2023 Newsletter Term 01 | Issue 04

In Elouera we have been doing lots of cooking. The children have been helping to make bread, pizza, sushi, carrot cake and ice tea. The children enjoy taste testing all the ingredients along the way and of course the end product. Cooking is a great way to build confidence and self esteem in children as they learn how capable they are at completing a task; and how good their food tastes when they get to eat it knowing they made it themselves.

Cooking allows children to practice their fine motor and hand eye coordination skills. It’s a great way for children to broaden their communication and understanding of language while conversing with their friends and teachers about what they are doing now and what needs to happen next. We are also supporting their abilities to cooperate with others while completing a task. Cooking is an amazing way to build independence in young children and the children need to use a great number of skills simultaneously when making all these wonderful foods.

— Nina, Rachel and Yuko.

Literacy is the ability to read, view, write, speak, and listen in a way that allows us to communicate effectively and to make sense of the world. It is the foundation to all other learning and an essential part of a child’s overall development.

Reading to children is the best way to help them develop literacy skills and a robust vocabulary. Choose books that link to their current interests and read to them often to help them develop their interest in books.

— Helen, Teresa & Claire

Imagine a world where the colour of our skin, our hair, our eyes, what food we eat, music we listen to and how we dance are reasons to celebrate.  That it matters how kind we are, how gentle our hands are, how we care for each other and the world we live in.  This is how we discuss Harmony Day with the children as a time to celebrate and raise their awareness of the diversity that surrounds them.

When a child says “I like sharing Australia with everybody” and another says “it’s just about all the peoples” we can believe our future is in good hands.  Harmony week brings out the best in us as we shared our thoughts and cultures as part of the Farmhouse community.

Take care of each other

– Dawn

— Samantha.

It has been a wonderful fortnight in the Aikya classroom.

We have had plenty of learning taking place with big work / project-based learning being a feature. For example, some have taken on writing projects such as fictional and non-fictional books, and others are bringing some wonderful projects to life through dioramas and posters.

To celebrate Harmony Week, the children participated in activities and presentations around culture and heritage. We were delighted to have the involvement of parents and caregivers to make the celebration even more special.

We are very excited to see some students initiating an environment club and taking the initiative to create a positive impact in the community. Their first agenda point is to secure adequate recycling bins throughout the classrooms. We look forward to seeing where the group takes their initiative and how they will make a difference in the Aikya and Yani communities.

We, in Aikya, are passionate about empowering children to care for the environment and community. We love seeing our students take the initiative and make a difference.

We recently, also, celebrated the Ride2School initiative with an afternoon Bike Festival and we are very grateful for all the parent and carer participation within the school community. A big shout-out to Ariane for her wonderful work here. THANK YOU!

Until next time

—Toby, Sarah, Amy & Fiona.

We are excited to share some of the wonderful activities that have taken place at our school recently. In particular, we want to highlight the celebrations that took place in the Yani Classroom for Harmony Day last week. Students in the Yani Classroom came together to celebrate their diverse backgrounds and cultures by sharing food and presentations with each other. The event was a great success and allowed students to learn more about each other’s unique traditions and customs. We are proud to see our students embracing diversity and fostering a sense of community within our school.

Throughout the day, the Yani Classroom was filled with the aromas of various cuisines from around the world, including French, South African, Mexican, Italian and many more. Students presented information about their respective cultures, sharing stories, music, and traditions with their classmates. It was a wonderful opportunity for our students to learn about and appreciate the diversity that exists within our school community. We are grateful to the Yani Classroom teachers and students for organizing such a fantastic event and look forward to seeing more celebrations of diversity and inclusion in the future.

— Tom, Nick, Ella & Amy.

Preschool Music 

Our younger mini musicians have been getting familiar with identifying and understanding the difference between soft and loud sounds.

In music we have special names for when music is played at different volumes…soft is piano (pi-a-no) and loud is forte (for-te).

We’ve also started extending this to learning about ‘super soft’, ie pianissimo (pi-a-ni-ssi-mo) and ‘super loud’ fortissimo (for-ti-ssi-mo)

Families – perhaps next time you’re listening to music, you can all try to pick out if something is played softly, or if there’s an instrument that’s being played loudly.

For our older mini musicians, we’re continuing working on rhythms. We’ve been having a lot of fun working out how many beats are in our name and clapping to it, as well as creating some fruit related stories and associated rhythm sequences.

Primary Music

All three groups have been working on rhythms this term – clapping games that correspond to musical notation, we’ve then been transferring those rhythms onto instruments. Preschoolers have been playing bongos, Akiya have been playing Glok’s, and Yanni have been played Ukulele’s. We’ve also continued to working on learning to play “25 or 6 to 4”.

— The Evergreen team.