Kindergarten/Boronia Room

A reminder to send in your Permission forms and money for next Wednesday’s Science Incursion for Science Week. The “No Bees, No Future”, incursion is a whole day event for all the children throughout the school. Teachers from the Richmond Agriculture Centre of Excellence are coming to work with our students here on site.

We are continuing with the “Shoemaker and the Elves”, morning circle for another week, as the children are beginning to immerse themselves in the verses and songs that make up the circle. Next Thursday we are going to invite Kathryn Tang to join us, so we can share our work with her.

We have our first finished drink bottle holder ready to go into the bush with their proud owner.  More children are soon to put the finishing touches on their holders too! It won’t be long until we have a whole group of bottle holders ready to be tested during Bush Kindy.

This week the children enjoyed the tail of “The House that Jack Built”.  Keeping up the with the rhythm and sequencing of the repeating and ever extending verse was a delightful challenge for the children. I was great fun using so many characters and animals to bring this elegant tale to life.

Glad to be well and back with the children this week.

Francine and Maya

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Class 1/2

Earlier this week, we looked at artworks from the Gija people of north east, WA (right near Gurindi). Shirley Purdie is a Giji artist. Some of her work references food sources from her country. In class, we talked about the theme of her work and how she had painted them in a style particular to her home. We talked about the colours being more like the colours and seen in the desert and the shapes that she used. We thought of a food plant, or a favourite tree in our garden. We then drew it in, making sure we included the land that it was growing in. From that, we drew onto canvases, painted in the picture and finally, we outlined them with ochre dots. Paul Glass gave us the white ochre. It is Blue Mountains ochre. We are learning to see the differences in artwork styles and be inspired by them.  The children loved this activity and are very proud of their artworks.

Please put Saturday September 10th in your diaries. That is the day of our Spring Fair and the children from all classes will be performing in a short circus show. please let me know if you won’t be able to attend. We are working towards the show all term, so it’d be good to know if your child won’t be able to attend.

Have a great weekend, 

Julie and Meredith 

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Class 3/4

This week we started our new Main Lesson – Heroes of the Old Testament. These stories form the beginning of our Waldorf Curriculum’s journey through the epochs of human consciousness. As the child turns 9, they experience the first awakening of self to individuality; a sense of separate identity which is reflected in the Old Testament stories. 

To begin with, we had a class discussion about what “Old Testament” means, and what are some of the major religions of the world. In fact, it started far simpler – what is religion and is it ok if your friend has different beliefs to you?

We’ve then heard some adventure-packed stories – of Joseph, Moses and Joshua. These have led to literacy-based activities and drama, where the children worked in groups to re-create a scene from the Story of Moses. First they had to create a freeze-frame and guess the scene other groups were re-creating, then act out the scene – very entertaining!

The children made muesli bars this week – measuring out ingredients and mixing then pressing into the trays – which was the messy part! They were a little crumbly, but delicious all the same!

It has been a great week again with the Class 3/4’s.

Have a lovely weekend,

Soumya and Holly 

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Class 5/6

We have been enjoying the gradual arrival of blossoms on the trees down Clearview Parade and were inspired to do some watercolour art! In our main lesson we have looked at the fall of Rome, and then to conclude our main lesson have created a timeline of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. We have now begun our main lesson on Australia looking at the history over the past 150 years before and after Federation, and geography and land use from both Indigenous and European perspectives. This main lesson is untitled, and I’ve asked the students to come up with an appropriate name at the end! Students have taken home a (numbered) copy of our novel study, A Waltz With Matilda to read over the next 2 weeks before we do an in-class project on its themes.

During our Maths Practice Lessons we have been working on mapping, grids and position, which will help as we work on the geography of Australia. We are also working on a different multiple-digit number each day to increase our fluency working with various mathematical tasks and vocabulary. Next week on Wednesday will be our Save the Bees incursion, please send in the yellow permission note if you haven’t already.

Please email me with any questions, feedback or other information to support your child on steph@bluemountainssteiner.nsw.edu.au

Have a lovely weekend,

Steph and Lee