Kornmehl

Terry Aizen – Director Kornmehl

National Bandanna Day

On Friday last week, we raised $280 for Canteen to support children and teenagers suffering from cancer. We all purchased colourful bandannas and wore them to Shabbat. We are proud to be able to support others in our community and to instil compassion and caring in the children from this very young age.

Excursions

In the past week, two groups and have been on excursions into the wider community. The Starfish visited Calmsley Farm and the Dolphins went to Symbio Wildlife Park.

The build-up to the excursions consisted of discussions, sharing of ideas and thoughts about what we might see and do as well as involvement in making beautiful creative art works. On our return, there has also been much reflection and follow through.

The children and teachers travelled on the Emanuel School bus, Otto, which was a huge highlight of the trip.

Our excursion to the farm began with a tour of the farm nursery, where the children got to pet and look at lots of different baby farm animals. We then all had a go at milking a cow. We learnt about different kinds of cows, such as Brahman, Jersey and Highland. We visited the sleepy pigs and went on a very bumpy tractor ride around the farm. Other animals we saw were a camel, donkey, lamas, koalas, a wallaby, wombat, turkeys, ducks and chickens. After lunch, we had a stockwhip demonstration, followed by a working dog show, that herded all the sheep into an area and a sheep shearing show. Wow – so much in one day! It was a beautiful day and the Starfish children were engaged, enthusiastic and involved.

Symbio Wildlife Park was a new venture for us at Kornmehl. The Park allows visitors to get up close and personal with Australian and exotic favourite animals which include cheetahs, ring-tailed lemurs, red pandas, meerkats, small monkeys and many more.

On arrival we ate morning tea and began to look at the animals. We saw kangaroos, dingoes, cheetahs, monkeys, emus, cassowarys, wombats, red pandas, crocodiles, goannas, koalas, meerkats, echidnas, Tasmanian devils, lots of birds, mini beasts, reptiles and farm animals.

The Dolphins especially loved the meerkat and cheetah presentation, as well as being able to feed the kangaroos.

The Symbio farmyard precinct was popular and the children were able to feed and pat goats and sheep, meet the cutest guinea pigs and see chickens and ducks.

Many thanks to all our wonderful parent and grandparent helpers. We really appreciated you joining us on all these excursions.

Next week Wednesday, our Seashells will be visiting Calmsley Farm too.

Kindy orientation

The children have been excited to participate in orientation visits up to Year K at Emanuel School. They have entered the classroom confidently and are eager to explore their new surroundings and get to know their teachers.

We thank Tany Milner, Meghan Carroll, Talia Hynek and Carrie-Anne Greeves for welcoming the children and parents and making them feel comfortable and safe.

Outdoor Classroom Day

On Thursday we participated in Outdoor Classroom Day. This is a global campaign to celebrate and inspire outdoor learning and play. On the day, thousands of schools around the world take lessons outdoors and prioritise playtime. Outdoor learning improves children’s health, engages them with learning and leads to a greater connection with nature. Play not only teaches critical life skills such as resilience, teamwork and creativity, but is central to children’s enjoyment of childhood. It’s easy to get involved and there is something everyone can do!

At Kornmehl, we value and appreciate the outdoors as an integral and important part of our program and our ethos. We see the outdoors as critical to each child’s well-being. We aim to give the children large chunks of time during the day to play and engage freely in the outdoor space. We also have our Bush School program, which complements our belief in the benefits of outdoor play experiences for young children. With this in mind we decided to participate in Outdoor Classroom Day. We spent time as a staff team reflecting, discussing and planning for this day.

We moved our entire day outdoors, from morning meeting, music lesson, activity time, sleep/rest time, mindfulness and meditation experiences and more.

The children were able to engage in a number of beautiful planned experiences such as paper bark boat making, making potions using berries and beetroot, playing with mud and clay, building a bug hotel, leaf printing, Aboriginal dot painting, reading books quietly and sandpit play with water and pipes.

The children were excited and keen to get involved and loved being outdoors the whole day. Many of them said: “This is the best day ever!”

WIZO tzedakah collection

On Friday, the pre-school collected Tzedakah for WIZO – World International Zionist Organisation. This money is sent to Israel to help brighten the future for those in need. WIZO supports women, children, families and the elderly in communities across the country.

Many thanks to all our Kornmehl families for their generous support.