideas of how you can encourage Literacy understandings and experiences with your child as you go about your everyday life.

We understand that many of you will find it difficult to make this session, but we do encourage you to attend J We plan to finish before 4:30pm.

Kind regards,

Coney, Juliana and Katherine

Langley Room

Dear families,

We have been exploring colours and textures this week in the outside environment. We have been playing with squishy paint under contact to see what patterns and new colours we could make. The children squished and moved the paint with their fingers and their elbows, and even their bottoms!

“Ta da, look what I made!” cried Angelina excitedly as she created lines in the paint.

 We also experimented with corn flour this week by mixing it with shaving foam. We mixed it and squished it and moulded in to different shapes and made an enormous fun mess at the same time.

 Please keep those family photos coming in so that we can begin working with them and sharing them next week.

Best wishes,

Jess, Kerry, Nicole, Sarah and Emma

Mead Room

Dear Families and Friends,
This week we have continued to explore our new room and get to know each other more. Some of our investigations have included rockets with astronauts at the playdough table, very tall tower constructions and lots of box constructions.
James shared "Look at my space rocket. The creatures are going in... Look at all the astronauts going into the space rocket... Look another astronaut's going in, he's going a little bit further... and then close the door... And this creature is going in.. Look he's snuggling down. Look nobody owns the moon."

Many Thanks,
Emma, Pip and Amelia

Cooper Room

Dear Parents and Friends of the Cooper Room,
This week the children have started to share stories about their families  through our PYP unit "My Family Album".  They have loved bringing in photos for show and Tell, so keep these coming in. It is so much fun learning about everyone's family. A highlight for many of the children is telling everyone their parents names!  We have also been focussing on how we write our names and how special our name is. The children now have their own sign in sheet to write their name on everyday. It is proving very popular and every effort is valued.
Our fire engine and fire station is still in full swing with many fires being put out each day. We are hoping to extend this with the children through our fire drills and safety discussions. If you have a family member who is a fireman we would be very keen to hear from you!  Remember get down low and go, go, go!

Kind regards
Susan and Coral

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,
Welcome to the Blog! We been having a great time getting to know each other in Chapple Room. Our new little Chappies Seb Mac, Max, Christian, Harry  and Ethan have all settled in well. Please introduce yourself to any new parents you see in the room and make them feel welcome.
This week we explored making our own finger paint. It was a great experiment and making the mix was just as much fun as using it. It was a bit lumpy, but it felt fantastic. Next week we will use gloop to explore our sensory awareness.
We have begun initial class discussions about sustainability- mostly the concept of reusing. When asked why we reuse boxes and recyclables, the children responded:

Asterios- So we don’t have to chuck things away.

Raphael- I throw my things in the bin at home.

Susannah- We reuse things for craft.

Christian- We use them so we can make things we like.

Raphael- We put our bin in the garden.

Asterios- Bins go to the dump.
Following this discussion, I have asked the children to explore their bin systems at home, so be prepared to talk trash! We will be having a visit from the monster trucks on Tuesday which will be great fun!
Have a lovely weekend.
Chapple Room Team

Edgerley Room

Dear Families,

What a week in Edgerley! We have been learning about the concept of an environment and the children have been making environments for particular animals using various natural resources, by painting, making collages and by role playing.

We have been exploring our natural environments and the things we find in them. The children have been scientists hard at work using magnifying glasses to notice details in all sorts of natural things and have sketched their findings. Mrs Rocca had the great idea of using microscopes, so a fabulous trip to the Big Big Boys Science Lab and we came back with 5 microscopes! Not only that but Mrs Helen, the Big Big Boys Science Lab Assistant also gave us glass slides with tiny little leaf parts to look at. So exciting!!

Show and Tell has been rather exciting as we have made many discoveries about the things we put in the bin!

“The rubbish bin is a very stinky bin,” explained Alex.

“You gotta have different bins so you don’t mix up all the rubbish,” Alyssa shared.

Max went on further to say, “That’s because when the rubbish man comes he knows which goes in which.”

“Then it’s to the dump,” said. Felix. “There’s a special grabber and it tips it in.”

Alex commented, “Fire! Then there’s the fire.”

“But not the leafs,” Asher was quick to point out what he knew. “There’s the different bins for the leafs – that’s a green one. The yellow one is for stuff like that stuff in there (Asher is pointing to the recyclable rubbish that the other children brought in).

We are looking forward to exploring more about the different bins and why we use them! Have a lovely weekend Edgerley!

Coney, Juliana and Katherine

Welcome to Term 1 2013

A big welcome to all our new families , we are looking forward to getting to know you and sharing your child's learning journey ! Please feel free to ask any questions you  have no matter how small they seem !

Could all families please provide us with any updated contact information , immunisation status ,dietary or medical conditions.


A couple of reminders :
                                - please make sure you refresh your child's water bottle each day.
                                - sun cream needs to be applied each morning before or on arrival
                                - each child requires an ELC hat each day until 30th April
                               -  Uniform is now moroon pants/skirts only please
                               -  Please name everything 
                               -  Make sure you sign in and out daily

Please put February 28th in your diary for our Parent Curriculum Information Evening (more information later)

Have a wonderful term !


Jeanine Dry

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley Families,


This week we welcomed the rest of our friends back from their long holidays. They brought along lots of fun stories of family adventures of all sorts.
We finished our holiday program with lots of ball games, dress ups, stories and of course a yummy sausage sizzle!

As  we commenced Term 1 we were also excited to meet our new teacher Mrs. Baird. She told us a lot of things and we asked her a lot of questions !
We also think her memory is very good as she knows all our names already. We could never trick her ! We only had her for one day this week and she has already taught us two new songs. We liked the one about "little bunny foo foo" a lot.

We also met a new friend Max and we showed him around the room and played with him. Owen also brought us some yummy cookies to share as we celebrated the first ever 5th birthday in the class.

We certainly look forward to more fun and adventures ahead.

P.S.

The Edgerley library sessions have been moved from Fridays to Wednesdays at 1:30 pm (odd weeks of the term). If your child comes on this day, please bring a library bag for borrowing books. P.E. sessions with Mr. Weatherald will be every Wednesdays and Fridays at 8:55 am and music on Monday mornings.

Cheers

Coney, Katherine and Juliana

Chapple Room

It's been a short, but happy two days in Chapple Room. We've had a wonderful start to the term and are looking forward to having a busy and happy year together.The children have all settled in well and we have welcomed some of our friends back from holidays and several new children have joined us for the first time .This term our unit of inquiry is on sustainability and should be interesting and informative. We also can't wait for Clipsal 500 and are looking forward to celebrating Easter. It will be a terrific term!

Mrs Schmidt and Miss C

Cooper Room

Dear Cooper Families,

At the start of the week we continued with our Australian celebrations, with a particular focus on Australian food. All the children took it in turns to add the ingredients to the bowl to make Anzac biscuits. We shaped the dough into circles, squares and star shapes. When they came out of the oven the children enjoyed eating them sitting out on the grass. We had a sausage sizzle on Tuesday which was also very delicious.

We welcomed Mrs Lock and the children back to the start of the term on Thursday. It was a busy two days seeing all our friends again and exploring the classroom. This term we will be exploring two PYP units - My Family Album and Sustainable Planet. We will begin by sharing photos of our family. Please send along a family photo next week.



The children have continued to love their fire station play and raced to fight many fires. We introduced a new song called "Five Little Firemen standing in a row". The children also began to create their own self image using a collection of natural and recycled materials. It is interesting to see how different we all look !

Kind regards
Susan and Coral

Mead Room

Dear Families,
We have had a wonderful start to the year with our new Mead children. A big welcome to the new families to our centre. This week we have enjoyed getting to know each other and have started to learn some new routines. We are so proud of the way the chidlren have said their goodbyes and settled into the day filled with adventures for us all. It has been fun for the children to see each other again. We are looking forward to sharing our family photos next week.
Many Thanks,
Emma, Pip and Amelia

Langley Room

Dear Langley family and friends,

This week we farewelled our big three year olds (and Miss Amelia!) to the Mead room. We wish them all the best for the next part of their educational journey. We have also welcomed lots of new friends into the Langley room and are looking forward to getting to know them and their families. We have been settling into our routines and engaging in lots of small group interactions and experiences - cooking in the home corner, sharing and negotiating with play dough, building train tracks and towers in the outside environment.

Earlier this week Miss Amelia purchased some exotic fruits for the children to try. She purchased some dragon fruit, lychees, pomegranate, paw paw and rambutans.

First we tried the dragon fruit.

“A funny looking onion,” said Thomas M

“A spider,” said Knox

Next we tasted the paw paw

“A star,” said Nathan

“Blueberries,” said Harry H pointing to the red fruits in the middle of the paw paw.

The children found tasting the fruits interesting and they were all willing to give them a try.

To support our investigations into our unit of inquiry, My Family Album, could we ask that all children please bring in a family photo to share with the class. Can anyone who hasn’t yet brought back their portfolio please do so as soon as possible. Next week, we look forward to welcoming Miss Sarah into the Langley room, please introduce yourself when you see her.

Best wishes,

Jess, Kerry, Nicole, Ange and Emma