A trip to the Post Office

After our book week excursion we headed to the playground for lunch and a play.

that's my mums post box

We had written some letters to friends and family locally and overseas and we were going to the Norfolk Island Post office to post them ourselves.

The staff were fabulous especially Kath. We bought our own stamps 60 cents to go on an overseas letter and 15 cents locally. We were then taken to the back sorting rooms of the post office to cancel the stamps and sort into airmail and local. Each child got to place their own letter into their postbox ready to collect on the outside.

G checked his own mail and found he had a parcel collection certificate, this was as popular as a golden ticket to the chocolate factory. one receiving his HUGE parcel from the parcel room, each child wanted to have a hold to guesstimate its weight.

The children tested out a freight box to feel what it would be like as sea mail travelling by ship to Norfolk Island.

Kath read us a story about the adventures of Postie Kate.

After a stamp on the hand it was time to be picked up.
Thankyou to the staff (and to Mandy for volunteering your time).

Mandy has now set up a post office at preschool for us to continue sending letters to each other. This is helping us with name recognition (our own and others), writing, drawing and other fine motor skills.

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.

new logo

Just playing around with a new logo.

what do we think of this one?

Space theme

Welcome to space week where we travel around the universe discovering our solar system around us.

Here is a sneak preview of our jet packs we just made.

I am so proud of the kids for making, caring for and sharing these jet packs with their friends.

For instructions, you can Google make your own jet packs from soft drink bottles.

Thanks to Sarah J for bringing us the bottles.

 Next we made 'moon sand'.

I saw many recipe variations, some using sand and others using flour.

I made up our own one as we went. 4 cups of plain flour, 3 cups of cornflour, 1 cup of salt and 1 cup of baby oil.
mix together.
It smells and feels very luxurious and velvety.
Each time the children had a break from the moon sand trough I added another surprise element such as glitter or some goggly alien eyes.

We also made moon pop rocks today with white chocolate, marshmellows & rice bubbles topped with edible glitter...yum.

It is only day 3 and we have also created 2 types of rockets to help us draw and write and some lovely chalk planet sketches.
So much fun.

What did we do at Minischool in July 2013?

July 2013

 

 
Kids on the Rock/ Minischool Preschool news July 2013

http://norfolkislandpreschool.blogspot.com

Firstly we have a new name. The children have spoken and their nickname has stuck, we are now called MINISCHOOL. Starting next week we will use our new preschool van to do a courtesy pick up from near the pedestrian crossing in Cascade road at 8:40 for about 10 minutes each morning. To book a free place on the Minischool minibus, call 51862 so we know you are coming with us, otherwise we will meet you up at the preschool (on Prince Phillip drive).

July was another busy month for the pre-schoolers. As well as everyday fun with, craft, games, reading, writing and drawing, painting, singing and dancing, puzzles and dramatic play, we also learn about our world with thematic adventures.

This month we began with some American studies to celebrate their 4th of July Independence Day. We made and learned about the stars and stripes on the USA flag (50 stars is a lot!).

We then went on a trip to France for Bastille Day and learned about life in Paris, including greeting and farewelling each day with Bonjour and Au Revoir. While playing with a miniature Paris city set, we discovered the architecture, heard the music and saw the art on the ipad. We can count to ten in French and tried our hands at some French cooking, throughout the week we loved making our own chocolate croissants and ate le pahn and le fromage (French bread and Camembert cheese).

We spent a week studying shapes and sizes, lots of sequencing patterns, 2D and 3D shapes. The 3D shapes amazed us the most until we took a drive around town a recognised many family shapes on street signs and on shops and buildings, shapes of all sizes and colours are everywhere. When the children call out ‘Octagon’ when we reach a stop sign that is a proud teaching moment for me.

During the school holidays we turned into a lovely vacation care group with extra pre-schoolers and their brothers and sisters, we had one of our preschoolers Granny who came to play each day which was a lovely extra experience for the kids. Having a small group over the school holidays allowed us to go on many excursions, catching guppies and swordtails in the creeks for our fish tank, fairy garden picnic lunches, walking to the top of Ball bay, a picnic at Palm glen followed by rolling down the hill races. Lastly a huge walk from Capt. Cook to Bird Rock and back again, luckily there were hot chocolates waiting for us at the end as a reward.

Our last theme to end July with has been A Winter Christmas or Christmas in July learning how our northern hemisphere friends celebrate Christmas in the cold. Of course it has been warm and summery weather wise most of this week, but we still wore our silly season Christmas hats and dressed up to make Christmas puddings, cupcakes and a yule log. The smell of peppermint scented playdough filled the air as we made some snowy snowmen, women and animals. It was fun to revisit our winter activities and games we first learned at the beginning of June like rolling the dice to build a snowman, feltboard stories and penguin maths. We all know the ‘Snow-key’ pokey off by heart now and this helps us put our shoes & gumboots on the right (and left) foot.

Our trip to the cross country was great for our future kindergarten children to experience what to expect when it is their turn next year or the year after, they mimicked the runners by racing on the outside of the track and cheered on our houses, our friends and family as well as encouraging those who needed it most. There were lots of life lessons were learned on this day about support & teamwork.

We wish one of our friends who just moved away a very happy 4th birthday and hope she receives the card we all made together and posted, we are looking forward to our post office excursion very soon to learn how it all works.

A huge Thank you to Marianne Ryan for donating a new cubby house to Minischool, we hope to turn it into a gingerbread cottage shortly and will send you the photos. A special thanks to all of our helpers who helped to move the cubby up and over the hill to its new home, you are all worth your weight in gold.

Thank you to all the fantastic feedback we have been receiving from the community through these articles in the paper, we love to hear the grandparents tell us how much they love to see the photos and stories about what the children are learning, they say they wish they came here too J

If you have any queries about the preschool or just want to come up for a visit, please call the number at the top of the page.

Minischool is an educational preschool run by qualified staff for 3 to 5 year old children. Situated on Prince Philip drive above Cockpit waterfall. With gorgeous views over the South Pacific. Come up to visit us at our home like preschool and see why we say we are learning with a view.

Mr N's first day

 

Happy 3rd Birthday Mr. N and welcome to MINISCHOOL.

WE look forward to watching you grow and learn as you journey through Preschool ♥