Princes ELC

PRINCE ALFRED COLLEGE EARLY LEARNING CENTRE

An environment designed to foster creativity, provoke questions, provide challenges and celebrate the achievements of young children. We foster the development of integrity, curiosity, confidence, compassion and Christian principles.We encourage relationships of shared responsibility and mutual respect. We believe in fun and the joy and importance of childhood. We ensure an environment filled with a sense of humour, love of play and exploration, and a sense of community.

Friday, June 25, 2010

In the Classrooms

Langley
All this week the Langley children have been hearing some very interesting noises coming from over the fence. We have heard lots of beeping and humming. While we were out in the big yard one morning we discovered we could see the great big arm of a digger over the fence maybe that was where the noise was coming from. We went outside to have a look and to our amazement we discovered a digger, a steam roller and a giant dump truck! The children sat and watched in awe. Later we talked about what we had seen and used the trucks in our outside pretend play.
“It’s beeping” said Yeoryi
“He’s digging a road” said Sienna
“To roll the ground cos the roads a bit dirty and a bit messy on the road and it’s a bit bumpy so the cars can’t go on it. The cars are a bit bumpy when the roads a bit bumpy” said Harry
“I think dat one a roller and dat one a digger” said Jack O
Kind regards,
Jess, Adele, Kerry and Jennifer
Mead
Dear Mead Room Parents,
It is the end to another busy, bustling and wonderful term. The children have made some interesting discoveries and extended their learning and knowledge about farm produce and products and where they travel to before they reach our plates.
Our topic for next term is 'Shadowlands' and should prove to be an exciting adventure of discovering the differences between light and dark, night and day............. We won’t give too many secrets away!
Have a safe and restful term break and we look forward to another fantastic term in three weeks time,
Best Wishes,
Emma and Susan
Cooper
Amazingly it is our last week for this class in Cooper Room! We have really enjoyed our time with all the boys, especially the past term learning all about farms and food. We would like to thank all the fabulous Cooper parents for all their kindness, help and support over the year and hope that you have a relaxing break if you are taking time off over the holiday weeks. We are going to miss your boys, even though we will continue to see them around the ELC. We know that you will love all the new and exciting experiences that the Edgerley Room will bring and wish everyone well for the future.
Kind regards,
Ali, Susan and Sue

Chapple
We have had so much fun in Chapple Room this week. The MasterChef cook-off and party was lots of fun and the food was delicious. It was a wonderful way to finish off the unit and to cement our understanding of where food comes from. We have also been doing lots of juicing! Some children even brought in limes and lemons to juice- and yes, they were sour….Thank you to everyone who went to the effort of sending in fruit for juicing and food for the party on Thursday. It was really special that so many of you went to the trouble of making sure your meal was gluten free. We have also met the new Chapple Room teacher Mrs Baird. She is lovely and the children have already warmed to her. They will have a wonderful term together next term. The Unit of Inquiry, ‘Shadowland’, will be great fun!
Sadly, we also say goodbye to Isaac and Chinmay. They are off to school next term and will be missed. We will, however, have three new children starting in the room and I am sure that they will fit in well.
Thank you all for my divine present. I will always have it with me and treasure it dearly. It will be a lovely reminder of the beautiful Chapple Room children. I will miss them all so much and will think of them often. Have a wonderful break!
Love Miss Marcus


Edgerley
Dear Wonderful Edgerley Parents,
It is with sadness that we have said goodbye to our wonderful group of Edgerley children this week. Thankyou for coming to our graduation, it was a special moment for us. We have enjoyed the privilege of being a small part of your child’s learning journey and will keep lots of memorable moments with us when the children move on. We would like to thank you all for the support you have given us during your child’s time in Edgerley and also for the beautiful, thoughtful gifts and flowers we received yesterday. We wish you and your families a safe and happy holiday (and an exciting wait for Reception!)
We will miss you all
Thanks again
Kind Regards
Mel and Rosalie

Cooper Portfolios

Dear Cooper Room Parents,
Some of the Cooper Room portfolios have been borrowed by families this week. As they were taken before Friday, our last day of term, the children's reports have not yet been filed in them. If you have your child's portfolio at home, please bring it back in during the holidays and Mrs Porter will be able to add the report so the portfolio is complete for the Cooper Room year. Families are then most welcome to keep the portfolio for the three week break.
Thankyou
Ali Blake

Staff Annual Leave

Dear Langley and Chapple Parents,
During the three week period between term when teaching staff will be on holidays a number of other staff will also be taking leave. Miss Kerry Smith will be on leave in the first week of this break, Miss Jess Catt in the second and Miss Juliana Giorgio in the third. These leave periods will be covered by a familiar face, Miss Ciara, to encourage consistency.
Thankyou
Mel and Jeanine

Early Arrival Children

Dear Parents ,
Next term (from 19.7.10) we plan to trial starting the day in the Langley Room instead of the Cooper Room. Many of the children who arrive early are Langley children and it will be easier for them to settle and be less disruptive for them . The older children will move to their rooms at 8.15 am when the Teaching staff begin their day. If your child arrives after this time you can take them straight to their normal classroom as you have been doing currently. We will trial this for 4 weeks after which we are happy for you to give us feedback about this change,

regards
Jeanine

Monday, June 21, 2010

New Door Code

In the interests of safety we will have a new door code as from the middle of the morning next Monday 28.6.10. Please pick up your copy from Julie during this week.
Please DO NOT give the code to your children (even older siblings) as it is then very hard to keep it secure. Children are also not to use the key pad as it will then go into lock if the numbers are put in incorrectly. If you forget , just ring the bell !

Thankyou

Friday, June 18, 2010

In the Classrooms

Langley
The Langley children have been role playing in our Langley farm shop this week, purchasing a range of farm products; milk and eggs and all sorts of fruit and vegetables. To further consolidate our farm knowledge, the children have been searching through catalogues and magazines for foods that come from the farm. The children have been practicing their fine motor skills by cutting out the pictures and pasting them on to paper. The children have also been very excited about “writing” this week. They are beginning to learn that the marks that they make on the page can have meaning for others.
“Wat dat say? It say apple!” said Sebastian M
“Look I write my name” said Daisy
Kind regards,
Jess, Adele, Kerry and Jennifer

Mead
Dear Mead Parents,
Our six legged visitors have caused a great deal of interest in the Mead Room this week. Here are some of the observations that we made:
They brown. Zachary
They got one, two, three, four, five, six legs. Jade
Them eat green leaves. Henry
Leaves from an insect tree. Ryan
It tickle my skin. Ollie
It soft. He walking (up my arm). I a little bit not scared. Ryuta
We got a big one and a little one. It wont eat us. Zachary
I don't like it any more. It hurt me. Sam
(I want to hold the....) Small one. Lihang
We look forward to a busy final week of Term 2 next week!
Best Wishes,
Emma, Susan and Emma

Cooper
In Cooper we have been growing little crops of oats, canola, barley and wheat in pots this term. We have been talking about the food that is produced from these grains. Recently, while we were reading a non-fiction book about wheat we found out that pasta is made with flour that comes from wheat, which lead Carmine to suggest that his Mum could come in and make pasta for us. On Wednesday Carmine's Mum and Yia Yia joined us in Cooper to make the pasta. We watched with great interest as they mixed eggs and then water into flour and this turned into dough, "There's eggs from a chicken" spotted Aggie. They kneaded and kneaded the dough and the boys all felt what it was like and then it was time for it to go through the pasta machine. Everyone was fascinated to see the dough becoming so long and flat, "You just rip the dough apart and you put it in and it turns into long" explained Carmine. The pasta was cut into long fettucine pieces which we cooked and ate with some parmesan cheese and a little parsely from the vegie patch. Yum! Thank you to our two fantastic pasta master chefs for the demonstration!
Kind regards,
Ali, Susan and Sue

Chapple
This week in Chapple we have set up the overhead projector with magnetic letters as a means of extending phonetic awareness. We have been practising writing our names, reading simple words and sounding out. Some Duplo letters have also been available to use with the construction projects. There has been a lot of interest and excitement about 'reading' words and making new words. On Wednesday, when Sam's grandparents came in to make 'Flopsy' the scarecrow with us, the word scarecrow was put on the overhead projector. The class sounded out the letters and then read the word together. These letters were then rearranged by one of the children to make a new word...He was very proud as he looked up on the wall at his new word! Come into our room and see his writing.
Thanks
Chapple Room Team

Edgerley
Dear Parents,
We have continued to be authors extraordinaire this week, creating more stories about the origins of foodstuffs. Our interest in autumn leaves has continued and we are now looking at the leaf veins by pressing them in clay…could they be the reason the leaves have changed colour? hmmmm!
Kind Regards
Mel and Rosalie

Change to Cooper Function

Just a reminder that our next coffee morning is on Monday 21st June at 9am.
However, we have changed the location to McDonalds Café on Magill Rd, Trinity Gardens, this is due to the weather and giving the kids a place to play too.
If you are thinking of attending, can you please let Adriana know.
Thanks and see you then!
Adriana and Amalia

End of Term Reminders

Teaching staff really require all children’s portfolios back immediately so that we can continue to prepare them for the children to take home at the end of the term.

Mrs Gilchrist in the Library requires all Library books returned before the end of the term. Please pass any outstanding books to your child’s classroom teacher.

Thankyou
Mel Bishop

Farm Day

We recently advertised an opportunity for families to visit a farm on the weekend of the 26th of June. We had a wonderful response but at the last minute have had some families pull out. The farmer, Mr Martin (an ex PAC boy), sounded a little disappointed but was thrilled to have the Jeffries family confirm their weekend. He would be very happy to have few other families join for the weekend. He has a sheep farm and lots of lambing going on at the moment so it sounds like it would be quite sweet for the children to see that, and Willunga is only about an hour away. If anyone is interested then I would suggest they speak with Rebecca Jeffries on 0430 244 373.

Fun at the Oval


Thanks to the families who joined us for an afternoon of running and kicking…and more running and kicking at Unley Oval to see Mr Weatheralds 299th game. He was very appreciative of the support and passed on that it felt very special that boys had come to see him. For those of you who are willing to brave the weather you may like to join some of the PAC staff to cheer Timmy on at Alberton Oval this Saturday for the big milestone…300 games
Mel Bishop and Steph Hart

Older Children at the Centre

Dear Parents,

Please do not arrange to have your older children wait for you after school at the ELC as it puts us in a difficult position of having to take responsibility for them . Under our license conditions all children who are not accompanied by a responsible adult have to count as part of our ratio. This makes it difficult after school if we have extra children here as we would not then have the correct ratio . The children are also not signed in and we would not be able account for them in an emergency situation.
We are quite happy for them to come with a parent/guardian to help collect a sibling but would remind you to ask them not to play on our equipment as it is not designed for older children and makes it difficult for our afternoon staff who are supervising the ELC children,


Thanks for your co-operation

Jeanine

Edgerley Families

As your children finish with us shortly could all parents please check the sign in sheets over the past 2 terms to make sure they have initialed for all days that their child was absent. I know this is a nuisance but it is a CCB requirement that we must comply with !!

Thankyou
Jeanine

July School Holidays

It is now only one week until the teachers and the rest of the school are on holidays ! If your child will be away on any days from 28 June to 19 July please let Julie or me know . We will display the program of activities for the first week next week ,

thankyou
Jeanine

Friday, June 11, 2010

Class Photos

Dear Parents,
Children's class photos have arrived from Festival Photographics and are in children's pigeon holes today ready for collection. If you would like to order any further prints or missed the due date and would like to order photos in retrospect please feel free to contact Festival Photographics directly.
Kind Regards
Mel

In the Classrooms

Langley
The Langley children have had a wonderful time investigating the colours of autumn this week. We have collected autumn leaves from the yard and looked at all the different colours. We then moved them to the light table to examine them more closely. We also placed them under tracing paper and used crayons to create some leaf rubbings. Our easels and paints went on an adventure outside as we stood under the autumn trees and used them as inspiration for our artwork. The children described their paintings;
“I’ve got lellow on dere, me make a tree” said Joshua W
“Branch and lellow leaves” said Henry
“It’s got lots of red ones up there” said Zac looking up at the tree
“Dat wed” said Oliver W
Kind regards,
Jess, Adele, Kerry and Jennifer

Mead
We have had juicers and squeezers in the Mead kitchen this week. We bought some oranges and lemons on our excursion to the Adelaide Central Market. The children have had fun exploring how to make juice and how to peel an orange ............

'I'm making some more. It was nummy' Ollie said licking his lips.
'It tastes like orange' Ryan commented.
'We like dose' Ollie said.
'Mine tastes sour' Ryan added.

The excursion to the Central Markets was a wonderful experience. Thank you to all the parent helpers. We will be dining out on the memories for quite some time and it has inspired a lot of action in the Mead Bakery/Kitchen and the Mead Market in our classroom!
Cheers,
Emma, Susan and Emma

Cooper
The Cooper children really enjoyed their trip to the Central Market on Tuesday. Before we left, the group wrote a shopping list of fruit to buy so that we could make a fruit salad for afternoon tea. At the market we looked around at all the different kinds of food for sale, smelled all the different aromas, and tasted many different fruits (thank you to the Fred McMahon stall!). The boys noticed many things and commented on the many different products available. "Some fruit” said Jack, “the man was mixing it making apple juice" and Aggie said, “I liked the tomatoes and strawberry cake.” We purchased grapes, watermelon and pears and brought them back to the ELC where we cut them and put them in our fruit salad. It was delicious! A big thank you to all the Mums and Dads who joined us and helped us on this excursion.
Kind regards,
Ali, Susan and Sue

Chapple
Hairdressing has been very popular in Chapple Room this week. Almost everyone was involved- as a customer, cutter or stylist! There were some very interesting styles! It was a very busy, but calming way to end the days as we approach the end of term. It also created a wonderful opportunity for some creative imaginative play. 'Let me show you the back.', 'Do you like the clips?', and 'I just need to spray it now.' were some of the things being said. We also had a fantastic trip to the Central Markets. After returning, children were involved in making a large fruit salad, which they later enjoyed for afternoon tea. Thank you to the parents who came with us, you were greatly appreciated!
We will be making juice next week. If you would like your child to participate, please send a piece of citrus fruit to school with them.
Thanks
Chapple Room Team

Edgerley
Dear Parents,
After weeks of playing in our own market we finally got to visit the Adelaide Central Market and see a real market in action. We were amazed at the things we saw and smelt. We met Tom the fruiterer and listened to him shouting out banana prices to his customers. He let us taste lots of different fruit including nashi and persimmon. We saw mouldy old mushrooms, soap that smelt like ice-cream and sausages with chilli that burn your bottom!... what next!
We also watched a big yellow bulldozer knock down a shed behind our kindy this week. It was really exciting! We illustrated pictures of the diggers and then enlarged them to make them into posters. We decided to write questions on them and let our teachers stick them to the outside of the fence in the laneway for the digger driver to see.
Kind Regards
Mel and Rosalie