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/Boronia Room
We have enjoyed a fabulous week together. The children have totally embraced their free play time, constructing cubbies and complex structures, socialising and playing with vigour, expressing their joy to be sharing together again.
The children delighted in a puppet story about an Echidna told by Renee Gare on Tuesday. Renee wrote her own story for the children to help bring the essence of Restorative Practice to the students. Renee will be presenting two Restorative Practice sessions to the parent body on Tuesday 26th October, at 9 am and 6.45 pm. Everyone is welcome and Renee is an inspiring presenter, so please take advantage of this offering and come along.
On Wednesday, the children made “biscotti”, with Jess McCann their Italian teacher. We thank Jess and her volunteers for bringing this activity to the children. Cooking with all the children in the school is a huge undertaking.
The Kindergarten children are now well underway with their French Knitting. This is the first stage in the creation of their seat cover, which the students will take with them to Class 1 next year. It is a big project, fitting for children who are preparing themselves for their transition to Class 1. Meet the Class 1 Teacher night is set for Wednesday 25th October at 6pm.
Have a great weekend and see you Saturday for our 40th Birthday Celebrations.
Francine, Zenith, and Alannah
Class 1/2
This week, Class 1/2 have been participating in the Aussie Bird Count. Every morning, we have been walking down to a spot where we can see the bush clearly and listen quietly to the birds. It is amazing how many birds we spot in a short amount of time – kookaburras, black cockatoos, fairy wrens, willie wagtails, white-throated tree creepers and more! We have continued learning our new bird song in preparation for our Class 1/2 play later this term, which has tied in nicely with the Bird Count.
Marcel has continued setting up his magical market stall in our Main Lesson. Class 1 has been estimating, measuring, and recording using informal units, and Class 2 has started using 30cm rulers to help estimate, record, and compare different classroom and natural objects. All the children have measured their height using their feet – ask your child how many feet tall they are!
Thank you to Renee, our Restorative Practice educator, who told a story to the class about an echidna who did not want to own up to his actions, and instead wanted to hide away and put out his spikes. Eventually, with the help of the gnomes giving him some time and space, he was able to make things right and all the characters could have a circle together.
A reminder that next week (Week 3) is the Swimming Intensive week. Please ensure your child has their swimming costume, towel, hat, and a waterproof bag for wet clothes every day of next week. Also, please send in extra food in their lunchbox as they will burn a lot of extra energy!
Important Class 1/2 dates (please check the parent calendar for more dates) – more info to come closer to dates
- Week 3: Swimming Intensive all week
- 1/11 9:30-11am: Grandparents’ Day
- 16/11: Class 2 sleepover (Class 1 stay for dinner only) – early pickup on Friday 17/11 encouraged
- 30/11 5:30pm: Class 1/2 play
- 13/12: Summer Festival/last day of school
Warm wishes,
Soumya and Amy
Class 3/4
This week we have been practicing for our play. We began by playing various drama-type games, which help to bring awareness to our body in the space we are in. Where are our ‘edges’? Can we feel into the three dimensions of our body (front and back, both sides, above and below)? We have been working our mouths and voices, so we become more aware of how sounds are made and how we can articulate the parts of our mouth, so that sounds are spoken clearly and distinctly. We closed off our sense of sight, to notice how sounds become more prominent and how our body feels different when we cannot see.
All of these experiences help the children to become more skillful and flexible in their approach to building our class play. It is lots of fun and the children are becoming better at doing, watching others, listening, and working in a cooperative way.
In other news: Please keep swapping take home readers. I have been sending some work home with children who find it difficult to complete some of the essential daily work in class (the maintenance kind of work). Please support your child as much as you can, by encouraging and helping them to do a bit in the afternoons or mornings. I have noticed the children who are doing this seem to feel proud of themselves for completing it. Then their confidence is restored for working more independently.
Swimming intensive is next week.
Lastly, just before the holidays, Indigo became a big brother to Soley. Congratulations to Indigo, Amber, and Matt. We cannot wait to meet her!
Thanks
Have a lovely weekend,
Julie and Meredith
Class 5/6
As I write, we are heading out to Hatter’s Hideout Cave at Dargan as part of our learning about Aboriginal culture, local history, and geology. A huge thank you to Paul Glass for taking us through this important learning and we hope to add some photos to this newssheet of our day!
Our Class 5/6 camp is almost upon us! (Nov 6-9th). Please return the forms by Monday – my apologies for the short turnaround, the venue needs this data ASAP (payment can then follow before our departure).
We have sent off a second letter to our new Bowral friends (Class 5 are loving this!). They are learning the Greek verses and songs, and soon we will add marching to our skills in preparation for the Opening Ceremony (which will be attended by Zeus and Athena – we’d better get it right!). Class 5 will need to have white shorts and tops to go under their City State tunics. We still need to make more blue, red, and yellow friendship braids (given as prizes for the events) – if you love braiding, I would love to send you some please! 😊
The class will be learning to draw their own portraits next week ahead of Class 6’s visit to the Portrait exhibition at the National Gallery. Thank you to everyone buying our fundraising seedlings to support the camp!
We have packed a lot into the first 2 weeks of term! The class has been busily practicing their songs and pieces with Prem ahead of our Combined Schools Music Day on the Friday of next week – it will be an amazing experience for them to create music with a bigger group!
In Maths we are revising fractions, decimals and percentages and everyone is engaging very well at their current levels of understanding. So far, our Astronomy Main Lesson has explored the sun and Aboriginal stories about its creation, the solar system, and the zodiac. Currently, students are creating a Deep Space Dictionary to explore various topics they might like to pursue further in a mini project later in the term.
The class made some beautiful biscotti in Italian (thanks Jess!), learned the Thriller! dance with Jesse (thanks!), and we heard a beautiful social story from Restorative Practice educator Renee Gare’s workshop. Afterward, as a class we built further on this work to talk about what can hurt us from our peers specific to senior primary students, how we can define what bullying is and is not, how a ‘bully’ might be feeling, and the role of the bystander.
In groups, students then came up with points toward a class agreement on speaking to and about each other – we have a class full of wise and compassionate people! We also spoke of how learning to communicate with care is a lifelong goal, and that just like the white dove of Hope that flew last from Pandora’s Box, we are all free to keep improving toward the goal of crafting our words with positivity and care!
Class 5 families, if you have not already, note the Class 6 Farewell date Saturday, September 9: we will need all hands on-deck to support this wonderful tradition!
Below are some dates for your diary:
- Monday 23–Thursday 26 October Swimming Intensive at Springwood (please remember goggles and towels!)
- Friday 27 October Classes 4-6 at Kindlehill for the Combined Schools Music Day
- Wednesday 1 November Grandparents morning (9.30-11am followed by morning tea)
- Monday 6-Thursday 9 November (Week 5) Class 5/6 Greek Olympics/Canberra Camp
- Tuesday 14 November Class 5/6 Play 6.30pm
- Monday 20 November Class 5/6 Funday Monday
- Friday 1 December Class 6 to Raging Waters Sydney
- Class 6 Farewell will be on Saturday December 9 from 4.30pm
Have a great weekend!
Steph and Lee