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.

 

mini fairy mushrooms

We collected these champagne corks from the local tennis club, the RSL and from the leagues club. Well just a few could have come from our after hours programming meetings ;)
We knew that there were 101 crafts to do with them. But our favourite one here so far has been making mushrooms to edge our fairy garden.

The children helped out by painting them red and then using the blunt end of a pencil dipped in white paint to make the dots. I love the look of concentration.
They were so proud of their achievements and look after them in the garden even more, because the children proudly made the mushrooms themselves.

Here are some multi coloured mini mushrooms we made for another garden area.

They are so cute!

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.

Minischool Mini news February 2015

Minischool Mini News February 2015

We are off in full swing of the new preschool year full of new excitement, theme style learning and early educational experiences on this wonderful island.

The still have preschool spaces on offer on Mondays and Wednesdays plus afterschool care every day for 3-12 year olds. We offer occasional care from 3-5pm straight from school which is perfect for fun, games and quality care during your meetings and much needed care for children during funerals.

During January, Minischool held a graduation ceremony and afternoon tea for our pre-schoolers transitioning to big school. The pre-schoolers were presented with all of their preschool work lovingly collated into their scrapbooks by Mandy and their all about me folders put together by Cristina. We are so proud of all that the preschool children learn and achieve while with us and are happy to give them their childhood memories in scrapbooks and folders (as well as their graduation certificates and other presents) to mark the end of each preschool journey.

  All of our families were invited to this afternoon tea and after graduation, said goodbye to the graduates as they headed out together for the annual teachers dinner.

We thank the Paradise hotel for hosting the Minischool staff and all 11 graduates in the gazebo for a wonderful teacher/ student dinner.

There are well over 100 photos to view on our facebook page of this night.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.754180564670337.1073741858.391520660936331&type=3

 

Our new planning measures are firmly put into practise this year to further follow the NQS and EYLF. What on earth are these you may ask? The National Quality Standard (NQS) is divided into 7 areas that contribute to the quality of early childhood education and care &

Is a key aspect of the NQF and sets a national benchmark for early childhood education and care and outside school hours care services in Australia.

The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) is designed to extend and enrich children's learning from birth to five. The Framework supports and provides guidance for educators working with children in all early childhood education and care settings.

I have been part of the quality child care assessment process in Qld and although it is extra work (mostly unpaid for those of us in a love job J) for those in the early education industry, it keeps the quality and standards of our workplaces high. Now enough of the boring department stuff we do after hours… here is the fun thematic learning we have been doing with the children at Minischool over the past month.

We started off with our beginning of the year with an ‘all about me’ theme to start of our scrapbooks and folders. This theme is a great way to transition our existing pre-schoolers to the oldest of the group and to our emerging toddlers to preschool status as it usually is all about them J This entire group have settled in quickly and beautifully as the older children help guide and mentor those starting preschool, they understand how much they have learned and developed themselves.

Valentine’s Day saw us sharing the love some more, posting special hand drawn pictures and letters to our Minischool friends and families.

We continued the love during our Chinese new year celebrations, making lanterns drawing mazes and dot to dots with were excellent fine motor activities. Our new garage space has been cleaned out and utilised as an extra room, this too was hung with lanterns to celebrate. This week was one of the wettest (and without petrol) so we missed out on an excursion to the goat farm at Anson bay to celebrate with our Hilli goat friends, but we looked at the photos from our excursion there late last year and found creative uses of our frozen goat milk including hot chocolates to keep us warm during the big wet & fog.

Following this was Safety week to ensure we are following the NQS Childrens health and safety guidelines. Safety involves so many learning areas of self-safety of sunscreen and nutrition, and environment safety where we may need the assistance of the police, ambulance and fire departments. Our Emergency evacuation drills were fun and the children took them seriously enough in a caring way towards their friends that made us so very proud of them!

Each time we offer a theme, we also build up our resources at Minischool based on those themes, though it is rare that we will offer the same activity 2 years in a row as the staff are always dreaming up fresh and innovative ways to teach.

This past week was a celebration of all Dr. Seuss books for his March 2 birthday. We celebrated a love of reading his wonderful books and crazy yet fantastic rhyming words. We even learned the morals of the stories by testing our senses by cooking and eating green eggs and ham. They were delicious! (More photos on facebook). My favourite was the ‘I wish I had duck feet’ race using flippers. It was very funny!

We love our weekly walk up to the library and school visit. Thankyou to the 4 teachers in infants and upper primary who let us visit your classrooms and the canteen. The children love their visit to the school, the bubblers and even the big school toilets.

Autumn saw us decorating and designing and autumn tree full of ‘A’s using the autumn colour scheme.

 

We offer a daily obstacle course at Minischool, this helps to develop and monitor Childrens gross motor, cognitive and other developmental needs. In partnership with this, we begin our developmental checklists this month on each child to pick up on any areas of need.

 

Upcoming themes over the next month are introducing back to basics, shapes for the younger group and more complex 3D shapes for our older group. We have fantastic Montessori materials to use throughout our themes; they are always loved by the children who chose them.

We haven’t forgotten St. Patrick’s Day full of Rainbows and colours plus Earth day and lessons in recycling.

 

In our gardens we are enjoying the feijoas and guavas which are all huge due to the rainfall. We made guava jelly at Minischool and enjoyed eating them on freshly made lemonade scones (recipe on our blog)

We were so lucky to have Jaspers granny come to Minischool for 2 weeks, she was a lovely addition to our team.

 

Every child is worth celebrating. For each child’s birthday we hold parties, make special cards, give presents, cook and eat cake and other goodies whether their birthday falls on their booked day or not.

Happy Birthday Last Month to Jasper who turned 5, Hamish turned 4 and Bonita also turned 4 (Welcome to Minischool Bonita) This month we say a Happy March Birthday to Billy who turned 5, his sister Matilda who is turning 3 and to Daphne (welcome back) who is turning 4.

These children enjoy being the child of the day and the special privilege of being the leader of all activities on their party day.

We said a sad farewell to Hamish last week, he starts at his new preschool in Australia this week, I am sure his new teachers will get as many laughs and hugs as we did. We will miss you.

Thankyou to Jilly for all of your educational presents to the Minischoolers and teachers, we are so blessed. You really are a legend J.

Thanks all for letting us be a part of this wonderful community by providing early education and experiences to your children.

Until next month, see you on Minischools Facebook page & the Minischool preschool blog.

Cristina, Mandy, Shelley and Eloise.

End of January Vacation care

Minischool vacation care program is coming to an end and will finish on Pupil free day Tuesday 27^th January for Primary and Wednesday 28^th for infants who begin school on Thursday 29^th.

So far these holidays, we have been using  papier mache to make animal money boxes. We watched as Teddy’s wearable arts costume came to life each day as he worked hard on it. There have been board game challenges, music and dancing concerts, treasure hunts and games through the Minischool gardens, drawing competitions, baking painting, playdough and biking adventures.

Everybody loves Mr. Jingles the Christmas preschool kitten. This delightful and very patient little bundle of fur has been dressed up in all sorts of dolls clothes and wheeled around in strollers. We often find him curled up in one of our children’s arms as they read a book on the bunk beds or bean bags. What a lucky little kitten!

We wish all of our graduating Preschool children the very best of luck as you begin your new adventures at ‘Big’ school.

Our Graduation afternoon tea and dinner out with the teachers was a lovely end to our preschool journey together.

We hope you enjoyed your surprise gifts and completed preschool work from your time with us.

We will miss you all so please remember to come back and visit us.

There are over 90 graduation photos on the facebook page for you to enjoy. Thanks to all of our families for attending afternoon tea to wish our outgoing class all the best.

Thankyou also to the Paradise hotel and Captain James for hosting our preschool dinner this year. Mandy, you are the best! Thanks for staying back to finish off all those scrapbooks, you are amazing & we love you ♥

We say farewell to Jen as she heads back to teach her primary class back in Australia. We now welcome Shelley Mitchell to our team. Shelley and I worked in preschools in Queensland. She also has extensive experience working as a special needs teacher aide in primary and high school and has joined the Minischool team seamlessly. Welcome, we know the children and families will love you as much as we already do.

 

Welcome to our new ‘little’ Minischoolers who have transitioned up to preschool. We know your journey will begin with wonder and will be some of the most memorable years of your lives filled with very important first and lifelong skills.

 

By now all Minischool preschool enrolment forms should be returned, If you haven’t as yet, please drop into Minischool between 8:30 and 3:30 or phone Cristina on 51862.

Welcome to Shelley!

If you haven't met Shelley yet, you are in for a treat. She has fitted perfectly into the Minischool teaching team.

Watch out though, she is magic. One day she might pop up in the Fairy garden as a fairy, the next minute she will pop out at you as a pirate!


As if Minischool wasn't fun enough already with these crazies...

along comes Crazy #3

Stay tuned for more adventures from the Minischool teaching team, we have had some funny planning sessions already. It is going to be another fabulous year!

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.