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 made our Science Week about the science that is all around us. On Monday Annie came to talk to us about plants. We talked about our favourite flowers, edible plants, and native trees.
We want to improve the garden in our playground, the children would like to see more flowers and things they can eat. We went for a walk and looked at our space and met Old Man Banksia in the corner by the play equipment.
Annie took us into the school garden and the children asked questions about the edible plants, picking leaves and flowers, munching as they went.
The best moment of all, occurred when the children meet with the chickens. They fed them from their hands and picked them up. The chickens were so peaceful, the children were able to pat and stroke their beautiful soft feathers and really engage with them. It was a magical moment.
Our work introducing new plants and trees into the play space will be ongoing and gradual, aided by the children and supported by Annie’s knowledge of gardening.
Have a great weekend.
Francine, Zenith, and Alannah
Class 1/2
What a fun and exciting week we have had in Class 1/2 – Science Week! The children have been busy making, observing, experimenting, guessing. The children made and tested invisible ink and created secret messages. They made paper helicopters and talked about gravity and air pressure – what happens if the propellors were the other way? They made parachutes and a beeswax person to go in their parachute – why does the parachute fall slowly even though there is a weight in it? It has been a lot of fun changing the focus for the week and asking these key inquiry questions!
Their home activity as part of Science Week is to observe the phases of the moon – every night for one month. Please assist them with this – we sent home information and a sheet about this a few days ago.
Next week will be Book Week – we have asked the children to bring in a favourite picture book which we will share with the class sometime during the week. A reminder that the whole school are having a parade on Thursday 24th August. The children can come dressed as a character from a book (simple, homemade costumes only please!).
Does anyone recognise these socks? They are mostly mis-matched but have been floating round the classroom for weeks. They will soon be turned into sock puppets if unclaimed 🙂.
Our excursion to The Gully in Katoomba is in preparation – you will soon receive a permission note and more information, exciting!
Warm wishes,
Soumya and Amy
Class 3/4
Class 3/4 have started a new Main Lesson, ‘A Whole Lot of Fractions’.
We have been looking at how, for example, a 100-metre length of wood cut into quarters, would result in the quarter length being 25 metres, compared to a 4-metre length of wood cut into quarters, the lengths would be 1 metre.
It is all relative. The important thing to know is that we want to divide things evenly and fairly.
Our story takes us on a journey with a group of young friends who have grown up together, then travelled on their separate paths and then come back together. They have been ‘fractured’ and are becoming ‘whole’ again. They are endeavouring to open a restaurant and music venue, collaboratively bringing all their skills together to create a business.
Our Maypole Dave practices reflect this idea of working together for the patterns to be harmonious. If someone moves faster or slower or wants to ‘win,’ the Maypole does not function as a healthy entity!
With this in mind, I would like to invite all families to a dinner on Wednesday 6th September at 5:30 pm, hosted by Class 3/4 in our classroom. The children will prepare all the food during the day, set up the dinner tables, serve you and then sit and eat with you. Plus washing up!
I will send more information soon, but please remember this date.
Have a lovely weekend,
Julie and Meredith
Class 5/6
We have just concluded our studies of Ancient Rome and will now look back on Ancient Greece as Class 5 begins to prepare for the Term 4 Greek Olympics. Both classes will begin our debating unit where we will exchange ideas on fundamental human questions back and forth, just like the orators of old in the ancient Agora.
Our new focus of study is Australian (State) History where we will look at Aboriginal and European perspectives from the time of early colonisation forward, largely within the New South Wales context. We are beginning with a close look at a map of Aboriginal NSW and examining geographical features of the state in an atlas.
Currently students are drawing impressions of the land at Circular Quay just before European arrival, and we will share these next week. Project briefs on the biography of important Aboriginal figures in NSW history will now go home next Monday after we go over them in class.
In Maths Practice lessons we are revising place value and also negative numbers. Serving nachos last week (which had many excellent reviews!) provided a fantastic opportunity for dipping our toes into business mathematics as we added our expenses and explored profit margins and future ideas. We have just planted some veggie seedlings to sell later in the term as part of our camp fundraising.
Below are some dates for your diary:
Thursday 24th August: Book Week Parade 9am
Wednesday 30th August: Father’s Day Stall
Wednesday 20th September: Spring Festival 11.30am all welcome!
Term 4 important dates to be aware of:
Canberra camp: Monday 6th to Thursday 9th November (Week 5)
Class 6 Farewell will be on Saturday December 9th from 4.30pm
Have a lovely weekend!
Steph and Lee