It was wonderful to observe the sights and sounds of happy chatter and smiling faces filling our Early Learning Centre this week as the children returned from the term break. 

The children are certainly feeling relaxed and refreshed and have returned with many stories to share about their exciting school holiday adventures.  

Our focus as educators for these first few days of term has been on supporting the children to reconnect. This involves reconnecting with the educational program and current interests and inquiries. It also involves reconnecting with peers and educators to reestablish these connections and relationships after the break. The children also need to refamiliarise themselves with classroom routines and expectations as they adjust to being back in this group learning environment. 

We have an exciting term of learning planned for our ELC children. There are many interesting ongoing inquiries happening in each classroom and many more will evolve as the children’s natural wonderings lead to further discussion and learning.  

This term our full complement of specialist classes will commence with the addition of French for the 4-year-old classes and PMP for all classes. We also look forward to connecting with our ELC families as the children host celebrations for their mothers and special guests. It is sure to be a wonderful term ahead. 

Natural Materials 

Our Early Learning Programs are inspired by a nature-based approach. We use a range of natural materials for a range of purposes within both the indoor and outdoor educational programs. We are always on the hunt for additional natural materials such as sticks, branches, pinecones, seed pods, shells, rocks etc. If you happen to collect any of these items on your visits to local parks, gardens, farms, or the beach, we would welcome them as contributions to add to our collection. 

Recycled Materials 

We also welcome donations of recycled cardboard boxes, cardboard rolls, egg cartons, fabric, ribbon, buttons etc. The children use these recycled materials for various projects involving construction and collage. If you happen to have any of these items that you wish to recycle, your donations are most welcome.