Mini News June 2014

Minischool Mini News June 2014

Hello everyone. Ready for another month of what has been happening at Minischool Educational Preschool and Vacation care? Here it is…..

We began June with a winter theme pyjama party complete with hot chocolates and popcorn. Of course this was on the warmest winter’s day rather than a cold one which made us all laugh in our sleeping bags, jammies and groovy slippers.

Our next theme was Norfolk Island’s ‘bounty’ on Anniversary week. This week we were grateful to be able to use the school Norf’k studies resources on our trip to the library (Many thanks to the staff at NICS). We had lunch at the nearby Queen Victoria gardens to learn more about our heritage (Thanks to Marie Bailey for these amazing gardens & informative history in the gazebo). We traced Bounty hats, tried our hand at weaving, Norf’k poetry, Bounty ball dancing and even assembling the Norfolk Island flag. To end this week we had two celebrations for Eli’s 5^th Birthday and April-Rose’s 3^rd birthday. There was plenty of cake, party food and treasure hunts in our gardens.

To celebrate the Queen’s birthday, our next theme was Kings, Queens and Castles. We discovered all about castles and knights in medieval Europe. We discovered the names and colours of the crown jewels as we made crowns filled with sapphires, emeralds, rubies and diamonds. To celebrate princess Leilani’s 3^rd birthday, we had a royal dress up party and walked to the school library dressed in our finery practising our royal waves to all the cars who passed us. Regular visiting developmental paediatricians Dr Jane Leslie and Dr Michael MacDowell came to visit our new location and commented that we were easier to find than the last one. It was great to have regular contact to discuss any developmental growth and concerns. We appreciate their taking time to visit us and the families of Norfolk Island.

Next came DINOSAUR week. Our budding palaeontologists discovered dinosaurs in the gardens, made footprints in paint and in playdough. We painted dinosaur stencils, made dinosaur shaped cookies, played with new puzzles describing the different types of dinosaurs. We looked at what they eat and were happy to discover that we are omnivores too.

From our funny quote book

1.      I was explaining about the meat eating dinosaurs called carnivores. Miss 3 said “I LOVE CARNIVALS”

2.      While sounding our words, we all got stuck on that tricky silent ‘p’ of the pteradon, Miss 4 guessed “it’s a potasaurus” I prompted, it starts with a ‘t’ sound. Miss 4 guessed again “it’s a tera-saurus” Close I said, further prompting ‘ptera-d…’ not giving up she jumped up excitedly and said “I know… TERA-DAURUS!”

3.      I showed a Triceratops picture to the pre-schoolers, miss 4 put her hand up to tell me that it was a “Tricerataurus!”

4.      While hole punching and threading pictures , Mr 4 handed me the hole puncher and told me that “it had run out” ☺

Our next theme was community helpers’ week. We are extremely grateful to the Norfolk Island Police and to the Norfolk Island Fire Services for their help with this week by allowing the minischoolers to visit both stations for a first-hand look at the equipment needed to keep us safe. WE had lunch and both places and a ride in the vehicles. What lucky kids (and adults) we are to live in this wonderful community.

Many photos of these visits are on Minischools facebook page for you to visit anytime.

2 more birthdays were celebrated in June Happy Birthday to Geordie and to Teddy! And we got a visit or two plus cuddles from beautiful newborn baby Harrison.

After Geordies birthday, we got a visit and private magic show from Magic Fab (tennis coach Fabien) before he returned to France. Thanks Fab for all the laughs. I hope we helped you with some more English words like ‘piles’ for your card tricks as much as we enjoyed the French versions. The queen of hearts card trick was my favourite, especially when you pronounced it as ‘hurts’.

This brings us to our current vacation care program. With Baunti Escapes taking a break from kids club for the time being, we are happy to help working parents these holidays by entertaining the school kids. It certainly has been a fun filled 2 weeks. Our younger ones have enjoyed having the school children entertain them and add value to our games and activities. Many vacation care kids are ex Minischool and Kinderhaus who have returned and are enjoying revisiting the games, activities & toys they played as pre-schoolers.

So far these holidays we have dodged the rain having picnic lunches in the gardens, Queen Victoria gardens and Cascade bay. We Love the new sandpit at pirate cove and stage one of our playground. WE have loved French knitting our own scarves and bubble play.

We celebrated 2 more birthdays in the holidays. Happiest 4^th Birthday to Nate.

Also Happy 5^th Birthday to Asher. How fantastic to have your brother and sister at vacation care to celebrate with you!

 High schooler Eloise Grant came to play these holidays which was great timing as she will be bringing the school children to Minischool when we begin after school care NEXT WEEK!

Monday is a pupil free day so vacation care will continue on this day.

If you need an enrolment form for after school care please let me know on 51862.

MOOSH (Minischool out of school hours care) begins on Tuesday 15^th July from 3pm to 5pm. Bookings are essential as the children get fed luscious & scrumptious afternoon teas. Mooshies will learn to cook ans meal plan as well, so enrolment forms need to be completed so we can plan for any food intolerences.

We will work in conjunction with the school’s active afterschool program when it begins in term 3.

Until next month, see you on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/minischoolpreschool.

Stop by and say hi!

Love from all of the Minischool team ♥