Currambena Primary and Preschool

Hello Everyone

It’s Currambena’s 40th Year reunion on Sunday at 12 o’ clock. All kinds of interesting things are planned - a delicious lunch and a sausage sizzle, whole school singing, various speakers, meeting Currambena’s alumni and founders and more. Please come and bring some food to share. There’s a list on the noticeboard where you can write down your contribution.

This week we have been talking about pollution in the sea and mermaids. We are making a mermaid grotto to play in. In Craft tomorrow we are going to do some action painting. Ann, Ben’s mum, is planning on making pancakes with preschool this morning. Last week’s pancakes were delicious and very popular with the children (and adults).

We also went to the park on Monday as we finally had a sunny Monday. Please remember to sign the permission form each Monday morning. It’s on the sign-on sheet. Also, please can people remember to sign the sign-on sheet every day that their child attends preschool? Thanks!!!

The Nepal Stall is being held next Tuesday. Please bring in things to sell and also money to spend on the day. We need things baked for the day as well. Yesterday Preschool had a meeting with Fran, Jo and the Aussiekids to work out how to run the stall.

It’s the second last week of term. A list of cleaning jobs needed to be done has been put on the glass doors next to the lunch table. Please come and put your name down for a job to be done next week. This counts as maintenance so don’t forget to write it up in the maintenance folder in the front foyer of the main building.

The last day of term is next Friday, 10th July 2009. We re-open on Tuesday 28th July 2009. CASP is open for the whole day on Monday 27th July 2009, so see Colin if you would like to book your child in. Amba is also running holiday CASP on certain days. There is a list on the main noticeboard, so write your child’s name down if you need care for them during the holidays.

The chickens need a holiday home for the holidays.If you would like to look after them see me. They need a secure place to sleep at night, fresh food and water each day, a laying box and access to the garden during the day.

Preschool now has a laptop computer! Thanks to Tony, Ferghus’ dad, for getting it up and running.

Chris has been working tirelessly putting out the lost property each morning, both outside preschool and under the blue umbrella. Quite a lot of things have been taken home. Please claim your child’s things as all the left-over lost property will be going to Vinnie’s in the holidays.

Here are some Spanish words and their pronunciations-

vamos (vamos) - let’s go

vamonos (vamonos) - we’re going

uno (oono) - one

dos (dos) - two

tres (trehs) - three

adentro (adehntro) - inside

dime (deemeh) - tell me - you say this when someone calls your name. In English we say “Yes?”, in Spanish you say “Dime”.

There is some more Spanish pronunciation information in the newsletter today. 

Love from Sue, Chris and Gabriela.

Hello Everyone

The aquarium visit was lots of fun. The rain held off at the right times, the dugongs were beautiful, the sharks and fish all interesting and a rainbow shone for the journey home!! Each dugong eats 90kg of lettuce every day! It’s a full-time job catering for dugong meals as all the lettuce has to be washed and threaded onto special frames and then lowered into the tank. Thanks to all the parents who came with us and made the excursion such a happy learning experience. We appreciated your help.

This week we have continued the exploration of marine life. Yesterday we added photos of the creatures we saw at the aquarium to the mural. There is also a poster of photos of us all enjoying the excursion. In Craft today we are planning on making a life-size shark.

There is also an interest in cars and we have some car books and have started a project on cars. If anyone has an interesting/sports car we’d love to have a look at it! 

Last Wednesday Chris, Gabriela and I went to a talk on bilingualism, simultaneous and successive language learning. It was really interesting and informative. What is most important in families where one family member speaks another language is that they consistently speak that language to the children of the family. Another thing we learnt is to value the incredible resource that a person who speaks another language brings to an environment. In light of this, Gabriela has started speaking a lot more Spanish in the daily routines. We also have some bilingual children’s books from the library. If anyone has any linguistic resources or experience to share we would love you to come and share it with us and the children.

School Meeting is now at 9.30am on a Friday morning to give a longer period of unbroken time on Fridays. The primary school has reinvigorated the Friday program to enable children to have more choice in personal projects and more extended time to devote to these projects.

Today is Willem and Luuk’s last day. We hope they have lots more fantastic experiences in their last month of Australia, and find wonderful schools to work in when they get back to Holland.

Lastly a reminder to parents to please sign the sign-on sheet each morning when dropping children at preschool.

Thanks to Kasia and Stan for the beach materials and Rebecca and Oscar for the dress-up items.

Love from

Sue, Chris and Gabriela.

Hello Everyone

This week we have continued the exploration on bodies and are now thinking about mothers and babies and the changes as we grow. The children  have been discussing what they know about babies and what they know about children. The discussions are up on the big wall. We have Myung-Jin (Oliver and Tilly’s mum) coming in later this week to talk about how she cares for baby Charlie. We also have Anita, Georgia’s mum, coming in today to talk to us about the blood, the brain and the body from a doctor’s point of view.

We have also been doing a project on bullet trains, inspired by Tate’s interest in Japanese bullet trains. Lots of the children have been very interested in this as well - doing drawings and talking about their knowledge and experiences. We painted a large, colourful bullet train in Craft last week and have been making paper people to go in the train. It’s up on the big wall.

In addition to bullet trains, babies and bodies we have been talking about what we call “put-downs”. These are words that make other people feel sad, cross and “squashed” inside, like “You’re stupid” or “poo-bum”. We talked about why people use put-downs, how they make you feel and what you can do if someone uses them. We also talked about thinking of the effect on someone before you use a put-down.

The park visit this week was cancelled due to rain. We did dancing with Willem and Luuk in the spare room instead.

On Thursday it is the Lane Cove Reconciliation Day and the primary children will be going up to the Plaza to participate. Alexandria Park school students will be coming back  for a barbeque lunch afterwards.

The AGM will be held on Thursday 4th June 2009 at 6.00pm. We are asking families to bring some hot soup and bread to share. Nominations for Council need to be in to Julianna this week, so see her a.s.a.p. if you would like to stand for Council.

The Sock It To You orders have been sent off and the items should arrive next week. Thanks to everyone who participated.

We need someone to look after the chickens for the long weekend. You will need to be able to come in and let them out in the mornings and feed them and put them in the coop in the evenings on Saturday 6th, Sunday 7th and Monday 8th June. Alternatively, you can take them home for the weekend if you have a secure place for them to sleep at night. Let me know if you would like to do either of these options. Thanks to  Caroline and Ricky and Jamie, Tilly and Oliver for caring for the chickens for this month.

Love from

Sue, Chris and Gabriela.

Hello Everyone

This week we welcome Matthew and his family. We have been working on finding out more about the body, following up on the children’s interest in the brain and thinking, and blood. There are two life size bodies on the wall in preschool and we have started adding a brain and nervous system to one. There are plans for a circulatory system for the other, with plastic tubing! We have also been having discussions about how our body relays information to the brain and vice versa and also how our hearts pump blood around our bodies.

We have also been talking about where you can and cannot go when you are at preschool. CASP is out of bounds during the day until CASP time. If children want to go to the library they need to ask one of the teachers to accompany them.

On this coming Monday 18th May we will begin going to the park at the end of Dorritt Street. The Monday group has made some agreements for how we will walk to the park. We leave at 9.30am amd return at 11.00am, in time for canteen morning tea. We take fruit with us in the backpack to cut up for morning tea. There is a tap at the park for drinks of water.Children need to wear a hat and be at school by 9.30am so that we can leave promptly. Luuk and Willem will be going to the park with us each Monday until they leave on the 18th June. They will be planning different games and physical activities.  Please sign the permission slip that will be on the sign on sheet each Monday morning - it’s really important to remember do this otherwise we have to start phoning parents for permission or leave children behind at school!!

There will be breakfast at school this Friday 15th May, from 7.30am onwards. Come and meet other parents and enjoy the Currambena spirit. Payman (mum of Avah in Aussiekids) is organising the breakfast and as she has fractured her wrist she needs people to lift tables and help setting up. Please see Payman if you can help.

It’s Information Morning at 10.00am this morning for people to find out about Currambena. Michael is working while I do various admin tasks for the rest of the day.

Preschool and Aussiekids (Fran and Jo’s) will be holding a stall to raise money to buy books for the library at Heartland Children’s Academy in Nepal on Tuesday 7th July 2009. Please start going through your cupboards and bookshelves for items you no longer need to donate to the stall. We will also sell cakes and biscuits, so start planning some recipes to make as well!

Thanks to everyone who spirits away our bags of dirty washing and returns everything clean. We appreciate it!!

Lastly, we need an urgent Maintenance job done - can anyone replace one of the top rungs on the wooden climbing frame?

Love from

Sue, Chris and Gabriela.

Hello Everyone!

Welcome back to preschool for Term 2. This week we also welcome Keppel and his family.

We all had exciting and varied holidays. Julianna, Jo, Fran, Luuk, Willem and I went to the AAPAE Conference at Tamariki School in Christchurch, New Zealand, where we encountered new ideas, shared stories, looked at innovative schools and were made to feel totally at home and welcome by our friends at Tamariki. Gabriela went hiking and Chris is in Nepal, working at Heartland Children’s Academy. Michael will take Chris’ place until she gets back on Tuesday.

This Friday, 1st May, at 9.30 there will be a talk by Sydney Wildlife animal carer, Bev, who will talk about her work with baby animals. All are welcome. Please bring a gold coin donation.

This week we have followed up on the children’s ideas of what they would like to learn about this term and we have materials out for exploring the alphabet and numbers. We also have shapes and colours to play with on the light table.

I will be holding a fundraising sock drive in the next few weeks so don’t buy any socks, gloves, hats and so on until then! Look out for your catalogue in your child’s locker in the coming days.

Chris, Wendy and Fran will be holding a Conflict Resolution course beginning on Saturday, 9th May. It will run for 4 weeks.  Look out for the flyer in this newsletter. See Fran or Wendy if you are interested.

Thank you to all the wonderful people who cleaned at the end of last term and in the holidays. Thanks, too, to Kath, who bought us a big store of paper from Reverse Garbage. If you would like to cut it up for use on the easels please come and see one of us.

Love from

Sue, Chris and Gabriela.