Elder Street Early Childhood Centre

I love this very much. To trust a child from infancy and throughout their childhood as knowing when they are ready to learn new skills is such a powerful message to that child. Adults need to be mindful that our teaching and molding isn’t interfering with the natural flow of learning how to make sense of the world. They will achieve ❤️

Just another Monday at Elder St....the only difference is that it’s also our Assessment and Rating day. Go team❤️

Come into the Joey’s Atelier and see their All About Me project. It’s such a beautiful body of learning about self identity ❤️

The Nursery Possum children love collecting the mail from our new mail box at the front of the centre (our post office in Lambton closed down so we had to get a street location mail box) To help the children learn more about the mail system the Educators and children joined a global post card exchange. They even made an Elder St ECHC postcard! They have received postcards from all over the world and made a wonderful project book documenting this experience. Well done global learners ❤️

We have re-stocked our screws (we initially bought 500 as a guess of how many we needed......we were wrong!) so now we have lots more. Thanks to our families who have come in and joined in the drilling. We also have more documentation to fill in the journey from April to now for all to read about. My favourite documentation panel is the fabulous story that the children wrote. Come and have a read and a drill :)

Today Athena from the Inclusion Agency presented us with our Strategic Inclusion Plan sticker from the Inclusion Agency. We have been reflecting a great deal on our environments as inclusive spaces for all children for many months now. It is amazing what you can learn about your own place and space when you connect with support services. Thanks Athena! #inclusionmatters

Let the drilling begin!! We are guessing there may be 500 lids that need to be drilled into our mural. We started today and will continue until every single little lid is in place. We would love for our families to help us out with some drilling whenever they are available after work. We have a drill here or you can bring your own. We will be working with the children more next week :)

Bella and Mel took this photo of Sulli painting the bottle top lid mural. Bella watched Sulli painting for a long time and decided when was the best time to take the photo. Very thoughtful work by Bella and Sullivan ❤️

I had a very interesting experience last week with a well meaning media official who suggested that a media release involving the words of one of our preschoolers could be “made up” by an adult to get the release done. I respectfully advised him that this was not acceptable and if they wanted to use the child’s image then the child was more than capable of sharing their own ideas. In his defence the official was very willing for this to happen once it was suggested. This highlights the importance of National Children’s Week and the necessity for advocating children’s rights to speak and be heard. They ALL have an opinion and voice ❤️

Elder st team (just missing Cath and Carley) learning and lunching. Great work today team reflecting, discussing, measuring and defining our quality practices. A truly phenomenal team right here ❤️

Marvellous morning in our community of Lambton. It was so lovely to see so many of our families past and present celebrating this very special event of the new time capsule burial. Well done to all involved who really are exemplary examples of how devoting time to community creates something very special that gives purpose and meaning ❤️

Well done Mia and Lucas, great thinking and sharing your thoughts about life in Lambton in 100 years!

What a very special morning for Mia, Lucas and all of the Elder St ECHC and Lambton community. We met with Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes, Cr Andrea Rufo, Mark from the Local Lambton news, Robert from the Lambton Historical Society, other Newcastle City Council officials and our friends from St Johns Primary School. We spoke to the newspaper and news reporters too. Lucas said that he thinks in 100 years that we will definitely have cars that drive by themselves and Mia reminded th...e Lord Mayor that this is the second time she has met her! We are so proud to be a part of this wonderful celebration of the old and new time capsule and thank Mark and the Lambton community for giving every child at our service a beautiful memorial medallion. We are very proud of our collaborative relationships with our community. See you all at the park on Saturday morning for the big celebration!
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This very special photo, taken today, is going to be buried in a time capsule on Saturday and not opened for another 100 years! Our local park in Lambton is opening its WWI time capsule that has been buried at the memorial gates and recently unearthed for the celebration on this Saturday at the Park. Tomorrow two of our preschoolers will be meeting with the Lord Mayor for a photo for the Newcastle Herald and have contributed their thoughts on the special time capsule which will be featured in the news article. We have some very excited children who are really interested in this very special and historic event. More info to come in the next few days.

Sometimes their artwork is so inspirational that it inspires them to create more artwork of their amazing artwork!! I LOVE the beautiful sunset that is emerging this week 💛🧡💜❤️

A wonderful conversation about beautiful boys. Do you have a rooster or a lamb in your family? Fascinating stuff ❤️

We have so much to learn from our youngest citizens ❤️

Get involved in this great research on educator wellbeing 👍🏼