Annual Chapel Hill Kindy Art Show (12/09/2026)

Saturday 12 September 2026
9am - 2pm

Join us on Saturday 12 September for one of our favourite events of the year, as our Kindy and Pre-Kindy children proudly share their creative work with family, friends and the wider community.

The Art Show is a celebration of much more than finished artwork. Creative experiences are an important part of everyday learning at Chapel Hill Kindy, with children encouraged to explore materials, loose parts and recycled objects, experiment with new ideas and find their own ways to create and express themselves.

Through these experiences, children are developing fine motor skills, problem-solving and creative thinking, language and communication, and important social skills such as sharing resources, taking turns and responding to other people’s ideas.

On the day, families can wander through the children’s displays, enjoy live music and refreshments, spend time in our playground and soak up the relaxed Kindy atmosphere.

Prospective Kindy and Pre-Kindy families are very welcome too. It’s an easy opportunity to visit the centre, see our beautiful setting and get a feel for the Chapel Hill Kindy community.

Saturday 12 September, 9am–2pm
27 Fawkner Street, Chapel Hill
Free to attend

Let us know you’re coming via our Events page. https://www.facebook.com/share/1BgGno8HDu/

Director’s Report, Anna Hutchings - 16 March 2023

The extended summer at kindy has kept us seeking water play – building and testing boats, exploring what sinks and what floats, creating mud patches, splashy pools and long bamboo water courses that stretch for metres downhill, learning the natural consequences of tipping water on your friend when they didn’t want or expect it……the seasons offer up such diverse learning experiences that are at their richest in the kindy environment.  The hardest brain-work of all for a kindy child is to co-operate and get along with a bunch of children their own age, for six hours.  No wonder they are tired at the end of the day!  But our children are doing amazingly, we are so proud of their enthusiasm, their openness and their growth over the first term.  Each morning we gather and say our special welcome, ending in “today I will go with Yindyamarra in my heart”.  To go softly and slowly with honour and respect.  And we talk about things that we have seen that were Yindymarra: someone helped a friend to dig a big hole.  Someone helping a friend put on their shoes. Someone rescuing an ant or giving a friend a hug when they’re sad.  To witness very young people becoming active, effective and caring citizens is a privilege and our children are on their way.

 

Music and story time are really favourite times of the day in both kindy groups this year – when the group time bells ring the children can’t get inside fast enough to come and sit on the mat.  Music and stories are intrinsically tied to children’s literacy and numeracy development and are a fun and engaging way to lay the foundations for future reading, writing and arithmetic.  Rhythm, rhyme, repetition and call and response are the bones of games like Boa Constrictor, the Pirate Song, the Pony Game, The Bunny Game, My Lovely Lycra and a myriad of songs and poems that we enjoy immensely.  We are learning songs in Wiradjuri by Aunty Sharron who will visit us next term.  At the moment when we read stories to the children we are subtly but consistently teaching them that text represents speech, that we read from left to right, that books have an author and an illustrator and about the different parts of a book – the cover, title and pages.  Our music and stories have had so much influence in the children’s play – there’s been days of wombat stews, bear hunts, recreations and references to bits of Mr McGee’s adventures and impromptu discussions about topics such as bees, boa constrictors, objects that can be used as musical instruments and what it means to be a good friend…. All ideas that have come out of songs and stories.  Our children are like sponges and they use their play time fruitfully to explore all the new ideas that kindy life offers up.

 

We hope you are enjoying the weekly posts on Facebook showing you many of the fabulous projects and happenings we’ve been into so far.  We loved our visit from Coach Dave and we’re looking forward to the Evergreen Children’s Theatre Rainforest Experience which is tomorrow for Yellow Kupi Group and next Tuesday for Blue Balimber Group.

 

We have some wonderful improvement projects in the mix such as partnering with the Kenmore Men’s Shed to build new chairs for the kindy to replace our much loved versions that have given over fifty years of service.  We are in the process of applying for a grant from the office of Elizabeth Watson Brown for this.  Kenmore Men’s Shed are already building us new possum and bird boxes at no charge to replace our old and dilapidated ones.  We are going to replace the top beam on our swing frame and bring some new life to our faithful planks and balancing beams.  We would dearly love to situate the SS Minnow outside in the garden permanently and there are some wonderfully handy Dads in our community who may be able to help us achieve this.

Thank you to all the wonderful people who have volunteered to be on the committee, some of whom are already involved in the above projects.  We appreciate your time and generosity and look forward to working with each of you over the year.

Director’s Report, Anna Hutchings - 16 August 2022

Term Three is always a very busy time of the year, not only because we are gearing up for the Art Show, which is the Kindy’s biggest day, but also because of the way the children play and learn. They have been here for long enough that they are very comfortable with each other and the environment, they understand their responsibilities, their social skills have developed a great deal and they are ready for extended, rich play in collaboration with others. Our job at this time of the year is to provide interesting provocations and resources, to try and spark more complex thinking and skill development.

 

Because the children are feeling so confident at Kindy, we have observed many instances of children teaching each other skills. How to climb a knotted rope.  How to build a spider out of Duplo that is symmetrical and can move and transform. How to lift a heavy rock by creating a lever using a plank and another rock as a fulcrum. Explaining how to best avoid tidy up time by drawing with chalk a map on the underside of the fort showing the best hiding places around the kindy.  The flaw in that plan was doing it while their teacher was watching, but the effort was highly commendable in its detail and presentation.  Peer to peer teaching and learning is an incredibly effective way to acquire skills and can sometimes be more effective than learning from a teacher.  It has the additional benefit of building the self-esteem and confidence of the child passing on their knowledge and skills, and this is something that we strongly encourage between children.

 

We are noticing changes in the children’s play since the beginning of the year:

  • Building projects –

    • More organized play

    • More communication

    • More complex ideas

    • More co-operation

    • Greater resilience and perseverance

    • “Do you want to build a tower together?” (Zoe to Romeo)

    • “We should add some blocks to the base to give it more support” (Romeo to Zoe)

 

  • Also with dramatic play:

    • More co-operation

    • Better communication

    • Play is more cohesive and lasts longer

    • Reserved children becoming more involved.

  • We are loving using REAL hammers and nails to have a go at woodwork. Working with real tools builds:

    • responsibility for self and others

    • mathematical understandings – measurement, comparison

    • Co-ordination

    • Problem solving

    • Resilience.

 

We have been selecting books for group story time that feature characters experiencing a range of emotions. As we read the story together, we stop to notice facial expressions on the characters – what are they feeling now? Why might they be feeling sad right now? These are questions that we ask the children during story time. The ability to recognise and label feelings is a key social skill. Being able to read how another person is feeling and respond appropriately enables getting along with others. Being able to identity our own feelings enables us to understand what makes us happy, sad or anxious, and helps us, over time, to learn to regulate our emotions.  The Kindy children have shown great interest in analysing and discussing the expressions and feelings of book characters and have shared sometimes surprisingly insightful reasoning. So that’s emotional literacy – in terms of language literacy the children are loving playing rhyming games and making up spontaneous rhymes throughout the day. Rhyming is a key element of early literacy development - rhymes teach children that words are composed of consistent sounds that can be played with to make other words - some real and some silly! And the silly is the fun part.

 

Of interest to families may be the information I brought back from a professional networking meeting at one of our local schools.  The prep teachers were keen to share with us what they would very much like children to be able to do by the time they start prep.  I think that it is a most reassuring and realistic list. 

1.    Independence.  To be able to go to the toilet by themselves and dress themselves.  To be able to clear up after themselves, for example once they have finished an activity.

2.    Social and emotional skills.  To be able to interact positively with others, to share and take turns.  To be able to cope with typical disappointments and frustrations without often having meltdowns.

3.    To be able to recognize their own name.  Being able to write their own name is a bonus but not essential, as this is easy to teach once the previous skills are in place.

4.    To be able to hold a pencil and use scissors effectively.

These are skills that we support every day through play, and it was great to hear from the school how much they value the work that we do, in collaboration with families, to nurture confident, independent and inquisitive children.

Art Show

Every day we are talking about the Art Show.  “This is for the Art Show” friends will say as they thoughtfully and proudly offer us their paintings, drawings and other creations.  We have had so many offerings that we could fill the kindy walls two times over!  We have seen a great change since the beginning of the year when it was very hard for us to “borrow” any artwork for the Art Show (as it all HAD to go home).  Again, this shows that our children are becoming more resilient and that their horizons are broadening.

 

 

In brief……

We have begun learning to use real hammers, nail and wood.  We have two rules: the hammers stay down low and they do not go”.  They have approached woodwork with seriousness and responsibility and we look forward to supporting this useful and rewarding skill to develop.

We have added some more words or phrases to our repertoire of Yugerabul language including “birpi” meaning “small” and “kurumba” meaning “big”.

Now that it’s August we have started celebrating all the 5th birthdays and have had to put another candle on the sand cake.  How big we are getting!

We have experimented with dropping coloured vinegar onto bicarb, to explore cause and effect and to learn some scientific thinking and language.

 

Thank you to:

Lydia.  Today we said farewell as she moves on to another work adventure.  We have enjoyed so much her friendship and support as our Administrator over the past six years and we will miss her very much.  We are looking forward to working with our new Administrator, Jill, and feel confident that she will quickly become a valuable and happy part of our team.

Our committee for your generous gift to the team of a night out to celebrate the end of A&R.  Hopefully the result due in a few week’s time will be worth celebrating and we can enjoy dinner together and truly relax.  We’re almost there, thanks to all!!!

 

Red Group 21/07/2022

 

Welcome back to Kindy to all our lovely families, staff and Committee.  Term three is always a super busy Term, with Kindy photos, Father’s Day gift making and Father’s Day Campfire and our amazing Art Show.  We are looking forward to a wonderful Term together.

The end of Term Two was a joyous occasion because our teddies and favourite soft toys joined us to celebrate with a Teddy Bears Picnic.   We went on a bear hunt, ate a delicious picnic and sang songs with our special friends.

This Term we have welcomed five new families to Red Group.  Welcome to you all.  Sandyha and I look forward to getting to know your wonderful children.  We all got straight back into the important business of play the last two weeks at Red Group.   Old friends were happy to see each other and welcome some new friends.  The new camp set up has inspired many children to talk about their comping experiences with their families and to make food on the (pretend) fire.

 

We put up the bouncy plank this week, which was enjoyed by most children, challenging themselves to jump high and land on the soft blue mat.  We are also learning about how to be safe and keep our friends safe.

 

It is wonderful to witness children playing together in a very mature, cooperative manner.  They can take turns, share ideas and negotiate ideas for their play.  Some still prefer to play alone for part of the afternoon, but everyone is keen to come to the mat for singing, games and stories. 

 

We are planning to extend our group time in Term three so we can incorporate more music and movement into our pre-kindy program.  We would also welcome any musical families to share their instrument with the children at group time.

 

 Directors report Anna Hutchings 21 July 2022

Possibly the most rewarding aspect of preparing for Assessment and Rating is the act of looking back and reflecting on our strengths and achievements and the amazing things we have done together as a kindy community.  Yes, there’s been big things like awards, celebrations, renovations and our Bush Kindy program but there are also many, many smaller things that make this place rich and wonderful, things that have been shared, inspired and led by members of our diverse community.  In 2018 a Yellow Group Mum suggested and supported us to partner with the Brisbane Botanic Gardens to create an educational program for pre-school aged children.  We piloted it and six years later early childhood nature lessons are a permanent part of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens educational program, attended by kindergartens across Brisbane.  Wow!  In 2019 a Dad working as a set designer for QPAC arranged for all the kindy children to attend the premiere of a children’s theatre production, where some of our young friends were interviewed with cameras and microphone to gather their feedback.  Amazing! Another Mummy organized a grant and two Queensland artists to work with our children to create the much-loved water-dragon sculpture, Magil, at Cubberla Park.  And day to day family members have enriched our program in so many ways, such as by running spectacular dry ice science demonstrations, leading a wonderful Shabbat dinner, playing the cello at the Art Show, gardening with the children, instigating the creation of a recycling hub, bringing in pet guinea pigs, budgies, chickens and cats, teaching the children how to make and pour cement, make sushi and avocado chocolate mousse, learn a dance routine to “Firework” by Katy Perry and learn to count in Hungarian…..the array of amazing ways that our community has worked together to create a rich and meaningful program and environment for our children is astounding.  That is why our kindergarten is so great and why we hope that we go well in our assessment visits next week.

We are settling back into kindy after the holidays and have been immersing ourselves in many independent explorations – using mortar and pestles to crush and mix chalk, leaves, dirt and sticks to make natural paints, making our own colours from paint powders and inventing names for the novel tints and shades, making paper sea creatures as we talked about the Torres Strait Islands, constructing long, cardboard tube “telephones” to talk to friends and making collections of “fire rocks” and “clues”.  This is certainly a wonderful time of the year when projects can become especially creative.

More good news is that our Reconciliation Action Plan, our RAP, has been approved and published! This is an important step in our commitment to embedding deep respect and building meaningful connections with First Nations people and cultures, in particular the Yuggera and Turrbal people on whose land the kindy sits.  Thank you to Tracy for leading the RAP and for being so genuinely interested and proactive in building our understandings.

Thank you to our incredible staff for going above and beyond in the lead up to A&R, juggling the day-to-day teaching responsibilities with all this extra.  You are more amazing than you know and you deserve a proper weekend very soon.

Thank you to our fabulous committee for the work you have done, from writing policies to sorting out nightmare sheds, we appreciate all that you do.