Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,
It's been a busy, but exciting week in Chapple Room. We've had a lot on, both in and out of the classroom. This week the Monster Truck visit, cooking activities, a tour of the senior school library and mixing colours on milk were some of the highlights. We also explored the concepts of love and giving through Valentines Day. We made a heart shaped cookie for someone we love. It was a great chance to develop our sharing and turn taking skills, as well as measurement and number concepts throughout the cooking process. Our discussions about who we could give our hearts to were interesting, as some of the children were keen to give their cookie to themselves. Even Mrs Dry was on the list of worthy recipients. We hope the biscuits were enjoyed by those who received them and a happy Valentines Day was had by all. The recipe we used can be found at www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/shortbread-biscuits-L788.thml It's very easy and child friendly!
If you're looking for some light weekend reading, I read an interesting article about a new app that will change the way children can read the newspaper. It's an interesting concept. Go to www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21366825 to read about it.

Have a wonderful weekend.
Chapple Room Team

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley Families,

Another jam packed week in the Edgerley Room ! Whoever would have thought we’d end up using our Rubbish Show and Tell to make a Rubbish Castle? It’s just lovely – complete with sparkles, exits for the King and Queen and even a turret!

“It needs decoration. It’s just a Rubbish Castle. It needs sparkles. You don’t want it to be an ugly witches castle,” Lily was determined to make it a very beautiful castle.

We have been learning a lot about leaves and why some leaves are brown and some are green. Some even have green bits AND brown bits.

Fletcher explained to us, “The green ones are bendy because all their connects are filled with water. They are stronger because of the water. The brown ones are dead. They don’t have any more water left.”

“It’s alive cause it’s bendy. It can bend,” Max exclaimed.

Thanks Archie for bringing in your wasp for us to look at under the microscope! We have also been looking at plankton, flower stem cells, bug antennae and fabrics. Do you have anything interesting at home that we could observe?

Mrs Bishop and her gorgeous daughter Chloe came to visit us!! Chloe is adorable and Mrs Bishop just loves being a mum! Chloe can’t stand up yet, but she can poke her tongue out – what a clever girl!

Next week promises to be a very exciting week as we begin experiments with beans, use natural resources to make stick people, learn about Aboriginal bark painting and write our own books about Jack and the Beanstalk! It’s all very exciting in Edgerley!

Next week Mrs Rocca will be using eggs shells with the children to make some fabulous ‘Egg Shell Mosaics’! Please bring in a drained, clean and dry egg shell in a named sandwich bag and place (carefully!!) in the box on top of the lockers. Don’t worry if the egg shell is already cracked!

(Don't forget our parent information session on Tuesday 4pm)

See you all very soon!

Juliana, Coney and Katherine

Edgerley Parent Meeting

Dear Edgerley Parents,

We would like to meet with you on Tuesday, February 19^th at 4pm in the Edgerley Room to discuss with you our Literacy Program in preparing your child for school. During this session we will share with you how we intend to implement Literacy in the Edgerley Room for the remainder of the year and give you lots of fabulous ideas of how you can encourage Literacy understandings and experiences with your child as you go about your everyday life.

We understand that many of you will find it difficult to make this session, but we do encourage you to attend J We plan to finish before 4:30pm.

Kind regards,

Coney, Juliana and Katherine

Langley Room

Dear families,

We have been exploring colours and textures this week in the outside environment. We have been playing with squishy paint under contact to see what patterns and new colours we could make. The children squished and moved the paint with their fingers and their elbows, and even their bottoms!

“Ta da, look what I made!” cried Angelina excitedly as she created lines in the paint.

 We also experimented with corn flour this week by mixing it with shaving foam. We mixed it and squished it and moulded in to different shapes and made an enormous fun mess at the same time.

 Please keep those family photos coming in so that we can begin working with them and sharing them next week.

Best wishes,

Jess, Kerry, Nicole, Sarah and Emma

Mead Room

Dear Families and Friends,
This week we have continued to explore our new room and get to know each other more. Some of our investigations have included rockets with astronauts at the playdough table, very tall tower constructions and lots of box constructions.
James shared "Look at my space rocket. The creatures are going in... Look at all the astronauts going into the space rocket... Look another astronaut's going in, he's going a little bit further... and then close the door... And this creature is going in.. Look he's snuggling down. Look nobody owns the moon."

Many Thanks,
Emma, Pip and Amelia

Cooper Room

Dear Parents and Friends of the Cooper Room,
This week the children have started to share stories about their families  through our PYP unit "My Family Album".  They have loved bringing in photos for show and Tell, so keep these coming in. It is so much fun learning about everyone's family. A highlight for many of the children is telling everyone their parents names!  We have also been focussing on how we write our names and how special our name is. The children now have their own sign in sheet to write their name on everyday. It is proving very popular and every effort is valued.
Our fire engine and fire station is still in full swing with many fires being put out each day. We are hoping to extend this with the children through our fire drills and safety discussions. If you have a family member who is a fireman we would be very keen to hear from you!  Remember get down low and go, go, go!

Kind regards
Susan and Coral

Chapple Room

Dear Chapple Room Parents and Friends,
Welcome to the Blog! We been having a great time getting to know each other in Chapple Room. Our new little Chappies Seb Mac, Max, Christian, Harry  and Ethan have all settled in well. Please introduce yourself to any new parents you see in the room and make them feel welcome.
This week we explored making our own finger paint. It was a great experiment and making the mix was just as much fun as using it. It was a bit lumpy, but it felt fantastic. Next week we will use gloop to explore our sensory awareness.
We have begun initial class discussions about sustainability- mostly the concept of reusing. When asked why we reuse boxes and recyclables, the children responded:

Asterios- So we don’t have to chuck things away.

Raphael- I throw my things in the bin at home.

Susannah- We reuse things for craft.

Christian- We use them so we can make things we like.

Raphael- We put our bin in the garden.

Asterios- Bins go to the dump.
Following this discussion, I have asked the children to explore their bin systems at home, so be prepared to talk trash! We will be having a visit from the monster trucks on Tuesday which will be great fun!
Have a lovely weekend.
Chapple Room Team

Edgerley Room

Dear Families,

What a week in Edgerley! We have been learning about the concept of an environment and the children have been making environments for particular animals using various natural resources, by painting, making collages and by role playing.

We have been exploring our natural environments and the things we find in them. The children have been scientists hard at work using magnifying glasses to notice details in all sorts of natural things and have sketched their findings. Mrs Rocca had the great idea of using microscopes, so a fabulous trip to the Big Big Boys Science Lab and we came back with 5 microscopes! Not only that but Mrs Helen, the Big Big Boys Science Lab Assistant also gave us glass slides with tiny little leaf parts to look at. So exciting!!

Show and Tell has been rather exciting as we have made many discoveries about the things we put in the bin!

“The rubbish bin is a very stinky bin,” explained Alex.

“You gotta have different bins so you don’t mix up all the rubbish,” Alyssa shared.

Max went on further to say, “That’s because when the rubbish man comes he knows which goes in which.”

“Then it’s to the dump,” said. Felix. “There’s a special grabber and it tips it in.”

Alex commented, “Fire! Then there’s the fire.”

“But not the leafs,” Asher was quick to point out what he knew. “There’s the different bins for the leafs – that’s a green one. The yellow one is for stuff like that stuff in there (Asher is pointing to the recyclable rubbish that the other children brought in).

We are looking forward to exploring more about the different bins and why we use them! Have a lovely weekend Edgerley!

Coney, Juliana and Katherine

Welcome to Term 1 2013

A big welcome to all our new families , we are looking forward to getting to know you and sharing your child's learning journey ! Please feel free to ask any questions you  have no matter how small they seem !

Could all families please provide us with any updated contact information , immunisation status ,dietary or medical conditions.


A couple of reminders :
                                - please make sure you refresh your child's water bottle each day.
                                - sun cream needs to be applied each morning before or on arrival
                                - each child requires an ELC hat each day until 30th April
                               -  Uniform is now moroon pants/skirts only please
                               -  Please name everything 
                               -  Make sure you sign in and out daily

Please put February 28th in your diary for our Parent Curriculum Information Evening (more information later)

Have a wonderful term !


Jeanine Dry

Edgerley Room

Dear Edgerley Families,


This week we welcomed the rest of our friends back from their long holidays. They brought along lots of fun stories of family adventures of all sorts.
We finished our holiday program with lots of ball games, dress ups, stories and of course a yummy sausage sizzle!

As  we commenced Term 1 we were also excited to meet our new teacher Mrs. Baird. She told us a lot of things and we asked her a lot of questions !
We also think her memory is very good as she knows all our names already. We could never trick her ! We only had her for one day this week and she has already taught us two new songs. We liked the one about "little bunny foo foo" a lot.

We also met a new friend Max and we showed him around the room and played with him. Owen also brought us some yummy cookies to share as we celebrated the first ever 5th birthday in the class.

We certainly look forward to more fun and adventures ahead.

P.S.

The Edgerley library sessions have been moved from Fridays to Wednesdays at 1:30 pm (odd weeks of the term). If your child comes on this day, please bring a library bag for borrowing books. P.E. sessions with Mr. Weatherald will be every Wednesdays and Fridays at 8:55 am and music on Monday mornings.

Cheers

Coney, Katherine and Juliana

Chapple Room

It's been a short, but happy two days in Chapple Room. We've had a wonderful start to the term and are looking forward to having a busy and happy year together.The children have all settled in well and we have welcomed some of our friends back from holidays and several new children have joined us for the first time .This term our unit of inquiry is on sustainability and should be interesting and informative. We also can't wait for Clipsal 500 and are looking forward to celebrating Easter. It will be a terrific term!

Mrs Schmidt and Miss C

Cooper Room

Dear Cooper Families,

At the start of the week we continued with our Australian celebrations, with a particular focus on Australian food. All the children took it in turns to add the ingredients to the bowl to make Anzac biscuits. We shaped the dough into circles, squares and star shapes. When they came out of the oven the children enjoyed eating them sitting out on the grass. We had a sausage sizzle on Tuesday which was also very delicious.

We welcomed Mrs Lock and the children back to the start of the term on Thursday. It was a busy two days seeing all our friends again and exploring the classroom. This term we will be exploring two PYP units - My Family Album and Sustainable Planet. We will begin by sharing photos of our family. Please send along a family photo next week.



The children have continued to love their fire station play and raced to fight many fires. We introduced a new song called "Five Little Firemen standing in a row". The children also began to create their own self image using a collection of natural and recycled materials. It is interesting to see how different we all look !

Kind regards
Susan and Coral

Mead Room

Dear Families,
We have had a wonderful start to the year with our new Mead children. A big welcome to the new families to our centre. This week we have enjoyed getting to know each other and have started to learn some new routines. We are so proud of the way the chidlren have said their goodbyes and settled into the day filled with adventures for us all. It has been fun for the children to see each other again. We are looking forward to sharing our family photos next week.
Many Thanks,
Emma, Pip and Amelia

Langley Room

Dear Langley family and friends,

This week we farewelled our big three year olds (and Miss Amelia!) to the Mead room. We wish them all the best for the next part of their educational journey. We have also welcomed lots of new friends into the Langley room and are looking forward to getting to know them and their families. We have been settling into our routines and engaging in lots of small group interactions and experiences - cooking in the home corner, sharing and negotiating with play dough, building train tracks and towers in the outside environment.

Earlier this week Miss Amelia purchased some exotic fruits for the children to try. She purchased some dragon fruit, lychees, pomegranate, paw paw and rambutans.

First we tried the dragon fruit.

“A funny looking onion,” said Thomas M

“A spider,” said Knox

Next we tasted the paw paw

“A star,” said Nathan

“Blueberries,” said Harry H pointing to the red fruits in the middle of the paw paw.

The children found tasting the fruits interesting and they were all willing to give them a try.

To support our investigations into our unit of inquiry, My Family Album, could we ask that all children please bring in a family photo to share with the class. Can anyone who hasn’t yet brought back their portfolio please do so as soon as possible. Next week, we look forward to welcoming Miss Sarah into the Langley room, please introduce yourself when you see her.

Best wishes,

Jess, Kerry, Nicole, Ange and Emma

Term 1 begins !

Term 1 begins next week on Thursday 31st Jan . The Teachers return and our normal classes and programs resume.
Children who are moving to a new class will also do this from Thursday.
Thankyou to the wonderful staff who have been here across the holiday period and provided a fun program for all the children .
There will be many new families joining us over the next few weeks so please make them feel welcome as they join our ELC community !

Jeanine