December Newsletter - Pinemont PreSchool

Official Newsletter of Pinemont Pre-School | December 2012
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Inside this Issue:
Presidents Report ................................................................................................... 3-4
Social and Fundraising News .................................................................................. 5-6
From the Editor .......................................................................................................... 6
Sarah’s Report ...................................................................................................... 7-13
Photo Gallery ................................................................................................................8
Dates for your Diary ................................................................................................... 9
Koala’s @ Kinder .................................................................................................. 14-15
About Us – 2012 Staff and Committee of Management .......................................... 16
If you would like to contribute any ideas, photos, information or articles to the newsletter,
please email Cassy Goodwin at cassygoodwin@optusnet.com.au
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President’s Report by Helen Cosgrove
This will be last edition of our newsletter for
the year and my last message as the
President. I would like to thank everyone
involved in the running of the kindergarten
for the last year for the great efforts and
support they have given me.
At the end of the day we have the most
beautiful kindergarten and beautiful people
in it.
The newly elected President for 2013 is
Grant Bugler. Gant is familiar with the
kinder and his wife Jodie has been actively
working on the committee for the last two
years. I would like to wish Grant all the best
and every success for the year ahead.
The renovation works are to begin this week
and we are truly blessed that Pinemont has
been fortunate enough to be selected for
the allocation of this money. I will look
forward to coming back for a visit in the
new year to see how it all looks.
The building works will be carried out
throughout the Christmas/New Year
holidays with a finish date just prior to the
commencement of the new kinder year
2013. We have a working bee on the
evening of 29 January from 5pm-8pm,
which will be the first working bee of the
year. This working bee is generally an
extensive one to make sure the kinder is
nice and clean and safe before the children
attend that first week.
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Since the last newsletter we have had the
parents Christmas party, held at the
Ringwood Club. It was a lovely evening and
particularly when you can sit and relax and
have that conversation you would like to
have but struggle with when the kids are
around!! We had lots of laughs and thank
you to all of those parents who could make
it along.
The children’s Christmas Concerts were last
week and I think we were all proud of our
little performers on the day. Luka had been
rehearsing Jungle Bells to anyone who
would listen, prior to the concert and I
know his Dad, Jason was so impressed, he
had to drive all the way from the city to see
the concert and then drive back to work
when it was finished! They grow up so fast…
it is such a beautiful time of their life when
they are so full of innocence that you don’t
want to miss these special moments. Well
done Sarah, Di, Rochelle and Chris. We

President’s Report by Helen Cosgrove cont...
know it’s not easy to organise such an
event but we appreciated it!!
The children’s family Christmas Party was
held at the Miniature Railway
Mooroolbark last Sunday and everyone
had a great time. We had fantastic
weather in the afternoon, just perfect for
a picnic and the kids just love a train ride,
not to mention a few of the big kids!! The
two hours was up before we knew it, but
not before we had Santa arrive and give
his best wishes for Christmas. We also
drew the raffles and thanks to everyone’s
generosity to donate gifts for the gift
hampers, we managed to sell all the
tickets we had and raise some funds on
the day. We had lots of prizes to keep the
ticket holders happy and once again a job
well done by the fund raising team.
This year has been a big one for me. So
much has happened and so much has been
learned. I will never forget this experience
and the people I have worked with. I have
been blessed with the team this year and
can’t thank them enough for their fantastic
support. They are truly a dedicated group
of people.
Thank you to all the 2012 committee of
management, staff and all those parents,
grandparents and carers who helped to
support the kindergarten throughout the
year.
So to finish, I would like to send you all a
little Christmas message as my last
goodbye….
“A little smile, a word of cheer, a bit of love
from someone near, a little gift from one
held dear, a Merry Christmas and Best
Wishes for the coming year!!
Love to all the Pinemont
Family…..
Helen Cosgrove
Committee President.
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Social and Fundraising News
We cannot believe that this is our final
newsletter item for the kinder year – it
really has flown by! As they say, time flies
when you’re having fun, and we truly did
have a brilliant time organising Pinemont’s
social and fundraising activities for 2012!
We kicked off the Kinder year with the
annual Crossover Morning Tea, with kinder
families enjoying the chance to chat with
fellow parents and teachers over a cuppa.
Also in Term 1 was the Easter Picnic and
Raffle – a fun evening with games and of
course an Easter Egg Hunt, all enjoyed by
the little and big kids in attendance!
Term 2 was a busy one, with the Ladies
Pamper Night in May and the Bunning’s
Sausage Sizzle in June. The Pamper Night
was a relaxing evening with plenty of
pampering, shopping, food, drink and many
laughs to enjoy! The Bunning’s sausage
sizzle was a very successful day for the
kinder with enthusiastic volunteers and
wonderful weather, and many customers,
allowing us to raise a significant amount of
money for Pinemont. We have been
fortunate enough to have secured a date
for the Bunning’s sausage sizzle in 2013 –
and are looking forward to another
successful fundraiser.
In Term 3 we were a little quieter with the
social activities, however, the Morning Tea
at Warranglen Nursery was a welcome
catch up with fellow parents to break up
the long winter months. In Term 3 we ran
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the Living Fundraiser, Social Club Books
and Foneraiser Drives – all adding to the
fundraising dollars, used to purchase
resources for the children and kinder.
Term 4 was busy of course, leading into
the festive season! The Chalk and Parent
Direct Toy Catalogues were a great way
for many to do their Christmas shopping –
raising the kinder $838.36 in credits to
purchase new toys. Tea Towel Keepsakes
was again successful, raising $305.50 and
providing a wonderful keepsake of our
children’s kinder years.
The Parent and Staff Dinner was a fun and
relaxed evening out – again another great
opportunity to socialise with and get to
know fellow kinder parents outside of the
kinder gates. The Family Christmas Party
at Mooroolbark Miniature Railway was a
huge success! With about 225 people in
attendance, the weather allowed for all
the children and parents to enjoy many
train rides. Santa showed up and had a
train ride himself, and all the children

Social and Fundraising News continued ...
received a lolly bag which was a hit!! The
sausage sizzle, drinks and raffle table was
constantly taking orders, and it was great
to see the smiles on all our raffle winners!!
It was such a wonderful afternoon for all
the Pinemont Community to come
together and celebrate what has been an
amazing Kinder year for all our Koalas,
Possums and Joeys, while raising an
amazing $491! Thanks to all who
contributed.
This year we have raised approximately
$5400. We sincerely thank you for all your
support throughout 2012. We have been
overwhelmed by the generosity and
involvement that families have shown and
couldn’t do it without the support of the
kinder community – Thank You!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to
all! Have a relaxing and safe holiday and
we look forward to an exciting 2013.
Signing out for 2012…
Corinne, Kate, Meaghan and Mel
Social/Fundraising Team
From the Editor
I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank the
Pinemont community for sharing their stories
with me over the past year. I hope I have
managed to capture your children and their
time at Pinemont well.
Full colour versions of our newsletters
throughout the year are available in PDF format
on our website.
It’s with pleasure that I hand over Little Snippets
to Larissa Hill for 2013.
Cassy Goodwin
Publicity and Promotions Officer
(that’s me on the left - Larissa on the right)
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Sarah’s Report by Sarah Cracknell
Where has this year gone?? 2012 has gone
by so fast it’s nice to sit down and reflect
over our year together. So much growing,
investigating and learning has happened
it’s hard to recap on it all. We started this
year with many new committee members,
children and families and for me teaching
both 3’s and 4’s. Using the early years
framework as our guide we got under way
learning together using both a play based
and inquiry planning.
To start the year off and get to know each
other we began to investigate ourselves
and being friends. With it being the first
term we got to learn about the feelings
that can help us make friends and relate to
others. We have built many friendships
and have learnt to extend out to others
and include them in all the different play
settings. Having Hollie in our group
brought a new set of dynamics with all
understanding that she is just another girl
in our group that reaches out for
friendship and will be included in all our
experiences. I have to say that I am very
proud of all of the children in their
inclusion of everyone and helping out
anyone in the room that may needed help.
During the year so many topics of interest
arose and many were explored. We
investigated topics such as; friends,
seasons, dinosaurs, Australia and other
countries, farm life, the body, travel and
space. With the children leading the way
in all our learning decisions we read many
books, found out many facts and had so
some fun in the process of exploring the
learning environment within all of our
topics of interest. With many sensory, fine
motor and creative activities provided we
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Dates for your Diary
For those returning to Pinemont in 2013!
Woking Bee—Staff & Committee
Tuesday 29th January
5-8pm
Staff Return to Kinder
Tuesday 29th January
Induction Days
Wednesday 30th January
Thursday 31st January
Term 1 Starts
Joey’s
Friday 1st February
Koala’s
Monday 4th February
Possum’s
Thursday 7th February
Term 2 Fees Due
Friday 15th March
Term 1 Ends
Friday 29th March
Term 2 Starts
Monday 15th April
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Sarah’s Report continued ...
began to grow in confidence and
knowledge as the year went on.
Our year has been one filled with great
excitement with lots of discussion about
home and kinder and we had so many
budding ideas and thoughts. The children
have built confidence to share things from
home during our ‘show and tell time’ and
we all learnt very quickly that nothing is
sacred when you have a 4yr old! This year
the children understanding how to ask a
good question was outstanding we were
so impressed by the thought through
questions by many of the children and the
ability of the child to respond to all the
questions. We have tried to answer many
learning questions through books, pictures
and activities. During our times together
there has been challenges, opportunities
for building new skills, work on our
strengths and celebrates lots of successes.
We had many great topics and questions
to investigate; how many legs do bugs
have?, how do planes fly? How many
10
people can you fit in a plane? How many
colours in the rainbow? Why don’t we see
rainbows all the time? What time is it?
They made our year really exciting and
motivating as we were in charge of the
learning and the investigating. It gave us
ownership and success to build confidence
and autonomy.
During the year we were visited by Lynton
Allan a children’s author and we enjoyed
watching him show us how to illustrate a
story and we participated in a storytelling
experience that taught us about even
though each of us are different we are all
special and important. We had an
excursion to the traffic school, a wonderful

Sarah’s Report continued ...
Olympic day filled with sports, medals and
everyone getting a little wet! Plus a visit
from the responsible pet program dog
Bonnie, Chloe from Deakin Uni on her
placement, plus Andrea and a couple of
work experience students that all added to
our learning experience.
As most of the children tell us about their
recent visits to school the tears start to
well as I look into their shining and excited
eyes; seeing the confidence, assurance
and joy they have about the next chapter
of their lives. With encouraging words and
a huge smile in return I watch them ready
to take that step knowing that Di, Chris
and I have done our best to nurture, teach
and build in them skills and knowledge not
only about topics but about themselves
and all they have to give to others and the
world around them.
grow and develop into joyous, successful,
confident and independent little treasures
ready to take on any adventure that is put
before them. I wish them all the best in
starting school and know that they will
start with a bang and settle in with huge
smiles and eager minds. We hope they
come back and visit us in their school
uniform so we can see how grown up they
look!!
We had a lovely Christmas concert where
the children acted out the Christmas story.
This was followed by a few songs as we all
got into the sprit of the season.
I know that Di, Chris and I are so proud of
all of our Joey’s, we have witnessed an
amazing and inspiring group of children
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Possums Report
This group of three year olds have been a
joy to teach and watch mature into
confident, happy and exploring children.
They have been known as the dream
boats! The children have taken everything
in their stride and just been a dream to

Sarah’s Report continued ...
teach. Each child getting along with the
next this group has been special to watch
as the sessions ticked over.
All the children have shown a love of
music, singing and dance. We have jived to
the wiggley woo, I like Dinosaurs and the
purple alien and the children have shared
some of these tunes with the families at
Mother’s day and Fathers Day activities.
We have explored colour, shape, our
families, all the seasons, the farm, the
Olympics, healthy eating and now Space.
The children have all participated in a
variety of learning experiences as well as
skill building tasks that are to prepare the
children for the year of kinder before
school! Each children learning to give
everything a go and become confident
learners in the environment and
experience all they can in their time at
kinder.
Chris and myself have seen many
friendship formed and nurtured.
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To Wrap Up
We have had to prepare for the start of
our building renovation by moving our
sessions to Ringwood Heights Primary
School. I know all the children and families
have taken this in their stride and we have
all enjoyed celebrating together.
I’d like to thank all the families in the
group that have dedicated time and effort
over the year to lending a hand during our
session times. Di and I really appreciate
the extra hands and couldn’t have done
and tried everything we have without you
so thank you again!
Thank you to the committee, for giving all
you had to contribute to kinder this year. I
have thoroughly enjoyed working along
side you all making Pinemont a fabulous
place to work in but for all the families to
enjoy. I appreciate your efforts and
volunteering your time and energy so that
we can all enjoy a fabulous kinder
environment to learn and work in. I’d like
to mention Helen Hedding that left us at
the end
I’d like to say a great big thank you to
Rochelle, Di and Chris. We have worked
hard together this year to achieve some
great things and it is always a joy to come
to work and know that the team is working
together to support and help each other.
Di, I couldn’t do it all without you, thank
you for your quick thinking mind and fast

Sarah’s Report continued ...
feet to always be there whenever it is
needed!!
To finish I’d like to say goodbye to all the
families that are leaving us, I hope that
your time in the Pinemont community has
been one to remember. This is also my last
year at Pinemont as Sarah Cracknell and
my last report signed off as this…after
December I will be Sarah De Remer and
am looking forward to sharing my wedding
with all of this year’s children and families.
Thank you for all your support and
encouragement of Matt and myself and
we are excited to share this memorable
occasion with you all.
To all the new families about to start we
are looking forward to meeting you all on
our orientation days in December.
Thankyou for a fantastic 2012,
Sarah Cracknell
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Koala’s @Kinder! by Rochelle Brown continued ...
It’s been a busy year for all the children in
Koala group this year!
I started teaching the Koalas group at the
beginning of term 3. The children
responded well with the change of teacher
and we all settled in very quickly. There
was great interest in the Olympics at this
time and so we focussed our learning on
this and made flags, Olympic torches and
had our own Olympic day. The children
enjoyed coming to kinder for the Olympic
day dressed in green and gold and were
involved in team sports ranging from
hurdles, egg and spoon, bean bag
throwing and tunnel ball. We also looked
at things that were special to Australia and
then further abroad, to other countries.
September rolled around quickly and with
this we celebrated our dads! The children
inviting our dad or a Very Special Person to
kinder to join in some fun activities! There
were many dads that come along and were
really involved in building some wonderful
creations with the woodwork, the train
set, playdough, collage and block building.
I am not sure who had more fun... the
children or the dads??
Following on with this we have discovered
lots about SPACE. The children have
enjoyed lots of pretend play using all the
Space equipment. There have been with
many trips to the moon and to other
surrounding planets!! We have talked
about aliens and enjoyed counting
backwards from 10 to blast off!!!!
thought about why their dad was so
special to us and what we enjoyed doing
with our dad. We celebrated this by
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Koala’s @Kinder! by Rochelle Brown continued ...
The main aim in the 3 year old
kindergarten program is to build on the
children’s social and emotional skills.
There is lots of emphasis on turn taking
and using language to ask for what you
need. We will also focus on problem
solving and empowering the children to
help solve their own difficulties. The
educators will role model and give the
children words to encourage them to solve
their conflicts. This can be really tricky
when you are only 3 or 4! For some
children this might be their first
experience of separation from their family
and this can be a little upsetting at times.
Please be assured that the staff will put
some plans in place for you so that this will
be a successful experience for everyone!
I would like to take this opportunity to
thank the Committee of Management, the
staff and current families for welcoming
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me to Pinemont Preschool. I have enjoyed
settling in and getting to know everyone. I
look forward to the coming years ahead!
We look forward to seeing you next year
for a fantastic 2013!
Rochelle Brown
3 Year Old Koalas Teacher

About us
Pinemont Pre-School acknowledges the
importance of providing high quality preschool
education and positively promotes,
and encourages the development of the
‘whole’ child.
2012 STAFF
Director, Joey, Possum and Extended Hours
Teacher
Sarah Cracknell
Koala Teacher
Rochelle Brown
Joey Assistants
Di Johnson
Chris Meagher
Extended Hours Program
and Koala Assistant
Chris Meagher
CONTACT US:
Pinemont Pre-School
29 Hygeia Parade
North Ringwood Victoria 3134
POSTAL ADDRESS:
PO Box 2187,
North Ringwood Victoria 3134
PHONE:
03 9870 3582
EMAIL:
pinemont.kin
@kindergarten.vic.gov.au
WEBSITE:
www.pinemont.com.au
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2012 COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT
WAS
President
Helen Cosgrove
Vice President
Sue Mudge
Treasurer
Jodie Bugler
Secretary
Larissa Hill
Executive Assistant
Larissa Hill
Fees Officer
Sophie Honeyman
Enrolment Officer
Nienka Brown
Payroll Officer
Nicole Schwab
Publicity and Promotions Officer
Cassandra Goodwin
MIKA Officer
Michelle Robb
Social Co-ordinator
Kate Callahan
Social Officer Assistant
Meaghan Kinnear
Fundraising Co-ordinator
Corinne Unwin
Fundraising Assistant
Melissa Shackelford
Maintenance Co-ordinator
David Ladd
Maintenance Assistant
Chris Hudson