Auskick

Prince Alfred College will again be hosting an Auskick centre this year. Please click on the link below for more information.

Click here for Auskick Information

Mattingley

Dear Mattingley families and friends, 

What a beautiful start we had to our week. 

Miss Mason! Look! We see the butterfly. Two butterflies- Sofia
The butterfly has woken up- Didier
Now they go yellow- Hridhaan

After observing the weather large butterflies trying to fly around in the container we decided that we needed to let them go outside. 

They need to look for food- Clementine
They eat flowers- Elsa
Passion fruit- Lola
They eat nectar from the flowers- Emma
They tasting with their feet- Didier

Once the rain had cleared up we set off to our outdoor learning environment to find the best spot to release our beautiful butterflies. Emma lead us straight to the flower beds, knowing that the butterflies would find what they were looking for there. The first butterfly was ready to fly away, so up and away she flew, over the fence looking for greener pastures. The second butterfly took a little longer to stretch her wings, so stayed a while in the flower bed. This gave us the opportunity to take a closer look at her. 

It's eating the flower- Rocco
It flew away. They eat flowers- Ben
It flew away to find to find lots and lots of flower- Emma
They flapped their wings- Kaeshav
They fly because they fly on trees to get on flowers- Riani
They eat nectar- Anthony
They fly away- Dylan
They eat flowers- Claudia
They fly on my pants and then on my shirt- Phoebe
They got both their wings- Lachlan
They just flapped their wings- Lola
The are going home. To Mummy and Daddy's- Dylan

This was a meaningful experience, fostering the  children’s capacity to understand and respect their natural environment and the interdependence between people, plants, animals and the land.

Kimberley and Liana

Wilkins

Dear Wilkins families and friends,

What a wonderful week we have had in the classroom.

This week we have contiuned using our different senses. We began using our sense of smell and smelling and mixing different herbs with a Mortar and Pestle. Our Wilkins friends enjoyed this! We then moved to touch, where Miss Courtenay made Gloop for us. This was very slimy!

We have also had some very busy wizards on Tuesday. Mrs Jess had set up some beautiful flower petals, leaves and other objects in the outdoor environment which turned into making 'Potions'. Nash and Tarika were very busy adding things to create the perfect potion on a sunny afternoon!

To extend our interest with arts, we have given the children a different method to create. In the classroom we have added water painting on pavers. The children are able to create their masterpiece and evaluate their work before it dries away!

Our Wilkins friends have also been interested in fine motor activities. We have introduced a pom-pom activity with tongs. The children have been very busy practicing their fine motor skills.  It has also promoted conversations with the children including colours and sizes.

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend,

From the Wilkins team

Chapple

This week we have looked into the world of straw! It all started by reading "The Scarecrow's Wedding" by Julia Donaldson. The children wanted to make their own scarecrow for the garden to protect the peas, they had been growing. We decided that we need to get some straw to make one, but what is straw? 

We looked at plants that were growing in the garden and discovered that straw was different from hay. We looked at some wheat grains and had a go at grinding them to make flour. It was hard work! We even made our own scarecrow pictures using squares and rectangles, and of course straw!

We have continued to look at patterning in numeracy and in literacy we have tried to find our own names and make silly rhymes.

The caterpillar continues to fascinate and a butterfly may not be far away.

Tuesday 4th April is Grandies Day - Parking will be an issue and may require parking in nearby streets. We are still looking for volunteers to help on the book store, if you are available.

Parents interviews are available for those who are interested in week 10- See time sheets on lockers.

Please take time to check out our program wall. It gives a great insight into the learning and experiences the children have undertaken across the term.

Please be advised that we are currently experiencing a bout of school sores in the Chapple Room. If in any doubt, please seek medical advice as it is proving very contagious. 

Chapple Room

Cooper

Hi Cooper families,

What an exciting day we had on Monday! When we came into the classroom after the weekend, we noticed that one of our caterpillars had formed a chrysalis around itself and was no longer a caterpillar. The children observed that it was not brown like the cocoon in the story “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”, instead it was a beautiful green colour with gold dots. We still have 2 very hungry caterpillars in our enclosure, which are eating up all of the juicy green leaves, so hopefully we will see some more chrysalis’ in the next few days. 

Each day when the children arrive, the first thing that many of them do is check the caterpillar enclosure. They comment about the changes or similarities of the caterpillars from the previous days that they attended ELC. They are growing very fast! The children have been using their observational skills and current knowledge of caterpillars to create pictures of our caterpillars using coloured pencils and paper.  

We are LOVING the story “My nest is best” by P.D. Eastman. We can almost read the story off by heart. We love the story so much that we have been making our very own nests using the same materials as Mr and Mrs Bird did in the story. Lots of horse hair, mattress stuffing, sweater wool, stockings and man hair (not Mr Richards' hair!!) went into making these very creative nests. We will be hanging them on the tree in the Cooper room next week.

We have been practicing very hard for our performance for Grandies Day on Tuesday the 4^th of April. We can’t wait to share the songs that we have been learning for this special day. Just a reminder that there is limited parking, as the oval will not be open on this day, so it would be best to get here with plenty of time to spare.

We hope that you have a lovely weekend.

Love Miss Gilbert and Mr Richards

Langley

Dear Langley Families

To support the children's fine motor development, we have set up a fine motor area.  In this space, you will find puzzles, threading of pipe cleaners into colliders, threading of beads onto string and finally a tub of pom-poms and feathers with tongs and bowls. With the development of these skills, a child can complete important tasks such as writing, feeding oneself, buttoning and zippering. Little hands need to develop dexterity and strength every day.

This week has also seen us role play in the shipwreck area outside. We have been reading the story ‘Hugo, The Lifesaving Sailor’ by Lorette Brockstra.

When outside in the boat we asked the children what we needed for our ship.

Cara - Fish

Charlotte - Fish

Many children have enjoyed playing in the boat pretending to set sail or pretending to be fishermen.  Sometimes we have a passenger who jumps off the boat and needs saving.  It has been lovely to watch all children build upon relationships with each other.  Many skills are being learnt in this area like, cooperation, negotiating, gross motor, and mathematics just to name a few.

Our family photos are in their decoration phase. If you still have not sent in your photo - please do.  The children are going to the wall and looking for their face or their Mummies’ and Daddies’ faces.  It has been a great focus to help children settle through the day too.

We look forward to another busy week with Grandies Day approaching us on Tuesday the 4^th April.  Please be aware we do not have any extra parking spaces on the school grounds for this event this year.  Please arrive with plenty of time.

Parent Teacher Interviews

We will be holding parent teacher interviews on Tuesday 11th and Wednesday 12th April. Kathy Kupke will be available on Tuesday while Amelia Murdy will be available on Wednesday afternoon from 4:15pm.  If you would like to make a time to have a chat, please email us on kkupke@staff.pac.edu.au or amurdy@pac.edu.au and we will book you in.

Signing In & Out

We have had many families each day who are not signing their child in or out.  This needs to happen for legal reasons and in case of an emergency.  We need documentation that your child has arrived or left.  Please, please, PLEASE remember to do this every time you enter our premises.  If you have a star on your child’s locker it may say to see an old form and get it signed.  Thank you for your cooperation.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Kid regards,

Ms Amelia, Miss Tayla, Miss Sharon, Ms Kathy & Miss Georgia

Edgerley

Dear Edgerley Parents,

We have had a wonderful week this week, continuing to explore our jungle animals, this time through the work of Henri Rousseau and his series of tiger paintings. If you thought our Ned Kelly and Starry Night paintings were good, wait until you see the details we have included in our Tiger, Surprised  paintings.

The children have worked with wonderful enthusiasm, persistence and attention to detail, visiting the easel again and again to express their ideas. 

This week we were also visited by the students from 4B and 4M who will be our big school buddies until the middle of the year. This week we enjoyed finding out each others names and if there were any connections between us. Will P was thrilled to discover that his cousin Charlie will be one of our buddies! 

We also continued to record our ideas about roles in families this week. We interviewed the children and asked them to reflect on their family portrait that they had illustrated. We were thrilled to discover not only what the children thought defined a family but also how their families worked and what they perceived the role of each family member to be. We will display our family records on the wall in our room for Grandies day so be sure to pop in and have a look. Here are some of our thoughts.

Mums do hugs and kisses -  Nicholas Y 

Daddy drives us to see to see our Nannas - Will L 

Family means being together, playing together - Struan 

Family means going places together, like on holidays. I love everyone in my whole family - Sebastien

A family is about team work -  Lewis

My Mum is Mum but she is Tali. She goes to my house. She’s not my Dad’s Mum. She only cooks and cleans up and watches football and watches football and watches football!-Aston

Mummy and Daddy married each other all by themself-Will G

Airlie is the baby in my family, my little sister. She does not much jobs, she messes around in our house- Sebastien

A family is about hugging and kiss and eating and building, playing and putting sunscreen on-Charlie O 

Come in and find more out about our families.

We are hoping to construct jungle animals next week and looking for recycle boxes and tubes (smaller boxes are preferred). If you have any you would like to donate please place them in the white laundry basket beside our making trolley.

We are taking a trip to the Art Gallery Thursday next week and are hoping for some parent helpers. Please let us know on your consent form if you would like to join us. We are hoping to get consent forms back by the start of next week so it would be great if parents could sign them and get them back to us as soon as possible.

Parent Teacher interviews begin next week and details have been included on our weekly diary. Please e-mail Mel or Emma directly to arrange an appointment.

Looking forward to a very busy week next week. 

Have a lovely weekend Mel, Emma and Cris