Monday, January 25, 2016

Minischool Vacation Care January 2016


Minischool Vacation Care ~ January 2016

These January holidays, we returned back to Minischool vacation care early on the 4th due to popular demand.















The past few weeks have been filled with picnics, races, painting, making movies and dances, dressing up, building, creating, fun and games and a few crazy times. Welcome back to all of our vacation care children and welcome to some new faces here on holiday and newly arrived on island.








 

At the same time as vacation care, we were very fortunate to be able to run 2 weeks of ballet and jazz dance classes for 3-13 year olds.

Visiting ballerinas Abbey and Lara Wilkinson had been working with their own teachers at Noosa Performing arts factory to choreograph and teach the younger set.

30+ children were signed up for the dancers who learned amazing strength, exercises and skills during the fortnight. We learned that dancing can be fun to dress up and move to music but also so much more.

There was a fantastic comradery formed between the classes as Abbey choreographed and taught  an incredible 6 classes and 6 dance pieces over the space of 2 weeks. These new found skills were displayed to a packed uniting church hall full of siblings, parents, grandparents, friends and neighbours.

It was an amazing effort showcasing a need for more creative arts classes on Norfolk Island.

Minischool Director and coordinator of the dance classes explained to the parents during the concert that we are very fortunate to sample many activities on Norfolk Island, but sporting team events and clubs can be a constant in the children’s lives here yet creative arts are fewer and further apart in time frames and choices than sporting choices. Abbey explained that the strength taught in Ballet is the basis for all types of skills, not just dance.

The program of the dance concert was as follows.

3+ Ballet~ Frozen classical piece

6+ Ballet ~ Beethoven 5 secrets

9+ Ballet~ Skrillex music

Contemporary Ballet solo by Lara Wilkinson

3+ Jazz group ~ Uptown Funk

6+ Jazz group~ Afro Circus

9+ Jazz group~ The nights

Contemporary Ballet solo to ‘Lost boy’ by Abbey Wilkinson

We hope to bring Abbey and Lara back for more summer workshops next year.

In the meantime, for anyone wanting ballet classes to continue throughout the year, please register your interest with Teresa Langusch on 57986

Can all 2016 preschool enrolment forms please be returned to determine your places, first in first served for the days of your choice.


The Preschool graduation afternoon tea party will be held at Minischool 4pm Wednesday 27th of January. This will be followed by one of our favourite final events, the teacher/ student dinner out.

We farewell our 2014/2015 (even two from 2013) pre-schoolers and wish them all the very best as they transition to kindergarten. We know you are all ready and can’t wait to see you in uniform and when you pop back and see us.

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Happy Birthday October, November & December 2015

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
With love from all your Minischool friends ♥
 
 
 


Friday, December 25, 2015

Merry Christmas 2015


Merry Christmas from the Minischool team of 2015.
Consisting of Teachers, Teachers aides and helpers.
(l-r) Rosemary, Roberta, Cristina, Mandy and Shelley.
Our 2015 helpers Eloise, Storm and Lauren are missing from this photo but we all hope you had a wonderful day spent with your families!

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

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.
 


Thursday, October 29, 2015

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 piƱata, 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.




 



Sunday, April 26, 2015

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!