Wilkins

Dear Wilkins families,

During week five we have been practicing our self-help skills during our meal times. We have been serving our own lunch at the tables. This includes using tongs for our deconstructed lunch. We are very eager to continue to serve our own lunch with our teachers.

This week in the Wilkins room we have enjoyed dancing in the music corner. The children have spent time creating their own music with the musical instruments and belted out tunes on our stage with the microphone. The Wilkins children have had lots of fun dancing along to the cars movie sound track and of course the Wilkins room number one favourite frozen movie sound track. If your children would like to bring some music in from home such as cultural music or favourite cd please feel free to bring along the music to share in class.

We are also asking families to bring in a family photo and please remember to sunscreen your child on arrival or at home before school.

Enjoy your weekend from Miss Sarah, Mrs Carla, Miss Ellen and Miss Amy.

Langley

Dear Langley Families,

The children have been practicing their self-help skills during meal times this week as we have introduced a new process called a deconstructed lunch. For example we had Moroccan chicken for lunch on Thursday, in one dish was rice, one dish was the meat sauce and the other dish had salad. Each container has its own serving spoon or tongs and we encourage the children to serve themselves with assistance when needed. This gives the children a feeling confidence that they are trusted to serve their own food, giving them the opportunity to make their own choices. The children have really been enjoying this!

As it was Chinese New Year last week, we created a Chinese themed home corner with traditional crockery and Chinese take away boxes. The children practiced their fine motor skills as they picked up small foam pieces with chop sticks and tongs. We also had red play dough with coins which the children loved manipulating with their hands!

We have spoken a lot about emotions this week and also facial expressions. We have started a happy wall – displaying photos of the children with their happy faces and have been writing up what makes us feel happy. Here are a few things the children said:

Kingsley – Thomas!

Andrew - Eat fruit. It make me happy.

Nyanwell – My friends, Chloe. My mum.

Lexie - Playing Lego with Daddy.

Our family wall is coming along very nicely. We love sitting on the couch and chatting about our loved ones, so please keep the photos coming!

Finally, if you have any spare plastic shopping bags at home we would love a donation! J

Have a fantastic weekend.

Love the Langley girls,

Miss Emily, Miss Renee, Miss Brooke and Miss Sarah.

Mead

Dear Mead Room families,

We have reached the middle of term already! This week has flown by in a blur of fast cars, pouring, sensory investigation, life cycles, threading, weaving and taking exceptional care of the babies in our room!

The children have demonstrated so much empathy and care for the babies we have in the Mead Room at present. By interacting with dolls we practice caring for others and explore family roles.

Ned – I’ll be the dad, I know what to do (carefully swaddling the baby)

Ellie – She needs a nappy.. and clothes… and a cuddle.. and food…

We visited the Prep school playground on Thursday morning.  On our walk up the path we could hear loud engine noises that became louder and louder.  We entered the playground and …. Wow! We heard the Clipsal racing cars practicing for the big race.  We went with our friends from the Mattingley and Cooper Rooms and explored the ‘Rainbow Playground’, whilst also taking time to see if we could catch a glimpse of the cars just on the other side of the road! It was a beautiful morning to be outside and we thoroughly revelled in it!

We would like to say a huge thankyou to Emma Gray for being with us for the past fortnight. We have had so much fun, and we love your amazing, enthusiastic story telling!!  Next week we welcome Madeline Gilbert to the Mead Room. Some of you might remember Miss Gilbert from last year – we are thrilled she will be our co-educator.. yay!

Have a great weekend,

Melissa and Emma

Grandies Day

Grandies Day

Please keep your eye out for your Grandies Day invitations. We are giving each family two invitations for our special morning. Our Grandies Day will be on Wednesday March 25^th.

We are looking for parents who are free to help with the book stall or with the morning tea. Please email Pip Cooper (pcooper@pac.edu.au) or Emma Mc Kenzie(emckenzie@pac.edu.au) if you are able to help in this way.

Many Thanks,

ELC Team

Cooper

Hello Cooper friends and families

This week the Cooper children have been continuing their observations of the caterpillars. We are eagerly awaiting their transformation into butterflies.

Ben: When a caterpillar goes into a cocoon that means it is transforming into a butterfly.

Zoe: I think they are looking for food. They’re eating the inside of the cocoon. They have to squeeze themselves out to become a butterfly.

David: They eating the leaves. It’s a cocoon, there is a caterpillar in there. It’s gonna stay in there for more than two weeks then it’s going to turn into a butterfly.

We also walked up to the Prep School Rainbow Playground with Mattingley and Mead on Thursday to eat our morning tea and listen to the cars race around the track the Clipsal 500.

Johnny: This is amazing, I have never heard or seen a race car before…ever!

Regan: I liked the race cars. I liked their loud noises!

Varish: I liked listening and watching.

 

Have a lovely weekend!

Jain & Cris

Mattingley

Dear Mattingley families and friends,

The traffic around school this week has been crazy and on Thursday we found out why. We could hear the distant rumble of engines from our classroom and decided to go and investigate. We packed up our morning tea and set off up the path to the Prep School following the loud noise that we could still hear in the distance. As we approached the ‘Colourful Playground’ in the reception block the noises were becoming louder and louder. As we were having a picnic morning tea Sebastian explained to us that the loud noise we could hear was the “engines of the Clipsal Cars!”

“Oh yeah!” Wolf exclaimed

We found that if we stood on the wooden chairs by the fence we could catch a glimpse of the cars as they zoomed around the track. There were lots of wonderful things to see, hear and smell. We then had a great time exploring the playground. We were a little sad when we had to leave the ‘Colourful Playground’, however our tummies had begun rumbling almost as loudly as the Clipsal Cars, so we went off in search of our lunch.

If anyone happens to go to the race over the next few days we would love to see any pictures you take. We are all very excited about the race in the Mattingley classroom.

Miss Mason & Miss Bowden

Edgerley

Dear Parents and Friends,

We have had a wonderful week exploring many different investigations in our room. The Chinese restaurant has been a real hit with many take away noodle dishes and other delicacies shared. The boys have made some fabulous creations in the block corner, working co-operatively to build structures that are strong and last. At the writing table, children have been exploring making their own books, which we are displaying for you to view. There has been so much interest at the making table again, creating the most wonderful cars and other vehicles, with the Clipsal of course as our provocation. Today we went up to see and hear the atmosphere from the colourful playground.

Here are a few of our reflections..

Knox: Awesome!

Campbell C: They are going so fast!

James Mc: I can hear them but I can’t see them!

Domenic: I saw car number 5. It was really loud!

Nathan: I saw 100 million cars – orange, green, blue and black.

Jack Mc: The racing cars are zooming faster than my car!

Oliver P: I went to the Clipsal one day… there’s races.. they’re actually racing around the track… they even turn off the traffic lights!

James C: That’s the track and there’s loud talking.. .when the cars go past they can be very loud.

Campbell B: They are going very speedy and they are all trying to win so they get lots of trophies. They are trying to go speeding with their boosters.

Thank you for your ongoing support!

Emma, Pip, Ty and Rosalie

 

 

Chapple

Dear Chapple families

 

As we battled the traffic chaos this week, we decided to embrace the CLIPSAL experience and went up to the Prep School to see and hear the sights and sounds of the track. Through the fence we couldn’t see too many cars, but we could see lots of other things. We went back to the classroom and made a list, resulting in a whole class project of building the Chapple Class Clipsal Track.

Teacher: What do we need?

Annie: Cars!

Christian: Sticky tape to make the track.

Doane: People making the track.

Lily: A road.

Harry: A grandstand, a building that you watch from.

Stephen: A finish line.

Harrison T: Small squares, black and white.

Lachlan: A screen to watch them coming.

The excitement from the Chapple room drowned out the V8’s as construction commenced.

We have also started serving ourselves at lunchtime, using the new trays. This has been a great success with the children having great choice of what they want.

We have also been practising our social skills and role playing how we ask for things, using our words and letting people know when we don’t like something.

Chapple Room

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Big Brother Joshua and his mum and dad (Katherine and Adam) on the arrival of Nathaniel Baird aka Nate.

Angwin

Dear Angwin Parents and Friends,

It’s been all about the cars this week! Whilst the parents have been driven crazy with the traffic, the children have been having a great adventure experiencing the Clipsal build up. We have made chequered flags (and practiced our patterning and threading skills),  we made some great collage Clipsal cars and our block corner has turned into a race track where some beautiful imaginative play has been taking place. We’ve listened out for the cars, the helicopters and the jets and have been up to the big school to watch the cranes and other machines setting up the track. It’s all been very exciting!

‘From our home we can hear the cars racing. Zoom! Zoom! So we have to put ear plugs in or microphones.’ Arwyn

‘The racing cars go really fast.’ John

‘My daddy, he went to the Clipsal race, my daddy and me, we went for the green one when we was sitting on the couch was watching the 5000 clipsal race there was cars everywhere and I was watching it and I woked up and I was watching it too.’ Aiden

‘The cars are really loud and you need ear plugs and then you wont hear them and then something else, the really super fast one is a really super one.’ William

‘There’s a one that even faster than the, the one with the spoiler. They just go pht! And they go so many times around that that’s why they have to change their wheels.’ Ethan

‘If you go in the racing you’ll get squashed ‘cause it’s bad.’ Angus

‘You not allowed to cross the road, you have to wear earmuffs- it’s going to be loud.’ Sebastian

‘All the cars goes vroom and they go all the way around the world and some cars break their wheels.’ Louis

‘The racing cars crash the wheel and they turn the wheel.’ John

‘If any cars win the race the flag says they’ve won ‘cause you need a really tall thing.’ Leon

‘It says, ready, settee, go and the fire works go higher. Only adults can wave flags.’ Aiden

‘Flags tell them the race has started.’ Angus

‘It’s a chequered flag.’ Lucille

We’ve had a couple of cases of head lice in the room, so if you see any itching and scratching please let us know.

 

Please also make sure to ALWAYS park in the car park and not directly out the front of the ELC. This is a very dangerous place to park and we worry about the safety of our families.

 

Have a great weekend and enjoy the Clipsal!!!!!

The Angwin Team

 

Shoes, glorious shoes!

Just a 'pretty please' reminder for all children to wear enclosed shoes or sandals when at the ELC as these are great for running, climbing, jumping, hopping, skipping, sliding and any other 'cool' moves. 

Other footwear such as thongs or crocs are prohibitive and not very safe when it comes to the above activities.

Thank you for your assistance with this request.

ELC Staff

Wilkins

Dear Wilkins families,

This week we have been very busy with our police visit. The police men came into the class and spoke about basic safety to the Wilkins children. We were also fortunate enough to go out on the oval and have a look in a police car.

On  Thursday morning we had a special parade from dancers and international senior students from the school to celebrate Chinese New Year.  It was very loud and entertaining.

Just a friendly reminder to also remember that you bring your child/children in with sunscreen and in their uniform. Could you also label your child’s clothing so we don’t misplace anything?

Thanks the Wilkins room.

 

Diary Date:

WILKINS FAMILY GATHERING - "Getting to Know You"

We are meeting at Tusmore Park on Saturday 7th March between 9:30 - 11:30, near the wading pool.

Further details are available in the classroom.

 

 

 

Angwin

What a fantastic week we have had in Angwin room this week. Party time has continued at our cinnamon  scented playdough table with much discussion about sharing and inclusion. This supported our discussions about friends and buddies and we recorded some of our ideas on our rainbow fish outside our classroom.

 

Our buddies joined us after gym this week and we discovered that you can use your hands to show people you are their friend. We held our buddies hands on the way back to Kindy to help show them the way, and they held our hands to help keep us safe, two very friendly things to do! Can you think of any other ways we can use our hands to show people we are friendly? We are going to add our hands to our display about our buddies in the next week, look for them just outside our classroom.

 

The making table was a huge hit this week with children busily constructing with tape and boxes. We will use some of the ideas we had this week to work on a shared lion dance construction next week.

 

Many Angwin students displayed their budding tennis skills at gym this week and the volley shots definitely had Mrs Bishop and Mrs Rocca running for cover. It has been very popular so get those tennis racquets out this weekend and let them show you their winning shots, just don’t stand too close!

 

Spurred on by Harvey we have begun to create bead stacks and record them using paper. Children have shown us what a wonderful understanding they have of numerals by using them to record the amounts in their stacks. We will be exploring more numerals together as a group next week.

 

Our exploration of symbols of friendship have raised some lovely ideas this week, as children creating friendship bracelets overwhelmingly identified mums, dads and sibling as friends worthy of a bracelet.  

Looking forward to lots more inquiry next week.

The Angwin Staff

 

Chapple

Wow what a week! We will certainly be tired this weekend. We started by trying to work out how big our sunflowers will grow (hopefully). They could be bigger than three Chapple children. Mrs Shakespear made some delicious pancakes and we tried some batter art.

The police came for a visit and we all got to sit in the police van.

The lion dance by the senior boys for Chinese New Year was very exciting and colourful.

We did some crazy science experiments as well as part of our Unit of Inquiry on Change and we were amazed what happened when we mixed a liquid and a solid!

Doane- It smells like yucky water

Oliver- Ew

Finny- Yuck

Harry H- It smells like chips

Sage- It must have turned into a volcano

Oliver- Bubbles

Lily- There was no lid on

What have we learnt?

Lachlan- How to make bubbles!

Chapple Room