The new fish tank

Guess who's got a new fish tank?

We’re off to Big School now!

The last of our most senior students are leaving us this week to start their new life at big school, both sad to see them go and happy with their progress over the years. They leave St Marys Blinky Bills Pre-School staff with happy memories, probably why our staff love this job so much, well done staff.

Garden Update, composting

Sharon also found a compost bin on the side of the road one day so we have recycled it back into use for all the fruit peelings from the children’s morning tea etc, to go back into the garden as soil compost. The plants will love this.

In the play area, there are new plants along the fence which break up the pavers a bit, let’s see how tough these plants are as the children are still learning not to tred on them.
Last year’s garden upgrade has bloomed well and grown out effectively for the children to walk through, look at, discover the bugs and things, inspect the blossoms. There heaps of different flowers hiding there, I’ll try to get a few photos up.

Garden Update

Since the end of last year, there’s been a bit of work going on in the gardens at St Marys Blinky Bills Pre-School. The golden nugget pumpkins have finished and the tomatoes have taken over the little garden out the front. There are cherry tomatoes growing right up to the highway and soon through the fence, all starting to ripen up nicely. Good pickings for morning tea. Passion fruit, pepino and beans also growing well in the garden, we’ve picked a few beans but they were eaten before we left the garden, they were so good.

Welcome to 2012

Our first week back at St Marys Blinky Bills Pre-School and oh what fun we’ve had meeting the new children and families and children continuing on for another year.
We have played some settling in games to get to know the children and incorporated lots of fun into the program.
St Marys Blinky Bills Pre-School staff are back fully charged and ready to face 2012 with the new EYLF and NQS (ask our staff what we’re talking about).
We still have a couple of vacancies left for ages 2 to 5's but these are filling fast.
Please ring St Marys Blinky Bills Pre-School on 9623 5069 for details and our friendly staff will assist.
Over the Christmas break, our vegetable garden has gone a bit wild with hundreds of tomatoes and pumpkins ripening up, now we also have watermelon, passionfruit and beans coming on. YUM YUM........................

National Quality Framework Process.

This week all St Marys Blinky Bills Pre-School staff attended a seminar at the centre based on the incoming National Quality Framework “NQF”. Our formats were checked over and found we are on the right track, with a few little changes.
We are handling the new system very well. All staff are working together to create easier time management processes.

Zebra Crossing.

A comment from a parent the other day made me feel very proud of our teaching at St Marys Blinky Bills Pre-School;

A child was shopping with their mum and as they walked down the street,

The child said ' Look Mum, it's a zebra crossing'

Mum said 'Yes, that's right, how did you know that?'

The child replied ' We have one at pre-school'.

Mum was so impressed, she was very excited to tell us on the child's next day at pre-school.

Sensory Skills

We have been focusing on a collection of sensory experiences for the children to feel, squeeze, roll, push and pull around.
Playdough is always the most popular at St Marys Blinky Bills Pre-School but staff feels by adding variety to our already full list it would be great for our new 2 year olds to experience as well.
Through research on the internet we have discovered a few unusual sensory items e.g. a few varieties in the playdough range, super slippy slime, snow dough, snot recipe, silky playdough, blue goo to name a few. This has created lots of fun with texture.

Nature

St Marys Blinky Bills Pre-School’s student Kate has had the children involved with silk worms and over a few weeks, the worms have grown long and wide, children hold them and laugh when they wiggle on their skin.
Kate explains about the life of a silkworm through stories and life. The worms eat huge amounts of mulberry leaves which fill the container. Children have been gentle and interested in this insect.

Around the World

Julie has been travelling the world at St Marys Blinky Bills Pre-School with the children each week starting with ancient Rome and what happened a long time ago, with gladiators and lions.
Using the huge world map on display Julie pointed out to the children where Rome was and placed icons on the map with special places to visit. Next we travelled to Egypt where the pyramids are, lots of questions were asked by the children referring to the sand, desert and animals that might live there.
When this group time was over we moved into our sandpit area and by adding water to our sand, children amazingly began to create pyramids with the sand, lots of excitement and language flowing.
Africa was next which was great because children were so keen to see the pictures of the animals that live there. Then America with many icons for visitors to see, children passed around the felt pieces and looked intensely at them while Julie explained about each of them.
The world map is filling up and our journeys have not ended. The children are keen to see the map each time it is unfolded.

Animal Homes

St Marys Blinky Bills Pre-School’s incursion with “Rangers on the Run” was incredible, Veronica from the Rangers had a vast variety of homes that animals reside in, a cave for a bear which children climbed in and out, and an old hollow tree in which children were possums climbing up high.
In a tunnel looking like a old fallen tree where snakes and insects might hide in, the children became the animals within that tunnel. And in a trap door spider home, the children climbed into it and popped up the lid to scare others. Then there was a huge piece of bark to hide under like small insects do up the side of trees, and a cacoon for children to climb into as a caterpillar and stretch out before becoming a butterfly.
The wombat cave was climbed in, and the long grass was to hide in, with huge leaves to wrap around and to hide. The children experienced so much hands-on play. Veronica explained what all the animals and homes were called and then the children let their imagination go wild and be what they would like to be in a different home. This was a great show.

Chickens

The eggs arrived at St Marys Blinky Bills Pre-School from the chicken hatchery and everyone was excited to see the chickens hatch, it only took 1 day and we had our first chicken out which was wet and tiny.
The children watched the next day and experienced the cracking egg shell and a new life was born and then another, all together out of 10 eggs we had 7 hatched chicks. Over the 2 weeks children enjoyed the holding of them and the cleaning of their box. Comments like “they’re soft, they smell, they tickle and I love our chickens” all were heard over this time.
The chickens were placed in a variety of homes during each day, boxes, laps, wheelie box, we even made a home from blocks. The time came for them to go home, which a few went to several of the children and they are still growing heaps. During the 2 weeks we played chicken games, read stories, completed a craft experiences and best of all played with them.

Healthy Living Incursion.

We had a wonderful incursion this week on Healthy Living.

The children all became involved by being part of the show where we discussed healthy foods and sometimes foods, how to keep your teeth clean and what happens when you visit the doctors for immunisations.

We talked some more on sun protection by wearing sunglasses, going to the beach and putting on sunscreen and the correct clothing to wear.

Singing

With our singing through the week we used props to extend our number songs which in turn builds confidence for the children. Many songs were sung which build movement and humour.

Ribbons and Movement.

Based on a Movement Seminar the staff attended, we followed through with ribbon activities like passing to each other and following directions, the children picked up the concept quite well.