Keep up-to-date with your child’s learning with these short weekly updates from their teachers. Click on the buttons below to go straight to your child’s class, or find out what others are up to!
Kindergarten
Parent / Teacher night Wednesday 18 February at 7pm to 8pm. Please come and find out more about your child’s day in the Kindergarten.
This week the children heard the story of the “Little Star”, who came down to play in the sea and stayed to become a little starfish. A beautiful story about leaving home, making friends and transformation.
On Baking Day (Tuesdays), the children have been helping to mix and prepare the bread dough for the afternoon baking session. The group are very keen bakers, with clever hands, rolling and kneading the dough until it is smooth and soft.
The fulltime students have been learning to blanket stitch, and their little family of fish is coming together. When the fish family are ready the children will thread them together with colourful beads making a fish mobile which we call a “shoal of fish”.
Have a great weekend.
Francine, Isabella and Kathryn
Class 1/2
Thank you to the families who came to our Meet the Teacher meeting this week! It was lovely to see friendly faces and discuss the year ahead. Feel free to contact me to arrange a chat if you weren’t able to attend this week.
On Tuesday we visited our school library for the first time this year. The children loved sharing stories with Meredith and I, lounging and enjoying the cool library on a hot summer afternoon. Gardening was also satisfying this week, the children weeded the garden beds, watered plants and harvested beans. Thank you, sweet Annie, for sharing your knowledge and guiding us each week!
This week in our Form Drawing Main Lesson we heard nature stories, traced, walked and drew butterflies, falling leaves and lemniscates. I’m very pleased with the children’s writing and illustrations which accompany the forms, it feels like we have been together for a much longer time as we step our way through the daily rhythm of Class 1/2! We finished our first Main Lesson of the year on Friday and are looking forward to beginning the much-loved Fairy Tales and Animal Fables unit.
Enjoy a peaceful weekend!
Warmly,
Kath
Class 3/4
We continue to weave our weekly routines, adding threads that bring colour, richness, softness and rhythm to our days.
This week we have been masters of Main Lesson Bookwork. We drew all sorts of celebrations of sweet animals and soaring birds in our final days of Hebrew creation stories. We challenged ourselves to make each page our best writing and to push ourselves to write a bit more than we think we can.
In Mathematics we finished whole number and have been working on addition strategies all week. Each day we are looking at a different addition strategy along with when is best to use that approach.
We began our Dharug journals and practised the words for day, night, stars, moon and sun, drawing pictures to match and using these words in a sentence. We let these words dance from our mouths feeling them come to life in their majesty – birrong, minak, yanada, yiluk …
In independent writing we have explored our favourite days of the week, where we would hide if we were a black hole and our favourite things to wear! These story ideas are linked to the delightful picture books we read during eating time or our class novel.
We went to the pine forest in the intense heat and played in the cool shade, enjoying oranges and cruskets from the picnic rug.
We continued to learn to sing each day like cheeky angels learning and adding more Jewish songs to our song booklet – Haida, El Shaddai, the Angel Song, Shalom Chevirim. It is a testament to how not shying away from complicated songs or language-learning builds confidence.
At assembly we had many students excited to show a page of their Main Lesson Book and as a school we sang Scarborough Fair, in beautiful unity of voice and small school connection.
We still have many things to weave into our weekly tapestry – this is how the beginning of the year goes and setting up strong routines unfold. As a teacher you can feel like tangled wool if you try to rush doing everything too quickly or with any element of urgency. It is a daily lesson in how to breathe and be the steady ground on which children can turn cartwheels or race about. Predictable, warm and grounded adults provide a safe environment for young folk to learn and play. It isn’t always easy, but it is worth keeping as a value.
Have a lovely weekend. Thanks for all you do for your children and your families that brings joy and balance.
Jeneva
Class 5/6
We have been writing sonnets and realising that they can easily be put to music. We read and then listened to Shakespeare’s Sonnet Number 18. The children have written some very clever poems in this form.
The class’s singing voices are in full force, and our Morning Circle has been full of songs, stretching and rhythms. Meredith guides us harmoniously on the piano, so that voices are in key. Some of these songs will also be a part of our Music class with Mare as we prepare for upcoming festivals.
Maths with Minh is lots of fun and the children always look forward to trying out his new approaches to maths. In class we are revising fractions and times tables.
Parents: if you play an instrument and would like to be part of the ‘Rocky Knolls’ parent band, please contact me. The band members usually practice at home and then get together on the day to rehearse before a festival.
The Swim Fun day is coming up. Please send in permission notes. On Friday we have the school children from Japan visiting us for a few days. It’s always an exciting time for us as the children get to meet new peers.
Have a lovely weekend,
Julie weekend,
Julie
