From the Director of Early Learning

Building a Sustainable Community 

One of my first goals as a leader of the Early Learner’s Centre was to create and build a sustainable community. Recognising that this job entailed far more than one person, I created a group that held its identity as The Friends of ELC. Inspired in these early times by my research on the value a community plays in the partnership of educating young children, I was determined to find ways of reaching out. The concept of The Friends of ELC was established around working together with families to invite and include more families into the life of the ELC. Early childhood represents a period of time where families create new communities as their children enter a social dynamic and potentially form friendships for life. I wonder sometimes, as we reflect on our journey, if we give enough value to what we have created.

It is a privilege for me to work each year alongside a dedicated group of volunteers whose primary goal is to build a strong community in the ELC. Together, we think of ways in which to welcome new families, bring our community together and offer opportunities for families to be involved in their children’s learning. It is also important to have parent voice in our ELC and often I use this group as a means of getting feedback about new initiatives and plans. We also like to reach out beyond just the parent group into the wider community group and over time have had grandparent representatives on our committee. Like everything, the group and its operations have evolved but the essential reasons for establishing the group have remained at its core.

2016 Friends of ELC

With an exceptional committee, 2016 has been an extraordinary year. The group decided to fundraise for a robot, inspired by the incredible ground-breaking work that was already occurring in the Hallett Room. Last Friday we reached our goal! We raised enough funds to pay for the robot. St Peter’s Girls Principal Ms Shea then announced that the school would pay for the programming which meant we could go ahead with our order. We have ordered a red robot, yet to be named, due to the incredible fund raising of the ELC community. It is because of this united effort we have been able to achieve our goal ahead of target. This means that all of the 2016 children in the ELC will benefit from the robot. We are continuing in our training of ways in which we can utilise a robot to its potential. We already know that our work is ground breaking and that no other ELC to our knowledge has their very own robot.

I still remember the meeting when one of our mums said “We may as well aim for the stars”. I felt empowered by the energy and enthusiasm of the committee and knew that our community would support to the best of their ability. Although its chief aim is not to raise money, the Friends of ELC love to support the teaching and learning program and where possible provide for things that may be otherwise out of our reach. I am truly amazed at how quickly we have raised the funds for our robot. The sense of achievement felt by our community will also be a highlight, recognising that as a team we can achieve great things and indeed aim for the stars!

We will await the excitement of naming it (her) and will advise you of progress news. Thank you to everyone who has supported us in this project. We are creating a learning environment that is already ahead of its time!

I would like to thank the energy of the 2016 Friends of ELC but also acknowledge the hard work of the many groups before them. A legacy has been left by each of these groups; their energies and passion for community have also been strong and determined. It has become very evident that the importance of giving time on a committee is highly valued. Time and advocacy for the cause ignites passion in others. Each group has enabled me to be even more in touch with my community and think beyond the walls and space of the ELC grounds. The initiative of the very first group in 2009 has lived on and I am indeed extremely proud to have been part of every group that has left their significant trace on the life at ELC.

Kate Mount

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Father’s Day Breakfast

As always our Father’s Day breakfast was a very special occasion. It is one of the favourite events on the ELC Calendar. Thank you to everyone who attended. The children baked special chocolate chip cookies to give as gifts and the dads were spoilt with fruit platters, croissants and coffee from the Saints Girls Café. We know that they would have loved all the special attention. We wish all our fathers and grandfathers a very happy Father’s Day on Sunday, and hope that you are spoilt by your beautiful children!

Click here to view some photos from today.

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ELC Staff Leading the Way

Frequently our teachers are asked to present at conferences. We have a wealth of knowledge amongst us. I thought it was important that I share with you some of the sessions that are being presented and by whom.

This week Sarah Crosten- Melling presented at the 2016 Numeracy and Literacy Expo entitled ‘Bringing out the Best!’ Her workshop title is: ‘Re-positioning technology as a social connector – introducing a humanoid robot to an early years program’.

In this workshop Sarah shared our journey as we introduced a humanoid robot to our four and five year-old children. She explained the way in which this technology has enhanced our children’s literacy, numeracy, leadership and inquiry skills as well as the way it brings children together and enhances their social skills. As the children form early understandings of coding and ways in which technology can be used we are challenged to re-imagine our teaching methods and pre-conceptions of how children learn.

Kirsty Porplycia  and I are co-presenting at AISSA’s Giftedness in Early Childhood Workshop. This workshop will cover open ended tasks with the inquiry curriculum, differentiated groupings and successful strategies, explicit and creative problem solving and independence as a learner and the ability to be reflective. We will focus on our current successful practice with the use of resources such as the Humanoid robot, Ferguson Park as well as our school resources for example Ms Becca Burton Howard our EDGE specialist and Ms Melissa Bray our eLearning Integrator.

It is an honor to be asked to present at conferences and workshops and have the opportunity of sharing our wonderful work with others.

Kate Mount

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Vacation Care

Please find attached the booking form for upcoming Vacation Care. Please note it commences on Tuesday October 4 as the Monday is a public holiday.

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Parent Teacher Conversations

Next week we will be opening up bookings for Parent Teacher Conversations from Monday 19 September to Wednesday 21 September. Fifteen minute timeslots will be available for families to book. Each teacher will be available for times both during the daytime as well as some late pm times. I ask that you try, where possible, to fit in with the times offered as rescheduling times can be very difficult for my team.

An email will be sent early next week with the available times of each teacher and an email to make your booking. Alternatively you can book directly on the sign in sheet in each room.

Kate Mount

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Magic Moment

Dad’s come to Playgroup to celebrate Father’s Day!

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News from the Stonyfell Room

Exploration and investigations using recycled materials; finding the beauty in the ordinary

Over the past week the Stonyfell children and educators have been shifting our inquiry focus from our explorations of our home and creating the connection from home to ELC to having a more ecological focus. We have begun to introduce the use of recycled materials in many areas of the room. We are wanting our children to explore the endless possibilities and the creativity that can come from exploring a wide range of materials in new ways.

We have introduced box construction and a sensory tray full of open-ended materials. These have encouraged our children to make something new from something that we may have just thrown out. We have paired this experience with a range of art materials that allow the children to create and use their imagination. We have observed the children mixing materials in ways that we had not thought of. We have seen the creation of rockets, spaceships, robots, and castles. The children have been cutting, gluing, drawing and painting; altering the original state of these materials and transforming them into beautiful works of art. We have valued these by displaying them as well as celebrating and sharing them with our peers and educators.

Allowing our children the time and creative freedom to repropose and make beautiful creations allows us to have firsthand experience that we can transform unwanted materials into something new. This process is building our ecological focus, we are beginning to understand that we don’t have an infinite amount of resources and that we need to take responsibility to care for and respect what we have.

We have begun to use the term recycling with the children and many of them have expressed that they know that their mum and dad recycle at home. Over the coming weeks we will be exploring this concept more and supporting our children to practice what they have learnt.

We would like to invite our families to participate in our inquiry by bringing in any recycled materials you may have at home such as:

• Boxes
• Plastic containers
• Bottle tops and lids
• Ribbon, wrapping paper etc
• CD’s

This would help us greatly as the more resources we have the more we can be exploring and discovering. We just ask that all materials that are brought in are cleaned and safe for us to use.

Laura Reiters

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News from the Bell Yett Room

We are very fortunate at St Peter’s Girls’ ELC to have access to a wide range of resources. Technological tools, including iPads, interactive tables and boards, projector screens and more, support our children in developing the skills needed to be a learner in the digital age. This is going to be enhanced immensely with the addition of our newly acquired robot, giving children greater opportunities to discover how technology works and how to create it, not just how to use it. In the Bell Yett Room we have been challenged by the idea of providing children with digital landscapes that offer open ended potentials, supporting the deep and creative thinking we know our children are capable of.

When I was in Reggio Emilia, I took a great interest in how technology was used in their learning environments and have been inspired to use our resources to offer the children new lenses through which to engage with our inquiries. You may have noticed the images of wild animals we have had projected on our screen as a backdrop to the children’s play with our wild animal figures. Combined with the books we have shared, these images have created a desire in the children to engage with the animals with a stronger emotional narrative, enhancing our understanding of our central idea – People are connected to their planet.

Another resource we are privileged to have is the support of specialist teachers. Miss Casson visits us for an Art lesson each Wednesday. This gives the educators the opportunity to work alongside an expert, developing their skills and then offering the same experiences to all the children throughout the week. Working together, Miss Casson and the Bell Yett Team, have explored the use of digital technologies in the light room to enhance the children’s memories and developing relationships with Ferguson Park, the children have journeyed through the park and returned with small collections of natural materials to explore further. Using light and shadow, mirrors, an iPad and our screen the children have been able to not only construct relationships between different tools but also a strong relationship with the natural environment.

Since my return from Reggio Emilia I believe our play room has become a relationship of interconnected spaces – thoughtfully planned learning environments that invite children to engage through play, Ferguson Park where they can learn not only about nature but with nature and in nature and ateliers that offer an endless possibility of languages for processing and sharing their developing understandings. We have begun to view technology as more than just a tool but rather as another language, a language that does not orient us in a single direction but rather enables us to investigate the same concept form different points of view. As our children are immersed in this environment, their explorations provoke wonder, marvelling and curiosity, stimulating creative thinking and deeper investigations.

Leanne Williams

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News from the Ferguson Room

“We are not the leader in the park, the pathway is the leader” – Ruby

One of the exciting things for us as educators is seeing our inquiry focus take affect across the room. Introducing our Central Idea of people are connected to their planet it is at this point of the term where the children’s ideas become stronger and more apparent in their actions throughout the day. Our pathway dilemma in Week 3 (please refer to our last edition of ELC news) provided us with the provocation for looking at direction and movement and wonderings about landmarks, places and things we are connected to. Incorporating digital technologies to provide new perspectives was an added benefit for our location and transformation numeracy focus as we watched Liam’s drone in action. We watched it fly above the park and around us and then excitedly watched the footage on our interactive screen,

“It’s like we’re a bird looking down!”

With the drone footage we have explored the areas of the park, mapping out the way to different landmarks. Adding photography as a way to map a route has also enabled the development of positional language in context.

Very naturally, our interest in the pathways brought light to the importance of remaining on the paths when walking in a conservation park:

“We must stay on the paths or we will stand on millipedes!”

“And the baby plants”

“And the spider orchids!”

“Or the fairy dust!”

“We might make snakes angry if we walk in the grass” 

The development of the skills and attitudes as part of the inquiry shine through. Through their connection to their world, the children have demonstrated their empathy for the things around them – the millipedes, the bees, the plants and each other. How they cooperate and work together becomes stronger as they establish links of cause and effect.

As we enter Week 6 of the term, the children are at the point of taking action. They realised that there is no pathway from the ELC to the first path in Ferguson Park. Already we have had some suggestions on ways to create a path and are excited to test some of these theories this week. We hope you are hearing about some of our ideas at home and that you share with us the development of our inquiry for the remainder of the term.

Pam Foden

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News from the Hallett Room

You may have heard your child singing, ‘We are all connected’ as they play. This song has become very popular in our room in the last few weeks. It is about a little girl who decides to make up a song and dance that can be shared across the world to connect people in different countries. You may like to look at this youtube clip with your child at home:

As part of being an International Baccalaureate learner it is important that we expose children to global perspectives. This helps the children begin to understand that their world is part of a very large world and that our local community is connected to the global community.

We have begun to delve into our second line of inquiry, Our connection to the planet. Through our exploration and discussions, the children are beginning to notice the impact that their actions can have on our planet.  For example, when walking in Ferguson Park, we have had a number of discussions about whether we should take nature from the park back to the ELC.

Matilda Purvis, ‘You can’t pick flowers because if you do, they can’t grow.’

Matilda Priebe, ‘And the bees need them.’

Phoebe R, ‘I took a picture of them because they were so beautiful.’

Indea, ‘She didn’t pick them because there isn’t many of them.’

The children understood the impact of their actions on the flowers, but what about sticks?

Isabelle, ‘Birds need the sticks.’

Indea, ‘To make a nest.’

Lola B, ‘Yes, when it is on the trees it helps to make the bird’s nest. The birds need privacy and they use the leaves as curtains.’

Ishana, ‘I think you can take sticks if they are on the ground because the birds won’t see them.’

Phoebe R, ‘Yes, because they are on the ground.’

These discussions have provoked an interest in animal homes where the children are finding out about what animals use to make their home. They have found that some animals might use the fallen logs and sticks on the ground. The children have shown great empathy for the environment and are very caring and respectful of nature in Ferguson Park. We can see that they are beginning to notice that their actions can have an effect on their environment, which is a key concept that we are exploring at the moment (causation).

We look forward to seeing the children become more proactive in taking care of their environment as they gain greater understanding of how we share the planet.

Sarah Croston-Melling

From the Director of Early Learning

Dear Families,

We had an incredible outdoor week with our Community Planting Day and Mud Week focus. These events highlight the importance of working together in a team. I would like to thank the initiative of Nell Tierney, Lia van der Pennen and Natalie Lockwood for organising these two events. It worked so well having them all in the same week, giving focus to outdoor learning and its many benefits, as you will read in the articles in this edition. For me it was so much more! It was about staff taking initiative, planning, negotiating, creating and liaising at so many different levels.

Firstly for the planting day both Lia and Natalie had been planning this event for weeks. It was embedded in our prior learning and was not an event plucked from the air. The girls had spent time with our Property Services team discussing the benefits of having a day that could really make a difference to our ELC environment. More importantly, a day that maximised everyone’s participation fr each age group, the families, the educators and Liam and Ned from Property Services. I hope you enjoyed hearing about the experiences from your child if they attended last Wednesday.om

Nell has written a lot about the importance of children experiencing mud. Even our Principal Ms Shea has told us of her childhood memories creating mud pies. I think we all can relate back to the freedom of being able to explore in the outdoors without the seriousness of all of the risk assessments. Last week I witnessed a significant shift in our centre, we stopped just talking about it and actually immersed ourselves in it. I loved the way the educators took small groups to the spot near the bridge in the park to explore the mud, the wet grass and puddles. The engagement was rich as children present differently outdoors to indoors so we are able to learn so much more about them.

Liam and Ned continue to be actively involved in the learning of our young students, supporting all of us with their knowledge and skill set that deepens our experiences.

I love the fact that my work is so creative and so deeply immersed in our community. We all think differently and have these creative skill sets to bring to student learning. We look forward to further developing our outdoor learning on a very regular basis.

Kind regards,

Kate Mount

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Saints Café at ELC Events

At our recent morning tea held in the ELC we were very fortunate to have the Saints Café provide our coffee. I asked the girls to write a summary explaining their purpose.

‘The Saint’s Café has been a long process to do. Starting all the way back in the first few weeks of Term 1. At the start of the year Ms Shea stood in front of the school and talked about leaders and encouraged students to be innovative in their studies and think about the qualities of an entrepreneur. Together with our teacher Ms Casson, Freya Ware, Holly Steer and myself came up with the idea of making a Saint’s Café. As a group Holly is in charge of the marketing, Freya is in charge of the staff and I am in charge the finance and budget. We did our first trial session for the café in the early weeks of May.

At the moment the Saints Café are supporting the local farmers by buying our milk from them, and we are using bio-degradable cups as they are better for the environment.

The Saints Café has given Freya, Holly and I such great opportunities to develop our people skills and to broaden our knowledge on how small businesses function.

By doing the Saints Café we have been asked to make coffees for different in-school events; one of them being the Early Learning Centre morning tea. This was a great opportunity to engage with the parents and children of the school.

We are hoping to pay off the food orders and coffee machine soon as we are planning on giving all our profits to a charity later on in the year.

Amira Shahin
Year 10 Food Student

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Save the Date: Father’s Day Breakfast

All ELC Father’s are invited to join us for our annual ‘Father’s Day Breakfast’ on Wednesday 31 August at 7.45am.  As well as a delcious breakfast, our very own Saints Cafe will be providing coffee!

If you are interested please RSVP at the sign in sheet available at the ELC.

We look forward to seeing you all there!

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ELC Dates for the Diary

• Wednesday August 31: Father’s Day Breakfast from 7.45am
• Monday,September 19 , Tuesday, Septmember 20 and Wednesday September 21: ELC Parent Teacher Conversations (schedule to come later)

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News from the Stonyfell Room

Making connections and the importance of being part of a group

Humans are social creatures, we seek each other out, we desire to be together and feel connected to each other. This notation has been highlighted throughout the Reggio Emilia philosophy and during my time last year in this beautiful city I was able to further build on my understanding of the importance of children working together and to be given the opportunity to work alongside each other and form strong collaborative bonds. Working in small groups is a strong declaration of our belief of how children best learn

Working in small groups:

• Develops social skills
• Creates a sense of belonging
• Allows us to test our theories
• Develops problem solving skills
• Builds relationships
• D evelops the child’s voice

When we are working in small groups with our children we can observe many things. The educators often use this time to not only develop and build on our inquiry but we can be using our learning focus as a catalyst for us to support our children. We may be wanting to build on their social skills such as sharing and turn taking or we may be focusing on language development and our speaking skills.

Being part of a group makes us feel like we belong, like we are connected and part of something. This in turn makes us feel safe, we develop trusting relationships and builds our desire to learn.

What does this look like in the Stonyfell Room?

The children in the Stonyfell Room are set up for working in small groups. The educators take the time to observe and discuss what we see and find during these experiences in order to drive the program and develop our curriculum and create differentiation between experiences and our leaners.

Linking into our program, environment and the setup of our spaces supports our children to work in small groups. Our learning invitations, materials and image of the child are all highly considered.

It is our role to introduce our Stonyfell children to being part of a group as this form of learning will continue through every child’s learning journey here at the ELC. We endeavour to build a culture of group from the outset. We are building a community of learners.

Laura Reiters

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News from the Bell Yett Room

Lately I have been hearing a lot about ecological thinking in relation to early childhood education. It was at the forefront of my recent study tour to Reggio Emilia and there are professional learning opportunities and resources becoming available all the time. Our current legislation and educational guidelines, including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the National Quality Standards and the Early Years Learning Framework, embrace sustainability as one of their leading standards.

Why has sustainability become such a key component of early childhood practice? Research suggests that children have an innate connection to nature, this relationship is often lost as we become adults. Children are competent and active citizens in their own learning. They are capable of being leaders and drivers of change. Early childhood educators have a powerful window of opportunity to play an active role in supporting young children to not only understand sustainability issues, but take action to minimise their impact on the environment.

In the ELC we embed nature in our daily pedagogy. By providing opportunities for learning about nature, with nature and in nature we are supporting children to develop a long lasting relationship with their environment. Special days such as our recent Planting Day and Mud Days enhance this. Our current Unit of Inquiry is challenging us as educators to empower our children to make a difference to their world. Over the last few weeks we have been immersing the children in experiences that have explored our planet and its amazing natural environments. The children have quickly demonstrated to us that they have a strong knowledge about and connection to their world. We are now exploring the impact of rubbish on our world. Through our observations we have learnt that the children already know that rubbish is a problem:

“People drop it on the ground, it should go in a rubbish bin.”

“The animals are sad that someone has put rubbish in their home.”

“We can make the animals happy by picking it up and putting it in the bin.”

What next? How can we build sustainable learning that has an ongoing impact?

We are relaunching our inquiry with an in-depth investigation into rubbish. Watch this space…

Leanne Williams

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News from the Ferguson Room

Our fortune to have Ferguson Park on our doorstep has again been highlighted, as this week we have utilised the space for our mud explorations and many walks. An exciting experience for us recently happened during a walk through the park. Our focus as educators was to encourage the children to work collaboratively on where they wanted to go. We listened with all of our senses to what the children were connected to, any causation theories they had and cooperation attitudes that were visible.

The first group decision was to explore the fallen tree, the direction to walk agreed by all. During the exploration, Bailey asked an educator “Can we visit the special bridge?” The children were invited to regroup for a decision-making conversation. Again, the children all wanted to walk to the bridge! Hurray! Children led the way, some breaking into a run at the front. “Wait for everyone!” they were told by their peers.

We reached a crossroads. “I want to go up this path, I’ve been to the bridge before” Will exclaims. “Me too!” agrees Charlie. They began to walk up a path, while the others in the group headed towards the bridge. “Wait! We have to stay as a group…we need to come back and decide where to go together!” Miss Foden told everyone.

The children came together and here we witnessed something magical happening. They started to talk about where they could go. At first, they thought it was easier to arrive at a shared decision and started walking off again in two separate groups. “No” Gabby shouted, “We have to stay together!” The group came back to convene. We saw Bailey and Clara orchestrate a way to choose a friend (for what, we are unsure!) “Put your foot in and we can choose” Bailey said. Some friends stayed on the outskirts of the discussion. We heard strong opinions as to where they wanted to go – Alessandra was sure she wanted to visit the bridge.

Negotiations lasted for nearly 10 minutes! Eventually the majority started walking up the path away from the bridge, with the exception of one friend. We then realised we needed to spend more time coming to a shared understanding and decided to start our walk at this very spot next time.

Where will this learning lead to next?

How can we extend children’s skills in cooperation, problem-solving and resolving conflict?

Can we predict what will be at the end of the different pathways? Can we map them out?

We are excited to see where this inquiry leads and what we discover during the process!

Pam Foden

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News from the Hallett Room

We have begun to uncover the children’s understanding of their planet. In the Hallett Room we have commenced by connecting the children’s knowledge with their senses. We asked the children what does our planet look like, sound like and smell like?

Matilda Priebe, “It looks like a beautiful place where you can have fun and play with your friends.”

Faith, “It looks like flowers.”

Rachel G, “You can’t hear the planet because it’s super quiet.”

Georgia, “Sometimes it’s noisy and loud.”

Isla, “When the animals make noise the planet is noisy too.”

Sophia, “It smells like flowers.”

Zoe, “It smells like flowers, trees, grass and bark.”

Lola B, “When you go to the airport and you get on a plane it smells like smoke.”

We then embraced our sense of touch when we participated in our Community Planting Day and Mud Day celebrations. Through these interactions with our natural environment and community, we have laid the foundations for building the children’s empathy and respect for the environment. We hope that through building this relationship the children will care enough to want to take action to care for their planet.

Sarah Croston-Melling

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  ELC Community Planting Day

On Wednesday 10 August, the ELC children came together as a community to bring new life into our garden. As we begin to dive into our line of inquiry ‘sharing the planet’, many friends have begun to create links between themselves and the environment; in particular the beautiful places that surround our ELC.

With a variety of stations, the children immersed themselves in planting vegetables with their educators, constructing a greenhouse for strawberries with Liam and Ned (from the Property Services team), and making bird feeders and bug hotels with parent helpers. Through the entirety of the event, we saw children connect with their peers across the centre, as well as the adults who attended. This emphasised the trusting bonds within our school community.

As our garden grows and changes it will continue to provide opportunities for children to develop theories about our environment and our impact on it. We are excited to see that from our Community Planting Day the children have already begun to display how our connection to the planet creates a passion to care for it.

Lia van der Pennen and Natalie Lockwood

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Hallett Room Excursion

Last Monday, the Hallett Room children were treated to a special excursion to the Odeon Theatre, where we saw ‘Emily Loves to Bounce’ by the Patch Theatre Company.

This play was a wonderful tale of friendship between the energetic and creative Henry and the deep thinking, logical Amy. Although the two children are quite different they learn to work together to create imaginative games and stories. The actors were complemented by two musicians, a violinist and a cellist, who also played a number of other instruments throughout the show. The musicians worked on the stage with the actors, weaving themselves in and out of the story. Together they all played, sung and interacted together.

This was a highly entertaining piece of theatre for our children who were at times in stitches of laughter and at other times filled with wonder and intrigue by the magic of the light and shadow play as well of course by the main actor, Emily, the ball. Theatre is such an important experience for children. The creative arts inspire our imagination and fill us with enthusiasm to think about things from new perspectives.

I would like to thank our school bus drivers who drove us to and from the theatre. The children just loved travelling by bus, it was definitely a highlight!

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International Mud Day in the ELC

On Thursday and Friday we celebrated International Mud Day in the ELC. The day had finally come when the children were allowed into Ferguson Park to get as dirty as they liked and begin their life long connection with nature. Oh the joys of MUD! With protective pants, jackets and gum boots we navigated our way into the park in search of the grubby, gooey sticky substance. Luckily the weather had been kind to us during the week with heavy down pours so the creek was abundant with muddy puddles.

As educators we were over joyed to watch children jump straight into the puddles eager to get their boots dirty, slide down the creek bed, make mud cakes on rocks and fallen trees, dig for worms and insects, navigate their way along the creek bed and explore new territory.

Mixing soil, water and other natural materials like pebbles, leaves or grass provide children endless possibilities for learning and fun. Many of us have fond memories of creating mud pies, digging for worms or making streams and valleys in the mud. But it’s not just about fun. Children benefit from messy, muddy play.

Mud play is inclusive of all children. It allows play at their own developmental level, its open ended and meets the diverse needs and interests of different children. Younger and less skilled children might focus on the sensory experience whereas older children may have more specific goals in mind. Some children may like the sensation of the mud between their fingers while others only like to poke a stick into it.

Research shows that mud play also has health benefits. The exposure to the friendly bacteria in soil can lead to the release of endorphins and lead to happier and healthier children. It encourages creativity, can be soothing and relaxing and provide children the opportunity to express their feelings through their senses and exploration.

In the ELC we plan to officially open our Mud Kitchen this week. Liam in Property Services has done an incredible job in conjunction with the educators to create a space where children can create their own mud heaven on a daily basis. Using recycled materials gathered from around the school we are providing an environment where children can become scientists, communicators, independent thinkers, collaborators and develop and consolidate their own learning.

Please come and visit and join in the fun.

Nell Tierney
Bell Yett Room Educator

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Magic Moment

From the Director of Early Learning

Dear Families,

Every two weeks the ELC team collaborate to bring you a newsletter that represents the news from each room including program updates and special events that might be occurring in the centre and special articles that we think are relevant to you. We encourage families to read the newsletters and note any upcoming events in their calendars.

The first half of the year has been extremely busy with many of our major events occurring in this period. The second half of the year offers a couple of special events that we hope you can participate in.

These include:

• Welcome Morning Tea
• Father’s Day Breakfast
• Christmas Presentation and Twilight Picnic

These events are supported by The Friends of ELC, our volunteer community group in the ELC.

In addition to the social events we also offer some sharing opportunities between educators and families. At the end of this term Parent Teacher Conversations are offered to all families so that they can share the learning progress of their child. To support this communication each child has an ePortfolio that we update regularly during the term. This will form part of the evidence of what is discussed at the special meeting at the end of term.

I hope that everyone has settled well into the new school term. We have been very impressed with our new two-year-old group who have quickly made themselves at home in our ELC. It certainly helps hosting transition visits and of course many have come from Playgroup or have older siblings in the centre. These all act as part of our setting children up for success.

I encourage you to spend time in the playrooms asking the educators to expand on the learning program that they have outlined on their notice boards and in the newsletter pieces. Learning at ELC is so exciting and rich and we love to share this with you.

Have a wonderful term and I look forward to seeing many of you on Thursday at our morning tea from drop off in the ELC.

Kind regards,

Kate Mount

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ELC Wine Orders

Thank you for all of your wine and olive oil orders. Due to popular demand we extended our final orders until the end of the holidays.

Orders have now officially closed. In the next few weeks we will be printing and processing your orders, labelling and delivering. We hope to get the wine to you towards the end of August.

This fundraiser has been a big success so we are truly appreciative of your support.

Friends of the ELC

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Introducing Mud to Early Learning!

Yes, you read this correctly. We are going to be creating a new mud kitchen specifically designed for messy play. Fitted out with protective clothing, the children will have the opportunity to mix, splosh, invent and experience mud firsthand! With the help of Liam from Property Services you will see our Mud Kitchen being installed over the next couple of weeks. Much research was done to plan and create this place for creativity and sensory wonder!

Mixing soil, water and a range of other natural materials has a foundational role in early childhood which has deep importance and endless possibilities for wellbeing, development and learning. The breadth and depth of what these experiences offer young children is truly remarkable. Mud kitchens provide something quite different from digging in soil, whilst also being much more easily managed. A mud kitchen includes elements of the much loved home corner and cooking from indoor play, they work all the year round and are free from restrictions with maximum benefit.

Working alongside the introduction of our Mud Kitchen we are going to be celebrating International Mud Day on Thursday 11 and Friday 12 August. Mud Day became an international event in 2009 after a meeting between Gillian McAuliffe from Australia and Bishnu Bhatta from Nepal. They got together to talk about ways they could encourage feelings of community and appreciation for the world around us. They wanted to help the children of the Earth feel closer to each other and what better way to do this than to do it through Earth itself.

How should be celebrate:

What better way to start than by getting dirty. One of the most creative and fun activities we could introduce would be to make our own mud in Ferguson Park. We plan to visit the park in both large and small groups to explore an array of activities that can ignite children’s imagination and increase awareness of their senses. Some of our ideas include: mud sculptures, mud pies, mud cakes, muddy swamps, construction sites, streets, roads, towns, jungles, outback Australia, floods, dinosaur land, drawings, paintings, garden patches and an archaeological survey.

We encourage you to embrace Mud Day and come and join in the fun. On both days please dress your child in old clothes, pack rain jackets and gum boots and please provide many spare clothes. If you have any questions please email or come and see me in the Bell Yett Room. We are really excited and look forward to hearing joys of delight from our mud explorers!

Nell Tierney
Coordinator of Mud Explorations!

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ELC Dates for the Diary

• Thursday August 5: Welcome Morning Tea from 8.45am
• Monday August 8: Hallett Friends to Odeon Theatre 10am
• Wednesday August 10: ELC Community Planting Day
• Thursday/Friday August 10 &11: Mud Extravaganza in the ELC
• Wednesday, August 31: Father’s Day Breakfast from 7.45am
• Monday, September 19 , Tuesday, Septmember 20 and Wednesday September 21:
• ELC Parent Teacher Conversations (schedule to come later)

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News from the Stonyfell Room

Welcome everyone to Term 3. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome our new families into our ELC community. The educators in the Stonyfell Room have enjoyed taking this first couple of weeks to get to know you and your children. This time is extremely important to building our foundation for our relationships and developing trusting connections. We also are excited to welcome back our existing families and children and to begin to start our learning and exploration for this term.

Our Unit of Inquiry is “People are connected to their planet”. This inquiry will enable us to unpack with our children what their world looks like to them. We have started the term by focusing on the connection of our home to ELC. This has meant that we are able to do multiple things. Our new children can begin to understand that the ELC is now part of their world and our existing children have been able to further extend on what they know about their world around them. This has been reflected in our literacy focus.

During the past two weeks we have begun focusing on our homes. Our homes are at the centre of our world, they are places of love, trust and family. We are wanting to support our children to build the connection from home to ELC and how the ELC is part of their world. Our focus text Home by Carson Ellis is a simple story depicting different homes, homes around the world and fictional homes. This text has meant that we have been able to create discussion about our homes and build a foundation of learning.

I asked some of our children if they have a home.

“I have a new home.” – Saskia

“I have a little home.” – Jiaen

“My home has a kitchen and mummy cooks in the kitchen.” – Sanisha

This discussion has meant that we can gather an insight into our children’s understandings and view of their world and will inform our program over the coming weeks.

The Stonyfell educators have planned to drive this connection further by exploring what other places and spaces we know about that fit into ‘our’ world. We will be mapping our world around us. To support this ‘image’ we will link our literacy focus into our children exploring actions that they can take to look after their world. This includes caring for our belongings and our environment.

To support our inquiry, our numeracy focus will explore our world and how we can observe and document patterns in the world around us. This will be done in multiple ways such as explorations into Ferguson Park where the children can identify and create their own patterns.

If you have any questions regarding our programing or the learning that is occurring in the Stonyfell Room please feel free to speak to any of our educators or email me directly on lreiters@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au.

Miss Laura Reiters

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News from the Bell Yett Room

Welcome to Term 3 in the Bell Yett Room. A new term always brings much excitement as we welcome new friends and their families. We are thrilled with how quickly the children  have settled into their new learning environment, already developing relationships with their peers and educators. This has been largely due to the way our existing Bell Yett children have supported our new friends by inviting them to join in their play, guiding them in our routines and transitions and acting as positive role models throughout the day.

We have already begun exploring our inquiry for the term. Our central idea is “People are connected to their planet”. Our investigations will build upon our previous learning, with a focus on developing a strong connection to our natural world and developing some sustainable practices. We are eagerly anticipating our Mud Day celebrations which will have a strong connection to our inquiry. We invite you to read our program for more detail regarding our learning experiences.

Leanne and Nell, along with some ELC and Junior School colleagues, were involved in a Primary Years Program (PYP) professional development course the Sunday and Monday before term began, focusing on assessment in the early years. This opportunity provided us with valuable and meaningful theory and practice that has already enriched our learning program. When we plan our PYP Unit of Inquiry we are guided to begin with the end in mind, a term often referred to as ‘backwards by design’. This challenges us to clearly articulate what knowledge, attitudes, skills and concepts we want the children to develop throughout the term. Once we have this end in mind, we can plan intentional learning experiences that are going to support us to achieve our goal.

The PYP places emphasis on the value of Formative Assessment. This is the process by where we observe children during their play and small group learning experiences, record our observations, share and reflect on what we have recorded and use this information to guide our future planning. This term the educators are excited to be using a Floorbook as one tool for Formative Assessment. We anticipate the Floorbook also being a tool for families through which you can see firsthand some of the learning experiences your child is engaging in. We invite you to spend some time sharing this book with your children. Your feedback also has a valued place in our program. We would love for you to share with us any observations you have of your child that may be related to our Unit of Inquiry. We are looking forward to learning in partnership with you and your children this term.

Leanne Williams and Nell Tierney

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News from the Ferguson Room

Welcome to Term 3! We are delighted to greet our new families from the Bell Yett Room and welcome back our existing families. Immediately we see the children becoming members of the Ferguson Room as they begin to make new friendships and connections. Our inquiry this term will see us delve into how people are connected to their planet – an issue that is close to our hearts and pedagogy at the ELC. From the learning in Term 2, we plan to lead the children into this inquiry, continuing what they have learnt and building on their past knowledge.

A big part of our inquiry involves visits to Ferguson Park. We would like to ask that your child always has spare clothes in their bags as we encourage the children to get involved emotionally, intellectually and physically with their environment! We would also love parent helpers to accompany us into the park, so if you would like to be part of this, please see one of the Ferguson educators to let us know your availability. Our connection with Ferguson Park plays an important role in extending children’s skills and attitudes in a variety of ways.

We are excited to share your child’s journey with you and we work hard at communicating what we have been exploring throughout the day. You are invited to look at our program above the sign-in sheet and read our ‘Conversation Starters’ at the end of the day. We hope that a little snippet of what we have been doing will help you start these conversations. We also use the pigeon holes to communicate any information.

If you have any questions, please see me as soon as possible or email me for any further information.

Pamela Foden

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News from the Hallett Room

There is an air of excitement in the Hallett Room as we commence Term 3. It is wonderful to see that the children who have moved across from the Ferguson Room have settled in so quickly and the continuing children in the Hallett Room have their chance to be the leaders in the room.

We have been straight to work in the Hallett Room commencing this term’s unit of inquiry “People are connected to their planet”. We have begun by talking about connection. The children have had some very deep and interesting theories about what connection is.

‘The trees are connected to the ground, the dirt connects them.’ – Charlotte

‘The road is stuck to the ground.’ – Isla

‘The trees are connected to the ground through dirt and water.’ – Matilda Purvis

‘The stem and the leaves are connected, and the flower is connected to the middle.’ – Sophia

‘I drew the trees, they are connected to the wind.’ – Ishana

‘Even with the sky above us we can be connected.’ – Neko

‘Every different land has the same floor.’ – Lola B

This inquiry is all about sharing resources with others on the planet, however we are looking closely at our local environment so that the children feel ownership over their space and therefore feel empowered to act, to protect or to look after their environment. Our hope is that by the end of the term, the children will have a greater understanding of how we are connected to the planet.

Sarah Croston-Melling

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Magic Moment

The Hallett children were very excited last Wednesday when Mrs Thomas visited with her new baby, Eddie. Edward Charlie Thomas was born on May 28.