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
On Wednesday evening parents attended the Kindergarten Parent/Teacher night. Those who came experienced some of the children’s verses and songs, a morning circle and wet-on-wet painting. Thank you to the parents who attended, hopefully you gained some additional insight and understanding into your child’s day at school.
This week the children planted a range of different beans with Annie during gardening time. They also constructed a very colourful trellis for the beans to grow on.
Thank you to Soumya Tekkatte for holding the group this week while I was away.
Water play is a hugely popular outdoor activity during these hot days, so please ensure that the children’s bags have extra clothes to change into.
Enjoy the weekend.
Francine, Isabella and Kathryn
Class 1/2
This week Class 1/2 began our literacy-based Fairy Tales and Animal Fables Main Lesson. In Waldorf/Steiner education, movement is an essential bridge between imagination and writing.
Before a child forms a letter with a crayon or pencil, the letter is first walked, felt, and lived through the body. This allows the child to experience the form of the letter in a whole-body way, making it familiar and natural before it appears on the page.
As always, we begin with an introduction of the letter through a story, then image. The letter form is then brought into movement. Children may walk the shape of the letter on the floor, traced in chalk, rope, or imagined in space.
As they move, children speak the sound of the letter or a short verse connected to it. Gestures often accompany this work. Arms stretch wide, curve inward, rise tall, or sweep low, mirroring the lines of the letter.
These gestures help children internalise direction, balance, and flow. The movement is deliberate and rhythmic, never rushed, allowing the letter to settle into muscle memory.
Walking the letter supports coordination, spatial awareness, and focus, while also honouring the child’s natural need to move. When children later sit to draw or write the letter, their hands already know the form because their whole body has experienced it first. In this way, writing grows organically out of movement, and letters become something the child carries within, not just something they copy on a page.
We enjoyed our time with the children visiting on cultural exchange from Japan. The universal child-led games of basketball, cricket, chasing, marbles and skipping ropes at recess and lunch playtime. The walk to Turtle Rock is always a joyful challenge, up hills, across the creek and through the bushes, spotting gorgeous birds, native flowers and curious insects. Finally, the cultural presentation was an opportunity for visiting students to mentor the children working in mixed aged groups. It was wonderful to watch the children support and encourage each other in careful origami folds, calligraphy or karate moves.
Swimming Fun Day is next Monday, looking forward to a sparkling day with Class 1/2 in the small pool at Lawson Aquatic Centre!
Enjoy the weekend!
Warmly,
Kath
Class 3/4
This week we continued our Hebrew stories. In Adam and Eve, we discussed questioning, seeking knowledge and independence. With Cain and Abel, we looked at jealousy and anger and how these can grow like a fire, that can light someone’s way or burn down the field. Cain knocked Abel down in the corn field, and he is lying there injured, where we paused the story. The children found this shocking. It felt too early in the year, with the Class 3’s looking at me like baby forest animals, for more detail.
In Gardening and Permaculture, we looked at the principle of “Obtain a yield”, discussing the importance of this in gardening and in life – nurturing friendships, a warm home, time doing things you love.
In Dharug we looked at weather words. In Maths, subtraction. In Writing we wrote about what we “didn’t do on the weekend” and then what we did do. Amusing sentences like – “On the weekend I didn’t ride a unicorn up a mountain and drink lemonade at the top, but I did annoy my sister’s friends at her party!”
We also travelled over towns of the Blue Mountains using alliteration inspired by Possum magic – eating watermelon in Wenty, Sushi in Springwood and Berries in Blaxland etc.
I will end with some words I wrote yesterday in my own evening free writing as I was thinking about our class and school.
Pages of sweet drawings and “my-bestest” writing held up with pride.
Lizards and magpies and rocks in sacred layers of caves and crags.
Shady verandas and windows to the eucalypts.
Handmade timber desks and watercolour galaxies decking the walls.
Baskets of rainbow yarn and small hands knitting out a rhythm.
The kindest souls, who left their egos in the forest to wither long ago.
Angelic singing from another time.
Poems savoured as they drip from our tongues like nectar.
Socked feet tap on hardwood floors.
Paths slip and twist and fall away.
The sky curves wide and close.
Mountain streams dance and dash at our doorstep.
Fresh bread wafts across wattle and melting butter is spread thick.
And still, we continue…
Seasons are revered with pageantry and enough excitement to launch a rocket to the stars.
And here we can be stars for a moment.
Away from the darkness and dazzling, dizziness of the speedy world of today.
Here we can pause and stop and be.
Have a good weekend.
Jeneva
Class 5/6
This week we have been finishing up our creative writing masterpieces. There is some amazing work coming out of the children. Unfortunately, I can’t send photos of their writing, as I ended up being unwell in the latter half of the week. I will send some next week.
Thank you to Soumya and Sayoko who took good care of the class while I was away. They began their new Main Lesson: for Class 5 it’s a focus on fractions and decimals and for Class 6 they are extending into percentages. We will also work with measurements where decimals can be incorporated to provide more accuracy.
The class had an amazing time with our student visitors from Japan. Friendships and warm connections were formed so openly and easily. It’s always a pleasure having the students visit our school whilst they learn English and share their culture with us.
Swim Fun day is on Monday. Please check the note for details. Please make sure your child has adequate sun protection.
Have a lovely weekend.
Warmly,
Julie
