Minischool : 2014

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Our Christmas Message to you.

Minischool Educational Preschool

Wishes you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy & Joyous New Year,

We thank our Families and the Norfolk Island Community for making the year of 2014 one filled with

laughter & FRIENDShIP FUN

Adventures and Discoveries

Friendships made and supported.

Playing in a creative atmosphere

Many HAPPY times. Learning life skills.

surprises

Making Magic. Planting seeds. dreaming BIG.

Dressing up and silly dancing.

Fuelling Imaginations

learning through the seasons

Making mistakes and trying again. LOTS OF HUGS!

Exuberance

Educational based learning through themes and educational play equipment

Discovering our island and the world at large

Celebrations

May the wonder and special memories made during your preschool years be with you forever and 2015 be just as memorable.

We are having a 2 week break. Back on the 5^th of January for vacation care.

You can keep up with our regular updates on Facebook, also on our Norfolk Island Preschool Blog and now on Pinterest.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Sidewalk Chalk Recipe

SIDEWALK (or Footpath) CHALK PAINT RECIPE

From Minischool

I tested this out with the multi ages that come to Minischool every school holidays. They all said it was 'amazing' and the most fun as well as asking to make it more often.

Basically I made up bowls of cornflour (known as cornstarch elsewhere in the world) with water and food colouring. About 3 heaped tablespoons or cornflour and 2 cups of water in each bowl, add desired food colouring and voila! Instant chalk paint

The chalk paint stayed on our concrete for a few weeks and then washed off when it rained.

Sidewalk chalk paint has become a regular fun project at Minischool loved by everyone!

I am inspired by the sidewalk chalk project on facebook to paint some positive messages on the footpath outside Minischool as the kindergarten to year 12 children use it (as well as visitors to Norfolk Island) It would be nice to have some happy day notes for everyone to read.

I am sure there will be a rainbow or two included.

Love from me. xx

Monday, September 1, 2014

Minischool mini news August 2014

Minischool mini news August 2014

Another month & season gone with so much to share with you all. Thankyou to people who stop us in the street to let us know that they like what we achieve, you really do make our day.

Before we rewind to all that happened at Minischool in August, a reminder that Vacation care starts on Monday 22^nd of September. Places are available for 3-12 year olds with qualified staff from 9am-3pm each day (before and after hours available at a small extra cost.) Vacation care days are $28 per day for non regular minischool pre-schoolers, for the regulars, the cost remains the same as per usual. Ph 51862 for booking and enquiries. Before, after & vacation care plus preschool all in one convenient location.

Back to August…

Welcome to our new children Mitchell, Jai, Lachie and Freya. We look forward to lots of fun, games and learning with you for the rest of the year and beyond.

Congrats to Mitch who lost his first ever tooth. It was an exciting event for all.

We are inventing new gluten free playdough recipes for Freya with some successes and some interesting combinations.

Last month we began the first of our regular Friday tennis sessions at the Cheryl tennis club. We thank super coach Danny for all of those fabulous new games and gross motor/cognitive skills learned. Thanks to our parents for their support of this project, we know that your children will be benefitting from this training for years to come. The improvement in their gross motor skills after 5 sessions is incredible.

While we are talking about improving gross motor skills have you seen our new trampoline through the trees? Thanks to Norfolk Land and Sea the children now have regular kindy gym sessions while having fun jumping with Mandy and Cristina. We have acquired 4 bikes for Minischool with and without training wheels, so there is much peddling fun around our garden paths.

With our weekly walk from Shortridge road to the school library each week plus obstacle courses at Minischool, we are getting some all-round fitness.

Fine motor work has included beading, drawing, cutting, pasting, tracing, squeezing and plenty more as we move towards complete school readiness for our older preschoolers.

Our August themes and excursions included ‘manners and hygiene’ to ward off any winter bugs and germs. Picnics and Anson bay and Kingston. We took a trip to the Hilli goat farm to feed Charlie’s 4 baby goats. Dress yellow for Daffodil day, a day for hope and cancer awareness.

World photo day where we played with all of Cristina’s cameras to celebrate 175 years of photography.

Science week full of experiments and a visit to the NICS high school science lab where Mr Pinson helped us discover how to make slime and use science safely and fun. We loved celebrating book week, we learned all about the parts of a book and authors and illustrators and made our own books. Our favourite part of the week was the dress up book parade at the school where we chose to dress as characters from our favourite books and paraded with the rest of the school. Mandy and Cristina dressed as cuddlepot and snugglepie and took a gaggle of fancy dressed children for a walk up Queen Elizabeth avenue to many car toots and waves.

After school care took us up to walk in the wild and back to play on the trampoline at Minischool. There have been table tennis and handball comps as well as plenty of gardens for hide and seek and adventures. We made a new friend in Isabel who was here on holidays from Fort street primary school in the rocks, Sydney. Thanks for coming to play with us on your holiday.

Providing afternoon tea each day has been a fun challenge, one of our favourite recipes has been has been Hilli goat milk, Farmer Lous pine smoked bacon and Island eggs mini quiches. Thankyou to all of these local businesses for their deliveries to our door.

We received some postcards from N.Z and the U.K from friends at the commonwealth games. Thanks for bringing us back some souvenirs from the games and a beautiful Scottish book called ‘Wee MacNessie’.

Once the team from Framed ‘n’ Signed arrived back, they were able to install our brand new rainbow signs on our fences. They look terrific! Thankyou.

Our new bag ‘cubby holes’ are just what we needed to store our bags and artworks. Thanks to Brentt Jones and to Crosscut construction for this and our new science cupboard, music stand & storage shelves. Thanks also go to Katie for spending time with us as part of your work placement, you are a natural in the early childcare industry and thanks to Saxon for donating your old toys to us, the children are loving them.

Photos from all of our excursions & themes, our weekly tennis sessions, Cross country, after school and vacation care are on both the facebook page and the blog. Most photos are put up weekly on our Minischool facebook page, so keep checking in for new ideas and inspiration.

Until next month, see you on our blog http://norfolkislandpreschool.blogspot.com

Come and see us on Shortridge road (entry via the red gate). We love our visitors.

Stop by and say hi!

Love from all of the Minischool team ♥

Minischool is a fresh, fun, inspirational & educational preschool offered to 3 to 5 year old children of Norfolk Island.

Now including Vacation & After School care. Phone 51862 for any information.

Friday, August 1, 2014

Minischool Mini News July 2014

Another month has flown by. Here is all of the July news from us here at Minischool.

Let’s start with 2 very special Vacation care weeks. I can only describe them using one word…Happy.

The kids were happy, the staff were happy, we hope the parents were also happy.

It was a nice break from routine and change of pace. Our big school children play beautifully with the younger pre-schoolers and are fabulous role models. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few future teachers in our group, a lovely caring team of kids indeed. There were plenty of fun with bubbles, art using handmade sidewalk chalk, surprise playdough and French knitted scarves. Recipes and patterns to each of these are on our blog (address at the bottom of the page).

WE had excursions to Cascade, to the airport to see the RAAF planes land, Queen Victoria gardens, The Nakamal and back to the airport to farewell the Commonwealth games team on their way to Scotland.

Mooshie kids are already looking forward to the next holidays.

When school returned , MOOSH (Minischool out of school hours) Care began. With thanks to Eloise Grant for her time walking the kids down the hill from school and staying to play with us.

Each session includes afternoon tea the Mooshies have been planning and sometimes cooking themselves. so far we have made

Pancakes with Butter Caramel sauce, Pasta, Sausages, Meat Pies, Oranges, pizza, fruit, Custard and Jelly.

The Mooshies enjoy the unwind after school by playing games in our garden and some adventures out and about at mini golf & walk in the wind.

As school had returned we continued our topical weekly themes that have been popular since Minischool first began.

To start this term we went with a winter Christmas celebration and explained why we were celebrating our European ancestors celebrating a cooler Christmas in this warmer part of the world. Some of our activities included revisiting some of our favourite Christmas carols while playing on musical instruments, stencilling, tracing and decorating Christmas trees, singing and reading Christmas themed books from the NICS library.

On a side note, Teddy and Sienna were very excited to meet Jonny Young and Normie Rowe at the RSL club when Sienna sang there with her Daddy.

On to our Commonwealth games theme which we began preparing for way back on the 14^th of July when we took our ‘Clyde’ the commonwealth games mascot to the airport to farewell the commonwealth games team on their way to Scotland. We have continued on for the past 2 weeks, learning about Scotland the country and the other Commonwealth countries and their flags. A trip to the Bounty centre provided up with all the makings for a good sports championship. We have had constant team and individual competitions of ten pin bowling, boules, hoola hoop hookey, table tennis and obstacle courses. Each child has earned a gold, silver and bronze medal as we learned about sequencing first, second and third places.

Then we surprised the children with our new 12ft trampoline (Cristina was one of the first to test it out as she forgot for a moment of her broken tailbone from watersliding with the kids in summer, as she tried to remember the flips and gymnastic routines of her youth ☺) Thanks to Land & Sea for your great sale and for mentioning us on your fb page, we promise some bouncing good photos soon.

The cross country was scheduled with perfect timing on our ‘games’ theme, we continued our support for cheering on the teams while lunching at Kingston. The Minischoolers wore their colours as we facepainted, made flags and ran alongside the big school kids, cheering for our brothers and sisters and last years minischoolers until we were hoarse.

Well done to Misha for breaking a record & to the Norfolk team for winning the day. We were proud of all of you.

Visiting speech pathologist Lynn Rodgers spent some time with us and our children at Minischool, we learned new games and ideas for encouraging correct speech patterns and will continue these for the rest of the year. It was nice to catch up with her and the Banyan park staff for lunch. Lynn prepared a fantastic booklet to help support early intervention. This will benefit all of the children of Norfolk Island. Thankyou Lynn for your valuable time and resources.

Happiest birthdays to Nate, Issac and Asher . We hope you enjoyed our celebrations with you ♥

Welcome to our new children Mitchell and Jai, we look forward to lots of fun, games and learning with you for the rest of the year and beyond.

Last week we began the first of our regular Friday tennis sessions at the Cheryl tennis club. We thank super coach Danny for all of those fabulous new games and gross motor/cognitive skills learned. Thanks to our parents for their support of this project, we know that your children will be benefitting from this training for years to come.

Photos from all the tennis sessions, Cross country, after school and vacation care are on both the facebook page and the blog. Most photos are put up weekly on our Minischool facebook page, so keep checking in for new ideas and inspiration.