Mandalay Early Learning Centre

Join the crazy side and celebrate Crazy Hair day with us, tomorrow July 29th!

Good afternoon families,
This is a friendly reminder that next week we will be holding our annual Pyjama day (week) celebrations. From July 20th - 24th we encourage all children and educators of the service to dress in their favourite cosy pyjamas to raise vital funds for children in foster care.

KINDERGARTEN INFORMATION NIGHT ✨

We will be holding a Kindergarten & Pre-Prep information session on Wednesday the 5th of August at 6:30pm, here at Mandalay ELC. This information session will provide vital information about enrolments for 3 year old Kindergarten and 4 year old Pre-Prep for 2027.
We encourage all parents to attend if your child is eligible for next year, this is for all children who turn 3 or 4 years old by April 30.
If you have any questions at all, please feel free to reach out to Management to discuss.

Thank you!

CHRISTMAS IN JULY! ❄️

A friendly reminder that this week throughout the service the educators and children will be exploring Christmas in July!
Christmas in July is a mid year celebration that brings the traditions of Christmas to the month of July, often for fun, seasonal enjoyment or to mimic a winter Christmas in the southern hemisphere.

Children and educators are encouraged to wear Christmas attire throughout this week to celebrate✨

NAIDOC Week

This week at Mandalay ELC we celebrated NAIDOC Week, with the theme ‘50 Years of Deadly.’ The 2026 theme marks a major milestone, commemorating half a century since NAIDOC first became an official week- long event in 1975, honouring Indigenous resilience, leadership, and cultural continuity.
To celebrate here at the service we participated in ‘Morning Tea for Culture’ organised through the Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency, with all classrooms baking some yummy treats. These included lemon myrtle biscuits, strawberry gum damper, lamingtons and yoghurt cups, with all monies raised donated to V***A. We also held a staff morning tea today for our educators to enjoy.
As well as classroom activities and experiences that educated the children about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, we had a special visit from one of our parents, who discussed their culture, shared cultural artefacts such as clapping sticks and boomerangs and engaged in some traditional dancing with the children.
Our Pre-Prep children created a wonderful story blanket, incorporating their personal artwork that was then sewn together, this is being displayed proudly in our hallway.
We had a fantastic week celebrating and exploring Indigenous culture and thank all parents who donated and enjoyed our yummy treats!

Good afternoon families,
We have recently been advised on a new local OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST within our community.

Kirsty is a paediatric occupational therapist and founder of Affirm OT. They have an OT located in Ivanhoe and an OT located in Beveridge, however they offer a mobile community therapy service, so all sessions take place in kinder, home, school etc. - wherever the support is needed.

They currently have no waitlist and are welcoming new referrals. If you have a child you feel would benefit from support with transitions, behaviours, sensory regulation, school readiness skills or social skills, they would love to help — they're here for them.

We support NDIS (plan or self-managed), Medicare, and private paying clients.

We've attached a flyer with more details

Our NAIDOC Week 'Morning Tea for Culture' is now open!

Today you will find Lamingtons hand made by our Pre-Prep children and Lemon Myrtle Playdoh available for purchase via a small donation.
To make donating to our cause simpler we have provided a QR code which is on display on our Morning tea table and the front door.

The Morning Tea for Culture provides valuable funds to support indigenous children in taking part in programs that provide them with the opportunity to engage with connect with their culture, history and country.

We have also set up a collaborative art piece that we would love for our families to contribute to. Simply use the glue sticks and indigenous flag coloured paper provided to decorate our '50 YEARS DEADLY' poster.

We thank you for your support :)

Supporting emotional regulation ✨

When guiding our learners through emotional regulation and exploring their ability to identify how they are feeling, how this affects them and their environment and how we can support them through these difficult moments, we are often found reflecting and collaborating to identify inclusive strategies that can be embedded throughout our service to support this.

Recently we have adopted a Yoto player as a new regulation tool; the Yoto player offers children autonomy in identifying when they need some space and a moment to regulate.
The Yoto player provides children with the opportunity to select a story to listen to from our Yoto library, with the choice to accompany this with the physical book or simply enjoy listening to the narrator read the story.
We have paired the Yoto player up with some headphones to allow children to choose whether they want to experience solitude, a moment of peace and a chance for their body to regulate or to use the Yoto as a small group regulation tool as they listen with peers.

A small group of our pre-prep children utilised the Yoto player within their classroom today to help with some big emotions, and before long a small group was collaborating to share the Yoto and experience a unanimous feeling of calm.

Well done pre-preps!

As a service we acknowledge the pain carried by the Stolen Generation and their families; yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We commit to listening, learning, and supporting healing in our community.

We promise to educate and guide, understanding, inclusive and knowledgeable children. We will provide them with endless opportunity to connect with country, it's traditional custodians and to understand the importance of acknowledging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander traditions, stories and ways of living.

A reminder to 'Wear it yellow' as we acknowledge and explore reconciliation week throughout the service from May 27th- June 3rd.

The theme for National Reconciliation week this year is 'All in for Reconciliation'. This is a call for all Australians to commit wholeheartedly to reconciliation every single day.
All In makes clear that reconciliation is not a spectator sport and that all of us must step away from the sidelines and take action to make change.
The theme also reminds us that reconciliation and advancing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ rights isn’t a passive activity, and it is not solely the responsibility of First Nations people, who have carried the weight of championing, explaining and acting for far too long.

Reconciliation will not happen by itself, and it will not happen without all of us.

This reconciliation week we encourage our families, children, educators and wider community to make their own commitment as to how they will act upon being 'All in for reconciliation'.

What might this look like?

As a family:
We are All in for reconciliation as we teach our children about inclusion for all and where possible involve our children in experiences where they can learn from, understand and respect first nations peoples.

As an individual:
I am All in for reconciliation I'm all in for educating myself about treaty and truth-telling processes in our state

As a child:
I'm All in for reconciliation by caring for Country in my playground

Feel free to identify your All in statement below or fill in a leaflet to contribute to our community 'All in' installment. Leaflets will be available within the service hallway, Please fill in and return to in tray.

We thank you for contributing to our ongoing commitment to educating children and families on the importance of acknowledging and understanding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives.