Reminder - Fee Increase

Just a friendly reminder that fees will increase effective Monday 23 January, 2017. 

Please allow for this change to avoid any disruptions to your payments via Ezi Debit.

Fees 2017

Daily (4 days or less):          $111.90 per day
Fulltime (5 days per week):  $105.60 per day
Weekly:                              $528.00 per week
Holiday:                              $55.95 per day (10 days per year - pro rata)

Changes to Staffing

Dear Families

The new year brings a few changes to our staffing line up and our morning and afternoon education program. 

From next week when you arrive at the centre before 8am please sign your child in at the Langley room . 

If you are arriving after 8am please take your child to their new class and sign in: 

Wilkins: Mrs Jess, Miss Courtenay, Miss Ellen and Miss Melissa

Langley: Miss Kathy, Miss Amelia, Miss Tayla, Miss Georgia and Miss Sharon

Mead: Mrs Prest and Miss Boler

Mattingley: Miss Mason and Miss Baldasso

Cooper: Miss Gilbert and Mr Richards 

Chapple: Mr Charlwood, Miss Wegener, Miss Elodie and Mrs Kaur

Angwin: Mrs Cooper and Mrs Rocca

Edgerley: Mrs McKenzie, Mrs Bishop, Miss C and Miss Faye

In the afternoons the following staff will be your 'go to' person for any messages if your child's primary caregiver has left for the day: 

2's afternoon staff: Miss Jen

3's afternoon staff: Miss Lucy-Anne

4's afternoon staff: Miss Kerry ( and Miss Kendall on Thursdays)

Mrs Kaur will also be available to assist.

We are looking forward to an exciting 2017 and all of the wonderful learning that is going to take place. 

Regards

Melanie

Preschool Health Checks

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 14 February, 2017 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 and Friends,

We are coming to an end of the school holiday summer program and what a fun packed experience it’s been!

The last two weeks of the holidays have been a blast for our friends.

We have spent a lot of time going on adventures around our PAC Campus.

Outdoors, the children enjoyed engaging in water play, building with loose parts and even doing cooking shows in the sandpit preparing meals.

This week we continued to welcome our friends, back from holidays. We were excited to have Miss C back in class!

We had crazy hair day on Tuesday and we decided to have hair like our favorite characters.Wednesday we had Australian day party! We had Australian day themed face painting. We chose to have Australian flag or Aussie bush flowers, later we made our own fairy bread and enjoyed the party with our Angwin and Chapple friends. Friday we decided to have a relaxing last day of our summer  holidays!

We also said our goodbyes to our Angwin and Chapple friends and wished them good luck in their new BIG adventure as Reception boys and girls.

We would like to say a particularly big goodbye, but see you again soon, to Ely, Ryan and Sophie who will move to other classrooms in the ELC. We look forward to seeing you in the playground.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Mrs Kaur who has spent the last six months with us, showering us with love and lots of enthusiasm. She will be moving to Chapple room and we look forward to also seeing her on the playground in the afternoons.

We are looking forward to the start of the Term and have the rest of our teachers back.

Love,

Mrs. Kaur, Miss C, Mrs. Bishop, Mrs. McKenzie

Angwin

Dear Angwin parents,

We have had a fantastic last week of our summer holidays. This week with our Chapel friends and Edgerley friends we enjoyed walks and games in school, home corner in Edgerley and beach house kitchen in town square sandpit were our favourites this week.

We had crazy hair day on Tuesday. Some of us had rock star style of hair and some of us decide to become princesses from Disneyland. We  enjoyed our fancy hair very much.

We also had Australian day party on Wednesday. Children had their faces painted in the morning and had fairy bread in the afternoon. They all looked amazing with Australian national flags or Golden wattles on their faces.

On Friday, we watched a funny movie together and children enjoyed their very last day at ELC.

It is sad to say goodbye to all of our friends as we have had such wonderful three years together. However, it has been a great honour to witness their growth and we wish them all the best to their brand new journeys in their new schools. They will surely be missed.

Your sincerely,

 Wenting

Chapple

Dear Chapple family and friends, 

We have come to the end of our enjoyable summer program and shared our last moments together in the Chapple classroom. We have been having many discussions about our feelings for starting school. We have some mixed emotions and are feeling quite excited, happy and nervous. 

Besides our discussions about school we have been making the most of our last week in the Chapple room by enjoying our favourite plays at the big oval, continuation of art activities, singing songs together, face painting, making fairy bread and playing games together.   

We are very excited yet sad to say goodbye to the Chapple children and give our warmest wishes for the continuation of their learning journeys. It has been a pleasure to be a co-educator in the Chapple room, I have enjoyed getting to know the Chapple children, families and friends. 

Thanks,

Miss Lucy-Anne 

Wilkins

Dear Wilkins Families,

Happy Australia Day!!!

On Tuesday we were given some coconuts from a family who own a fruit and vegetable shop. The children and Miss Ellen researched where coconuts are grown and how they grow. They had the chance to experience how to open a coconut and taste the water from centre of the fruit/seed. 

Here are some of the discussions the children had in relation to the taste of the coconut water. 

Thomas- "Yummy, it tasty." 

Angus- "Yum, want more."

Grace-Marie- "I don't like it." 

Hamish M- "There's milk inside." 

We welcomed some new faces to the Wilkins room and said goodbye to the children who are moving up to the Mead room. We also celebrated Miss Renee's last day, as she is heading off to have her baby. 

We would like to say a huge thank you to all the parents for helping and supporting us with their children's needs and development over the past year.  Watching your child grow over the past year has been very rewarding, and we are looking forward to seeing their development blossom as they transition into the older classes. 

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you all next week for the beginning of Term 1. 

Wishing everyone a very happy Chinese New Year. 

From Miss Courtenay, Miss Ellen and Miss Renee. 

Mead

Dear Mead Families and Friends

This week was our last week of being Mead children before we move up into our new room and become Chapple children. We have visited the Chapple room this week and we are all very excited to be moving into our new class room and exploring the new environment with Mr Charwood, Miss Elodie and Mrs Kaur. 

We started off the week with some easel paintings outside. Alex, Samuel, Jack and Connor enjoyed using the water paints to create their own beautiful paintings. Jack painted two pictures, one of his Mum and another of his Dad.

On Tuesday we decided it was time to make some new play dough. As a group we chose the colour purple. We mixed together flour, salt, cream of tartar and oil. We passed the bowl around the table feeling the different textures of the ingredients and taking turns to mix them together. As we needed to add some hot water, Miss Elodie helped us to do this. Once it was all mixed together and cooled down, we all had a small ball of play dough each to squish and mould into different shapes! 

Danica - it's starting to look like play dough now

Alex - looks like the hulk, shorts

Mikayla - purple cake!

Ethan - it's not hot anymore 

Tom, Ethan, Jaden, Samuel, Mikayla and Danica all worked together to build different types of vehicles using the wooden blocks. 

Tom - it's a race car

Samuel - its starting, wee woo wee woo wee woo

Have a wonderful weekend

Miss Boler and Miss Elodie 

Cooper

Hello Cooper Family and Friends,

The children have had an action-packed time as the final week of school holidays have wrapped up. As a classroom we have undertaken a wide variety of experiences which have engaged and stimulated the children. These experiences include pasta artwork, boat modelling, group games, and imaginary play.

The children also had the opportunity to participate in a centre-wide treasure hunt. The children worked together to follow a map, and undertake group challenges along the way. After successfully discovering the treasure chest, the children emptied it out and shared it between themselves. Here are a few quick samples of some of the learning which took place:

• ‘Where is it Mr Richards? Where is that treasure chest?’ asked James as he continued to rapidly dig in the sandpit. As James did this, he demonstrated dispositions such as curiosity and persistence.
• ‘Oh! Look! A Shell! There’s so many!’ exclaimed Yash, as he sifted his fingers through the treasure. In doing this, Yash displayed his strengthening skills in numeracy.
• ‘It’s lots and lots of treasures’ stated Olivia as she searched through the treasure chest. As Olivia did this, she continued to refine her fine motor skills.

The children particularly enjoyed the mysteries and challenges associated with the treasure hunt... In fact, they have already asked to undertake another one!

We would also like to take the time to thank Miss Melissa for her incredible contributions to the Cooper Room throughout the school holiday period. We are extremely thankful for her amazing efforts, and we wish her all the best as she begins working in the Wilkins Room.

We look forward to Term One commencing next week, and we are excited to work with your children as they experience another year of education and care with Prince Alfred College.

Thanks again,

Mr Richards and Miss Melissa

Langley

Dear Langley Families,

This week we have had a lovely time introducing our new children to the Langley classroom. They have enjoyed showing their parents all the new activities and they have been excited to learn we have frogs and chickens to visit.

This has been a real help to assist them to fall in love with their new environment. Of course with new children coming it means we are saying goodbye to a lot of our Langley families. Some will be moving up and some are moving on, either way we have chrerished the time we have had to assist their educational and growing journey. 

Our classroom has had a few changes as well as we get ready for the new term. Cushions, home corner activities and blocks have been added and the children appear to love them. We look forward to the changes that new friends bring.

From Miss Georgia, Miss Tayla, Miss Sharon and Miss Jen

Mattingley

Dear Mattingley families and friends,

Hope you all had been well. It had been lovely to be back spending time with the children after being away for a while.

We have had a lot of discussions about what we mostly look forward to as we move to the Angwin Room next week.

"To write my name by myself"- Leo

"To read books and look at insects"- Ryan

"To be with my friends"- Chloe

"To play with little lego"- Lachlann

This week we talked about celebrating Australia Day with focus on the flag of Australia

What is a flag?

Every country has it- Paxton

It's a stick with wool on top- Samuel

The top is material and it wriggles in the air. If there's no wind, you just wave it- Walter

Our flag has red, blue and white- Chloe

We talked about the meaning behind the Flag of Australia and the Aboriginal Flag as well and had a go at making one in celebration of Australia Day.

We have also welcome our phasmids back and are so amazed at how much they have grown and they will remain as our class pets :)

We are looking forward to being Angwin children from next week and to all the adventures and fun that we will be having with Mrs Cooper.

Mrs Rocca and Miss Baldasso 

Angwin

Dear Angwin Parents,

We had a fun packed week this week despite the hot weather.

Edgerley children and Angwin children worked really hard together to help us rearrange our workshop. Their ideas were very creative yet practical.

We played Jenga and other board games in our classroom when the weather was quite hot. It was very impressive to see children using various ways to figure out which piece of the blocks is loose and which one can be easily removed from the Jenga tower. They used their logical thinking skills to survive in the game and peer scaffolding was evident through the game.

We also enjoyed doing gardening with our Edgerley friends. Charlotte came up the idea of planting some watermelon seeds. We read a story about what could happen if we swallowed watermelon seeds and planted some watermelon seeds to see what will happen.

The children also enjoyed having water play and getting wet, they then met with the other classes and watched a movie.

  
Your Sincerely,

Wenting

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley Families and Friends,

This week we were delighted to welcome back our Edgerley friends from their holidays to start the new year with us.

It was great to listen to the children's stories and recollection of all the relaxed, thrilling, fun and educational adventures they had with their families and friends over the holiday period. 

These conversations sparked new and existing interests which we incorporated in our planned activities this week.

The highlight of this week was our wet and wild day! We had lots of fun running around the sprinklers, getting wet and soaked. We then all got together with the other classes and thoroughly enjoyed watching a movie together.

Gardening is now part of our everyday routine.  We love looking after the plants we have grown and are all eagerly waiting for the fruit and vegetables to be ready for picking.

On Monday we celebrated Zachary’s birthday, with singing the "happy birthday" song and sharing some delicious cupcakes.

Our other popular activities this week have been building and construction with blocks, Duplo and painting. We have also enjoyed playing in the sand-pit, where many showed their love for cooking. We have many talented little chefs!

Regards

Mrs.Kaur, Miss Kerry

Mattingley

Dear Mattingley Families

This week we have been very busy indeed! We welcomed Miss Baldasso to her new classroom as she prepares for the year ahead with the upcoming new Mattingley class. 

We had some wonderful indoor experiences this week with the hot weather, we built, constructed and created using magnetic blocks, Duplo and lots of beautiful natural craft materials combined with lots of colour and texture.

Outside we had the opportunity to have fun with water, explore the garden for bugs living in our garden. We even collected a few on occasion. 

The new raised garden beds really seemed to take off this week with some beautiful sunflowers appearing almost overnight, so we thought it was a nice opportunity to cut a few and have them in a vase in the classroom to inspire them .

Looking forward to seeing you all next week

Ms Kendall and Miss Baldasso

Langley

Dear Langley family and friends,

This week we have enjoyed some time outside in this beautiful weather. The children have loved reading stories this week so Miss Jen thought it would be nice to bring our book nook outside. The children loved bringing this indoor experience out into the garden.

This week we have also been getting to know some of our new friends that will be starting with us next term, the other children have been so welcoming and have even formed friendships with the new children in the class. We can't wait to get to know all of our new families in the coming term.

Sadly Wednesday was Miss Emily and Miss Sarah's last day with us. Everyone will miss them both so much, they have left long lasting impressions on all of the children over the last few years during their time at Prince Alfred College. We wish them all the best on their new adventure, we hope you come back to visit us soon!

Thursday this week was Miss Sharon's first day with us, she has spent the last 2 days getting to know the children and forming relationships with them. We're looking forward to what she will bring to the class room.

We hope you have a lovely weekend! 

From Miss Georgia, Miss Tayla, Miss Emily, Miss Jen and Miss Sharon 

Wilkins

Congratulations to Harvey on becoming a big brother to baby Fletcher. 

Fletcher Michael Rollo was born on 3rd January weighing 8 pound 6 (3.8kg).

Harvey is loving being a big brother.

It is Mrs Renee's last day next Friday as she will be soon be having a baby. We will miss her very much and can't wait to see her new little bundle. 

Miss Melissa will be joining us in the Wilkins room to help us while Mrs Renee is on leave. You may already know Melissa as she often helps us in the Wilkins class. We are looking forward to having her join our room. 

Enjoy your weekend 

Miss Ellen, Miss Courtenay and Mrs Renee

Mead

Dear Mead families and friends,

This week we are very lucky to have Miss Boler with us in the Mead room. Miss Boler will be the co-educator working alongside Mrs Prest this year and has started during the holidays to have a strong understanding of the room routine and learning environments.

We started the week with a big splash to cool us down from the heat.  We jumped in the water fountain, filling up buckets and cups of water and pouring them on ourselves. We ran back and forth under the sprinkler that was on the outside grass! This was so much fun and we had to be careful not to slip on the wet grass.

Mikayla – “This is so much fun”

Jaden – “I want to do this all day”

William E – “Splash Splash”

We ventured up to the big school hoping to go to the Rainbow playground however there was a big digger truck putting new bark on the ground (we watched from a far with amazement) so instead we went to the ‘spider playground’. The highlight was the spider web climbing frame and running roller. We then all participated in running races on the big oval.

On Thursday morning we discussed the possible thunderstorms that were going to approach late afternoon. We decided to use an array of musical instruments to create our own thunderstorm. We started with using quiet rain noises with shakers and as the storm became louder we introduced tapping sticks, drums, tambourine, triangles and symbols. This was a great group experience engaging in music and sounds together.

As we have been in our outside environments we have observed the growth of our Sunflowers in our garden patch. We cut 2 sunflowers (with approval of course) to have in our room in order for us to re-create our version of sunflowers through painting. This is to further their imagination and creative skills.

Paige – “I love sunflowers”

Mikayla – “ I love yellow sunflowers”

We hope you have a lovely weekend!

Miss Elodie and Miss Boler

Congratulations to Rose and Tomek on the arrival of their third daughter, born 13 January.   Big sisters Liliana and Chiara are besotted by their new baby sister - Ewelina Rose Gebski.