Langley

 

Dear Langley families,

 

We've had another busy start to Term 3! We said a huge 'Goodbye' to some of our friends who moved up to the Cooper room and Miss Kerry as she moves to work with the four year old classes. This week has been all about 'getting to know you' as we welcomed Miss Brooke to the Langley room, as well as lots of new friends – Abbey, Sebastian. H, Kingsley, Laxshimi, Charlie, Lexie, Prabir and Robert. Our new friends have been settling in very well and have been happily exploring their new environment.

 

As a starting point to our new Unit of Inquiry, Shadowlands, children have been experimenting with light at the over-head projector. Children have loved creating and moving shadows with shapes and also finding their own shadow on the sheet.

 

Have a fabulous weekend!

 

Emily, Brooke and Sarah    

Wilkins

 

Dear Wilkins families,

Welcome back for term 2 and welcome to some new families who have joined us this term!

This week we have been keen artists, using paints with different tools such as brushes, cotton tips and even our fingers and hands to create masterpieces. We have also been creating collages using different materials, scissors and glue.

We have been exploring light and shadow at the light table and using the overhead projector. It has been fascinating to watch the children investigate where the light and the shadows are coming from.

The children have also enjoyed role playing with the baby dolls in the home corner, caring for them as they feed them, change them and put them to bed.

We look forward to another fun filled week next week.

Best wishes,

Karla, Amy and Jess

Cooper

Hello Cooper friends and family

We have had a fun filled first week in the Cooper Room. The children have spent time getting to know each other and meeting new friends.

We have been busy exploring the light table and the different colours we can make by connecting the different coloured blocks together. We have also enjoyed spending time together on the mat reading the big book stories.

Jain & Cris

Mattingley

Dear Mattingley families and friends,

What a fantastic week we have had exploring the world of light and darkness. Our Unit of Inquire this term is 'Shadow lands' with the central idea: As light moves, things change. To begin this unit the children have had a fantastic time investigating different aspects of light and darkness. They have been playing with light in the 'dark tent' using a number of torches and little lights, exploring how they can crate and manipulate light. Thursday morning we set up an overhead projector in our castle and the children spent most of the afternoon discovering how the light works to make shadows. The children had meaningful discussions as they were discovering what shadows are like. There was  a lot of laughter and delight as they found that their shadows copied them as they moved their bodies. 

"You need light to make my shadow."- Angelina

"If you turn light off the shadow goes."- Augustin

"You need the light on if you want to see your shadow."- Aiden

"Look mine dancing." Jaanav

We would like to take this opportunity to thank one of our fantastic mums, Lisa (Patrick's mum) who donated her time and resources in the holidays to crate our beautiful firefly mural in our classroom. If you haven't had a chance to see it yet please ask your child to show you. It is truly amazing. 

Wishing you all a happy weekend, 

Kimberley, Coral and Tiarna

Mead

Dear Mead Room families and friends,

This week we have welcomed back those of you who were able to snatch a little break and we welcome new friends too.  Welcome to Cooper and his family who are new to the ELC.

We have begun investigating this term's unit of inquiry titled "Shadowlands".  The Mead Room friends have demonstrated they already have a depth of knowledge regarding light and dark, plus what is needed for creating shadows. 

Clementine – Shadows are on the ground when it is sunny.
Lachlan – You can't see the shadow when its too cloudy.
Harrison R – You can't see shadows in the night because there is no sun.

We are still revisiting our 'Homes' inquiry from last term too – many children are still creating homes for themselves and other living creatures.  Its brilliant to see so much enthusiasm and excitement!

Have a great weekend.

Melissa and Renee

Edgerley

Dear Parents and Friends,

We have had such a big week in the new Edgerley Room. The children have settled quickly and are enjoying exploring the room and being together again. We have started to discuss some class expectations (essential agreement) as things come up and already the children have suggested lots of helpful ideas. We have started to discuss some aspects of day time and sunlight which will continue in the weeks to come.
 
The children have had some opportunities to remember our friend Luca this week. 

Thank you for your amazing support and encouragement. We look forward to working with you as the year continues.

Many thanks,
Pip, Emma, Ty and Rosalie

Chapple

The start to Term 3 has seen the Chapple Room plunged into a world of shadows. The children have explored aspects of light and dark. The children are getting very creative with their shadow making with an array of towers, colours and X-Wing fighters with lights. We have also started our class of silhouettes.

The sound “S” has been very popular this week and we have been surprised by how many things start with “S”. This week’s Show and Tell was great with lots of examples of things starting with “S”. Next week is “A”

Thanks

Chapple room

Angwin

Dear Angwin Parents and Friends,

What an amazing start to the term Angwin has had! We’ve had a few new faces join us and it’s been nice getting to know each other. We’ve only taken a little dip into our unit, Shadowlands, and are looking forward to exploring this further in the coming weeks. The main focus for this week has been exploring the sound of the week- the letter ‘Ss’. We acted out, Ten Sizzling Sausages, ate sausages with sauce for lunch on Thursday and went on an ‘Ss’ hunt. We have started a sound board, where we will display documentation of our learning as we investigate a new sound each week. If children have something at home that they would like to display on the sound board, please bring it in.

To further help us set up the classroom, we would love any donations of clear glass bottles, silver tin cans and any old wooden frames that you may not be using at home. We’d also love any recyclables, in particular old cardboard boxes and empty milk cartons.

Thanks,

Angwin Room Team

Chicken Pox (Varicella)

Dear Families,

Please note that we have had a confirmed case of Chicken Pox (Varicella) in the Angwin Room.

Chicken Pox (Varicella) is a highly contagious disease which presents with cold like symptoms followed by a characteristic spotty rash. Please keep an eye on your children for these symptoms and keep them at home if they present with them.

Further information from Staying Healthy in Childcare can be found at the entrance to the centre.

Thank you

Hand, Foot and Mouth

Dear families,

Please note that we have had a confirmed case of Hand, Foot and Mouth in the Wilkins Room.

This is a highly contagious disease and children will present with cold like symptoms and watery blisters around their hands, mouth, feet and nappy area. Please keep an eye out for these symptoms in your children and keep them home if they present with them.

There is further information from Staying Healthy in Childcare at the entrance to the centre.

Thankyou

Staffing updates

Dear Parents,

 

 We are very excited to share with you some recent staffing changes and additions for the remainder of the year. We welcome Miss Adele Warren to the 3 year old rooms. Miss Adele will support each of the rooms throughout their day.

Welcome also to Ms Brooke Denman who joins the Langley Room as Co-Educator. A very warm welcome to our new staff!

Some of our current staff have taken on new roles within the Centre. Miss Cristina Caratozollo (Miss C) will join the Cooper Room as Co-Educator. Ms Kerry Rowbotham has joined our 4 year old team and will support each of the rooms. Mr Ty joins the Edgerley Room as Co-Educator.

 

Thanks,

 

PAC ELC

 

Parenting workshop

Parenting Workshop

Tuesday 29 July (Term 3, WEEK 2)

6.30 pm - Piper Pavilion

 

At the beginning of Term 2 I announced that we have secured the services of two experts who will run parenting workshops for the Preparatory and ELC community over the next two years, Mark Le Messurier and Bill Hansberry, co-authors of the book “Raising Beaut Kids” presented in a cook book style.

Each chapter serves up a typical tricky scenario accompanied with the ingredients that fire things up at home! Then a set of ‘Recipe rescues’ are offered: a practical way to respond to kids and teens when they dish up their tricky, but predictable, behaviours. The ‘Recipe rescues’ are designed to help parents steer the behaviour of their kids (and their own behaviour) in more positive directions, within the context of building healthy relationships.

 

Bill Hansberry will be presenting the first of the two sessions on Tuesday 29 July (Term 3 Week 2) at 6.30 pm in the Piper Pavilion. Bill is a husband, father, mentor, teacher and author. Working in private practice at Fullarton House, Bill mentors young people who live with a wide range of challenges such as learning differences / disabilities, emotional or behavioural difficulties and young people who are just doing it tough. Alongside this work, Bill has the privilege of supporting and mentoring teachers, school leaders and parents, assisting them to work together to meet the needs of these students.

Mark LeMessurier is a teacher, counsellor and author. He is the co-creator of the internationally popular social skills/friendship building program – “What’s the Buzz?” Mark regularly presents at conferences throughout Australasia and is a recipient of an Australian National Excellence in Teaching Award. Mark works in schools and in private practice in Adelaide with young people he affectionately calls ‘Tough Kids’. He will be presenting in Term 4.

 

These workshops will replace of the scheduled parenting forums (formerly known as curriculum nights) which were to be held during different times of the year.

We gathered the survey data from the parenting forums last year and decided to form a professional relationship with these two fantastic parenting coaches. These workshops are being implemented as part of our community wellbeing program at Prince Alfred College.

The workshops will run for one and a half hours with half an hour for each presenter to socialise with parents and staff. Nibbles will be provided and we ask you to please bring a bottle to share.

I would like to invite as many of our parents as possible to join our staff, as this is a critical opportunity for us as a community to workshop together for the development of our Princes Men (and Princes Girls in the ELC of course).

 The dates are:

·       Bill Hansberry - Tuesday 29 July 2014 in Piper Pavilion.

·       Mark Le Messurier - Wednesday 15 October 2014 in Piper Pavilion.

Please RSVP for catering purposes to Melissa Dales on 8334 1203 or via email mdales@staff.pac.edu.au

 

Sean Watt
Deputy Head of School,  Preparatory (ELC-6)

Wilkins and Langley

Dear Parents,

Due to technical issues with the camera and the 2 year old computers we are still waiting for their information to be transferred onto the blog. We are hoping to have the information on Monday.
Thank you for your patience.

PAC ELC

ELC information

Dear ELC families,

After the tragic loss of one of our ELC friends last week, as a community we thought it would be very special to collect items to support the family through this time. We will have two containers for this collection, the larger one we thought could be filled with food and household items. The second smaller container we thought would be lovely to fill with items for his two year old brother, so that he has lots of beautiful things to play with such as a book, planes, match box cars and finger puppets. If you would like to bring in any small items we would all be very thankful for your generosity, as will his family. The baskets will be delieverd on Friday 25th July in the morning.

Our thoughts continue to go out to his family and friends, and we would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who have given kind words and support to the ELC educators.

Regards

ELC staff

Welcome Mason!

We would like to congratulate Nicole, Brayden and Big brother Sylas with their new baby boy Mason James!

Born 17/7/14

3.67kg

50.5cm

Congratulations Nicole - He is just beautiful!

Chapple and Edgerley Rooms

 

 

Dear Chapple and Edgerley Families and Friends,

 

The highlight of our week this week was most definitely the 'Muddy Puddle Day'! The children were bursting with excitement to get their gumboots and rain coats on and start splashing! When we got outside, we discovered that the rain hadn't left us quite enough puddles so we created our own! What started out as hesitant toe taps in the water ended up with the children being soaked through, laying and sitting in the puddles laughing and having the best time!

 

Don't forget that Monday is Pyjama Day for our last day of holidays! See you all then in your cosy jimjams!!

 

Love Mrs Shakespeare and Mrs Rocca xx

Mattingley Room

 

 

Dear Mattingley friends and families,

 We began the week with a pyjama day dress up day, although it was a cold day we were very comfortable in our dressing gowns. The following day we went for a walk around the school jumping in the deepest muddiest puddles that we could find! I am sure that you all noticed by the condition of our clothes and gum boots. We finished the week making banana smoothies, with the funniest part being the stick blender flicking milk at us! What a funny week we have had.

 Monday 21st - Pyjama dress up day for the whole school.

Tuesday 22nd - Term three commences

 

Love Miss Bowden and Miss Gray x

Cooper Room

 

 

Dear Cooper Families

 

This week the Cooper children participated in Puddle Play Day as part of Winter Week. We ventured outside in our gumboots and coats in search of puddles and we weren't disappointed! The children got wet and muddy from head to toe and the laughter could be heard a mile away. We also enjoyed playing with the arctic animals in 'snow' made by Miss White.

Love Miss White, Mrs Nacca and Miss Emma

Mead Room

 

Dear Mead Room Families

This week the children loved playing in the home corner, they placed the play dough in the cupcake moulds and then decorated the tops of them with jewels, glitter and sequins. All the cupcakes looked amazing and the play dough smelt like yummy sweet chocolate. Also this week the children enjoyed exploring the outside area, scooping up the water into the buckets, adding rocks and bark.  Then they would transport the buckets of sludge to the sandpit and around the yard. 

We did not get time to achieve all the experience on the program, due to weather and other circumstances.

From Mrs Neville and Miss C

New staff Appointments

Dear ELC families and friends

I want too begin by thanking you for the support offered to our staff last week and the offers of support for each other as part of our community.  Our thoughts and prayers continue to be extended to the friends and family of Luca.

I also write to advise of the appointment of our new ELC Centre Manager.  Pamela will be leaving us soon as she embarks on a new life in Canada and I cannot thank her enough for the wonderful job she has done over the last few months and in particular the last week.  We will miss her terribly.  I would also like to acknowledge the guidance and expertise offered during the last few months by Julie Green, who has also supported the ELC in an administrative capacity.

The new position of ELC Manager has been accepted by Melanie Garland.  Melanie has most recently held the position of Director, Early Learning and Children’s Services at Christian Brothers College.  Melanie brings a depth of experience in Centre Management as well as early childhood education.  Melanie will take up the position from next Monday, 21^st July,  and will work closely with Pamela and our staff as she transitions into the role.  Pamela will continue to support Melanie and the Centre for the next few weeks.  We will farewell her more formally closer to her departure.

I am sure you will join me in welcoming Melanie to our staff.

Kind regards

 

Neil Andary

Acting Headmaster

 

 

Angwin Families

Dear Angwin families,

We are currently setting up the Angwin room and doing some revamp in our play spaces to welcome the new Term.

If you have some household materials that you may be thinking of getting rid of, we would like to have some of them to use in setting up more learning areas

You may be able to give us some of the following:

Cushions

Vases

Wicket baskets

Decorative stones

Artificial flowers/leaves

Lace curtains

Small floor mats

bake wares

kitchen utensils

glass jars

natural materials

wooden picture frames

framed mirrors

play rugs

etc

Thank you very much

Cooper

Dear Families and Friends, 

On Friday morning we were kindly invited to the Red Centre for a play morning. Mr Noble and Mr McKinnon, from the senior school set up several games for the children to participate in. We kicked balls into goals, danced to music, played a match the colours game, ran a hurdle race and had an absolotley fantastic time.  

Mead

Dear Mead Families, 

Week two of the holidays was a fun filled week with lots of exciting moments. On the Monday we had the most amazing time during bike day, it was so lovely to see all the happy faces of the children as they rode their bikes and scooters around the car park. Also during the week we had the opportunity to relax and watch the Cars movie and indulged in some pop-corn that Miss Gray and Miss C made. We celebrated NAIDOC week by taking part in a variety of Aboriginal art, music and dreamtime stories, a display has been put up in the room for you to come take a look.  I would like to thank all the Mead children for the fantastic and enjoyable time that we all shared and I’m looking forward to next week.

From Mrs Neville and Miss C 

Chapple and Edgerley

Dear Edgerley and Chapple families and friends,

It has been yet another busy and fun filled week for our little fellows. Starting the week with our Wheels Day, the children had a ball riding their bikes and scooters in our ELC carpark.

We talked about road safety and had a go at showing our teachers tricks and stunts here and there. To go with the theme, we watched Lightning McQueen tackle the race track with his friends.

This also became as point of interest and inspiration among the children as they built monster trucks and dump trucks in the block corner with tyres and cones and anything that tickled their construction fancy. Mrs. Shakespear helped us bake some yummy ginger bread biscuits too. The process of mixing all the ingredients, baking and eating them was lots and lots of fun. Friday got us even more ecstatic as we had a special sport session with Mr. McKinnon and Mr. Noble. We used up a lot of energy throwing bowls, going through obstacles and bean bag throwing too.  We can’t wait for another fun week.

Next Week’s events:

Tuesday: 15^th July: Puddle Play Day : We are hoping for a puddle play kind of day. Please pack gumboots and raincoats for your children so they can participate.

We are also going to engage in lots of cooking and experiments next week.

Cheers

Coney, Kelly, Ellen, Adele and Danni

Mattingley

Dear Mattingley Families and friends,

On Monday the children brought in their bikes and scooters from home. Zipping across the ELC carpark and having fast races! In the middle of the week we continued making fireflies, please take a look and thank Patrick's mummy for her beautiful idea and hard work on our new display. We finished the week with a trip to the Red Centre to play some ball games, do hurdle jumping and lion roaring with Mr Noble and Mr McKinnon.

Love Miss Bowden and Miss Gray x x

Wilkins and Langley

Dear Wilkins and Langley Families,

We have had another busy week together, exploring the light table with numbers and colours, making birthday cakes with playdough and spending sometime outdoors, in our sandpit and in the BIG yard.

Wednesday was our animal dress up day, we had a range of animals walking around our ELC, we had zebras, limas, elephants, lions, owls, giraffes and puppy dogs, we had a ‘roaring’ animal party, where we danced sang and spent some time playing pin the tale on the donkey.

Miss Emily and Miss Amy were the artists for the day on Thursday, when we had our face painting day of fun.

Just a reminder for next week..

-Tuesday the 15^th bring in your rainboots and jacket for puddle jumping!

-Friday the 18^th – come dressed in your pyjamas!

Have a lovely weekend.

Thank you,