Mattingley

Dear Mattingley Room families and friends,

Babies in the home corner have been such an important addition to the Mattingley Room this term. The children have demonstrated empathy and care in all of their interactions with the babies.

By interacting with dolls we practice caring for others and explore family roles.

We cuddle them, soothe them, we feed them and make sure they are safe and warm and we put them to bed.

When children play with dolls they are developing social and emotional skills. It is helping them to support and care for those who need them, builds positive self-esteem and develops caring interactions with peers.

Grandies Day was a wonderful generational event this week!

We had many grandparents exploring the ELC, playing with playdough, saying hello to the chickens and reading books. The children thoroughly revelled in showing their very special people a glimpse of their day.

Matthew – she liked the trucks

Harry – They all came. I showed them the babies. I took them outside

Edwina – We hugged

Amelia – We played puzzles and playdough

And lastly, we have been sharing ‘Our Family’ with the class.  The children have proudly counted how many people in their family, shared with us the members of their family and then we have been singing the ‘Family’ song in Chinese!

Daddy is baba

Mummy is mama

Gege’s big brother

Jiejie’s big sister

Didi’s little brother

Mei mei’s little sister

These are all our family wo ai wo de jia.

  

Have a wonderful weekend,

From Melissa and Georgia

Cooper

Hi Cooper families

Thank you to all of the Grandparents who made it to Grandies Day on Wednesday. The children had a fabulous time showing you their favourite things at ELC and introducing you to their peers in the Cooper room.

The children have shown a keen interest in the bubbles that spill from the pipe in the bathroom floor when we wash our hands. This is mainly because of the amount of soap used during their hand washing process!  Obviously it isn’t very safe to have a soapy wet floor, so we have had to discourage this from happening too much. Instead of playing with the bubbles in the bathroom, we have been using bubble mix in our art experience this week. We have had so much fun blowing bubbles, mixing colours and creating abstract pictures. Coincidentally, the bubble play has stopped in the bathroom…

A big topic this week in the classroom has been on counting, identifying numbers and using one to one correspondence to support the children to count. We have set up a numeracy table in which the children can practice these skills, which is then reinforced in our group time experiences using the number line. We have selected a range of books that include numbers and counting to further scaffold this process.

What fantastic box construction masterpieces the children made for show and tell this week. They have been very excited to share their creations with the class. We are looking forward to seeing what other children have made from recycled materials.

We hope that you have a fantastic weekend.

Love Miss C and Miss Gilbert

Angwin

Dear Parents and Friends,

We have had a special week preparing for our Grandies Day on Wednesday! What a wonderful morning it was! The sun was shining and the Grandies were in their element as the children showed them around the ELC, sang sweetly and loved their time together.

Grandies enrich our lives in so many ways.

The children have been reflecting upon what they like to do with their Grandies…

Emma: I like reading books with them and playing hide and seek

Billy: I like going to the beach with them

Alannah: I like doing the dishes with my grandparents. They also play with me and hug me.

James: I love it when Yia Yia cooks me yummy food. I love when Papou help me play games.

Lola: I like going in Grandma’s spa pool.

Kaeshav: I love visiting my Grandparents in Singapore.

Ethan: My Grandma likes cooking me food.

Sarina: My Nanny gives me chocolate. Sometimes Yia Yia cooks me breakfast.

Hridhaan: I enjoy go-karting with my Grandparents and eating Hungry Jacks.

Being a short week we have been continuing our investigations into feelings and observing the Monarch caterpillars as they progress through their lifecycles… awaiting the moment that one of the chrysalis’ hatches into a butterfly! 

Our bakery has been a hive of activity with many, many hot cross buns and Easter biscuits being made! Sorting and number work has been another key interest which we will continue to explore over the weeks to come.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Kind regards,

Pip and Liana

Edgerley

Dear Edgerley parents,

We have had an amazingly busy week, jam packed with lots of special visitors. It was our privilege to host our Grandies on Wednesday. We were thrilled to show them around our classroom and ELC. Grandies from far away sent us messages of love to put on our wall next to our Grandies portraits. Feel free to come and read them and see photos of our Grandies from far away. 

We also had a visit from Sid’s Grandpa, John, who told us all about his time in English class with Miss Edgerley, the teacher our room is named after. He particularly remembered Miss Edgerley’s lapis lazuli brooch and we looked it up on the internet to see what sort of gem stone it was. 

This week we continued our interest in patterning from Easter. We created patterns with different materials and then used the iPod to take pictures of our work. Mrs Bishop was very pleased with how responsible we were using the classroom iPod. 

Flowing on from Sebi’s discovery about how our eyes show us that things are far away we read “Shrinking Mouse” by Pat Hutchins to further explore the theme. Karl made a wonderful connection and shared that when you shine a light on the wall you can make it bigger and smaller depending on how far away you move. Ed confirmed that when he uses his torch the light is really small when he holds it close to the wall and really big when he stands back… aha, another natural phenomena for us to explore!!!

We were excited to hear of the news of the arrival of Iker's brand new baby brother Dante this week. Congratulations to Iker and his parents. The children were so excited by the idea we decided to create a tally chart of the brothers and sisters we have in our classroom. We thought that there would be more brothers than sisters but after counting out tally marks we were proved wrong, a wonderful lesson in why it is important to think like a scientist and gather our data. Our discussions about the different sizes and shapes of families will stand us in good stead as we begin to prepare for Japanese Children’s Day in three weeks time.

Have a wonderful weekend and we look forward to seeing you next week for the last week of Term One.

Kind regards Mel, Emma and Chris