Currambena Primary and Preschool

Hello Everyone

The concert was fabulous, with colour, humour, inventive costumes and wonderful stories. Preschool sang “The Rainbow Snake” beautifully and the fairies danced with spontaneity and enjoyment, even if some were a little dazzled by the lights and the size of the hall. Thank you to everyone for the huge amount of hard work, and to all the parents who drove children to the practice at the hall yesterday. Thank you, too, to Deb and Lachlan, for spending the day in preschool afterwards, baking biscuits, reading and playing.

The stall for Heartland Children’s Academy raised $536.40. The children, teachers and parents all worked really hard donating, sorting, categorising, baking, selling and buying. Thank you to everyone for their input! It was a very educational experience on many levels - generosity, mathematics, language, decision making and negotiating.

This is the last week of term, and the children have been painting, making collages, making masks and crowns, looking at the silkworms that were given to us and talking about what they would like to learn about next term.

This Friday is the last day of term 3. Preschool re-opens again on Tuesday 14th October 2008. CASP will be open all day, from 8.30am-6.30pm, on Monday 13th October 2008. Put your name down on the list on the CASP sign-on book in the foyer of the main office.

The end of term clean up is on this week. Thank you to everyone who has come in and cleaned or taken things home to wash.

There is a Social on this Friday evening at 6.00pm. Please bring a plate of food to share. This is always a lot of fun. The school is magical by night and the company is always spirited! The food is always delicious.

Thanks to Lucy and Rebecca for taking the silkworms home for the holidays.

A HUGE thank you to Amba, Anthony, Max and Luca, who come and let the chickens out each day on the weekends, and then feed them and put them back in their coop at night.

The mouse is staying at my house for the holidays and Sam and I will get her a companion.

Have a happy holiday, everyone!!

Love from

Sue, Chris and Soojin.

Hi Everyone

Next Wednesday, 17th September, is our Stall to raise money for Heartland Children’s Academy in Nepal to buy books for their library. Please look in your toy boxes, bookshelves and homes for things you no longer need that we can sell to the community. Please come and support the preschool children and Fran’s as they will be running the stall, by buying goods and donating money to this excellent cause. You can also bake delicious things to sell at the stall - cakes, biscuits, little savoury items, etc. Please remember no nuts, kiwifruit and chocolate. Thanks to everyone who has already brought in items to sell. Fran’s class will baking and selling warm scones at the end of the day so you will be able to buy some when you pick your children up from school!!

The end of the term and the concert are approaching quickly. We are having daily concert practices. The concert will be held on Tuesday 23rd September 2008 at 6.00pm sharp at St Andrew’s Church Hall, cnr Kenneth and Christina Streets in Longueville. We start the concert exactly on time, so preschool performers need to be at the hall by 5.45pm, dressed in whatever they would like to wear. We are asking the children what they would like to wear this week, so please come into preschool and look at the list of children’s names and their chosen costume. The aim of the concert is for children to have fun and enjoy performing. We do not force anyone to get up on the stage on the night, so if your child wants to watch that is fine. They do all need to be part of the practices so that they are prepared and part of what we are doing.

We will be going to practice for the concert on the morning of the 23rd September, so we will need a few drivers to take children down to the Hall. A note will go up about this next week. Please write down the number of spare car seats with seat belts you have available, excluding your child’s seat.

The end of term preschool clean-up happens in the last week as well, and a list of jobs will go up on the glass doors next week. Please put your name next to the job you would like to do, and then come in during the last week and do it. You can also play, drink coffee and have lots of fun with all of us. Little siblings are welcome!

A couple of weeks ago I attended the COAG Forum “A national quality framework for early childhood education and care” which is looking at overhauling Australia’s early childhood education. I was part of a table that looked at working conditions in early childhood settings and the possibility of rating early childhood settings. I will be putting in a written submission from Currambena today as well. A discussion paper has been published and is available on www.deewr.gov.au/COAG/discussionpaper. All stakeholders in early childhood education are invited to write their ideas and suggestions to ECECQualityReformSubmissions@deewr.gov.au. This is an important and vital forum to have your say on the early childhood education you visualise for your children.

This week we have been following up on children’s questions - Cameron asked “Why can’t we see air, and CAN we see air?”. So we have done some experiments, looked at books and tried to see air. We have also been looking at frogs, spiders and snakes based on what children said they wanted to learn about this term. Tomorrow we are going to see our buddies’ tadpoles in Buddy Time and hear about what they have learnt about the frog life cycle. We have also been discussing death, God, heaven, euthanasia and the possibility of an afterlife following the death of our black mouse last week. The children’s thoughts and opinions are very interesting and varied. As Ethan said “We all have our own things about God”.

Yesterday Paisleys’s dad, Paul, a musician, brought his guitar and came and played with Tony in music time. The children sang, danced, listened and read the words of the hippopotamus song. It was lots of fun and it is wonderful having accomplished musicians who love playing music. Thanks, Paul!

We have a Monday and a Friday space from next week which we would like to offer to our present preschool families. If you would like to add or swap a day, please let me know.

Thanks for working on sanding and varnishing our boards, Ian, Kim and Cameron.

Thank you to all our washers and paper cutters who keep us supplied with clean things and easel paper.

Love from

Sue, Chris and Soojin.

Hello Everyone

The excursion to the fire station was fantastic! The firefighters were so organised, friendly and child-focused. The children were completely engaged and had lots of hands-on experiences. It was very interesting for the adults as well. Thanks to all the parents who came with us. Thanks to Steve and Elaine, who followed up the fire station with making a fire outside preschool on Friday (in the rain!). There was a lot of discussion on how fires burn, what they need and how to maintain a fire in the rain - chemistry and physics in action! We also discussed safety around fires.

The Aquarium excursion is next Tuesday, 2nd September. The cost for this is $20.00 per child. We have lots of helpers, thanks to all who have volunteered their time. We will leave the school by bus at 10.00 am and return again at about 1.30 pm. Children going on the excursion need morning tea and lunch in named paper bags. Please ensure they are at school by 9.30am.

We have received a box from the Australian Museum filled with interesting objects, books and photos of sea creatures. We are having fun exploring this. We have also been making a sea scene on the big wall.

We are having a stall to collect money for Heartland Children’s Academy in Nepal on Wednesday 17th September. Please collect all the toys and books you no longer want for Preschool to sell. We would also like to sell cakes and snacks at the stall, so please bring in food to sell on the day as well (no nuts, kiwifruit or chocolate, please).

Kinma School is coming to visit on Thursday. Fran’s class will be making morning tea and Olivia’s and Wendy’s classes will arrange a sausage sizzle for lunch.

The date has been set for the concert - Tuesday 23rd September 2008. We have begun practicing for the concert, with lots of discussion and negotiation.

Lastly, thanks to Tilly and Anusha for fixing our wooden table in Craft.

Love from

Sue, Chris and Soojin.

Hello Everyone,

This week we have been doing drawings of when we were babies and of ourselves as we are now. We have also been talking about what we’ve learnt since birth and also about the things we don’t like doing.

On Monday night, Pat Price, an ex-Currambena student, who is now a teacher, gave a presentation on his organisation The Centre for Learning and Children’s Rights Incorporated and what it has achieved in Nepal in the past six months. Pat showed us photos of the school he has bought, where he has begun changing the way Nepalese children learn, so that they get a rich education, experience in conflict resolution and life skills. It was so interesting to see the children at Heartland Children’s Academy and know these are the children that Currambena has a direct connection with. The school is in Kathmandu and has 200 pupils from preschool to Year 10. Thanks to Mustang Nepalese restaurant for donating delicious nibbles, and to Fran and Chris for hosting the evening.

We will be holding a stall to raise money for Heartland Children’s Academy to buy books. At the moment their library is just a disorganised corner with only 50 books. They hope to relocate and organise the library in the very near future and we hope to be able to raise enough money for them to fill their shelves with books! Please start sorting through your house and collecting books, toys and other things to sell at the stall, which will be held on Wednesday 17th September 2008.

The excursion to the Crows Nest Fire Station is next Thursday 21st August 2008. We need a few people to drive us to the fire station at about 10.00 am and return us to school at about 11.30 am. You need to have a back seat with a seat belt for each child you transport. Write your name on the list on the window above the sign-on table if you can do this. We are also planning the Aquarium visit and information about the details for this will be in next week’s newsletter.

Thanks to Rizgar for the DELICIOUS pizzas he made with preschool on Friday and thank you to everyone who does our never-ending bags of washing. Thanks to Lyn and her team of helpers for accessioning and covering all the beautiful new library books. The job is just about done. Thanks, Chris, for selecting and buying the books.

Love from

Sue, Chris and Soojin.

Hello Everyone

This week we have been writing letters to the fairies and getting replies! We have found out what the resident fairy likes to eat and what he or she thinks of the fairy grotto. Yesterday a whole group of children wrote letters to the fairy and left them on the fairy tree. Chris found another tiny letter under the door this morning. I wonder what it says?

We have also been talking about caring for animals and writing pet stories. Please keep those photos of pets coming in. It can be a pet that lives with you, or one that you know.

This week we have also been deciding what we could perform at the concert at the end of the term, based on the discussions we all had last week. We have also been thinking about what form the school concert could take. The concert will be a choice, and no child will be forced to participate.

There is a roster of days of the week for 2009. If you have not done so already, please fill your child’s name on the days you would like them to attend to be assured of getting your choice of days.

We have decided on a date for the excursion to the Aquarium at Darling Harbour - Tuesday 2nd September 2008. We will also be getting a Sea Creatures box from the Museum on the 25th August.

Preschool has also decided to hold a stall to raise money for a school in Nepal, which has been set up by an ex-Currambena student. The school urgently needs money for books. We will sell toys, books and food to the rest of the school on Wednesday 17th September 2008.

There is also the “Sock It To You” fundraising drive on at the moment. You can buy really excellent quality socks, scarves, gloves, thermal underwear and much more and each sale contributes money to the school. Each child received a catalogue in their locker yesterday. Get your Family and friends to buy any winter items as well!! The orders are due back at preschool on Friday 15th August 2008. Put them in the box on the preschool desk with either cash or a cheque made out to “Currambena School”. You can also pay “Sock It To You” directly by credit card (the simplest option!).

Finally, thanks to Dani spending the day in preschool and reading so many books! Also, thanks for the sandbags, Robyn. Lyn Slevin-Daly needs help covering all the new library books. Please phone her on 0424555233 if you can do this.

Love from

Sue, Chris and Soojin