Thank you and congratulations to everyone on participating in another very successful Sports Day! It was wonderful to see each student having a go, trying their best and showing positivity to each other.
Welcome to Week Ten.
Maths
During Maths we have been discovering the value of the number zero, and learning that zero is not actually ‘nothing’ and it is a very valuable number
Writer’s Workshop
A focus for Writer’s Workshop this week has been on punctuation and learning how to use punctuation in our books, which will help the reader know how we want them to read our book.
Art
The children used their creativity to turn an egg shape into something that wasn’t an egg.
Literacy/Health
We read a book called Olympig, which is about a pig named Boomer, who didn’t win any of the events at the Olympics. He did not let that get him down! He was there to have fun and try his best. The children answered a range of comprehension questions and applied the situation to how we will be good players on Sport’s Day.
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Recently, 2SD was gifted a chrysalis. As you may be aware, the children observed the changes in the chrysalis each day and were very lucky to watch the butterfly emerge.
After allowing the butterfly to dry its wings, each child was offered the opportunity to hold the butterfly. We then released the butterfly in the peace garden. Please see photos of our experience below, as well as a video of the butterfly emerging from its chrysalis via the link:
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Welcome to Week 9 2EV, Week 9 was a week full of Religious Education opportunities being Holy Week, where we recognise the story of Easter and the events that took place in the lead up to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.
We started the week on Monday, the day after Palm Sunday, remembering the celebration of Jesus entering Jerusalem.
The children recreated the story in the form of a digital illustration using Pixel Art.
We continued the week discussing the events that took place after Jesus entered Jerusalem, including, when Jesus entered the city temple and expressed his anger with how others were misusing the house of God, to the Festival of Passover where Judas expressed his jealousy, to the last supper where Jesus washed his disciple’s feet, to Judas ordering the Guards to arrest Jesus, to Jesus being ordered to crucifixion, to the Stations of the cross.
As a class we went through the stations of the cross in great detail, discussing what happened as Jesus carried the cross to the top of the hill where he was nailed to the cross and where he eventually died.
It was important for the children to understand that while the beginning of the week was full of celebration for Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, the end of the week was full of sadness for Jesus’ death which took place on Good Friday. Children learnt that Easter eggs and activities do not occur before Jesus’ resurrection which occurred on Easter Sunday.
As a class we discussed why we receive eggs on Sunday – because they symbolise new life, in the same way Jesus has a new life.
On the Thursday morning the children attended a Liturgy for The Last Supper.
Maths
We continued to work on our place value and renaming numbers.
In 
Writer’s Workshop
And in Writer’s Workshop we continued to explore our creative writing side.
HASS
We also learnt about the seven different continents and drew a labelled map of the world.
Welcome to Week 8’s learning. As you know I spent three days absent last week, while I recovered from my injury. I was back on Thursday where I caught up with the children and the learning I had left them while I was away.
Writer’s Workshop
Harmony Day
Children talked about the meaning of Harmony day and read the book, ‘I’m Australian Too,’ which is a book about how we all, from different cultures live together in Australia as one.
The children then made their own I’m Australian Too poster.
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Religion
St Joseph’s Day
St Joseph was a wonderful, patient man who was the earthly Father of Jesus and the loving husband of Mary.
First the children participated in a Liturgy about St Joseph, then engaged in an inquiry into who he was. They all created a presentation about St Joseph.
Religion
Palm Sunday
Today we shared the Bible scripture which tells us of Jesus entering Jerusalem on his donkey, where he was celebrated with much excitement, as people waved palm leaves in the air.
After, the children created their own palms for our window display.
This lesson was taught on Friday in preparation for the Sunday before Easter Sunday where this event took place
Hi Families and Students,
I apologise that week seven’s post has not been posted sooner. I had an accident last weekend and hurt myself. I was not at work for a few days, which has caused me to fall a bit behind.
Here we are, all caught up, I’ll have week eight’s post up very soon as well.
Writer’s Workshop
Let’s start with with our Literacy. The students have continued making their books, and their imagination has been shining through with the variety of books and genre types that I am seeing.
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We tried something new this week! We started a little task which we will continue with as the weeks go by. The learning intention for this activity was for children to continue to learn how to extend their writing stamina and eliminate/control distractions around them, in addition to learn how to choose a topic and stick to writing about the one topic.
I asked the children to think of a topic, any topic at all. I then asked the children to wait at their desks with a piece of lined paper, and a sharpened pencil.
Once everyone was set, I set a ten minute timer on the screen for all to see. Once the timer started each child began to write about their topic, everything they could think about in relation to their topic, without stopping. They could not talk or walk around, they had to be writing. They had to have a go a spelling words they were unsure of and put a line through any mistakes they made and keep writing.
We did this a few times throughout the week and the idea was that each time they tried to write more than they did the previous time. Each time they had the choice to either, keep adding to what they had written last time or start a new topic.
Have a look at our first attempt.
ZANE
Here is our second attempt…
Maths
During Maths the children continued to learn about place value. Each of the children created number stories for their chosen numbers.
Religion
In Religion we read the following scripture…
Mark 10: 13-16
Jesus blesses the children
13 People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them.14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.15 Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”16 And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.
The children then reflected on the following questions…
Health
As you know, we have been talking a lot about what bullying is, why people might bully, how it makes others feel and how we can be a good friend. During this week we looked at what we can do if we are getting bullied, or if we notice someone else getting bullied.
The children then made a ‘how to book’ about ‘how to stop a bully.’
Celebrations have been held this week for Harmony Day (week 8). Harmony Day is a day to celebrate Australia’s diversity. It is a week of cultural respect for everyone who calls Australia home. The ongoing theme of Harmony Day is “everyone belongs”.
By participating in Harmony Day activities, we can learn and understand how all Australians equally belong to this nation and enrich it. At Holy Family, each class has be involved in activities leading up to (and including on) Harmony Day.
Tomorrow, Friday 22 March, students are encouraged to wear traditional cultural clothing, orange or their school uniform. Students will also be able to order a special Harmony Day lunch of Butter Chicken or Chickpea Curry and rice and an Orange Jelly for $6.50 through the canteen. The normal canteen menu for lunch orders will not be available on Harmony Day, however, the canteen will still be open at recess. Please complete the order form below and return to the school with payment. Order and payment may also be completed through the QKR! App.
Holy Family’s Sports Day for 2024 will be held on Wednesday 10 April (week 11, term 1) on the school oval.
Students are allocated to one of the Houses listed below:
School will commence at the normal time of 8.50am and finish at 3pm. Students will need to wear their sports uniform but may wear a coloured shirt for their sports house.
The program will be run in 2 stages with classes returning to their classrooms for their normal lessons when not required to be at the oval. Families are welcome to attend to watch their child participate.
If you are a registered volunteer and able to assist the class teacher with the Sports Day activities, please advise your child’s teacher.
Sports Day activities will finish at 2.10pm with all students returning to their classroom until the end of the school day at 3pm. If you are attending and would like to take your child home early, please ensure that you see their teacher before leaving to sign out your child.
PROGRAM
| 9:00am | Opening ceremony Student assembly in Hall in house areas Welcome ceremony and team chants Year 3-6 return to class at conclusion Year R-2 go to the oval for class baton relays |
| 9:20am | JP baton relay |
| 9:40am | JP rotation |
| 11:00am | JP rotation finish |
| 11:00 – 11:20am | Recess break |
| 11:25am | Years 3-6 baton relays |
| 11:50am | 400m race (selected students) |
| 12.00pm | Year 3-6 rotations |
| 1.00pm | Rotation finish |
| 1.20pm – 1.30pm | Championship Race and Presentation (whole school) |
| 1.30pm – 2:10pm | Lunch break |
| 2.10pm – 3:00pm | All students go back to class |
The Canteen will be open on Sports Day with the available menu shown below. Please order at the canteen or through the Qkr app. Families attending Sports Day are welcome to make purchases from the canteen.
| ITEM | COST |
|---|---|
| Meat pie | $4.50 |
| Sausage roll | $4.50 |
| Tomato sauce | $0.20 |
| Hot dog with sauce | $4.50 |
| ½ hot dog with sauce | $3.50 |
| Hot ham and cheese roll | $5.00 |
| Vegetarian Pasta | $5.00 |
| Flavoured Milk – chocolate, strawberry | $3.50 |
| Fruit box – tropical, orange, apple blackcurrant | $2.00 |
During maths this week, we continued to practice positioning numbers in their correct value places. To add a bit of fun to the lesson we used our laptops to practice this. We first started by rolling two dice, and recording both numbers. If we rolled a 5 and a 1, we put the two numbers side by side and recorded it as 51. We then used the groups of tens and the units images on the laptop to place them into wither the tens or ones column to show the number’s value.
Later in the week we did this again but this time we used three dice and we had a hundreds, tens and units chart.
During Science we continued our investigations into water.
We put our thinking caps on and began searching within our prior knowledge to see what we already know about water, and learn from others and what they already know.
We focused on answering four questions in as much detail as possible,
During week six the Writer’s Workshop focus was on listing possible book ideas and matching a book type to that idea.
That way when we are ready to start a new book, they can refer to their list for quick ideas.
In HASS we have continued exploring our place in the world. Today we focused on our country, our states and our capital cities.
Students drew and labelled their own map of Australia.
During reader’s workshop we have continued to develop our reading stamina.
This week we dove into an intensive week of learning about bullying and its affect on others. We will continue our learning about this into week 7.
At this age many of the children are beginning to develop a greater social awareness, but can still be quite unaware of how their words and actions affect others.
We started by reading a book about a bully, we talked about the actions that this bully was taking, and discussed that a once off insult to someone does not instantly make you a bully, but if every day you purposely say and do things to harm others, then you do become bully.
We also unpacked what actions makes someone a bully and what actions makes someone a buddy.
The children also participated in an activity where each child was given a paper heart, we read a book about a girl and each time the bullies said or did something to hurt the girl the children screwed their heart up and unfolded it again, by the end of the book some hearts were in pieces.
We talked about how these actions damage our hearts and the damage is not possible to repair, even if you change the way you act toward that person their heart will carry damage forever.
As usual, we had another week full of wonderful learning opportunities.
Now that the focus is off of our Assembly we have been able to establish
a predictable and consistent learning routine within the classroom and
as expected the children have responded well.
During science we started this Term’s investigation into water. Children started by exploring what our senses notice when it comes to water. Each of the children sat with their water bottle and tasted, smelt, felt, listened to, and looked at the water while they engaged in discussions about what water tastes like, sounds like, feels like, looks like and smells like. Some of us were able really pop our science hats on and think outside of the box. Hudson considered the fact that not all waters from all sources will have the same answers, and he gave the example of salt water from the ocean and how that will not taste like the water in your drink bottle. This opened up a new perspective for the rest of us scientists to consider.
During maths we continued our learning about place value, showing with physical materials that we understand how many ones makes up one group of ten. This can be a difficult concept for children to grasp at first, as one group of ten can look like one, but it is in fact ten. With repeated practice using physical materials children begin to understand this concept which sets them up with the basis of understanding numbers and how we write them and what their quantities are.
We played a bit of a game too… in pairs children took it in turns to roll a die. What ever number showed on the die, that child had to collect that amount of blocks. Children continued doing this and adding to their block pile until all of the blocks in the classroom ran out.
The pairs then had to sort their blocks into groups of tens and left over ones.
After they had a go at recording their number in a HTU (hundreds, tens and units) chart.
Every morning, between 9:40 and 10:20 we find some time to stop, get outside into nature and enjoy a healthy snack. It is a great reset time for the children and allows them that opportunity to recharge themself for more learning. Our morning block is our longest block of learning for the school day as it is two hours long. The other blocks throughout the day are an hour and a half long.
Please ensure your child has a healthy snack in their lunch box for this recharge time, as sugary, salty and processed foods do not provide children with the long lasting type of energy they need to get through their learning. Research has proven time and time again that without the right foods children (and adults) are unable to maintain optimal focus levels.
Ideas include, fruit, cheese and crackers, crackers, vegetables, yoghurt, yakult, boiled egg, oat bakes, dips and crackers.
During HASS we have been exploring the concept of where we are and where we live. We have had lengthy discussions about how we live in our house, which is on a street, which is in a suburb, which is in a city or town, which is in a state, which is in a country, which is in our world.
We talked about how everyone has an identity which is unique to them and we have special documents which prove we are who we say we are.
The children then created their own passports.
During health we have been learning about different emotions, how we can identify them and which emotions are comfortable feelings and uncomfortable feelings. Together we though of eleven different emotions, the children then organised them into two groups, comfortable and uncomfortable.
