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
Flowers and blossoms are emerging everywhere, some are in full bloom, while others are only just beginning to awaken. Our Spring Festival is set for Wednesday 24 September at 10.30am, the last day of this term. Everyone is invited to join us in our celebration of Spring.
Our story this week was “The House that Jack Built,” a wonderful repeating, sequencing narrative. Lots of fun, full of rhythm and a great brain teaser!
We welcome to our school Rose, student from the Melbourne Rudolf Steiner Seminar, completing her Advanced Diploma in Steiner Education. Rose will join us for 12 days in the kindergarten, during which time she will conduct various activities and work with the children under supervision.
Keep warm and enjoy the blossoms.
Francine
Class 1/2
Thank you to Amy for teaching Class 1/2 early in the week whilst I was unwell. There was a blast of warm weather, wattle blossoms, games, and opportunities to splash in the creek with our Class 3/4 buddies.
Our Celtic Tales Main Lesson is galloping along and there is magic and wonder at every turn. We are continuing our folk dancing and have heard about a clever apprentice, the sacred Hawthorn Trees of Ireland and faery queens. We are looking forward to visiting Ireland one day to see the preserved, lonely trees amongst a field of crops or motorways and laneways by-passing the trees to appease the wee folk. Class 1/2 have also been applying effort and care towards our bookwork, practicing our best writing, and creating fancy borders.
Looking forward to our excursion with Kindy to Burgess Falls, Monday 8 September! Kindly return children’s permission notes next week.
Enjoy the weekend!
Warmly,
Kath and Class 1/2 Assistants
Class 3/4
This week we were so joyous to see the sun that the energy has been high. We had a bush walk with Class 1/2 and played barefoot in the stream in the afternoon, before walking up “Stitch Hill” for afternoon verse and home-time.
We’ve also been having our own celebration of wattle. A mini–Wattle Festival! Children have learnt about traditional uses of wattle and chosen multiple creative ways to express a connection to wattle. We have had wattle-inspired paintings, drawings, beeswax sculptures, woollen friendship bracelets, dances and plays. Delightful.
In maths we have begun a fractions Main Lesson, imagining we were children at a marketplace in ancient Egypt about to eat a whole loaf of Lebanese bread … when footsteps were heard on the path and a surprise friend to share with! We cut the bread in half and were ready again to eat when … two more sets of footsteps arrived. And so, we share into quarters. On and on eights, sixteenths until we were sharing the bread in 32 slices! No wonder the Egyptians discovered fractions!
Masalama Alhamdiliuh! (peace and praise be).
The new grass in the playground was enjoyed by the entire school this week. They were like Victorian gentleman and ladies on a spring picnic.
This weather is highly changeable. Which means we are having children overwhelmed with heat and then the next day freezing. I think of it as the sense of humour of the mountains. Watch the skies, as they say. You never know what is coming next. It is keeping us all on our toes.
Have a good weekend. I hope you have enough slowness in your days to notice the beauty of spring unfolding.
Jeneva and Meredith
Class 5/6
The Class has been in the good hands of Sayoko and Lee for most of this week, as I get through some dreadful lurgy.
The children have been continuing with the Business Maths Main lesson. Sayoko said they have been very interested and engaged, discussing taxes and whether essential items that we consume should be taxed. Questions arose about essential vs non-essential foods and other items. It evoked their inquiries on how various kinds of taxes are collected and spent on civic infrastructure. This brings in our values and morals. Do we look out just for ourselves or do we have the awareness around our communities as a whole? Minh has been working with small groups on the processes for working out interest rates and the percentages when items are taxed.
They have been designing their business logos and Sayoko brought in some inspiring stimuli to paint images of peace.
Thank you also to Francine, Kath, and Jeneva for supporting the class while I have been away.
Next week, the Class 6 children will be travelling to Canberra on Tuesday with Martin and myself. Class 5 children will be in the good hands of Soumya and Lee. They will cover their usual daily practices as well as working on an in-class assignment plus some work on their craft projects.
Warmly,
Julie
