2020 Newsletter Term 01 | Issue 01

Welcome back Elouera! this week we have spent some time exploring Chinese new year and what it means to celebrate it. We have painted dragons, we cooked “cong you bing” (a chinese pancake), we tried some traditional dragon dancing and we had a great time tasting some different Chinese fruits. We tried a dragonfruit, lychee, fig, passionfruit and a rambuton.

Celebrations are an important part of the child’s world and can be used to bring people together, to create a feeling of belonging and to develop a sense of community amongst families, educators and children.

Exploring a wide variety of celebrations in the classroom can be an enriching experience for children and provides an opportunity to develop respect for diverse values and beliefs as they learn about practices which are different to their own.

– Corinne, Debbie & Sarah

We would like to welcome everyone to the Burbangana class for 2020. The first few weeks we have been exploring the classroom and getting to know where our favourite materials are. There have been new friendships formed and old friends reunited with lots of stories about our holiday adventures.

The value in being a part of the mixed aged class has been evident in the activities the children are participating in. Older children have the chance to become mentors to their younger classmates, while learning and practicing important leadership skills. Younger children naturally look up to and emulate older children, and so in a classroom with a range of ages, there are always natural opportunities for a child to be a leader. Older students can learn the joy of teaching their younger peers.

Children learn through observing. Watching older children do their work not only provides a model for how to proceed, it motivates young children to practice and achieve mastery over their tasks.

– Amanda & Teresa

What a wonderful start to the school year. The children were so excited to see their friends and make new friends. It is always amazing to see the older children return as leaders of the school supporting the younger children in the class. This is why a Montessori classroom has mixed age groups and this week we saw it in action. During the year the children celebrate many different events from other cultures as the children learn about the world around them. We have started to investigate Chinese New Year. This will be studied over the next few weeks and will incorporate stories, role play, craft,cooking and visits from parents. So lots happening.

– Jenny, Jo & Angela

Welcome back everyone.

 “What can we research?” Was the question.  

“What do you want to research?” was the answer.
 “Maybe frogs?”  Said the child

“Ok let’s see what we can find!” it went from that simple conversation to a week all about frogs and toads.  We’ve examined the life cycle of a frog and we’ve been lucky enough to get some tadpoles to look after.  We’ve looked at the difference between a frog and a toad, habitats, the biggest and smallest frogs in the world.  We’ve sung counting songs and jumped about like frogs. Children have been colouring, cutting, sequencing, engaging in conversations, laughing, jumping and making frog noises.  A busy first couple weeks, what will the rest of the term hold, that’s up to the children!

– Dawn

We have had a lovely start to the Kindergarten. First of all we have celebrated Dylan’s birthday with a birthday circle and Elizabeth’s birthday. We have been finding out which year we were born as part of Chinese New Year and the Zodiac. The children have been learning about the Great Animal Race and have been acting this out. 

There has been an interest in the golden beads and making amounts. The beads are an excellent material to learn about place value. They teach us about unit, tens, hundreds and thousands. 

Making short words has also been popular, with the children keen to share the letter sounds they know and matching words to objects. We have been learning to segment words and hear the starting, middle and ending sound. 

A woodlouse was found in the garden and this sparked interest to help save all the insects in the garden. Some children made small booklets explaining what we can do to protect the insects. We spoke about why the woodlouse curls into a ball. 

We are excited for the projects, walks and stories we will make this year. 

– Elizabeth

We would like to give everybody a warm welcome from Aikya’s classroom. We are all very excited to be back at school and in the company of friends. We are also very pleased to welcome new students into the class.

The first weeks of the year are always to adapt to new routines, new books and new ways of doing things. We are all doing our part and are very happy to say that we have had a very good start!

We have been talking about the impressionistic lesson “The Creation of the Universe”. This story is an introduction to chemistry, physics, geography, history and other cultural subjects – children are left with many questions and experiments are conducted afterwards in which students learn about three states of matter, volcanic explosions and gravity amongst others.

In To Educate the Human Potential, Montessori states, “Our aim, therefore, is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to memorize, but so to touch his/her imagination as to enthuse him/her to his inmost core”

– Laura, Philippa & Toby

This term we welcome our new students Pearl, Travis and Dash to our Yani class. They have moved up to becoming year 4 students in Stage 3. They have settled in really well, it is almost like they are not new students to Yani. 

Our teachers have come up with an idea to build our teamwork skills by playing the ball game called Over Under. We worked as a team to get a time of 6 minutes and 20 seconds, we will continue to work as a team and hopefully we beat our time this week.

One of our students Dash, adopted a koala that is partially blind from the fires, the koala lives in Port Macquarie Hospital. He adopted the koala for Christmas because he loves koalas’ and wanted to help. 

This week we have decided that for our first sewing project for this year we will be making pouches for the kangaroo joeys. The joey’s that will get these pouches have been affected by the fires and their mother’s can not care for them. All this information and more is on the email that was sent out. 

This week we celebrated Milly’s 11^th birthday. She gave us a gift that will be well used it is a digital microscope kit. It can zoom in at a high level and can connect to a computer so what you see through the lens is what you see on the computer. There are many other cool things that come with it. Thank you Milly. 

Toby brought in delicious peaches that he picked from his farm and we got to eat them during lunch time, we all loved them. Thank you Toby. 

– By Xavier and Jessica

– Claire, Jessica & Philippa 

Dear Families,

We would like to welcome all our existing and new families to the Farmhouse OSHC family. We hope that you all have had a relaxing and enjoyable break over Christmas. We look forward to welcoming our new Kindergarten children and the additional new families, as we strive to have a warm start to the year, where all the children in our care feel a strong sense of belonging. We are delighted to have a consistent team at the Centre including, Sarah as our Centre Coordinator and Ella as our Assistant Coordinator. Furthermore, the team is supported by Hannah and Jaimee who are the Regional Managers and Educational Leaders of the Centre. They visit once a fortnight to work with the team.

We continue to participate in ongoing training related to providing a high-quality service which exceeds the National Standard prescribed by the National Quality Framework. We look forward to sharing with you our Quality Improvement Plan and other program initiatives and events over the year.

Please see our Program Notice Board for fun and exciting weekly activities directed by the children’s suggestions and learning journey. Our Clubs this term are Arts and Craft club, Walking and Exploring club and Environment and Sustainability club, which are ongoing and will be commencing week two, Term One. Plus, introducing our new Coding Club which was chosen after discussion with the children.                  

Next Week Events:

17^th -21^st Feburary – Random acts of kindness week

If you would like more information about Primary OSH Care or our centre and how to enrol, please visit our website www.primaryoshcare.com.au

From Amanda, Sarah and all the OSHC staff at Farmhouse Montessori OSHC Centre