We hope all our Mums and Mother Figures had a wonderful Mother's Day yesterday.  We hope you enjoyed your 'break on us' too! 

COVID-19

Last week at the ELC we had a number of positive covid-19 cases attend our centre. With changes to restrictions and the winter season upon us it is unsurprising that this is the case. We will continue to do our best to minimise the spread of covid at the centre, through regular cleaning routines, regular hand washing routines, good ventilation in indoor spaces and plenty of time outdoors. We are really grateful to all families for notifying us when children are close contacts, or when children have tested as positive. With a number of cases being present at the centre last week, please be especially vigilant with keeping children home should they display any symptoms over the next week or so. We will continue to inform you of instances where we have had a positive case, just as we would for other infectious diseases.

Preschool Photos

This week is photo week at St Anthony’s Early Learning Centre. Photos will be spread across two days with individual, class & sibling photos taken.  

Koalas and Bilbies class photos - Wednesday 11^th May.

Possum class photos – Thursday 12^th May.

Please make sure your child is wearing their St Anthony’s polo shirt, polar fleece jumper, navy pants (or skirts and navy stockings), and black school shoes or joggers.

We can’t wait to see everyone looking their best for photo day – although all of us are gorgeous every day!!

Please see further information further in our Newsletter.  

Pine Forest Visits

With the onset of the cooler weather classes will begin their regular visits to the Pine Forest this term, for some nature play. This is one of my favourite parts of our Preschool program! The first few visits to the Pine Forest we see a few of the children tentatively attempt to climb some of the trees, by the end of the year they embrace this confidently, challenging themselves as the weeks go by. Lots of beautiful imaginative play emerges in our time spent in this space as well. We have seen the creation of fairy gardens made of sticks, leaves and seed pods, the creation of camp fires and simple cubbies and lots of fun chasing games. We also encourage children to spend some time being still and observing the environment around them on their visits – this takes a little practice too! Everyone is encouraged to find a space in the forest to sit for a few minutes each visit, and we provide children with their own journals for use at this time for drawings, and for collecting treasures they may have found.

Opportunities to engage in elements of risky play such as tree climbing, are increasingly recognised as crucial to children’s development building life skills such as problem solving, the ability to assess and make judgements about risk, resourcefulness, creativity and inventiveness. This is a special part of our preschool program, and we find the children really look forward to their visits to the Pine Forest.