When a Melbourne kindergarten celebrated its centenary on Wednesday, the children came decked out as 100-year-olds, although one rocked up dressed as a tiger. And while the world is now vastly different from 1924, some things never change: kids still love to dress up, sing, eat – and party. Brunswick Kindergarten children, educators and friends celebrate the centre’s 100-year anniversary.
Credit: Luis Enrique scui And so the Brunswick Kindergarten centenary celebration was popular with the current cohort of three- to five-year-olds. They sang Happy Birthday in the yard of the Glenlyon Road centre and devoured pieces of a large sponge cake decorated like an old-fashioned thick cotton bedspread. The ceremony was held under a sprawling crabapple tree that yesterday’s parents planted in 1931 and which today’s children still love to climb.
Kindergarten committee member Taryn Stenvei said her five-year-old son, Louis O’Neill, had enjoyed playing an old man, wearing suspenders, a bow tie and glasses. Taryn Stenvei with son Louis O’Neill. Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui “Louis has been extremely excited about this,” she said.
“He doesn’t quite understand the concept of what being 100 years old is, but he loves being here with his friends.” Stenvei said the event celebrated the kinder remaining community-run and not-for-profit, and was also a reminder of its resilience. In the 1920s, Brunswick was poverty-stricken, and many of the suburb’s residents were factory wor.
