Monthly Archives: August 2023

ELC News – Week 6, Term 3 2023

August 29, 2023NewsAnastasia Vento

Dear Families

It was fabulous to see so many families at our Book Week parade last week. The excitement and joy was tangible as the children arrived in their costumes and saw their friends and educators dressed up too. We had a large array of costumes with many books represented. This was a wonderful opportunity to come together as a community and celebrate our favourite book characters. It was also delightful to have Ms Skewes and Ms Haddy read to the children in the ELC. Ms Skewes’ witch costume was definitely a highlight!

Book Week is the perfect time to remind ourselves about the importance of supporting children to develop a love for reading and we encourage you to make a time each day to read to your child. Books bring a richness to our lives because they educate and expand our imaginations. Reading and sharing literature supports our curiosity, helps us develop problem solving and thinking skills, and lays the foundation for emerging reading and writing development. While you’re reading to your child, help them build their comprehension skills by discussing the pictures, characters and storyline and making predictions about what might happen next. During your discussions, support your child to make connections between what they are reading and their experience of the world. Most importantly, have fun and develop a bank of favourite books that you can revisit many times.

This week, we are looking forward to our Father’s and Treasured Friends’ Afternoon Tea. It will be wonderful to welcome special people to the ELC, to celebrate how important they are and thank them for the contribution they make to our lives.

Liz Schembri
Director of ELC

Important Dates

Friday September 1: Father’s and Treasured Friends’ Afternoon Tea, 2pm
Tuesday 19 September, Wednesday 20 September & Monday 25 September: ELC Parent-Teacher Conversations
Monday 2 October: Public Holiday (ELC closed)
Tuesday 3 October – Friday 13 October: Vacation Care

2023 REAIE Conference, Landscapes of Curiosity and Creativity: In Dialogue with the 100 Languages

At St Peter’s Girls’ ELC, we partake in various learning and professional development activities and events. In the July school holidays, Caterina, Annabelle and Laura attended the REAIE Landscapes of Curiosity and Creativity conference in Melbourne.

 This opportunity allowed us to share in current thinking from Reggio Emilia, encouraging us to reflect on how we embed these themes into our daily practice.

 Presenters from across Australia and Reggio Emilia shared stories from their contexts, giving us insight into how opportunities for children to express creativity are woven throughout each part of their day.

These presentations further developed our understanding of how promoting creativity goes beyond providing a range of creative materials.

We recognise that children will express themselves creatively when provided with experiences that inspire curiosity and encourage problem-solving.

Educators need to extend the longevity of projects to allow time to revisit experiences, hold conversations and participate in the joy of imagination and creativity.

News from Learning Community 1

‘No one will protect what they don’t care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced’ – David Attenborough

As we delve into our current inquiry ‘Our Actions Can Impact Our World’, we have discovered that this lends itself to working with a scientific lens. During our regular visits to Ferguson Park, the children have been encouraged to work scientifically, using all our senses to engage and explore the environment. What can you hear? See? Smell? Feel?

The children have noticed the creatures that live in Ferguson Park: the bees, ants, millipedes, magpies, lorikeets, and kookaburras. They have used their knowledge of Kaurna culture and language to share stories and label plants and trees. They have observed the seasonal changes in the environment as the wattle and flowers begin to bloom.

The children have been invited to collect small specimens of plants to take back to the ELC. This provides them with further opportunities for observation and research and allows them to document their findings through drawing, painting, photography, and clay work.

Creating connections with our surrounding environment has allowed us to further explore how we can protect and care for the environment. We have created links between our sustainable practices and our Acknowledgement of Country, where we promise to ‘look after everything on the land, the people and the animals.’ The children are developing their understanding that their actions can impact their world, both now and in the future.

Nell Tierney, Annabelle Redmond and Jess Catt
Learning Community 1

News from Learning Community 2

Storytelling and Sustainability

This term across our Learning Community, we have been focusing on exploring and unpacking our ‘Acknowledgement of Country’ with the children. As we move through the weeks, we have now developed a clear path forward and have filled our learning spaces with provocations and experiences that engage and connect children to our inquiry.

Our educator intention has been to build the children’s understanding of sustainability and the importance of:

‘Looking after everything on the land, the people and the animals.”

A tool that we often use is storytelling. When the children can hear and see the impact they can have, it helps solidify these larger concepts. They have also been given the opportunity to retell these stories through play and have been provided with the resources to engage in their own storytelling.

As these stories become part of our everyday landscape of learning and supporting the children to deepen their understanding and knowledge, we are also embedding a range of actions that we can take to become more sustainable. It is important when teaching children concepts such as sustainability and responsibility that they feel empowered to have an action they can use to make a difference.

These have included:

Putting our rubbish in the bin
Taking care of our resources in our learning spaces
Reusing a wide range of materials that would have ended up in landfill

Our goal is for the children to understand the impact they have on the world and that their actions always have an impact.

Chloe Skoss and Laura Reiters
Learning Community 2

News from Pathway to School

Our educator intention this term is to support the children to understand that sustainability is about the small changes that we can make to help look after the planet. Making these changes helps protect animals, plants, and our natural resources so that we, and future generations, will be able to enjoy them. Our strategy to help the Pathway to School children understand this intention is through practical, hands-on experiences.

The children have been working in the ELC Community Garden and we asked kindly for our own garden bed to care for, protect and sustain. We created a project plan and as this developed, the children shared their desire to create a scarecrow to protect the seedlings from the birds. During the last couple of weeks, we have delved more deeply into understanding what a scarecrow is and how we can make one for our garden bed.

The children have:

Challenged each other’s thinking through rigorous discussion and debate
Developed their language skills through describing, explaining and storytelling
Developed their imaginative skills
Enhanced our group function
Worked together towards a shared goal
Developed cognitive thinking skills
Explored mathematical concepts such as measurement, number and data

We look forward to our next steps in our scarecrow project. The children suggested that we needed to consider making two scarecrows and are working together to design, agree upon and decide upon its features. We explained to the children that we didn’t want to buy new clothing or many materials but rather repurpose and reuse items that we already have. Some children may come home asking for spare clothes or hats for our scarecrow and we would love any donations that we can use.

Kirsty Porplycia and Kathy McCabe
Learning Community 2 (Pathway)

Staff Spotlight: Valentina Fernandes

My name is Valentina Fernandes and I am a Co-Educator and Vacation Care Leader in Learning Community 1 at St Peter’s Girls’ Early Learning Centre.

I have a Diploma in Early Childhood Education and have been working at St Peter’s Girls’ ELC since 2021.

I believe a child’s early years set the foundation for their future development and early childhood education provides the necessary tools in developing a holistic approach to a child’s social, emotional, cognitive and physical needs. Working and learning alongside children gives me unconditional joy. And it makes me proud to be a part of an institution that is driven by the Reggio Emilia approach, providing quality learning experiences for our children.

I love being a part of the early morning team as it gives me the opportunity to welcome our children and families to the ELC. I believe that having a consistent welcoming ritual every morning is important. The children see familiar faces as they arrive, we play calming music and reset the room. This helps make the transition from home to ELC seamless and it creates a sense of belonging.

As well as being an Educator, I am also a professional baker and I love combining both my passions in the ELC. Working alongside the teachers in LC1, I incorporate cooking experiences in line with the unit of inquiry. We emphasise the importance of ‘garden to plate’ and the Hallett Community Garden provides us with bountiful produce to cook with. Cooking also teaches children social skills, numeracy, literacy, naming ingredients and how to work as a team. I love how a cooking experience starts with two children and finishes with 10 children participating. There is so much joy on their faces when they see their finished product and taste it. It’s priceless! I am very blessed to provide this opportunity to them.

Vacation Care – Term 3 Holidays

Vacation Care will run from Tuesday 3 – Friday 13 October.
Please note: Monday 2 October is a public holiday and the ELC will be closed.

Families must book the days they would like their child to attend Vacation Care.
To access our online booking form, click here

Alternatively, you can contact Wolita Harding via ELCVacationCare@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au

Vacation Care runs similar to a normal day within the ELC, led by Valentina Fernandes in Learning Community 1 and Alexandra Portus in Learning Community 2. Our days are filled with a range of creative, inquiry-based and hands-on experiences, using our indoor and outdoor spaces as well as our ELC Community Garden and the School lawns. Children will frequently participate in music, dance, picnics on the lawns, gross motor skills and cooking experiences.

Similar to typical ELC days, children will need to bring their own packed lunch, hat, water bottle and a change of clothes. Due to allergies, we ask that you do not pack nuts. A healthy morning and afternoon tea and late snack will continue to be provided to children.

If you need to make changes to your booking, please email ELCVacationCare@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au

Please note: As Vacation Care is staffed based on bookings, please make your Vacation Care bookings by Friday 29 September (Week 10). Due to limited spaces during vacation care, please book early. Any bookings made after this date will incur a late booking fee of $5 added on top of the daily rate per child.

Parent-Teacher Conversations

ELC Parent-Teacher Conversations bookings will open on Tuesday 5 September. Below are the dates to note:

Hallett and Ferguson Rooms:
Tuesday 19 – Wednesday 20 September

Bell Yett, Stonyfell and Pathway Rooms:
Tuesday 19, Wednesday 20 and Monday 25 September

This is an opportunity for parents to meet your child’s teacher and discuss their learning. From these discussions, future goals for your child may be created to ensure they reflect the perspectives of parents and educators.

Information on how to book will be communicated with you in the coming week.

Tomorrow: Fathers and Treasured Friends’ Afternoon Tea

Tomorrow: Friday 1 September, 2pm in the ELC

We invite you to our Father’s and Treasured Friends’ Afternoon Tea. We will be celebrating Father’s Day and the inspirational men in the children’s lives including fathers, grandfathers and uncles. We hope to see you there!

来自ELC园长：

Emma Huang

亲爱的家长朋友们，

在上周的图书周游行中，我们很高兴看到这么多家庭的到来。孩子们穿着书中人物的服装来到学校，看到他们的朋友和老师们也扮演各种人物出席，现场充满了令人激动喜悦时刻。我们看到了许多书中人物的装扮。这是一个很好的机会，让我们作为一个社区聚集在一起，庆祝我们最喜欢的书中人物。我们也很高兴看到校长Skewes女士和Haddy女士为ELC的孩子们朗读。Skewes女士的女巫服装绝对是一个亮点!

图书周的活动是我们支持孩子培养对阅读的热爱，是十分重要的。我们鼓励家长朋友们每天抽出时间给你的孩子读书。书籍丰富了我们的生活，因为书籍有着教育的意义以及扩展了我们的想象力。阅读和分享文学作品满足了我们的好奇心，帮助我们培养解决问题和提高思考的能力，为新兴的阅读和写作发展奠定了基础。当你给孩子读书时，通过讨论图片、人物和故事情节，并预测接下来可能发生的事情，帮助他们建立理解能力。在你的讨论互动中，帮助孩子们通过阅读与世界建立联系。最重要的是，孩子们的快乐学习，并建立一个丰富的书籍库，孩子们可以随时浏览探索。

本周，我们期待着父亲和孩子们“重要朋友”的到来，一起共享下午茶。欢迎他们生活中“特别的人”来到ELC，庆祝他们对孩子的重要意义，感谢他们对我们生活的贡献，这将是一件十分美好的事情。

园长

Liz Schembri

Emma Huang works in Learning Community 1 on Mondays and Tuesdays from 8:30am – 4:30pm.

Car Parking Notice

Emma Huang

A reminder to parents to be extra vigilant when parking their car on Hallett Road, Stonyfell Road and the School car park during drop-off and pick-up times. The health and safety of our community is our highest priority, and we ask parents to park their vehicle in a safe and designated parking space on these roads and neighbouring streets. With a constant flow of traffic on the main roads surrounding our School, and families and children present in this vicinity, it is crucial for all drivers to move in and out of parking spaces with caution.

Please supervise children closely when getting into and out of the car. Families are reminded to use the pedestrian crossing to safely cross Hallett Road and Stonyfell Road and model appropriate road safety behaviour. Please do not leave siblings or other children in the car when dropping off or collecting your child.

Ladies’ Night Out

Date: Wednesday 20 September, Week 9
Venue: Regal Theatre, 275 Kensington Road, Kensington Park
Time: Foyer opens at 6.30pm (movie starts 7.30pm)
Movie: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
Cost: $25 per person
Raffle tickets: $5 for 1 ticket, $10 for 3 tickets

Grab your girlfriends, mothers and sisters and get ready for a fabulous night celebrating the power of family and laughter at our ‘Ladies’ Night Out’ with the highly anticipated My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3.

You’ll be welcomed onboard with a complimentary glass of bubbles and chocolate bar, ready to transport you to Greece with the hilarious Portokalos family as they embark on another antic-filled adventure.

Raffle tickets are available to purchase online with your tickets. Prizes include tickets to Choral Night 2024 and this year’s Carols in the Cathedral – waltz past the queues straight to your reserved seats with the VIP guests! We also have 4 x one month OSX Outdoor Group Fitness Training vouchers (each voucher is for one person and valued at $160 each) kindly donated by Susanna Parkinson (current Year 9 parent).

This wonderful community event is hosted by The Friends of The Arts group with all
proceeds going directly to support the many wonderful Arts programs Saints Girls enjoy.

Join us for an evening to remember.

To book tickets – click here

Late Fee Reminder

A reminder to all families that a late fee is applied for any pickups after 6pm, Monday to Friday in the ELC.

The fee is as follows: $15 per every 15 minutes after 6pm.

We ask all parents to remember to sign their children in and out when arriving and departing from the Centre. This helps to ensure that we have an accurate record of all children who are present at any given time.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our ELC Enrolments and Finance Officer Sarah Elliott via selliott@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au

Thank you for your understanding.

Sun Smart Practices in the ELC

Following Cancer Council advice, our Centre has strong guidelines for sun protection, mainly on days the UV is 3 and above. Recently, the UV has been high for small parts of the day; therefore, it is important for families to be aware of the following.

We ask all families to please return your child’s hat to the ELC, so our Centre can be prepared for warmer days throughout the term as well as Term 4.

It’s important that children access the outdoor spaces and Ferguson Conservation Park, which requires children to wear their hats depending on the weather. Please ensure your child’s hat is labelled clearly with their name.

Thank you for supporting our sun safe practices.

For more information, please visit the Cancer Council website.

School Health Centre Notices

Minimise the spread!

To minimise the spread of illness please keep your child at home if they have:

received Panadol or Nurofen in the morning
a fever of 38 or above – children can return to the Centre 24 hours after their last elevated temperature
swollen glands
a continuous runny nose
a sore throat
a consistent cough without a doctor’s clearance
been unusually tired or lethargic
been vomiting or have diarrhoea. Children should be kept home until the these symptoms have been absent for at least 24 hours.
an undiagnosed rash

We look forward to your child returning once their symptoms are cleared so they can be happy and engaged in learning.

Remember to cover coughs and sneezes with your elbow and wash hands regularly for at least 20 seconds.

COVID-19 Information

Please find the latest guidance from SA Health:

It is strongly recommended that students stay home if they have cold or flu-like symptoms, and test for COVID-19.
Whether they receive a positive or negative result, they should stay home until symptoms subside (usually five to seven days).

If your child tests positive to COVID-19, please notify the School. Please also notify the School each day of absence, or provide the expected period of absence.

You can notify us via one of the following methods. Please include the name of the ELC Room. If emailing, feel free to ‘CC’ the teacher/s of the room as well.

Email: attendance@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au Text: 0428 601 957 (save to phone contacts as SPGS) Phone: 8334 2200

If children are displaying symptoms, it is mandatory that we send them home. SA Health guidelines advise that symptoms include:

Fever (a temperature of 37.5˚C or higher) or chills
Cough
Loss of taste or smell
Sore throat
Tiredness (fatigue)
Runny or blocked nose
Shortness of breath (difficulty breathing)
Nausea, vomiting or diarrhoea
Headache
Muscle or joint pain
Loss of appetite

For more SA Health information, click here

Please note that if your child is unwell, they should remain home until they have recovered, irrespective of the illness.

ELC Immunisation Policy

Under the Government’s No Jab No Play policy, families must meet immunisation requirements to attend the ELC and receive the Child Care Subsidy. Families are required to provide all approved immunisation records to the ELC. Further information is available by clicking here.

Children who are suffering from illnesses such as those listed below must be excluded from ELC in line with our Exclusion Policy:

Influenza
Chicken Pox
Conjunctivitis
Diarrhoea
Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease
High Temperature
Infectious Hepatitis
Measles
Meningitis
Mumps
Rubella (German Measles)
Scabies
Scarlet Fever
School Sores (Impetigo)
Upper Respiratory Tract Infection
Vomiting
Whooping Cough

As part of our approach to prioritising health and safety, we implement effective hygiene practices and work to prevent and effectively deal with any infectious disease in line with the Education and Care Services National Regulations and the advice of health experts. If your child has one of the following, chickenpox, measles, rubella, meningococcal or tuberculosis or any other vaccine preventable diseases we ask that you inform the Centre as soon as possible.

Important Allergy Information

Please remember allergy awareness when packing food for your child. We kindly ask you to refrain from packing nuts or nut products in your child’s lunch box. We have members of our community across the Centre with severe food allergies to the following:

Nuts
Dairy
Sesame
Fish and shellfish
Egg
Banana

Due to the severity of these allergies, we are asking that you be mindful of this when packing food for your child. Please ensure food is safely packaged and/or contained. If you have any questions, please see your child’s Room Teacher. We appreciate your cooperation in keeping our community safe.

Find Out What Happens Throughout the Day at ELC

myLink is our School’s parent portal, where families have access to a range of resources including the ELC Home Page. Our ELC Home Page is a dynamic online sharing space that invites you to participate in our learning. We use this tool to house important information for families and provide a window into your child’s life at the ELC, with educators sharing documentation of teaching, specialist lessons and spontaneous moments. This page can also be accessed through your smartphone, via the Canvas App.

Accessing myLink for the first time:

Each parent has an individual username to access our myLink Parent Portal. Please note that the username is your ID number followed by @stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au (your ID number has been provided to you in an email from the School). If you have not accessed myLink before or have forgotten your password, please follow these steps:

Visit https://mylink.stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
Sign in with your parent username
Click on ‘Forgot my password’
Make sure the ‘email’ address is your parent username, type in the code, then click the blue ‘Next’ button
Enter your mobile number registered with the School, with the area code (Australia is +61), dropping the 0 at the beginning (e.g. +61 400000000). Then select ‘Text’
Enter the security code sent to your mobile number
Enter the password you would like to use and click ‘Finish’
Return to the login screen at https://mylink.stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au to access myLink

Accessing the Learning Community Home Page through myLink:

Access myLink as per the above instructions
Click on the ‘MYLINK HOME’ tab
Click on your child’s name tab
Under ‘Class Contacts’, click on the ELC room name (you may need to enter your user name and password again)

Accessing the Canvas Parent App for the first time:

Ensure you have previously logged in to myLink on a PC
Download the Canvas Parent App from your App Store
Click the ‘Find School’ button
Look up: stpetersgirls
Log in using your parent username and password
Tap on ‘ELC 2023’
Click on ‘Front Page’ on the top right-hand side
Here, you can navigate the page through the app

Please note: we do not use the message feature on this app, and ask families to contact their child’s teacher via email rather than this message feature.

If you have any issues accessing or navigating myLink, please contact our IT Hub via helpdesk@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au or 8334 2227.

ELC’s Online Etiquette Policy: please note that the ELC Learning Community Home Page and ELC News contain images and videos of other children. We therefore ask that you do not copy or share images or videos, especially on social media, if they contain other children.

Absences in the ELC

If your child will not be attending ELC due to illness or otherwise, please notify the School via one of the following methods and include the name of the ELC Room. If emailing, feel free to ‘CC’ the teacher/s of the room as well. Please also provide a reason for the absence as the School requires this for government reporting purposes.

Email: attendance@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au
Text: 0428 601 957 (save to phone contacts as SPGS)
Phone: 8334 2200

ELC Room Contacts

- Stonyfell – 8155 5778
- Bell Yett – 8155 5780
- Ferguson – 8155 5776
- Hallett – 8155 5775
- Pathway – 8334 2250

Return to listing

ELC News – Week 4, Term 3 2023

August 15, 2023NewsJessica

Dear Families

It was wonderful to see so many of you attend our Meet the Teacher Information Evening. Our Central Idea for Term 3 is Our Actions Impact Our World. As families moved through the Centre, the emphasis of our Central Idea was evident through the carefully curated learning spaces, where we utilised sustainable loose parts to encourage curiosity. Many families also stopped past our new Atelier to see the materials and resources available. Our Atelierista, Caterina, has worked hard and passionately on this space and we are very excited to see the children interacting and learning together.

The children have enjoyed working with loose parts; they are tactile, versatile and open-ended materials that can easily be manipulated and combined in different ways. Loose parts allow children to explore and find out more about them, encouraging engagement and imaginative play. Loose parts can be big or small; you can find them in your house or workplace! They include materials such as boxes, paper tubes, bottle tops, buttons, beads, straws, rocks, wooden planks, and pallets. They can be natural or recycled materials that play an important role in enhancing children’s cognitive skills.

Some toys can be one-dimensional with limited opportunities for creativity and imagination as they have a predetermined purpose. This is why we encourage the children to explore loose parts; it is great to see them focusing on the different shapes, textures and colours. They are curious about what they pick up, asking questions and discussing ways to re-use the parts.

We look forward to sharing photos from today’s event, An Afternoon in the Atelier: Meeting the Hundred Languages, an exciting celebration of the opening of this wonderful new space.

Liz Schembri
Director of ELC

Important Dates

Friday September 1: Fathers and Treasured Friends’ Afternoon Tea, 2pm
Wednesday 23 August: Book Week Dress Up

The Atelier: Our New and Inspiring Learning Space

Our ELC architecture has been enriched by another inspiring learning space: the Atelier. The Atelier is designed as a flexible environment that encourages child-led learning processes, problem-solving and creativity. It is a space immersed in natural light facing Ferguson Conservation Park, our daily landscape and constant inspiration. The magnificent view transforms the Atelier into a zone that connects with nature right at its doorstep. This is valuable for the children as it supports their relationship with the Kaurna Land and culture.

The location of the Atelier at the core of our ELC also enables connections with the Piazza, our meeting place. Its positioning ignites a creative dialogue between the two Learning Communities. We feel fortunate and proud to be able to learn and research in an inspiring environment. We look forward to utilising everything our new Atelier has to offer, exploring the endless potential of the Hundred Languages and sharing our projects with the wider community.

Caterina Pennestri
Atelierista

News from Learning Community 1

A big thank you to those who attended our ELC Meet the Teacher Information Evening last Wednesday night. This was a valuable time where we were able to unpack what your child’s day looks like in Learning Community 1 and how we embed learning intentions into our daily rituals and classroom experiences.

Our current inquiry has led us to explore the story Not a Box. The children have been entranced by this story, joyfully anticipating the transformation of the box and what it becomes. There are many benefits of reading the same story repeatedly in Early Childhood: it enables the promotion of early literacy skills, brain development, imagination, and it sparks curiosity. In our classrooms, we have created story tables for the children to engage with. It is a space where their imagination can be ignited to invent new characters and create their own Not a Box. As children are independently interacting with these tables, they are developing skills in collaboration, including turn-taking and sharing and building language to positively work alongside others.

By exploring with boxes of various shapes and sizes, children can create, organise and communicate mathematical ideas and concepts. This form of organised play enables children to investigate, experiment, test hypotheses and explore ideas. This week we will be inviting the children to record their thinking using mark making, drawing and photography.

Reading the Not a Box story and providing a differentiated active learning environment has enabled children to make meaning and gain knowledge using all areas of the curriculum. As educators we play a crucial role in these learning environments, encouraging children to discover deeper meanings and make connections among ideas and between concepts and representations.

Nell Tierney, Annabelle Redmond and Jess Catt
Learning Community 1

News from Learning Community 2

To introduce this term’s inquiry of Our Actions Impact Our World, the children across Learning Community 2 have been visiting our neighbouring Ferguson Conservation Park. These visits are always highly anticipated by everyone in the ELC and allow for meaningful connections to be made with nature. Our outings to the park also enable children to develop a greater appreciation and awareness of our environment and how we share our planet through the identification of various flora and fauna.

Each time the children venture out into the park, they make different observations and notice more intricate details about the flora and fauna. As the term progresses, so will our exploration into the concept of sustainability; however, in order to look through the lens of sustainability in the coming weeks, we want children to firstly come face-to-face with the beauty of their natural environment and develop a deep understanding of what it is that we are trying to protect through our sustainable actions.

Our recent encounters in Ferguson Conservation Park have been deeply inspired by Sir David Attenborough’s quote:

“No one will protect what they don’t care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced”.

Chloe Skoss and Laura Reiters
Learning Community 2

News from Pathway to School

The Pathway to School class has been visiting the ELC Community Garden in small groups. The children have enjoyed this time together to connect with their peers and explore new friendships by working alongside someone who they haven’t spent a lot of time with. The children have been involved in prepping the soil and the garden beds for planting some vegetables in connection with our inquiry into Our actions affect the world we live in. The educators identified a need for the children to take responsibility for something relevant and meaningful to them, where they would be able to see the action they were taking to care for the environment with a sustainable mindset. We feel the Community Garden will be a successful vehicle for our learning intentions.

The children also explored many problem-solving strategies during our visit to the garden beds such as:

How do we make the garden beds and soil ready for more planting?
What will we plant?
How will we get the seeds?
Who can we ask as an expert to help us in our community?

We often start our inquiry posing many questions to the children as it starts a conversation and it helps develop brain synapsis about the topic at hand. Asking children open ended questions during the inquiry will stimulate and support reflection and increase their level of self-control.

We have encouraged many mathematical connections through voting and data collecting as a class. The Pathway children have become very keen mathematicians and are becoming very skilled at reading data and summarising what we have found. The children have begun learning about the way ‘5’ can look in different ways when collecting data and seeing addition and grouping as a skill when counting large numbers quickly on the data poster.

Kirsty Porplycia and Kathy McCabe
Learning Community 2 (Pathway)

Staff Spotlight: Joshua Romeo

My name is Joshua Romeo, and I’m a Co-Educator at St Peter’s Girls’ Early Learners’ Centre.

I graduated from the University of South Australia in 2018 with a Bachelor of Early Childhood Education. Before joining St Peter’s Girls’ ELC in 2019, I worked as a relief Educator in other Adelaide independent school ELCs.

I believe early childhood is a special time in one’s life, and as such, it should be respected and appreciated for the beauty it possesses. Working alongside children every day is a great privilege, and I’m always amazed by their curiosity and creativity. I also understand the huge responsibility that we hold as educators, as we help the children in our care to grow into caring and compassionate citizens of their world.

I am the morning Co-Educator for Learning Community 2 and I really enjoy being able to greet families and help settle children into their day at the ELC. Our mornings start together in the Piazza with Learning Community 1, where we are lucky to share some quiet moments together as a whole community.

Sharing this time together helps children develop familiarity with all educators across the Centre, while also allowing children to reconnect with some of their former educators, spend time with friends in different rooms and even have a chance to play with their siblings!

This year I have been fortunate to be the Key Co-Educator in the Pathway to School room, working alongside Mrs Kirsty Porplycia and Mrs Kathy McCabe. Our Pathway to School room hosts our oldest children who are in their final six months at the ELC and supports their transition to formal schooling. In the Pathway to School room, we have a strong focus on developing learning dispositions that will strengthen children’s transition to School, such as building confidence to share with the group, emotional regulation and social skills, speaking and listening skills, increasing children’s independence, and supporting children to take responsibility for their belongings. The learning opportunities offered in the Pathway to School room help to support children’s emerging literacy and numeracy skills, as they engage in a wide range of inquiry-based experiences.

I look forward to seeing you and your family around the ELC!

Book Week Dress Up – Wednesday 23 August

We invite your child to dress up as their favourite Book Week character on Wednesday 23 August.

We would love for you to come and watch our Book Week Parade at 9.30am at the ELC on this day.

Fathers and Treasured Friends’ Afternoon Tea

Friday 1 September, 2pm in the ELC

We invite you to our Fathers and Treasured Friends’ Afternoon Tea. We will be celebrating Father’s Day and the inspirational men in the children’s lives including fathers, grandfathers and uncles. We hope to see you there!

来自ELC园长：

Emma Huang

亲爱的家长朋友们，

很高兴看到这么多家庭参加我们的教师信息交流会。我们第三学期的中心思想是“我们的行为影响我们的世界”。当我们的家庭往来ELC之间，他们可以时时刻刻看到我们通过精心策划的学习空间，我们利用可持续的松散零部件（开放性材料）来鼓励孩子们的好奇心。许多家庭路过我们的新工作室，可以看到正在被使用中的材料和资源。我们的美育教学专家Caterina在这个空间里付出了努力和热情，我们很高兴看到孩子们在一起互动学习。

孩子们喜欢摆弄松散零部件（开放性材料）;它们是有触感的、多功能的、开放式的材料，可以很容易地以不同的方式运用和组合。松散零部件让孩子们有机会探索和发现更多相关的东西，并鼓励他们参与富有想象力的游戏。松散零部件可大可小;你可以在家里或工作场所找到它们! 它们包括盒子、纸管、瓶盖、纽扣、珠子、吸管、石头、木板和托盘等材料。它们可以是天然的或可回收的材料，在提高儿童的认知技能方面发挥着重要作用。

有些玩具可能是一维的，对于创造力和想象力的机会是有限的，因为它们有一个预定的目的。这就是为什么我们鼓励孩子们去探索松散零部件;极其好的是看到孩子们专注于运用不同形状、纹理和颜色的材料。他们对发现的东西感到好奇，会问问题，讨论如何再利用这些零件。

我们期待着与您分享今天活动的照片，“工作室的一个下午:与百种语言的相遇”，这是一个令人兴奋的、值得庆祝的瞬间——这个美妙的新空间的开幕活动。

Liz Schembri

Emma Huang works in Learning Community 1 on Mondays and Tuesdays from 8:30am – 4:30pm.

Ladies’ Night Out

This wonderful community event is hosted by The Friends of The Arts group with all
proceeds going directly to support the many wonderful Arts programs Saints Girls enjoy.

Join us for an evening to remember.

To book tickets – click here

Late Fee Reminder

A reminder to all families that a late fee is applied for any pickups after 6pm, Monday to Friday in the ELC.

The fee is as follows: $15 per every 15 minutes after 6pm.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our ELC Enrolments and Finance Officer Sarah Elliott via selliott@stpetersgirls.sa.edu.au

Thank you for your understanding.

Sun Smart Practices in the ELC

We ask all families to please return your child’s hat to the ELC, so our Centre can be prepared for warmer days throughout the term as well as Term 4.

Thank you for supporting our sun safe practices.

For more information, please visit the Cancer Council website.