Hi Families!

I can’t believe it is the last week of term 1! I have attached below the sports day agenda:

PROGRAM

-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.

-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 teacher before leaving to sign out your child.

Hola and welcome to our week 10 blog.

It is hard to believe we have almost finished our first term together!

This week was a busy one with lots of community events happening. This included  whole school Mass, Sports Day practice, Emergency Evacuation Drill and Parent Teacher Meetings.

We managed to squeeze in our curriculum alongside these events, and carried out some final assessment for Maths and English.

Some of the learning experiences this week included:

-Bookmaking: adding speech bubbles, consistent characters, ground lines and movement lines to our books

-Word detective activities on the letters L and U and the heart word ‘in’.

-rhyme time games

-reading workshop

-revisiting maths concepts: number formation and word sums.

-playful inquiry

-writing the sentence ‘The cat sat on the mat’ with the noticing that we knew the heart words and could sound out ‘cat’, ‘sat’ and ‘mat’.

Some Reminders

-Sports Day is next Wednesday. Please let me know by person or email  (Elle.baker@holyfamily.catholic.edu.au) If you are available to volunteer for the morning, it would be greatly appreciated!

PROGRAM

SPORTS DAY HOUSES

FRIENDLY REMINDERS:

-The school day begins at 8:50am. Literacy inquiry play is set up in the morning to support the transition into the classroom environment. Our morning learning begins at 9:00am. In order to support a successful transition for your child please ensure you are on time.

-Please return library books back tomorrow to ensure your child can borrow.

-Sports Day is in week 11 (Wednesday, 10th April). Attached is your Childs sports day colours!

I look forward to seeing many of you across the week for parent-teacher interviews 🙂

Nina Marni, Welcome to our week 9 Blog.

This week in English we:

-Engaged with word detective activities with a focus on the letters B and G

-focused on the heart word ‘on’

-added ground lines, speech bubbles and movement lines to our bookmaking

-familiarised ourselves with the poem ‘beehive’ and used this for shared reading

-engaged with reading workshop each day

-participated it CVC (blending sounds to make words) rotations.

In Maths we:

-began our new unit: position and location.

-We engaged with easter egg hunts where we used topic specific language to interpret and give instructions where eggs were located.

-we retold the story ‘Rosies Walk’ using language such as over, through, under, besides, around etc.

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In Religion we:

-joined Miss Cam’s class in the Stations on the Cross journey.

-engaged with a variety of texts about Holy Week and the sacrifices of Jesus.

-engaged with a variety of Easter craft activities, learning about the symbol of an easter egg.

In Health we:

-discussed ‘what is an emergency’ and represented our thinking through drawings.

REMINDERS:

-Our day begins at 8:50am, with our first group time happening at 9:00am. We appreciate your understanding in arriving at this time.

-library books must be returned for children to be able to borrow.

-Sports Day is in week 11 (Wednesday, 10th April)

Welcome to another week! Here’s what we got up to:

LITERACY

We are continuing to build our phonemic awareness and skills whilst we explore Heggerty and build our knowledge of letter phonemes and graphemes. This week we started putting our heart words into sentences, clapping when we heard the heart word. We also searched for these words in books throughout reading workshop times. We are building our literacy knowledge through rhyming songs and books, blending words, and spelling words!

MATHS

This week we started to explore position and location, using the school environment to hide objects in and describe the position and location. We are building our positional language vocabulary, learning on top of, under, behind, between, through, left, and right. We have loved reading Rosie’s Walk to explore these words and acted out the story together.

SCIENCE

At our MUDLA visit this week we shared in observations, discussions, and questioning, developing inquiry skills. We noticed the new baby turtle because the tank was filled with less water! We gathered our questions and engaged in research when we returned to the classroom using technology and books.

Connection to Country

We have been learning about animals and connecting Kaurna language to our science vocabulary. We have learnt about special Australian animals, and how to say these animals in Kaurna.

TECHNOLOGY

We crafted the cutest easter bunnies EVER!! We are working on cutting and gluing skills to creatively craft things, developing our fine motor skills.

HEALTH

We started learning and discussing about emergencies, and how we can stay safe in these scenarios! We discussed the phone number to call and the different types of emergency services we have to help us. We drew pictures of emergencies that would require adult help, and problem, solved how we can find help and support.

RELIGION

We celebrated Holy Week every morning, learning about the events for each day that Jesus went through. We engaged in the stations of the cross learning, where we went around the school to learn about the 12 stations of Jesus’ journey when carrying the cross. At the end of the week we reflected on Jesus’ sacrifice of dying on the cross for our sins, holding this significant event close in our hearts.

ART

We learnt about the amazing art style of CUBISM! Children created their very own cubism artworks, using new techniques.

Thank you for a great week, enjoy the long weekend!

Nina Marni,

welcome to our week 8 blog

This week in English we:

-continued to blend sounds together to make words

-engaged with word detective activities for the letters E and F

-Focussed on adding speech bubbles, characters and ground lines to our book making

-played with rhymes

-started our reading workshops

This week in maths we:

-went on a shape hunt

-drew regular shapes in sand

-engaged with shape rotations (making, drawing and matching shapes)

This week in science we:

-finished our science assessment which involved raking photos of habitats and sharing what our chosen animal needs to survive

In HASS we:

-made identity maps, showing our likes and what makes us unique

In Religion:

We were very excited to have another session with our Buddies. They helped us in making our Palm Sunday poster

We have had a fun and busy week in RCC! Here’s what we got up to!

LITERACY

Children have been working on building skills for phonemic awareness, focusing primarily on segmenting, adding, deleting, and subitising syllables in words. We are applying phonemic understanding and knowledge to practice new skills for working with words and syllables. Across our word study we have focused on the phoneme and graphemes of letters, and worked with letter sounds to blend and spell words.

In book making we have begun exploring illustrations and the use of characters in our stories. We have learnt about the fun and diverse characters that we can use in our stories, continuing to add detail and expression.

MATHEMATICS

CIRCLE, TRIANGLE, SQUARE! We started a new unit this week exploring shapes. We have learnt about the properties of shapes/non shapes and discussed the describing properties of shapes. We have explored grouping activities, shape creating experiences, and drawing shapes. The children have loved exploring shapes and developed upon their pre-existing knowledge.

SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY

Over the term we have watched our grass heads grow and explored the things that living things need to grow. We discussed the growth of our grass heads and compared the different growth rates of plants. We discussed ways in which we could support the growth of living things, and documented the growth through drawings, observations, and photos.

HEALTH

This week we focused on staying safe at school learning about safe hands and feet. We discussed how we can stay safe and help our friends in the classroom and school year. The children brainstormed and discussed how they can stay safe and drew pictures of themselves being safe.

HASS / ART

We have a special week in HASS celebrating diversity and inclusivity! Throughout the week we have learnt about Harmony Week and celebrate the amazing diversity in Australia and HFCS. On Thursday we celebrated world Down syndrome day and learnt about disabilities and Down syndrome. We seek to create an inclusive and diverse classroom where everybody belongs. We explored many art experiences, creating hands prints, harmony day people, and silly socks!

CONNECTION TO COUNTRY

Within the focus of Harmony Week we have celebrate the oldest continuous cultures of the Aboriginal People. We have shared in the amazing special culture and significance that Aboriginal people hold to the land, and recognise the important connection to Kaurna Land upon which we live and meet on every day.

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RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Children are growing in their spirituality and Catholic identity through the exploration of prayer, scripture, and bible stories. This week we continued to look at religious songs and how music can provide us with special experiences with God. We are continuing to reflect on how we can be reflections of Jesus, showing love and kindness to people.

PALM SUNDAY – As we prepare to enter Holy Week, we learnt about Palm Sunday, and the importance of Jesus’ arrival into Jerusalem. We created a special door display to celebrate Palm Sunday HOASANNA! The children will continue to explore the important events of Holy Week next week!

Scripture

John 12:12-16: The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord – the King of Israel!”

Have a lovely weekend, can’t wait to see you all next week 🙂

REMINDER: Friday 29^th & Monday 1^st – Public Holiday (Easter Long Weekend)

This week we are celebrating a very special week – HARMONY WEEK!

What is Harmony Week?

Harmony Day is celebrated by Australia and during schools within Harmony Week. It is a day surrounding the awareness and celebration of our country’s diverse multiculturalism. The ongoing slogan ‘Everybody Belongs’ highlights the importance of promoting inclusion of all people within our community.

Why Orange?

Orange is the colour of choice because it symbolises communication, meaningful conversation and mutual respect between all people

WORLD DOWN SYNDROME DAY – 21st of March

World Down Syndrome Day (WDSD) , 21 March, is a global awareness day which has been officially observed by the United Nations since 2012. The date for WDSD being the 21st day of the 3rd month, was selected to signify the uniqueness of the triplication (trisomy) of the 21st chromosome which causes Down syndrome. As a class we will be celebrating and learning about WDSD, I invite you to participate in the lot’s of socks campaign.

THURSDAY – Choose some socks that are going to get noticed! They might be mismatched socks or your craziest and most colourful socks, whatever takes your fancy! The idea is to start a conversation, so when people ask you about your socks you can tell them, “I’m wearing them to raise awareness of Down syndrome”.

FRIDAY -Cultural dress: Children are invited to wear their cultural dress or orange or school uniform to celebrate harmony week.

As we returned from the long weekend we were very excited to see 2 butterflies had hatched in our enclosure. After observing them closely throughout the morning, we released them into our courtyard. We wondered where their first stop will be and thought that they may head to the billabongs for a drink.

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This week in English we:

-started our book making spotlight on illustrations. We focused on characterisation and how characters are usually featured on every page.

-engaged with word detective activities with a focus on the letters ‘O’ and ‘C’

-focused on our heart word ‘and’. We located this heart word in books, used it in sentences and practiced writing it.

-continued our practice of blending sounds to make words and found our magic letters (vowels) in these words.

In maths this week we:

-began our unit on shapes. We engaged with discussions and play activities where we learnt that shapes are closed, they can have curved or straight lines and have a certain number of sides.

In Science this week we:

-analysed our observations of the growth of plants and collected data by drawing our grass heads.

In Health this week we:

-discussed body signals and how they help us identify and work through our emotions.

RCC have had a big a busy week this week! We have been actively involved in new learning areas and further our skills and knowledge. Here’s a glimpse into RCC:

LITERACY

Team RCC are phonology superstars! We have working our way through the phonemes and graphemes of the alphabet, then using these skills to write words, create sentences, and blend CVC words. The children’s phonemic awareness and skills are flourishing, they are building skills for blending, segmenting, rhyming awareness, and changing syllables in word. In book making we are continuing to learn about text conventions which can be used to elevate an author’s story. The children have used these conventions in their book making this week and developed identities as authors and illustrators.

MATHEMATICS

This week we began a new unit exploring shapes! We have specifically looked at the number of sides, corners, and curved/straight lines. We have focused on identifying the properties of a shape and determining what doesn’t make a shape. We explored shapes through group games and discussions, then engaged in maths play inquiry.

SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY

We are learning about habitat’s and focusing on what animals need to survive. The children integrated technology skills and took photos of the animals in their habitats. We were so lucky to read a special book by Mr McCarthy which described a Gungeon fish’s habitat and food intake. This opened up lots of discussion and exploration of different animals’ habitat and living needs.

HEALTH

Over this term we have focused on safe/unsafe, and this week we explored warning signs in the body which relate to certain emotions. We shared and collaborated in discussion of the ways our bodies respond to different emotions. The children chose an emotion and then drew the body’s response and reaction.

HASS

We have loved celebrating our unique identities this term! This week we drew an identity map representing us as a person, including names, drawings of ourselves, cultural identity, likes, and attributes that make us unique. We have such a unique, diverse, and special team in RCC – we all share special attributes and seek to promote inclusivity.

ART

We continued working on Abstract Art (a modern form of art that doesn’t look exactly like other things around us). It might make you think, or laugh, or feel something new. It might look like something to you, and something completely different to someone else. Abstract art can be anything that you imagine! We used different sensory tools to create unique abstract artworks.

RELIGION

We are entering prayer each morning with the children using the sign of the cross and thinking about what they are grateful for or thinking about someone they wish to pray for. People can pray in different ways: singing, dancing, saying a prayer, meditating, experiencing moments of being quiet and being alone.  We have been exploring this through singing and dancing, and mediating different ways that we can pray and be connected to God. Prayer is special, powerful, and personal with God.

PHILIPPIANS 4:6 – Don’t worry about anything; instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done.

BUDDIES

We spent our Friday afternoon with our year 5 buddies – reading and venturing into the big classrooms! We are so lucky to be building special and caring relationships with our buddies.

Friendly Reminders:

-Library bags only need to be returned Monday and/or Tuesday, library borrowing is on a Tuesday. Please keep your library bags at home during the week and weekend so you can enjoy reading and sharing books!

-Arriving to school on time is extremely important, as the morning period and transition is used for connection and settling into the classroom environment.