Early Learning Centre eNews

Term 1

What a fun filled term we have all had, full of learning and laughter!  We cannot believe that we are at the conclusion of our first term for 2015.  Please enjoy reading about our many events throughout these past weeks.  From all of us here in the Early Learning Centre we wish all of our families a very Happy Easter and look forward to seeing everyone back on Monday 13 April 2015.

Wendy Corser and the Early Learning Centre Team

Grandparents Day

We welcomed our lovely Grandparents and special people to Kindergarten this term and entertained them with a mini concert of singing and dancing.

Collaboration/Engagement/Happiness and Harmony

To celebrate and honour Harmony Day last Friday we engaged in special activities with our buddies to acknowledge the importance of diversity and respecting others ideas.   We also enjoyed a whole ELC morning tea.  This term we were also invited down to the Senior School and given a special job by Elisabeth Lenders to ‘cheer up’ the Year 11 and 12 students, who have been working very hard.  The children voted on what songs to sing and we tallied the results to decide on our program.  On the completion of our concert, the Senior School students filled out a survey to reflect on and rate how they felt after our visit.  The overwhelming result was that we raised their wellbeing.

The Kindergarten class and Pre Prep class are engaging in a lot of collaborate engagement this year and we are feeling a strong sense of community in our ELC.

Positive Psychology Parent Evening

There was an overwhelming interest identified in our parent participation survey for an evening on positive psychology.  We started this learning with an afternoon with Janet Etty-Leal on Mindfulness, and I am sure that those of you who were able to attend will agree there were some useful tips for us to take on board. Stay tuned for the date for Term 2, this will be a relaxed evening run by Lucinda Malgas from Senior School for us.

Parent Teacher Information Sharing

It was lovely to meet so many of our families this week to share information about your children’s individual learning needs. If you were not able to make our Parent Teacher Information Sharing and would like to catch up with your child’s teacher please let them know and they will endeavour to make an alternative arrangement for you.  We will also have another evening later in the year to catch up however please feel free to speak to your child’s teacher at any time throughout the year. 

A question that it often raised on these evenings is in relation to school readiness and expectations that schools have for children on commencement.  The below links give a brief overview of school readiness. When we liaise with Prep teachers, they always emphasise that children do not need to come to them reading and writing.  An awareness of numbers and letters and being able to write their name can be beneficial but is not essential, but being able to manipulate tools such as scissors and pencils do give children a handy head start.  I have also attached the Kingsnet link to our ELC literacy document.  Literacy and numeracy are very important elements of our ELC program and are embedded in much of our learning and teaching.  If you would like to discuss this further your child’s teacher or myself we welcome this opportunity.

'Kingswood College' website - click here
'Early Life' website - click here
"Royal Children's Hospital' website - click here

Please remember to look at your class pages on Kingsnet to see further reflections on the learning that has been taking place during this busy term!