Angwin

Dear Families and Friends,

This week in Angwin we have been starting some new investigations. Our transition program to school has begun in earnest and some of the children are having teachers visit us from their new schools. As a class we have been discussing where we are all going and what we think it will be like… Here are some of our ideas…

Charlotte: You wear a uniform. I’m going to wear a dress and black shoes

Denver: You take a bag and put a jumper and other things that you need in it

Wolf: I am going to walk to my school.

Regan: There’s no girls in our big school

Matilda: At Pembroke I am going to learn French!

Poppy: I think it will be fun. We get to play on the oval. Our Sports teams are different ones to PAC

Dominic: You have lunchboxes

Rosie: I think we will play outside at lunch and recess

Kennedy: When we all grow up we will go to different schools

Luke: They do their homework there

Wolf: You draw in books and sit at desks

Our journey of transition is emerging and the children are talking about the name of their new school and we will be finding out a lot more in the coming weeks!

A group of our friends did some snail detecting up in the Rainbow playground this week and have found several snails which are now in a snail hotel in our classroom. Together we created a home that snails like… with bark, dirt, plants and a bit of water too. There has been so much excitement and interest in our new creatures…

Wolf: They are kissing each other on the roof!

Rosie: Its’ shell is like a spiral

Toby: They’ve all climbed up to the roof… They even have 4 antennae!

Denver: They are upside down!

Charlotte: He’s doing exercise!

Another week full of discoveries and lots of amazing learning!

Have a wonderful weekend full of sunshine and outside fun!

Kind Regards,

Pip Cooper

Cooper

Hi Cooper room families,

What a colourful week we have had in the classroom this week! The overhead projector in the “Dark room” has been a very popular and exciting space in the Cooper room. We started the week by experimenting with how the overhead projector worked. The following is the dialogue that was recorded during the first interaction at this area.

Isaac C– I can see a diamond.

Olivia – Oh! Look at that Miss Gilbert.

Isaac B– Look we made a rainbow all around the wall.

As Isaac B said this, he pointed to the light that was pointed on the wall. Around the light was a small rainbow along the edge.

Stirling – Let’s put a shadow on it.

Isaac B – Look how big it is now.

Sebastian A – I can see the shadow on the wall.

The children then started to put the coloured plastic shapes on top of the glass at the top of the overhead projector.

Miss Gilbert – What has happened to the colour on the wall?

Yash – Green!

Karl – Green!

“What colour is it?” Karl said as he held up a coloured shape.

“Red” said Ned

They changed the plastic shapes over again so that the wall was now a different colour.

Karl – Green

Xavier C – Green

Karl – Look! Yellow

Stemming from the children’s current interest in colours and rainbows we have been investigating colour mixing through other hands on experiments in the classroom. We have used teat pipettes and coloured dye to determine what happens when you mix 2 primary colours together.

We will continue our learning journey into colours. Please see our weekly diary on how you can be involved in this learning process.

We hope that you have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the beautiful sunshine!

Love Miss Gilbert and Mr Ty

Pre-school Health Checks

Pre-School Health Checks

Tuesday 15 November, 2016

Women’s and Children’s Health Network, through Child and Family Health Service offers free child health checks at key ages between birth and 5 years.

As part of this service, Child and Family Health Nurses visit pre-schools throughout South Australia to offer health checks to all children between 4 and 5 years of age.

The health check includes a discussion with you about your child’s growth and development, immunisation status and will also assess your child’s:

·        distance vision

·        hearing

·        height and weight

·        oral health

Carol Foster, Child and Family Health Nurse will visit the Early Learning Centre on Tuesday 15^th November from 9.15am and you are encouraged to attend. 

If you are unable to attend but nominate another adult, you are required to complete a written consent which is on the back of the letter you receive when you make an appointment.

Please note: it is essential that an adult of your choice is present with your child at the ELC. If this is not possible, you may have the health check completed by your GP or at your local Child and Family Health Service clinic.

Please also note; the minimum age for Health Check is 4 years and 3 months

Just a reminder to book early as all places were fully booked last term. 

Please make your booking with Mrs Mandy at the Front Desk.

Edgerley

Dear Edgerley families,

We were very happy to welcome back Sebastian H. this week after a stint of being unwell. He shared his medical journey with everyone on Monday and this sparked great interest amongst the children in everything medical. We decided to set up an Edgerley hospital in our home corner and began by brainstorming what we would need.

Byron -nurses and doctors, a telescope and gloves 

Zara -bandages and medicine  

Archie - a bed  

Henry - a thing to pump up your blood and something to check your heart  

Will G - medicine 

Sebastian H - thermometer, something to look in your ears, special gel for hands 

The children also decided they would need an ambulance, so they got to work with boxes and paint to create this. The hospital was very busy throughout the week. There were a multitude of patients and a variety of illnesses and injuries. There was great concern when Miss C turned up after she had fallen off her bike, however the capable staff treated her with great skill and compassion. She left with a neck brace, multiple injections and a bandaged leg!

At the light table the children have been observing x-rays and drawing their own on black paper using white chalk.  Sebastien told us that "x-rays are a computer that look through your skin to see what your bones look like". We recognized x-rays of a human spine, arm, hip and skull. In the storeroom Sebastien helped Mrs McKenzie find a model of a skeleton. It was a little well-loved and had a few parts missing, however everyone was fascinated to see what the bones inside their bodies look like!

Hamish brought in some beautifully fragrant roses from his garden which some of the Edgerley artists asked if they could paint. The children mixed various colours together to try and match the exact colours of the flowers and then proceeded to paint some stunning still life paintings. Come and have a look in our room.

Best wishes,

Emma, Mel, Cris and Satin

Langley

Dear Langley Families and Friends,

This week we have relished in playing outside in the sunshine! With the babies and prams added to our book nook, children have enjoyed sharing stories with them and each other in this space. Hudson particularly enjoyed reading a book about animals - his enthusiasm attracted Claudia and Sebastian who joined him on the balance beam to look at the book.

Hudson - "A horsey!"

Claudia - "That's a cat"

Sebastian - "Chicken! Dere (there)"

On Tuesday, our resident frog caretaker, Grace along with Mason, Phoebe and William discovered we have another frog in the ELC. Together with Miss Georgia they ventured to the Angwin room and found Billy the frog. They were very impressed with his size as he is much larger than our small frogs.   

During the holidays the Langley children were lucky enough to see an old building being demolished. Following on from this experience, we have introduced special mini diggers and trucks for the children to explore - we have a dump truck, excavator, backhoe, bulldozer and a wheel loader. We will look more closely at these machines next week to investigate exactly what they can do and are used for.

Enjoy the warm weekend

Sarah, Georgia, Amy and Emily  

    

Mead

Dear Mead Room families and friends

Well….. this week we have;

> Rocketed to the moon and found different planets 

> discovered ‘sand rocks’ and found they explode on impact

>  constructed emergency services vehicles, saved sick and injured peers and then put out fires

> created exquisite drawings representing minibeasts, aliens and nature (not necessarily all emerging from the same illustrator!)

> took all our paper recycling to the service yard (to make it into new paper!)

> swam up a raging waterfall to get to PE (our imaginations are in overdrive)

> and assembled machines using wooden blocks and translucent blocks!

Phew!

Enjoy your weekend!

From Melissa, Elodie and Sharon

Chapple

“D” week had a creative twist as the children decided to make their own dragon wings.

Our water investigation continues with the children interested in what lives in the sea.

Our lawn is looking a little thin again and it drew us into a numeracy discovery. We were measuring the grass and amazingly a turf truck turned up at the big school. We raced up and asked lots of questions. Their turf was special for the cricket pitch as it was very long and wide and weighed 350kg. We worked out that was 16 children! We found out that turf is usually only 2.2m x 0.45m so we measure that out and tried to work out how much we would need. The children even debated whether we should use other materials.

We are still on the lookout for water bottles and pictures of the children with water.

Reminder: Pre-School Health Checks - Tuesday 15 November from 9.15am. Please make a booking with Miss Mandy. 

Chapple Room

Wilkins

Dear Wilkins families and friends,

This week Miss Renee created a ‘Going on a Bear Hunt’ story board on the light table. Using the props provided  children are able to retell the story in their own way or even create a new story of their own. There are many other pretend play spaces within the classroom that also enable the children to use their imagination and further their literacy skills.

On Tuesday we went out to the Town Square as a whole class and experimented with sink and float in a tub of water. Our Wilkins friends found different objects out in the yard and explored with the tub of water. We tested objects such as shells, foam letters, rocks, a wooden blocks and wooden fruit. 

Hamish M - “Pear will sink!”

Vivienne - “Will sink!”

Grace-Marie - “Will sink!”

Harvey - “Wood will ink (sink)!”

Isla - “Sinking!” 

Billy - “It sink!”

Belle - “Shells float!”

We continued to explore water during play this week also. On Thursday we created a boat in the outdoor play space. The children thoroughly enjoyed taking it in turns to be the driver, at the front of the boat. Moments after, Teddy and Miss Ellen found one of our favourite books, “Who sank the boat!” In the coming weeks we will add some photos and books to help to add another dimension to the children’s play. 

Teddy - “I’m a pirate!”

Tommy - “Me pirate!”

Harvey - “We’re going out to sea!”

Thank you for another great week in the Wilkins room. Have a safe and lovely weekend. We look forward to seeing you next week.

Love Miss Jess, Miss Renee, Mrs Murdy, Miss Courtenay and Miss Ellen xxxxx

Chinese Lessons

Chinese Term 4 highlights

11^th—24^th October

   Wilkins and Langley

·           * Learning fruits’ names through reading ‘the very hungry piglet’ and ‘the              very hungry caterpillar’.

·           *  Practising saying fruits’ names in English with toy fruits

·           * Singing the colour song together and finding different colours in our         classrooms

       Mead, Cooper and Mattingley

* Learning names of different kinds of food

* Learning sentences: What do you want to buy? Thank you. You are welcome.

* Playing the shopkeeper games to practise what we have learnt

* Introducing the book: Who is this?

Chapple, Angwin and Edgerley

* Playing the shopkeeper games to practise what we have learnt

* Introducing the book: Who is this?

* Playing the detective game to help children practise using the sentence: Who is this?

* Learning how we say grandparents in Chinese

* Learning different animals names

Mattingley

Dear Mattingley Families and friends,

What a wonderful first week of term 4 we have had together. The children have continued observing our phasmids, drawing detailed  pictures of their observations. They are becoming experts on  these wonderful minibeasts, and are taking great care of them. They are much  braver then Mrs Mason, letting them crawl over their hands and bodies. Mrs Rocca seems to have lost count on just how many we have. We wonder if you can spot them all? 

This week has seen us eagerly preparing for our Sports Day. The children were excited to share with each other what colour house they are in and what mascot their team has. To celebrate the children were given the opportunity to make a Sports Day collage, sorting out the colours that they needed for their house. This was also a great opportunity for them to begin to practice writing their name. We are going to continue our focus on meaningful mark making this term, developing our fine motor skills. 

We would like to say a big thank you to all our parents and grandparent who took part in our ELC Sports Day on Thursday morning. It is always a lot of fun to be a part of, and we couldn't have done it without your help. The children had a fantastic morning show you all the different gross motor skills that they have been practising with Mr Barton in our weekly PE lessons. It has been an amazing journey watching them develop the skills that they needed to be able to tackle all the wonderful things that Mr Barton has been teaching us. Especially the obstacle course. 

I liked the running the best- Felix

I run fast and fast- Edward

I did the tunnel- Fred

The parachute when up and up- Lilah

I did run under it- Audrey

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend,

Kimberley Mason and Coney Rocca