what do we want to be when we grow up?

During our careers theme week, we talked about what we want to be when we grow up and what jobs we would love to do.

 

Fastelavn/ Halloween 2015

This week we are celebrating the Danish festival, Fastelavn (wrong time of year I know, but we are in the southern hemisphere!). Based on some very old traditions, it involves lots of dressing up, black cats, a barrel like a piñata, a decorated whipping branch, oranges and some boller buns to eat with a cute little rhyme to go with the yummy buns (similar to trick or treat). Lots of fun, especially dressing up and studying the atlas. I hope we did our 2 little Danish cherubs justice by celebrating their culture.... and of course Lego!!

 

The best bun dough recipe was found HERE

this was my first attempt at making Boller. The kids thought they were delicious!

The English translation on the right sounds like our version of Halloweens trick or treat.

 

Anzac Day 2015 ~ Centenary since Galipolli

 

Norfolk Island.
An amazing place with a unique heritage.
As you can see from this post below on N.I  museums website, Norfolk Island has the highest number of participants per capita in the whole British Empire during world war one.

We are all for teaching about our own community, our own &world history plus respect, so rather than just make some crafts to symbolise this event, Minischoolers and the teachers headed to the Norfolk Island R.S.L sub branch to look at the displays there and to perform some old time songs for the seniors at the White Oaks club on Thursday 23rd April. Just 2 days before ANZAC DAY.



The 2 Bonni's

Seeing his Grandparents who run the RSL bistro was a treat.

Outside the Norfolk Island RSL sub branch's upgraded memorial

The songs chosen were upbeat songs such as 'my bonnie lies over the ocean' and a 'sailor went to sea sea sea' and 'my body makes music'. During a friendship song called Golden ships and silver ships, the children handed out gifts of packaged Anzac biscuits we had made earlier in the week plus a threaded poppy the children helped to make themselves.

*See recipe for Minischool's Anzac Biscuits below

We are pleased that this relationship with the White Oaks and RSL club will be an ongoing one as the children have been requested to return each month to enjoy a morning tea with the 'oldies'.
There is no better way to foster respect within our community than to actually get out within the community and meet the diverse range of people within it.

MINISCHOOL ANZAC BISCUITS

1 cup of uncooked rolled oats

1 cup of plain flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4-1/2 cup of desiccated coconut

125g butter

2 tablespoons golden syrup

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons boiling water

METHOD:

Blend oats, flour, sugar and coconut. Melt butter and syrup over low heat. Dissolve baking soda in boiling water and add to butter mixture. Stir this into dry ingredients. Mix

Drop full tablespoons of mixture onto greased tray, allow room for spreading.

Bake at 150 degrees Celsius for approx. 15 minutes or until golden brown (or until the children start drooling & telling you how hungry they are because it smells so good!).

Makes approx. 30 biscuits. 



Of course there were still plenty of Anzac inspired crafts that the children made all by themselves.
There was songs and some very special stories.... Our favourites from the school library were 'Lone Pine' and 'Don't forget Australia'.

 

And on Anzac day this was the amazing view after the dawn service.

 

And at the 10:30 ANZAC day service, Jasper placed the wreath the children made on behalf of the Minischoolers.

 

 

Bless those who fought for us on the battlefields and for those who kept the home front fires burning.
Lest we forget.
We nawa gwen forget dem.

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.

 

Minischool Mini News April 2014

Minischool mini newsletter APRIL 2014


Well hello again everybody, April was a hive
of activity for our Minischoolers with Easter crafts and activities right
through the school holidays. Vacation care is a very important part of our
preschool as an unbroken momentum of learning & fun throughout the year, we
can continue with all our fun activities all year round, throughout every
season. This also helps our working parents (we have some exciting news about
after school care for working families later on in this column).


Easter activities were all about celebrating
new life, we got to handle some baby chicks and experience this first hand.
Then there were the Easter crafts and activities, our fluffy bunnies seemed to
multiply overnight. We loved painting a gazillion egg cartons over the holidays
and were even prouder to see our useable artworks for sale in Foodland and P&R
groceries. Did you see them, the children reported back when they saw their own
on the shelf. There were Easter bunny and egg plays, dances and songs to sing….
Then came the CHOCOLATE. Cooking from cookbooks we made bunny pops and guava
eggs and Teddy even showed us how he learned to make Rocky Road at big school.
And that rascally bunny that hid us some eggs to find was very tricky.


The siblings who joined us in the school
holidays also enjoyed being the wise older children and developed great skills
by running fun games for their brothers, sisters and their friends.


I know that vacation care brings out the best
in my own children and rather than competing with children their own age in the
playground, they can be a leader by inventing imaginative and innovative game
and activities.


We celebrated 2 birthdays in April of our
oldest child Bailey who turned 5 and our youngest child Toby who turned 3.
Happy Birthday boys! Birthdays are important to us and celebrated by all the
minischoolers getting involved in making a card together and organising a
party, cooking & activities for their friend. We even had a fairy bread
making course at the lions park on the way to the airport, farewelling some of
our friends off on their holiday.


Next in April came Anzac day and its
importance, we used our Anzac biscuit recipe and told tales of life nearly 100
years ago compared to now, finishing our last vacation care day off by making
some red poppies for remembrance.


While we began the preschool year with a back
to basic approach reviewing and introducing concepts such as numbers and time,
phonics and letters, colours, shapes and sizes, we are now moving on to more
advanced learning styles (still taught in a fun & interesting way aimed at
pre-schoolers).


We now are building skills and identifying
areas of need through planning and checklists. We also acknowledge the need for
non-academic skills such as turn taking, sitting in your own space and
listening during group time for a healthy transition to big school.


Some of our full time pre-schoolers have
already filled 2 scrapbooks full of their work samples and show improvement in
all key learning areas everyday because they want to, not because they have to.


Our most exciting news though is that we have
been approved to move into our new premises, with a few little working bees
over the next few weekends at our new premises (Shangri-la on the corner of
Shortridge road) and at our half way preschool on Potts farm road, we will be
on track to big bigger and brighter than ever.


With our moves comes a new chapter as we open
up as an after school care centre from 3-5 pm on school days. A walking bus or
minibus pick up will be arranged for parents who are interested in having their
5-12 year olds cared for in a safe & fun environment. They will learn
organisation, preparing & cooking skills as they prepare their own
afternoon tea as a daily activity. We will also work around the schools active
after school program for those who already participate in this.


The benefit of an afterschool care centre is
that working parents can have job hours that extend beyond 2:50pm without fear
of young school children being without care.


Our heads are already filled with all the
fantastic areas we can build in our amazing garden space such as a dinosaur garden,
fairy grotto and pirate cove as well as an outdoor mud kitchen and out of this
world playground…. But more of that next time! In our May newsletter we will
advise everyone of our OPEN DAY so you can come and see for yourselves.


We finish off this newsletter as we are
preparing to surprise our mummies with an envelope of goodies made with love
from their pre-schoolers.


As we celebrate all things ‘mum’ this week,
we congratulate Minischool mum Jess on the quick arrival of baby Harrison. We
know that Bailey will be a wonderful big brother.


As a mother of preschool and primary children
myself, I am so lucky and blessed to work and spend so much time with them. I
appreciate being spoiled with love by all the children and hope you do too.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

Minischool Mini News March 2014

Minischool Mini news March 2014


March was a great time to re-introduce and give a fresh
approach to learning all about ourselves, colours, shapes, letters and sounds
as well as numbers which turned into simple addition. It certainly has been a
fun start to the year with extra excursions around the island to learn
together.


We are so close to having our amazing new space and gardens
up and ready for us and we will be sure to invite you all to our fun open day
once we settle in after Easter.


Speaking of Easter, we have been getting stuck into a
variety of Easter crafts, some to hang on our walls and many to place in our
scrapbooks to remember our early learning years.


Here is what our 3-5 year olds though about Easter, I love
their creativity and imagination.

I asked “where does the Easter Bunny live?”


J-At the Easter Carnival, J- No he lives in the sky, B- at
foodlands, A- I know, Its Easter Island, M-On the other side of the Island, A-
At Easter land (who with?) his helpers, the other Easter Bunnies (how many?)
there are 14! K- In a tunnel (why? Because he wants to hide because everyone
wants his chocolate, T- in a tent, B- In his own imagination, O- In a tunnel
making eggs and eating carrots, J- He lives into Christmas with Santa Claus
they help each other out at Christmas and Easter. The Easter bunny lives at
Santas house and they drink cups of tea, eat bananas, peas and carrots and he
loves potatoes pumpkin, zucchinis and that is all.


Why does he like to give eggs out? W-He wants to give them
because he is nice, A- He likes to be busy, busy, busy making them.

“How does the Easter Bunny make eggs?”


A-   
The Easter Bunny gets eggs from the brown
chickens, he mixes them all together and gives to us. K- He has an egg factory
which gives them to the Easter bunny and he gives them to the children. K- He
splits the egg yolk out & puts in a special eating glue in and covers with
chocolate. B- He gets some chocolates and eggs and covers them with little choc
bits (people take the wrappers off and shove them in their mouths.) J- He buys
some chocolate from a shops, opens the wrapper, tips it in, cooks it. He adds
some grated carrot and rolls them into little Easter bunnies and eggs with
spices. When he is on Norfolk he grabs some guavas then tips them in to the
bottom and gives to the people.


“ What does he do for the rest of the year?” B-He makes more
Easter eggs, J- He goes on holidays and sleeps forever, K- He has fun at
Minischool.
Hope everyone had a very hoppy Easter!


YES we are open 50 weeks a year and offer vacation care to
3-7 years olds ( and their older siblings if needed).

Call 51862 to enquire about vacation care vacancies

What did we do at Minischool in August 2013?

Hello everyone. Here is our August newsletter.

We kick started the month of August with a local farm tour. Thanks to Farmer Lou and Farmer Phil for allowing us to visit the Piggery. The part that the children most enjoyed was feeding broccoli to the pigs, sorting sizes from the biggest to the weeniest baby piglet, sampling the delicious bananas and calling to the Dorper sheep with their funny coats of wool. Along the drive back from Anson bay, we ticked off our checklists when we saw other farm animals along the roadside like geese, cows and calves, feral hens and roosters. We also stopped to sing happy birthday to the stable horses for their birthdays on the 1st of August. Thanks to Island eggs for their generous donation to the pre-schoolers. We put the eggs to good use during our cooking activities and studying the lifecycle of the chicken.

Back at preschool we continued on with the farm theme by making a scarecrow for our garden and mini scarecrows for our scrapbooks, writing farm inspired words and sentences, having a horse race using dice.

Using the purple cabbage from the garden, we amazed the children with an alkaline/acid science experiment which magically changed the colour of the purple juice. Details of this experiment are on our blog. The children have requested repeat performances many times since.

We enjoyed the warmer weather early in august and got to eat alfresco while enjoying the visiting rugby teams at Kingston. It was fun to cheer on Norfolk Island’s own Creaky ol’ convicts with broad arrow flags and face paint as many of our Daddies were playing in the games. This inspired us to have some off field running races to run as fast as our dads.

A big Thankyou to Kay from Norfolk Island Fitness + Health for donating some old gym equipment, we have certainly put them to good use from healthy obstacle courses for increasing our gross motor skills to becoming part of our imaginative play. Thanks again for your kindness in thinking of us.

Our next big theme that spanned over 2 weeks was ‘Space’. This gave us a chance to use lots of wonderful Montessori equipment to study the universe. We loved studying the galaxies on the ipad using starwalk and getting a closer look at satellites, planets, and types of stars. We even taught our parents about the phases of the moon and the lifecycle of a star. Our many art projects included drawing rockets, using chalk to draw the planets and shadows, making books on the order of planets and making our own name rainbow rockets. The biggest hit of the theme was when we were donated some large bottles and an idea from Ms Sarah Jenkins. We then took a trip to the hardware and newsagency to convert these bottles superfast jet packs complete with flames. These made us run very fast indeed and encouraged us to count down from 10-1 then zero. The children were great at taking turns and sharing the packs with friends. They understood how special they are when we made them ourselves.

Another favourite art recipe which will be available on our blog is for ‘moon sand’, a trough of this fine motor experience was very popular for the entire 2 weeks especially when we added alien eyes and moon dust on the second week. Thanks to one of our parents for bringing in ‘moon ice’ for another experience.

During space week we had an almighty excursion to Norfolk Island Central school for their book week celebrations. The Minischoolers all joined in the occasion by dressing up as well and were delighted to be asked to parade on the veranda stage with the rest of the school. We had pirates and cowboys, the cat and the hat and spot the dog. Even our very own teachers dressed as Mary Poppins and Fancy Nancy.

On this day there was a book fair in the library where the community were encouraged to donate $5 towards a book and receive a book plate inside the book containing the name of the donation, many of our preschool families donated as did minischool itself. The hardest part was picking which 10 books to donate from the preschool with so many wonderful titles on offer.

We appreciate the school allowing us to continue to use the school library each Thursday morning for all of  our preschool children to learn healthy reading and borrowing skills.

After the book fair we continued our big excursion day out at the post office where the wonderful staff helped us buy the stamps for the letters we had prepared to send locally and overseas. We posted them ourselves and then got to go to the mail sorting room to sort our own letters. One of our children got a big surprise to find a parcel ticket in his own box.

The children pretended to be freighted off in a large box and then enjoyed Kath’s story of Postie Kate before getting stamped before home.

Thank you so much to the Norfolk Island Postal staff and to the N.I.C.S staff for making it such a memorable day.

Phew, could we fit anything else in August…Yes we did. We finished the month and the winter season off with a Russian festival called Maslenitsa.

This Russian festival celebrates the end of the winter season and provided us with the chance to learn the cultural side of where one of our Minischool families heritage is.

We learned about the Imperial flag, the famous cathedral buildings, made Russian caramels, learned how to count and the colours in Russian as well as the unique 33 letter alphabet. It made another wonderful entry into our preschool passport.

Thank you to Lydia for showing us all of your wonderful collection of Russian artefacts. We really loved the 10 tiny matryoshka stacking dolls and the Russian crepes & pancakes you made as well as the other taste tests you provided.

From our garden we made the freshest beetroot relish fresh picked and grated within 10 minutes, It doesn’t get any sweeter than that.

For More Information about Minischool educational preschool you can follow us on facebook https://www.facebook.com/minischoolpreschool

Or you can find more photos and recipes on our blog

http://norfolkislandpreschool.blogspot.com
Minischool runs for 50 weeks per year. We will break from 20th December to 6th January.

Preschool vacation care is available for any local or visiting 3-6 year olds during the school holidays.

Thank you for all of your community support over the past 8 months,

Cristina and Mandy

For more information Ph 55678

Book Week 2013

 

 

 

 

Celebrating Book week with a character parade at Norfolk Island Central School.

This is the second year that book week celebrations were held at NICS. On Wednesday the 21^st of August the event was organised around a book fair by current librarian Suzanne Hardy.

The Book fair included a dedication ceremony to thank Trish Magri for her years of service as the school librarian. Books were available to donate to the library for $5 per book. These donated books come complete with a bookplate inside the book stating the name of the child donating and 'Thaenks f’ acklan Mrs Magri'.

With the whole school assembled on the lawn next to the library, the primary classes began their parade across the library ‘randa.

We were all entertained by the range of costumes resembling each child's favourite book character. Popular costumes included characters from Enid Blyton’s the faraway tree, Zac Power, superheroes, witches, Alice in wonderland and fairytale characters.

The K-6 teachers also got in on the act amusing all of us by dressing and acting as their favourite literary characters.

The teachers costumes included little red riding hood, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, the Mad Hatter, The Gangster Granny, The wicked witch of the west and Billy the punk.

The Minischool pre-schoolers came to the book fair dressed up as well, so were invited onto the stage to show off their costumes. All were brave walking across the stage in front of the entire school. The Preschoolers costumes included Spot the dog, Cowgirl Jessie and Sherriff Woody, dragons, Pirates and the Cat in the Hat. Their teachers were Mary Poppins and Fancy Nancy.

There are still good quality books available to donate to the library. Just pop $5 into an envelope with your name to the front office at the Norfolk Island Central school.