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.

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 ♥

Cancer Council fundraiser. The biggest afternoon tea. May 2014

On Thursday 29th of May, Minischool joined in with The Cancer Councils initiative to hold the biggest morning tea(or in our case afternoon tea) as a way to raise funds and awareness for cancer research.

In our Minischool family we have all been affected by Cancer. It has a huge emotional impact when it happens to our Fathers, Mothers, Brothers, Sisters and even our children have all been affected by this disease. My own family and extended family have had a mixture of survivors and losses.

 For those of you who may not know, my co-worker Mandy's boy was diagnosed with a cancerous tumour when he was a baby. This is something no mother should have to go through but they are strong & survivors and I am intensely proud of their family. Their 'little' boy is now in his first year at school and blooming.

 Mandy who also lost her father to Cancer not long ago has hosted the biggest morning tea as a fundraiser each year among friends.

 This year we are proud that she will host it at the new Minischool. We have only been in our new premises  for 4 days but it was great to be filled with afternoon tea, cakes, love and laughter among our Minischool family and friends.  The minister of passionfruit slice was one of the first to arrive and sample our goodies and we counted approximately 27 adults and many, many kids who loved the gardens as much as the fairy bread and popcorn.

 The Minischool children helped with decorations (the blue and yellow balloons and signs looked great kids)  and preparations. They asked lots of questions (mostly "when can we have cake?") and learned a little bit of understanding about healthy bodies and trying to make a difference in this world by fighting for what we believe in.

 For people who arrived to the fundraiser from the announcement on Minischool's facebook page, it was a good chance to have a sticky beak at the new premises over a cuppa too.

 Any donations towards Cancer research were gratefully accepted. Over $400 has been raised so far.

Thankyou from the bottom of our hearts.

♥ Cristina & Mandy

What did we get up to in September 2013?

September at Minischool Educational preschool Norfolk Island.

"My life should be filled with wonder, discoveries, and adventure. Take me outside. Let me get to know and love nature. I will remind you what it's like to see with a child's eyes and open heart." Let's go outside and play on the natural preschool playground!

 

September seems to have been merged in to the recently departed August.

Followed hot on the heels by October, but first we had better go back to all the events and daily adventures that make Minischool so fresh and inspiring for myself and the pre-schoolers.

Starting off with Father’s day, the children painted some very special pictures for their daddies. And then wrote down all of the reasons we love them so much.

While we were enjoying the strawberries, snow peas, cherry tomatoes and oranges in our garden and watching it growing bigger, we embraced the spring theme in our butterfly corner garden waiting for the first monarch caterpillar to appear on the plants specifically for them. Our worm café keeps us interested watching them devour all sorts of natural products from paper to eggshells. The worms give us great worm juice to put back into the garden so we are grateful to them. Our giant sunflowers are fascinating especially when the bees visit or a smiley face appears in the disk florets (center part of the sunflower). We are looking forward to seed saving these giants to share among our families, so everyone can have some to grow & enjoy.

Thank you to Admin for grading Prince Phillip drive, the roadwork equipment kept our boys (and the girls) entertained in its various stages of completion. I think our favourite was the rumbling grumbling roller that flattened the road and made us vibrate while standing on the side, it was almost like and earthquake one 4 year old commented.

When the road was completed, we headed for a picnic morning tea down the hill at Cockpit waterfall to read a story on the footbridge followed by some gutsy grass hill running. We are still unsuccessful in finding any geocaches that are reported to be in that area. I am hoping that if any locals can help us with finding geocaches on the island, could they please contact us as we would love to be involved in possibly hiding some in the future as well.

 At the Athletics carnival we made pom poms in our team colours and headed to the school oval to support our brothers, sisters, friends and former Montessori Kinderhaus pupils. It was fun to watch them racing and gave more encouragement to our children who are commencing kindergarten in 2014. The hit of the day though wasn’t the lolly scramble; it was the school playground slide!

Our school holidays gave us some extra pre-schoolers and ‘helpers’ while having time off from their school. This was a good opportunity to have an emergency services week. We did our preschool homework learning the correct numbers to call in case of an emergency and enjoyed the role play of acting our different scenes.

The fun part was the visit to the Emergency services shed and the ride on the fire engines up and down the runway. We loved the uniforms and learning to stop drop and roll if on fire. Our local firemen were so awesome I am sure everyone went home and begged their parents to work on an evacuation plan for their house.

A few days later we visited the Norfolk Island Police station with our specially self-made constable badges and spent time in the jail cell. I think a few of our children had a bit too much fun in there dancing to the cameras and in the back of the paddy wagon. Thanks to our local police, especially Shaun and Tim for spoiling the minischoolers.

We had a great time (not sure if we were meant to have that much fun) J  Back at preschool, the 5 year old forensic team were fingerprinting all the children for their scrapbooks. Great work everyone.

We did manage to fit lots of preschool work in. There was writing letters and numbers, math equations, blended sounds, mapping and geography puzzles and so much more.

September was a busy month for birthdays too. We managed to celebrate 4 times by making our own cakes (mine was rainbow!) having a dance party, making a group card and party games.

In the middle of the month we celebrated dress like a pirate day as a fundraiser for childhood cancer. All of our children and staff dressed for the occasion at the school library as we found plenty of books to help us ‘yo-ho-ho’ and ‘ahoy there me hearties’ for the day. Thanks to all of our families for donating a gold dubloon or two to this worthwhile cause.

Minischool thanks its families for the support throughout the year.

We are constantly striving to make every day learning fun and encouraging while we learn about ourselves, our place in the community and the world we live in.

♥Cristina