Precious Cargo Education

Honouring ANZAC Day through creativity and care! Last week at Precious Cargo Blackwood, our children came together to create a beautiful poppy wreath to commemorate ANZAC Day. 🌺

We’re proud to see our little learners engaging in meaningful moments that help shape their understanding of history and community. Lest we forget. ❤️

Woodville Park held a Pyjama week.

Children and educators came dress in their comfortable pyjamas and together raised money for charity. The children were delighted in showing off their pyjama, which led to many conversations and laughter.
Pre-Kindy, Kindy and ELC did an educational movie about dinosaurs and a small picnic with Sandwiches in the music room. Kindy and ELC made some flower arrangements to take home. Nursery had some fun playing with Balloons,

Thank you to the families who participated in raising money. All together we raised $71.55 and any amount helps for children in Foster care.

This week at our St Peters Centre, they had a special dental visit to promote oral health among the children.
Children were provided an opportunity to learn about oral hygiene and Families were provided with the recommendations for their child’s oral hygiene practices. The children appeared happy as they were sent home with a sticker and their own toothbrush. This dental visit was a valuable experience and gave children a better understanding of the importance of dental hygiene.

Learning outcome: 3- Children have a strong sense of wellbeing and they take increasing responsibility of their own health and physical wellbeing. Dental visits educate the children about the importance having healthy teeth.

Germs, Germs go away!

At Precious Cargo Blackwood, the lovely Pre-Kindy children have had a lesson in practicing the skill of washing hands.
It not only teaches them independence but also helps in developing good hygiene habits early on. The children were actively engaged and enjoyed the process. They followed the instructions step by step carefully and were so happy to see the bubbles from their hands. Washing hands follows the Montessori principle of learning through practical activities.
 Learning outcome: 3.3.4 Children show increasing independence and competence in personal hygiene.
 Practices: Responsiveness to children
 Principle: equity, inclusion and high expectations
 Our philosophy statement: We educate children through their senses and embrace the Montessori Method & philosophy that promotes the dignity and physical worth of the whole child

The Pre-Kindy children of Collinswood had a fantastic adventure at Adelaide Zoo last month. While anticipating reaching the destination, the children had fun on the bus—singing songs, looking at things out of the window, and talking about what they were looking forward to seeing in the zoo. Once there, the curious little learners were amazed at the different animals they had seen. They were excited to see dingo, wallabies, penguins, kangaroos, giraffes, lions, tigers, pandas, pelicans and many more! They were also treated to a flight bird show, which the young ones really enjoyed. Then they had a picnic together and had a wonderful conversation about the experience.

This excursion was a great opportunity for the children to learn new things about various animals, enhance their developing vocabulary, and help increase their confidence in being in a different learning environment.

Reconciliation Week at Marion:

Our learning for the Week comprised of knowledge and play-based learning about the Australian Indigenous culture and history. Our Kindy and ELC children learned the song - Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes song in Kaurna language. We made a natural tepee as a resemblance to the shelter used by Australian Aboriginal and Indigenous people in the past. We had fun learning Indigenous symbols and tracing them. We made a wreath using natural leaves with children painting on it. We used natural resources like gumnuts, leaves, sticks, rocks, mud, sand and artificial resources like paint, playdough and matchsticks to incorporate with our indoor and outdoor learning. The outdoor nature play, and tepee gave the essence of play-based learning whilst incorporating nature. The children had the opportunity to be an active participant and an observer to learn about Indigenous culture and history.

2.1 Children develop a sense of connectedness to groups and communities and an understanding of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities necessary for active and informed citizens
2.1.2 Children being to recognise there is a diversity of cultures, traditions and family structures
2.2.2 Children show interest in and explore the diversity of cultures, heritage, backgrounds, traditions and families

Last month, Collinswood were thankful to Julia's friend, Amy, who gifted the Preschool children with milkweed that had Monarch caterpillars and pupa living in it. The class got to know that milkweed is the only plant on which monarch butterflies lay their eggs and the only source of food for baby caterpillars. The children researched and found out that when the caterpillars turn into butterflies, they will stay on the plants for a couple of hours until they are ready to fly away. When it's time for those butterflies to lay eggs, they will return to find the plants where they were born. The children were amazed at what they saw and learnt, which is why the educators extended this experience to discover more about the butterflies and their life cycle.

The milkweed exploration provided the children with an opportunity to learn more about the world around them. This encourages them to respect and appreciate the insects and their role in the environment.

At Precious Cargo Blackwood during the week of May 27th- June 3rd 2024 we observed and celebrated National Reconciliation Week.

National Reconciliation Week is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia.

The National Reconciliation Week theme for 2024, Now More Than Ever, is a reminder to all of us that no matter what, the fight for justice and the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will —and must —continue.

Throughout the week, the children participated in various activities and experiences to learn more about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and the cultures of some of our educators. Some of our families joined us and walked in the Blackwood Reconciliation Walk on Sorry Day 26th May 2024.

Recently Marion celebrated Mother’s Day at Marion by hosting a Morning Tea for all Mum’s and Grandparents in our Music Room. Children enjoyed having their families join in with activities and craft.

Over the past couple of months, our Kindy class have practiced a song “Happy Mother Day” and performed with Kindy Educator (Sawa) playing the piano.

1.3 – Children develop knowledge, confident self-identities and a positive sense of self-worth
3.1 – Children become strong in their social, emotional and mental wellbeing

It was an exciting week at Precious Cargo Westbourne Park last week, having a visit from one of our parents (Steve), who is a camera man for Channel 10! He came to visit his son’s Pre Kindy class and talk to the children about his occupation. Tiffany, the Channel 10 weather reporter joined us too and we got to be a part of the live weather broadcast! It was very interesting to see what happens behind the scenes when news is made and televised to our community!
The children were particularly interested in the filming equipment and Steve was able to show them more closely, how it worked. We would like to extend our thanks to them both, for involving us in this special learning experience.

Baking in the kitchen - Recipes from Autumn/Winter menu

Lemon Cake
Serves 10

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups SR flour
200gm nuttelex
½ cup brown sugar
200ml rice milk
1 Lemons zested and juiced

Method:
- Paper your trays and preheat oven.
- In a large mixing bowl add in your flour, sugar and lemon zest and mix.
- Melt the nuttelex and add into flour while mixing add in your lemon juice add rice milk mix well until cake batter forms you may need to add more or less rice milk until you get your desired consistency.
- Bake until golden and serve.

Today the St Peter's ELC children got the change to engage in a local comity event hosted by Walkerville Library celebrating National Simultaneous Storytime, where children from all over Australia read the same book at the same time.

This years chosen story was 'Bowerbird Blues' a story about a bird finding the true treasure of life, friendship.

This book linked in well with the children's recent interests around birds following them finding a birds nest in one of our trees.

The ELC children walked to a local reserve to take part in this event where they got to listen to the story and partake in some related craft experiences. Afterwards the children had a picnic in the reserve where they enjoyed running and playing in the large free open space.

This excursion allowed for the children to explore the local environment, engage in literacy learning and become active citizens of the world as they engaged with members of the local community.