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.