Staying Healthy in Childcare

Dear Families,

We have had 2 confirmed cases of Parvovirus (Slapped Cheek) in the 2 and 4 year old classrooms.
Please read following extract from "Staying Healthy in Childcare"

Symptoms:
Please be vigilant when looking for symptoms which can include mild like cold symptoms, then two to five days later, the child typically develops a 'slapped cheek' rash on the face and a lacy red rash on limps.
The child is usually not very ill, though the rash occasionally can be itchy. The rash disappears after 7 to 10 days, although it may come and go for several weeks often in response to heat.

Controlling the spread of Infection:
Follow good hand washing practices
Clean surfaces, contaminated by respiratory secretions
Dispose of soiled tissues appropriately

Responsibilities of parents:
The child should stay at home until they are feeling well.

Responsibilities of Childcare Provider/Staff
Report the infection to the director. The director should advise pregnant women to consult with their medical practitioner.
Advise the parent they child should stay at home until they are feeling well.

As we have a number of pregnant mothers and a staff member in the Centre - please be on the lookout for any symptoms.

Thankyou,

PAC ELC

New Baby

Congratulations to Elspeth, Paul and Sterling (Mead Room) on the safe arrival of Harvey Charles Paul on March 12th.

HAPPY HOLI

After initially getting rain delayed, the Centre got to experience the colour and fun of Holi Festival this week. It is a major festival in the Hindu religion. It is celebrated on the day after the last full moon of the Hindu month of Phalguna. which falls between late February and early March in Western calendars. Holi usually marks the happy transition from harsh, dark winter to brighter, warmer springtime. As it was a grey day in Adelaide it seemed perfect for the children to decorate the Centre and themselves with colour. The pictures barely capture the fun the children had running around and watching their bright white shirts transformed by the powder paint.

 

Our Grandies Day Celebrations

Our annual Grandies Day celebration was a wonderful success! It was fantastic to see so many Grandies spending special time with their grandchildren. The sun was shining and there were so much of our learning to share. A huge thank you to the parents who came to help on the bookstall and with the morning teas. We must also thank our wonderful Miss Sue and Miss Rubina for their amazing food platters that were enjoyed by all the Grandies. The children enjoyed singing for the concerts and showing their Grandies around the centre. It was a very special morning for us all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holiday Attendance

Dear families,

Attached to each class sign in folder, you will find a holiday period attendance sheet. Can you please mark with a tick or a cross to indicate whether your children will be coming to the ELC during this period.

Thank you.

Holi Festival Take Two

Dear Families,

As our Holi Festival celebrations were rained out this week, we are going to have another attempt at our colour run this coming Monday 24th March. Can you please send your child in an old or cheap white top and some pants that are able to get some colour on them also.

Thanks,

ELC Team

Parent Teacher Interviews

Dear Families,

Parent teacher interviews will be conducted in the ELC on Wednesday 9th and Thursday 10th April. If you would like to make a time to speak to your child's teacher please see Pamela Veltmeyer at the front desk.

Thanks

Wilkins

 

 

It's been busy, busy, busy in the Wilkins room this week. We started the week celebrating Holi with the Langley children - we loved spraying and flicking paint and coloured powder on a huge canvas (and a little on ourselves!) We've also been using coloured paints in the classroom to create masterpieces, developing our cutting skills to create collages, caring for and observing our tadpoles, creating face pictures using play dough and recycled materials, making music on our sound wall outside and much, much more.

We are looking forward to Grandies Day next Wednesday and have been practicing our songs for our concert. Don't forget to RSVP if you haven't already done so.

Best wishes for a lovely weekend.

Nicole, Karla and Jess

Langley

 

What a week of colour and celebrations we have had. We began our week celebrating the Holi festival - a true carnival of colours! Holi is an ancient Hindu religious festival which signifies the end of Winter and the beginning of Spring.

 

To help celebrate, the children had a fantastic time turning an old white sheet (and themselves!) into a beautiful rainbow of colours. In their white t-shirts, the children used spray bottles and powder paints to create an amazing array of colours. It was such a fantastic experience and we are looking forward to hanging the sheet up on display for the children to be able to see and talk about.

We also celebrated colour, through 'Rainbow Dancing'. The Langley children listened and danced to a variety of music, and used their rainbow streamer sticks to twirl, spin and jump. It looked beautiful when we had a range of coloured rainbow sticks waving around all together to the music.

Celebrations is a unit of inquiry we will be exploring throughout the year. Please take the time to fill out the Celebrations survey which you'll find in your child's locker. We look forward to being able to celebrate may different cultural celebrations throughout the year

The new 'Sound Wall' outside has provided the children with many opportunities to investigate different sound making. There are a range of objects made of plastic, metal and wood which children can tap, bang, scrape and explore an array of different sounds. It's like the Langley Room band on some days! The children have been getting great enjoyment out of it and it is a lovely addition to our outdoor play area.

Don't forget Grandies Day on Wednesday. Please make sure you have sent IN your RSVP so we can get an idea of numbers for the day. It should be a lovely morning with singing, tea and coffee, a book stall. Some time spent in the classrooms will also be made for the visiting grandparents and their grandchild. See you on the day!

Enjoy your weekend,

Miss Stacey, Miss Emily, Miss Nickarla and Miss Kerry

Mattingley

This week in the Mattingley room we have begun to explore colours by using ink paints to paint over portraits of the children, inspired by Andy Warhol, the famous American painter. We are using this experience to speak with the children about the colours they are using and what colours they create when they are mixed. We will continue to engage in colourful experiences next week in honour of Holi. We are hoping, if weather permits, we can take part in the ELC Holi festival on Monday the 24^th. Can you please send your child in an old or cheap white top and some pants that are able to get some colour on them.

On Friday we were lucky enough to have another of our amazing parents, Dr Marsha Daych, who is a dentist come in to speak with the class. She showed the children a range of moulds of teeth as well as instruments that she uses in her surgery. She also brought a long a large model of teeth and showed the children how to brush their teeth properly to keep them clean. I am sure that your child would love to share with you what they learnt. We would like to Thank Marsha for her time and her wonderful insight into being a dentist. I am sure we will see Dentists emerge in our hospital/doctor dramatic play.

Just a note that our class representatives are Lisa Lambourne and Nicole Lindop. They have left on our classroom roll a register to collect phone numbers and email addresses if you wish to add yours. They will use this during the year to plan family days and functions for our classroom. They have also left in your child's locker and invite to a family day coming up. If you haven't received yours yet please let myself or Coral know so we can give you a copy.

Wishing you all a safe and happy weekend.

Kimberley and Coral

Mead

 

   

Dear Mead room families and friends,

 

We've had another busy week investigating our bodies, in particular our eye colour and skeletons. We have observed that most of our Mead room friends have either brown or blue eyes. In relation to our skeletons, children have absolutely loved learning 'The Skeleton Dance' song!

 

On Thursday 20^th March, we celebrated International Happiness Day! As a class, we talked about being happy, and some of the things that make us happy.

Olive – having ice-cream

Angus – when I cuddle daddy

Sterling – when I have my jet pack on and I jmmmm around

Harrison R – playing with my trains

Steven – when daddy here

 

The ELC has rescheduled the Holi Festival Colour Run for Monday (24^th March). If your child is attending on Monday, please dress them in an old white t-shirt so they can participate in the colour run and pack their uniform top to change into after.

 

We look forward to meeting all our Grandies on Wednesday (26^th March).

Have a great weekend!

 

Melissa and Sarah     

Cooper

Dear Parents and Friends of the Cooper Room

 

Many celebrations have taken place in the Cooper Room this week as we enjoyed celebrating Jack and Archie turning four. The boys told their birthday story before we all shared a special birthday treat. Many children have also been busy preparing their own special birthday parties in the home corner, cooking up a storm. We have began to learn about the different way each family celebrates birthdays.

“Maybe I’ll make a cake cos’ it’s your birthday,”  Jasper

“Remember when it’s my birfday (birthday) I blow out the candles. It’s my turn. When it your birfday  it your turn.” Sebastian

“All of my family bring me presents,” Jack

“I got a castle for my present,” Archie                                

We also started to talk about a different type of celebration – Holi Festival. This is the Hindu festival of colour. As they chase away the gloom of winter and welcome Spring they shower each other with colour through powder paints and water. Sadly our Holi Festival colour run was postponed until Monday 24^th due to the rain.  In the Cooper room we have been flicking, splattering and painting lots of colour.  The children are busy creating a wonderful display to share the Holi festival. Remember ….“Let the colours shower joy.”

 

Have a great and very colourful weekend.

Susan and Jain

Chapple

Another week has rushed by in the Chapple Room. We have looked at roses changing colour with Mr Ty, made our own treasure maps and made biscuit bones with Mrs Shakespear. After our fire drill we had a great discussion on what to do in an emergency. Please ask the children about their drop and rolling and 000 training.

We have introduced our PYP Learner Profile and the children are keen to be wearing a much treasured badge for the day, declaring them to be such things as a thinker, inquirer or caring.

Previous in the blog I mentioned Action in the Primary Years Program. One of the most important parts of the PYP is the element of Action- This is where the children make connections and use their knowledge outside the classroom. This is always a difficult area to assess, particularly in the younger years. We have been pleased to hear stories of the children talking about what they have done in school at home. James’ parents have kindly shared some great examples.

Edgerley

 

 

Dear Parents and Friends,

We have had an exciting week this week furthering our knowledge of the organs in our bodies. The children were fascinated to observe a sheep’s brain and a pig’s heart. The children asked some amazing questions about where they are located and how we need them to keep us alive. We have been preparing for Grandies Day and are looking forward to welcoming lots of Grandies and special visitors next Wednesday. We have done some super colour mixing work and are looking forward to celebrating Holi (as last week’s efforts were cancelled) on Monday  Week 9 at 9:30am. Our vet clinic has been a huge hit with pets of all shapes and sizes getting a thorough check out!

Many Thanks,

Pip, Emma and Coney

Centre Administration

 

Dear Families,

 

I write to inform you that Jeanine Dry is currently on extended leave, and will not be returning to the Early Learning Centre.   I would like to acknowledge the contribution Jeanine has made and in particular her support with the establishment and development of what we feel is Adelaide’s premier Early Learning Centre. She has been a part of our staff for the last five years and we thank her for being part of our Princes journey and wish her well.

As you are aware in February we opened a number of new learning spaces. We are very proud of the excellence in teaching and learning offered through the dedication of our staff. Due to our expansion we are very pleased to announce that we now have limited spaces available in the two-year-old, three-year-old and four-year-old rooms for immediate start.

We are offering our current parents the opportunity to increase their days, before opening it up to the wider community. For enquiries please contact the ELC directly on 8334 1258.

 

Kind regards,

 

Neil Andary

Holi Colour Festival

Don't forget to wear or bring your old or cheap white t-shirt on Monday in preparation for our Holi Colour Festival celebrations!

In the classroom

Langley

Happy, sad or angry? These are the emotions we have been exploring this week in the Langley Room. We have used a variety of games, activities and songs to further look at different feelings and what makes us feel this way.

When someone steps on my toe I am sad - Sylas

When I cry I sad - Aliya

Rocco is sad - Rosie

My mummy is happy - Anay

Smiling, happy - Phoenix

We experimented with our own faces in the mirror, and how they look when we feel different ways. We had pouty lips, scowly faces and big, happy smiles. We also worked on our sorting skills, with range of pictures of people displaying different emotions and sorting them into 3 different groups.

Last Friday, March 7th, the Langley children went for a lovely walk around the school. They stopped by the Chapel and had a look at all the beautiful stained glass windows that really showed their colours through the light of the sunshine. We can't wait to make our own stained glass windows!

Next week we will be celebrating the Holi festival on Monday, March 17th. Please remember to bring a white t-shirt in for your child which is able to get a nice spraying of colour on it. We have lots of fun colour games and activities planned for the week.

Also, if you could please bring in a family picture, that would be greatly appreciated. We would love to make a display in which the children feel a real sense of pride and belonging. If you are unable to get a hard copy, please feel free to email them through to me at swybrew@pac.edu.

Until next week, have a wonderful weekend.

Stacey, Kerry, Emily and Nickarla

 

Wilkins

Dear families,

While we were outside on Tuesday, Miss Karla got some scissors and paper out for us to explore. We had such a wonderful time practicing this skill and pasting on to paper that we decided to do cutting and pasting in the classroom as well. We prepared our scissors and cellophane and set to work snipping little pieces and then pasting them on the window to create a stained glass window. We have used a range of different strategies to operate the scissors and discovered that it can be very tricky to control the scissors and hold the paper at the same time! This would be a great experience to have some more practice with at home.

We have also been exploring our faces in the mirror using pictures of all different types of facial features. Next week, we will begin our explorations of emotions and how these are reflected in our facial expressions.
For Monday children, don’t forget that we will be engaging in some Holi colour festival celebrations so we will need you to wear or bring an old or cheap white t-shirt that we can celebrate and decorate in!
Best wishes

Nicole, Kelly, Karla and Jess

Mead

 

Dear Mead Room families,
 

Another fun and busy week in the Mead Room – this week we have been investigating our sense of touch. The children explored the sensorial qualities of shaving foam and had many words to describe the texture and consistency they encountered.

Scarlett – Its very greasy.. and creamy too
Christian – It feels like bubbles
Sage – It feels cold
Olive – It feels sticky, like vanilla icecream that's melted!

Lots of discussion and sharing observations in small groups lead to many newfound discoveries!

Congratulations to Sterling who has a new baby brother, Harvey! We can't wait to see a photo!

 

Take care,

from Melissa and Sarah

Mattingley

Dear Mattingley families,

 

We have been talking about foods that we eat at celebrations. Some foods are 'sometimes' food and some foods are 'every day' foods. In our party corner we have been making lots of pancakes and cupcakes. Can you guess if these are a sometimes food or an every day food? We have been finding this very tricky. After exploring cakes with playdough we decided to ice some biscuits and add sultanas to make a face. Next week we may try cakes from scratch so lets getting thinking about what ingrediants will need to go inside them.

 

We have also started to play lots of new and exciting games at group time: bug in the rug, doggy doggy who's got your bone and what's the time Mr Wolf. We have become very good at sharing and taking turns because 'if you don't get a turn today, you can have a turn, another day.'

 

Next week we have got a visit from Katia's mum who is a dentist. So make sure you have all brushed your teeth and continue to eat them 'sometimes' foods!

 

Love Miss Mason and Miss Bowden

 

Cooper

 

 

Dear Parents and Friends of the Cooper Room,

This week we had a wonderful visit from Luca’s Mum. She told us all about bones. Did you know we have over 300 bones when we are born and some of them are very small and when we grow they join together to make the 206 bones! We talked about all the things we can do to keep our bones healthy, exercise, getting sunshine, eating lots of healthy foods, sleeping and keeping good posture. We even practising walking around with books on our heads to make sure we used good posture.

We have been using all our salt dough bones to create a skeleton. It is really hard to make sure the bones are all in the right place. Outside we have been showing each other how we can do special movements with our bodies…

“I can do a somersault,” said Jasper

“Look I can balance on one leg. I can balance on one leg on the wood too!” said Alexander

“I can go down the fireman pole now,” added Zander

“I can run really fast in my new fast running shoes,” yelled Harry F

“I can make the letters in my name. T O M . My sister Lily showed me,” shared Tommy

We have also had fun searching for Rainbow. Sadly we have not found any pots of gold at the end but we will certainly keep looking. We have made rainbows outside using the reflection of the sun and also used bowls of water and water colours markers to create rainbows in the class. We discovered that rainbow have two purples in them, but one is called violet and no pink! As we have been investigating rainbows the children have shared their thoughts…

“Rainbow come out after the rain. It has to rain a lot then the sun and the rainbow comes, “ shared Jack A

“The water went of them, they got all wet and the colours spread out (showing us with his arms wide apart)” discovered Domenic

“It’s a rainbow see it got red, yellow, orange, green, then blue and purple and another purple!”exclaimed Ansh

We are all looking forward to making lots of colours in the Holi Festival colour run on Monday. Don’t forget your white t-shirts!

 

Have a great weekend.

Susan and Jain

Chapple

 

The Chapple room has had great fun in our new vets- Doctor Tom will deal with all your animal needs. The children have also have spent some time exploring maps and have made a sand map of Australia- Please check it out in the class. It is nearly finished and very impressive. Show and tell continues to entertain with the weird and wonderful- Skulls, snakes and hospital visits seem to producing some very talkative children. We have begun to learn a bit more about our buddies. The photos are up in the classroom- test the children if they can remember their buddies name!

Don't forget the Holi Festival on Monday - The children will need an old t shirt preferably white as we be playing with coloured powder paint.

Chapple Team

Edgerley

 

 

Dear Parents and Friends,

The Edgerley children have been immersed in amazing play this week. We have discussed and created what it means to feel angry, creating some very pink angry faces with playdough. Our LOVE tree is complete so please check it out just outside our classroom. There are some beautiful messages and reflections from the children. The children have been showing such an interest in writing words, letters and numbers this week. We visited the JP Chapel on Thursday morning and have seen our Year 3 buddies and the Year 2 T reading buddies. We have a budding project opening up to create our own map of PAC which includes photos, diagrams and dialogue.

Thank you for your ongoing support. We are really excited by much wonderful play!

Kind Regards,

Pip, Emma and Coney