To all our 2024 families, a big welcome to St Anthony’s and thank you as the children settle into their year at Preschool. What a delightful group of children we are privileged to be teaching this year. I know the teachers and educators are really enjoying getting to know our 2024 students. The first few weeks of preschool are lots of fun as the children enjoy getting to explore the preschool environment and all the opportunities for play and learning on offer each day. As teachers in the Early Years we love getting to share in the wonder and curiosity of our students as they make, create, problem solve and imagine throughout their day at school.

These first few weeks of Preschool our focus in each of the classrooms is really on getting to know our students, setting up our daily routines for play and learning, and building students' sense of belonging at Preschool. Each of the classes, through a shared learning story and some class teddy bears, have been learning about the important things to bring with them to preschool each day. Our bears have been showing us how we can have fun and enjoy our day at school through remembering to come each day with helping hands, listening ears, walking feet and kind hearts.

There have been lots of new experiences that the children have engaged in wholeheartedly. Our much loved preschool pets are a source of joy and calm in the day.  There have been opportunities for the children to help with some digging, weeding and harvesting  in our vegie patch, and we have been on visits to the library and the sensory garden at the primary school. This Friday we even went on the bus and travelled to Saint Anthony of Padua Catholic Church for the school’s opening liturgy. There was lots of excitement at the prospect of going on the bus! The children also did an amazing job of listening respectfully during the liturgy service! Well done everyone!!

As a staff we have been thinking about how we can enrich our daily routines as opportunities for students to learn. Following our reflections we would like to make some changes to how we do fruit break at Preschool. I know everyone is just getting into routine with all our organisation around lunches, fruit breaks and drink bottles but I think this little change should hopefully make lunch box prep easier for mums and dads too!!

Rather than students bringing in fruit break in a separate container, could we ask you to please send in a piece of fruit (or a vegetable) for the fruit basket that will be left in the foyer. Prior to Covid our ELC included students in the preparation of fruit break and we would like to do this again. This will mean that each day one of our staff members will work with some student helpers to prepare a fruit platter for our Preschool students. During our morning session we will have a fruit break area set up that children can access during our morning play session. Once children have had their fruit break they will use a name register to find their name, so we can ensure everyone is still having some fruit during the morning.

We think this daily routine offers lots of opportunities for learning:

• Students will practise fine motor skills as they help with cutting fruit for the fruit platter, or serve themselves a selection of fruit using some tongs.
• It encourages children to begin to take some responsibility for taking care of themselves and making healthy choices.
• It provides the opportunity for some authentic, meaningful literacy learning focused on students’ reading and later writing their names.
• Having a wide variety of fruits and vegetables on offer each day encourages students to try different foods. It also means we can introduce different fruit or vegetables from time to time.

Please do not send any KIWI FRUIT for fruit break due to student allergies

If you have any questions about this change to our morning fruit break routine please feel free to send me an email or come and have a chat. My email contact is: bec.mackay@cg.catholic.edu.au