Stone & Sprocket

01/09/2026

31/08/2026

🌿 EDUCATORS , WE WANT YOU! 🤍

What if your workplace was a place where you could actually be the educator you want to be?

At Mellow Early Learning North Gosford, we believe the heart of early childhood is relationships, play, curiosity and connection.

We want educators who aren’t afraid to get down on the floor, get their hands dirty and play alongside children. Who are genuinely excited to follow their interests, watch their little minds at work, ask questions, wonder alongside them and scaffold their learning as they explore the world. 🌱

We’re looking for educators who want to be the people driving change and bringing passion back into early childhood education.

✨ Build meaningful relationships with children
🤍 Create genuine partnerships with families
🌿 Learn through play, exploration and connection
🎨 Get involved, messy hands, big ideas and all!
🌱 Follow children's interests and extend their learning
🏡 Be part of a community where everyone knows they belong
💭 Have your ideas heard and your voice valued
✨ Help shape the culture of a brand-new service from the very beginning

At Mellow, community matters.

Children matter. Families matter. Educators matter.

We want to create a place where people know each other, support each other and genuinely enjoy coming to work, a place where our educators are trusted to bring their ideas, creativity and passion to what they do every day.

If you’re an educator who believes early childhood should be joyful, meaningful, messy, connected and full of wonder…

We want to meet you. 🤍🌿

📧 [email protected]

Come help us build something special.

30/08/2026

27/08/2026

Congratulations Spotties!! So proud of youuuuu 💚💚

26/08/2026

Thank you, Dolly.

For decades, Dolly Parton has helped put books into the hands of millions of young children through her Imagination Library, beginning at birth.

And those books represent so much more than learning to read.

In the earliest years, sharing a book is a chance for babies and toddlers to hear new words, explore the world, connect with the people who love them and build the relationships that help their brains grow. Long before a child can read the words on a page, they’re learning through every story, snuggle, point and conversation.

Inspired by her own father, who never had the opportunity to learn to read, Dolly turned a deeply personal experience into a commitment to making books more accessible to families, regardless of where they live or what they earn.

Her work is a powerful reminder that every child deserves opportunities to learn, connect and thrive from the very beginning.

Thank you, Dolly, for believing in babies.

23/08/2026

Once I Was a Giant by Zeno Sworder is the 2026 CBCA Picture Book of the Year winner! 🌳

Once I Was a Giant is a visually breathtaking and thought-provoking work. It sparks the imagination while remaining grounded in the essential truth of our connection to the natural world. There are so many layers in this masterfully crafted tale thatcelebrates hope and renewal and prompts us to reflect on our connection to the world around us. It stands as an outstanding achievement in Australian picture book publishing.

23/08/2026

Congratulations to Rae Tan, winner of the 2026 CBCA Book of the Year Award for Early Childhood for The Emperor's Egg.

Judges commended The Emperor's Egg for its seamless combination of compelling storytelling, emotional depth and striking illustrations. With themes of integrity, patience and responsibility woven through a richly rewarding reading experience, this distinguished work exemplifies excellence in early childhood literature.

23/08/2026

HAPPY CHILDREN’S BOOK WEEK! 💫 🎶 📚

We’re delighted to celebrate the joy of reading and stories with children and their grown ups all across Australia.

Tell us (or show us) what you’re reading in the comments and what makes it so wonderful.

Be sure to visit your local CBCA Branch to discover local events and activities!

18/08/2026

We are not trying to create super humans!

What do you think?

Should children be good at everything?

Why are children the only people expected to be good at everything?

Adults don’t need to be. Someone can be a visionary architect but completely useless in the kitchen. A brilliant chef who couldn’t tell you the first thing about physics. A software engineer with terrible handwriting. A musician who hates sport. An accountant who can barely draw a stick figure.

Nobody worries about these people. Nobody says, “Yes, she’s doing incredibly well as a surgeon, but we really need to bring her poetry up to standard.” Nobody gives the successful business owner extra homework because his understanding of medieval history is below where we’d expect it to be for his age.

We just accept that adults are good at some things and not others.

In fact, we celebrate it. We talk about people finding their thing. Playing to their strengths. Developing expertise. Going deep. Building a career around what they’re good at while happily outsourcing, avoiding, or being completely mediocre at a hundred other things.

But children? No, sorry, we have different rules for you. We’re going to need you to do absolutely everything, and show us you can do it all well. And when you can’t, we’re going to get very hung up on the bits you’re struggling with. A ‘well-rounded’ child is a good child, right.

Good at reading. Good at writing. Good at maths. Good at science. Good at sport. Organised and tidy. Social. Creative. Focused. Resilient. Articulate. Independent. Cooperative. And preferably progressing through all of it at roughly the same speed as everyone else their age.

If you think about what that does to the balance of childhood, it’s crazy. We deliberately hunt out the things children aren’t very good at, expose their weaknesses, then spend years making sure those weaknesses get lots of attention. Usually at the cost of spending more time on what they naturally lean towards.

Then adulthood arrives and...we tell people the exact opposite.

Find your strengths. Explore them at depth. Specialise. Build on what you’re good at. Build on what interests you. Stop trying to be everything to everyone.

Oh. Ok.

So...can someone tell me why we don’t just say that from the start?

17/08/2026

Love!