McArthur Park Kindergarten

27/08/2026

🌟 What a busy and exciting fortnight at McArthur Park Kindy! 🌟
We have been exploring, creating, investigating and learning through some wonderful hands-on experiences!
🔬 Science Week was a huge highlight! Children created volcanoes in the sandpit before experimenting with fizzing bicarbonate of soda and vinegar in the tuff tray. Millicent Library joined us for a fantastic “Who Sank the Boat?” experience where children explored floating, sinking and water displacement. They measured water levels, made predictions and investigated how many objects they could place on a duck before it sank. 💦🦆
Millicent High School then brought an amazing range of science stations to Kindy, including making plastic from seaweed, balloon experiments, pipette and coin investigations, floating and sinking, digital microscopes and insects, magnets and electrical circuits. Our children loved being scientists and were fantastic at asking questions, making predictions and testing their ideas! 🔍⚡🧲
🎻 Music and movement also filled our fortnight. We had an outdoor dance party to get our bodies moving, and Mrs Fewster introduced us to her violin and cello. The children explored how the instruments work, including the bridge, strings and bows. They were fascinated to discover that the bow uses horsehair! We also used music and movement to explore lines, spaces and numbers through the Ladder Song.
📚 Book Week brought lots of wonderful stories, with The Emperor's Egg being a particular favourite. We were delighted to welcome the Millicent Lioness Club and thank them for their generous donation, which allowed us to purchase 10 new books from the Book Week list. We also travelled to Newberry Park Primary School for their Book Week parade, joining North Kindy and Gladys Smith Children's Centre. The children did a wonderful job listening, waiting patiently for their turn and joining in the celebrations.
❤️ Father's Day preparations have also been underway! With Hannah from Bunnings, children hammered nails into wooden blocks using special tweezers to safely hold the nails before decorating their creations. We have also been writing invitations, practising our names and drawing pictures of ourselves with our dads or special people.
✏️ Our chalk experiences have led to some fantastic literacy and numeracy learning. Children practised writing their names before creating a numbered hopscotch. This then grew into an alphabet hopscotch all the way from A to Z! Children worked together to plan how many boxes were needed and then hopped their way to different letters.
🌻 At group time, 10 Seeds helped us explore counting backwards and the life cycle of a sunflower. Children made animal puppets and recreated the story at our story table.
Outside, we have enjoyed lots of zombie games, climbing, hanging from the frame and building with Duplo vehicles. Children have been developing their ability to manage energetic play together, recognising when to slow down and respecting each other's space.
It has been a fortnight full of curiosity, creativity, connection and learning through play. We are so proud of the children's enthusiasm and the wonderful questions and ideas they bring to their learning every day! 💚🌱

25/08/2026

📚✨ Turning Pages and Creating Adventures! ✨📚

The children were so excited to present Annmarie Goode and Kathleen Staude from the Lions Club of Wattle Range Lioness Inc. with a very special thank you for their incredibly generous donation of $250 towards the purchase of new Book Week books for our children! 🎉📖

This wonderful donation will help fill our bookshelves with even more stories, adventures and magical worlds for our children to explore! 🌟🐉🚀

A huge THANK YOU to the Lions Club of Wattle Range Lioness Inc for your generosity and support of our childrens. We can't wait to get reading! 💛📚

13/08/2026

🔥 What a busy and exciting fortnight at McArthur Park Kindergarten! 🔥
Our campfire and damper experience was a real highlight! The children talked about campfire safety, collected water and sand to have nearby, and worked in small groups to make their own damper. Everyone had a turn scooping flour, adding a pinch of salt, mixing, kneading and rolling their dough onto a stick. We even reflected on our first attempt and discovered that thinner damper cooked much better! 👩‍🍳🔥
Our learning continued through play, with playdough damper making, campfire books, campfire reflections and even a pretend campfire when the wet weather kept us undercover. The children cooked leaf "marshmallows" on sticks and continued their imaginative play.
🚨 Safety has been a big focus this fortnight. Alongside our campfire safety discussions and conversations about staying safe around the building works, we also practised an evacuation with the children. We talked about listening to educators, following instructions, moving safely together and going to our designated assembly area. This provided a meaningful opportunity for children to practise our emergency procedures in a calm and supportive way.
🔢 Numeracy has been a big focus too! Children have been counting their friends at group time, practising writing numerals and exploring addition and subtraction using ten frames and bean bags. We have been counting forwards and backwards and thinking about what happens when we add or take away.
📚 We have also seen lots of interest in books, drawing and early writing. One child's learning goal was to make books, so we provided blank books for children to create their own stories. This quickly became a group interest, with lots of pictures, ideas and emerging writing appearing in their books. Children also created stop signs for our temporary building fence, giving them a meaningful reason to use print and symbols.
🎨 There has been plenty of creativity and exploration too — beading and jewellery making, sensory play with soap flakes, coloured water and oobleck, boat play, dinosaurs and lots of construction. Our wooden blocks became everything from jails and beds to cubbies and a princess seat! One child even designed their own bowling game using blocks and a cylinder to knock down the pins.
🎵 Mrs Fewster brought her guitar for the children to explore, giving everyone an opportunity to have a go at strumming and making music.
The return of our climbing frame was also a huge hit! Children worked with educators to talk about safe ways to use the equipment and move around the new space. With building works happening on site, we have continued to have important conversations about staying safe around temporary fencing, work areas and changes to our environment.
We have loved seeing the children take ownership of their learning, share their ideas, set their own goals and confidently have a go. ❤️
✨ So much learning, creating, experimenting and growing over the past fortnight! ✨

10/08/2026

🌱 3-Year-Old Preschool 2027 – Enrol Now! 🌱

It’s not too late to enrol! 💚

Two years of quality preschool gives children more time to build confidence, develop strong relationships and strengthen their learning and development before starting school. click on the link for more information.

Find out more about when and how to enrol your child into one of South Australia's high quality government preschools, including links to the registration form.

04/08/2026

📢 2027 Preschool Enrolments – Don't Miss Out! 🌟

Offers of enrolment for our 2027 Preschool program will be sent out soon!

If you haven't yet submitted a Registration of Interest, there's still time. We'd love to hear from you and welcome your family to our kindergarten community.

📞 Please contact the kindergarten for more information or to request a Registration of Interest.

We look forward to meeting our future kindy families! 💛

Find out more about when and how to enrol your child into one of South Australia's high quality government preschools, including links to the registration form.

30/07/2026

Our first fortnight of Term 3 has been full of new beginnings, exciting learning and plenty of fun! 💚
We warmly welcomed our new mid-year children to McArthur Park Kindergarten. It has been wonderful to see those transitioning from our Occasional Care program settle so confidently into kindergarten life. Their familiarity with our routines, educators and environment has made the move to full preschool days a smooth and successful one.
We've spent time revisiting our routines and expectations, helping our newest children feel safe, comfortable and connected as they explore their new learning environment and build new friendships.
Our music sessions with Sarah Fewster have been a huge hit! The children loved learning new songs, exploring rhythm with gyros and were fascinated by the trumpet she brought along for everyone to see and hear. 🎺🎶
Group times have been busy with lots of mathematical thinking as we counted our friends using ten frames and toy cars, predicted how many frames we would need, and practised counting forwards and backwards together.
This fortnight we also introduced Cloud, one of our Kimochi characters. Through stories and discussions, we've been talking about emotions, learning that it's okay to feel happy, sad or angry, but it's important to be kind and find positive ways to manage our feelings. ❤️
A very special thank you to Esther (Tobias' mum), who visited to share her family's Chinese culture with us. The children loved learning where China is on the world map, hearing a story read in Chinese and singing familiar songs in another language. Experiences like these help us celebrate the wonderful diversity within our kindergarten community. 🌏
Our new children had their special helper photos taken, and everyone created family portraits. It has been lovely to see each child's unique representation of their family, while our returning children have shown just how much their confidence and drawing skills have grown since the beginning of the year.
Play has been filled with imagination! Outside, our large blocks became planes, horses, houses and obstacle courses, while the PVC pipes were transformed into dams, plumbing systems and waterways. Indoors, children worked together to build rockets, doll houses, towers and more, showing fantastic teamwork, creativity and problem-solving. 🚀🏠
Even with the wet weather, the learning didn't stop! Children enjoyed puzzles, games, construction, playdough pizza making, writing their names, counting Lego, creating masterpieces at the craft table and helping care for our outdoor environment by weeding the strawberry patch and raking the playground bark.
We're looking forward to another fantastic term of learning, growing and exploring together! 🌿😊
EYLF Links: Outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
NQS: QA1 Educational Program and Practice | QA3 Physical Environment | QA5 Relationships with Children | QA6 Collaborative Partnerships with Families and Communities

28/07/2026

🎉 A Wonderful Achievement to Celebrate! 🎉

We are thrilled to share that McArthur Park Kindergarten has been rated as Meeting the National Quality Standard (NQS) following our recent Assessment and Rating visit! 🌟

This achievement reflects the dedication of our educators and our commitment to providing a safe, caring and inclusive environment where every child feels a sense of belonging and is supported to learn, grow and thrive.

Our philosophy is centred on seeing children as capable and confident learners. We encourage curiosity, exploration, creativity and meaningful connections with nature, culture and our community, while celebrating the unique strengths and identities of every child and family.

A heartfelt thank you to our children, families and community for your ongoing support and partnership. 💚 Together, we continue to create a place where children feel valued, respected and inspired to learn.

🌿 We are proud of this achievement and look forward to continuing our journey of growth and continuous improvement at McArthur Park Kindergarten.

28/07/2026

🌟 Occasional Care Vacancies Available! 🌟

McArthur Park Kindergarten currently has available spaces in our Occasional Care program on Wednesdays from 8:50 – 12:50.

Our program provides children with the opportunity to:
🌿 Build confidence and independence
🎨 Engage in play-based learning experiences
🤝 Develop friendships and social skills
🏫 Become familiar with the kindergarten environment before starting preschool or kindy

If you'd like more information or an enrolment pack, please contact us or send us a message on 0437816151.
We'd love to welcome your family to McArthur Park Kindergarten!

02/07/2026

🌟 What a wonderful way to finish the term! 🌟
The last two weeks have been filled with learning, laughter, celebration and many special memories.
Each morning our special helpers proudly counted how many friends were at kindy, practising one-to-one counting and having a go at writing the matching numeral. It has been wonderful to see the children's confidence with counting and number writing continue to grow.
We revisited favourite stories, sang lots of songs and even created our own versions of Mrs Fewster's classics, including Rainbow Kurung and Rainbow Train! The children also loved exploring the recorders, learning how to use gentle "candle blowing" breaths before taking them outside to create music together.
Our outdoor learning spaces were full of imagination. The coloured water dispenser inspired children to make cakes, dinners, desserts and all sorts of delicious creations in the mud kitchen. Favourite games such as What's the Time, Mr Wolf? and Doggy Doggy, Who's Got Your Bone? were played daily, and it was fantastic to see the children confidently organise and play these games independently without adult support.
The children showed wonderful creativity by transforming a large box into a reading desk for the baby dolls. This became a popular shared space over several days as children invited one another to sit together and read stories. They also worked collaboratively to make colourful paper chains for our graduation celebration, showing perseverance as they learnt to fold, staple and link each piece together.
One of the biggest highlights of the fortnight was celebrating our Mid-Year Graduation. It was such a special evening bringing our children, families and educators together to celebrate this important milestone. We loved singing songs together, presenting each graduate with their special graduation envelope, decorating biscuits and sharing freshly made popcorn. We are incredibly proud of each of our graduates and all they have achieved during their time with us. We wish them every happiness and success as they begin their exciting school journey—you will always be part of our kindy family! 🎓💙
The fun didn't stop there! A rediscovered ten-pin bowling set and can knock-down game quickly became favourites, encouraging turn-taking, coordination, resilience and cheering each other on. The swings, outdoor Lego and magnetic blocks were also well loved as the children made the most of their final days together this term.
As we packed away for the holidays, the children also took great pride in helping wash the Duplo, magnetic tiles and mud kitchen equipment, as well as helping us refresh and rearrange our learning spaces ready for next term.
Thank you to all of our wonderful families for your ongoing support throughout the term. We hope you all have a safe, happy and restful holiday break. We look forward to welcoming our returning children back next term and wish our graduates all the very best as they begin their next exciting adventure at school. 🌈✨

30/06/2026

🌿 Preschool Registration of Interest – 2027 🌿

McArthur Park Kindergarten is now accepting Preschool Registration of Interest forms for our 2027 intakes!

📅 When can my child start preschool?

Children who turn 4 before 1 May can start preschool at the beginning of the year.

Children who turn 4 between 1 May and 31 October can start preschool through the mid-year intake (Term 3).

Children who turn 4 after 31 October will start preschool at the beginning of the following year.

Not sure when your child is eligible to start? Don't worry—we're happy to help!

📝 When should I register?

We encourage families to submit a Preschool Registration of Interest as soon as possible. Early registration helps ensure the enrolment process runs smoothly.

Use the Department for Education's Start Date Calculator to check your child's eligible start date:
https://www.education.sa.gov.au/parents-and-families/enrol-school-or-preschool/preschool-and-kindergarten-enrolment/when-your-child-can-start-preschool

Download a Preschool Registration of Interest form here:
https://www.education.sa.gov.au/preschool-enrolment

📍 Visit us at McArthur Park Kindergarten

📞 For more information, contact Director Jo Wilson on 0437 816 151.

We look forward to welcoming your family into our kindy community! 💚

Find out more about when and how to enrol your child into one of South Australia's high quality government preschools, including links to the registration form.