Niina marni mid year children and families and welcome to the end of week 7!

Only two more weeks until the Christmas holidays! We are so proud of how far they have all come and look forward to spending the last three weeks together, and get ready to enjoy some fun Christmas celebrations.

This week we have taken the time to re-visit  learning  covered this semester as a way of supporting our students and helping them to consolidate and develop a deeper understanding. This included culmination of all phonemes and graphemes from this term, exploring rhyme and syllables and continuing on with our book making in which we have added characters, borders and movement lines, inspired through our Pamela Allen author study.

For mathematics we re-visited subitising, counting collections using 1:1 correspondence, exploring numbers and quantifying using a variety of concrete materials.

During our play investigations the children have thoroughly enjoyed using their creativity whilst painting, drawing and making using different manipulatives.  We have also started making Christmas decorations for our beautiful class Christmas tree this week. Over the next two weeks we are looking forward to engaging in more Christmas craft, music and stories.

This week was our last borrowing week. Students will return their library books on  Friday week 8. There will be no library lessons during week 8 and 9.

Just a quick reminder that we eat fruit at 9.40am, recess at 10.40am and lunch at 12.30pm each day. The children are also welcome to eat yoghurt during fruit time so please feel free to pack this. Also, there are no toys allowed in the classroom or at school. We know it can be tricky to ensure none have made their way into backpacks but please be mindful that if they are brought in they will be put away and returned to parents at the end of the day.  This helps to stop issues that arise when they are brought in and others may want to play with them or they get lost. We thank you for your cooperation with this :).

Nature Play!

On Friday we had Nature Play SA come for an incursion! We built cubbies, mixed potions and enjoyed our time in nature!

See you all next week,

Ms. Yeend, Mrs. McGlone and Mrs. A.

Christmas Carols Friday the 8th of December

6:3opm-8pm on Oval- RLY & RIA will be performing together.

Niina Marni mid year children and families and welcome to the end of week 5! Can you believe we only have four weeks left of school?? With this in mind, we will be finalising all units of work by the end of next week so that we have the last three weeks of school to bring everything together, consolidate our learning, and celebrate the end of our first journey at school (and Christmas of course!)!

This week we are finishing assessments for maths as we conclude our unit of shapes. We are working through our understanding of adding movement lines to our books, just like Pamela Allen! We have our new poem ‘A needle and a thread’, where we are focusing on the grapheme ‘n’. We have also commenced reading workshop to start off our literacy block each day which has been a huge hit!

This week we also celebrated Diwali! The children engaged in storytelling and craft where we painted diya’s.

Congratulations to RIA for their amazing assembly on Friday! We were all so proud watching you up there on the stage! You should all be very proud.

We can’t wait to wrap up our units and celebrate for the rest of our time together!

Ms. Yeend, Mrs. A and Mrs. McGlone.

Ninna Marni mid-year reception children and families and welcome to the end of week 2!

We hope everyone enjoyed the Spring Fair on the weekend, we were so happy to see of our families come by our self portrait painting stall in the hall! We had a great time exploring what was on offer (especially the potatoes on a stick)!

This week we have started our new units of learning for the term!

For bookmaking and word study we have an author study (Pamela Allen) and a focus this week on the nursery rhyme Indy Wincy Spider – with a spotlight on the letter i. These have been pasted in your child’s learning journal so this is a great reminder to be bringing those in each day!

For maths we have started our unit on 2D shapes! We have explored how Aboriginal peoples use shapes in their artwork and the different aspects of different basic shapes.

We have also spent time outside this week on the days that the weather has been good! Exploring our garden beds (linking to science and religious education), experimenting in the sandpits, exploring in log park and playing on the playground!

We would also like to advise that our class assembly’s will be on the following dates:

RLY: Friday week 4 (10th November)

RIA: Friday week 5 (17th November)

Assembly commences at 9am each Friday and runs for approximately 30-40 minutes.

We can’t wait to see what the rest of the term brings for us!

Ms. Yeend, Mrs. A and Mrs. McGlone.

Niina Marni reception children and families!

Our very first sports day and colour run! What a wild, fun, busy, hot, crazy, amazing (any other adjectives?) day!

Massive…MASSIVE thanks goes to Amanda (parent volunteer) and Mounika (ESO) for their support. We could not have done this without you, your support with scoring and cheering on the children was greatly appreciated!

Another thank you goes to Talia (parent) for the ice blocks – the children thought it was Christmas! And went down well on such a warm day.

Because it was so warm this is a great opportunity to remind everyone that next term is Summer uniform weather. This als0 means children must wear hats during play times and we will support them to apply sunscreen before recess and lunch times.

On a personal note:

I (Laura/Ms. Yeend) was terrified about moving from preschool to school but this has been the most enjoyable couple of months 0f my career. Your support has meant the world to all of us and we could not be more proud of how everyone has settled in. Seeing everyone’s smiling faces every day fills our hearts with joy and we couldn’t do it without you.

We hope you enjoy the photos and the break together and look forward to welcoming you back in Term 4!

Ms. Yeend, Mrs. A and Mrs. McGlone.

Hello reception children and families and welcome to the end of Week 9! Only one more week to go and it will be our first school holidays – the time has really flown by!

This week we worked on finishing our lanterns for the moon lantern festival. Our focus was on using sustainable products so that we weren’t creating more waste and “using it again before it goes in the bin” – Owen.

These were then displayed in the hall for the moon lantern assembly on Friday where we saw traditional dances and then got very excited for our special guest – the dragon! It was such a beautiful day with so many of us in our cultural clothes! We enjoyed our shared lunch outside in the sunshine!

On that note, please remember to send your children to school with a hat and advise your child’s teacher if they need their own sunscreen as we will be applying sunscreen before recess and lunch each day.

We have been continuing our work on patterns this week as we also continue with our end of term assessments in all learning areas – these will inform the report your child receives at the end of the year.

We started our new poem ‘Rocket Ship’ which is in your children’s learning journals for you to enjoy at home. We looked at the letter ‘r’, the sound it can make and where we can see it in words. We then practiced all of the letters and sounds we have learnt about so far: b, a, s, r.

If you require vacation care during the holidays please book in now as the OSHC can book out and this allows time to ensure there is sufficient staff.

We hope you enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend and we look forward to welcoming you back for our final week of term 3!

Quick reminder that next Friday is sports day and children are asked to wear their house colours. If you are unsure which house your child is in please ask their teacher.

Ms. Yeend, Mrs. A and Mrs. McGlone.

Niina Marni reception children and families and welcome to the end of Week 7!

Only three more weeks until our first school holidays, time has certainly flown by!!

Information and reminders for the week:

• Parent teacher meetings will be happening next week (week 8) from Tuesday 12th to Friday 15th. They will each run for 10 minutes and are available to be booked in from 3:10 – 4:10 each day. Some spots have already been booked so we appreciate your understanding with this. Please email you child’s teacher (email addresses in last weeks blog post) or verbally communicate this to them at drop off or pick up. Unfortunately, if meetings for the week are not booked in by end of day Monday 11th they will not be able to be booked in. The reason for this is that we have organised this in our own time as the school does not conduct these meetings in Term 3 so we will have already organised our week’s events.
• Please ensure you bring your child’s library bag including their books and learning journals each day as we are using this as a form of communication with families.
• Please remember to return all library books each Friday – for books that are late your child will come home with a slip asking for payment of the book if not returned in a timely manner.
• This term’s exploration of Humanities and Social Sciences within the Reception curriculum, we will be investigating our personal and family histories. Through inquiries into their family, familiar events and their own history, the children will develop a deeper understanding about why some events are important in their own and others’ lives. We will be focusing on the key questions:o What is my history and how do I know?o Who am I, where do I live and who came before me?o Why are some places and events special, and how do we know?

  Our first task is to investigate our own families. In the classroom we will be creating a class family tree/belonging wall. We kindly request a hard copy of a family photo to be added to the tree. It would be greatly appreciated if you could include a small amount of information about your family history.

  Information you might like to include:

  o Where was I born?

  o Were any members of my family born overseas? If so, where were they born?

  o Does my name have a meaning?

  o Are there any significant events or traditions my family celebrate?

  Thank you for your support with this activity!

This week we have been finishing our unit of learning on number sense and 1:1 correspondence. We have been continuing to investigate and solidify our understanding through play experiences whilst others engage in some play based assessment tasks. We are excited to move on to our new numeracy unit next week – patterning!

We have continued our phonics explorations through the use of different poems. This week our poem is Abby Cat – you will notice these glued in to your child’s learning journal for reading at home. We have moved on from the letter ‘b’ to the letter ‘a’! The children have been showing us they are very keen to learn how to form new letters and discuss what sounds they can make. Did you know, some letters can make more than one sound? We have been discussing this in class whilst exploring the letter ‘a’!

For science we are focusing on how different objects move. On Monday we posed wonderings and formed predictions about whether different objects would roll or slide down a ramp and next week we will begin our own investigations in small groups!

For relaxation time after lunch we have been learning how to draw different animals using Art Hub for Kids. This week we looked at turtles and bees! You might notice these drawn in your child’s learning journal.

We can’t wait to see what next week brings for us, please enjoy looking at these photos together with your families over the weekend!

Ms Yeend, Mrs A and Mrs McGlone.

Hello reception families and learners and welcome to the middle of the term! We can’t quite believe we have already had five whole weeks of reception! We all feel so privileged to work every day with these amazing young learners and hope you are all proud of how well they have settled in in such a short amount of time.

This week the teachers all met with Lisa Burman to further develop our literacy program. From now on learners will be focusing on a different poem every 1-2 weeks. These will be printed and glued into their learning journals which we would like to start sending home each night. Key changes are:

• Library bags will go home each night and should be returned each morning (a practice that will support them throughout school).
• Learning journals will be in the library bags with the poems in there. You may like to read these with your children at night however this is not homework nor is it necessary. It may just be an enjoyable way of supporting their literacy journey. Please don’t feel as though this is a task as we are learning this in class.
• Library day has now changed for both classes and is on Fridays every week. Please ensure library books are all returned to class on this day.
• Any notices will also be sent home in library bags so please be sure to check them – this will be a primary form of communication between teachers and families.

Bookweek! To celebrate book week we had our whole school parade on Friday morning! Thank you to the families who were able to attend – the children all looked amazing!

Our focus for the term in numeracy is on number sense and subtilising so we have been engaging in activities and picture books to further develop this understanding.

We visited the MUDLA, met with our buddy classes and started documenting our learning in our learning journals!

We can’t wait to see what the second half of the term has in store for us!

Hola (hello in Spanish – your children have learnt this during Spanish class already!) reception learners and families and welcome to the end of week 3!

We’ll start with some information/reminders:

• For now, library books don’t need to be returned to school until your child’s library day. Tuesday for Mrs. A’s class and Wednesday for Ms. Yeend’s class. Please enjoy reading these with your children at home and building that love for literacy. Library books are the responsibility of the children and families so please support your children to care for these books and return them the following week. If books are not returned then learners are not able to borrow a new selection of books nor will they be able to borrow without their library bags.
• Please check your children’s school uniforms at home to ensure they are the ones your purchased – we have had a few new jumpers go missing as well as hats and ties. Please also ensure you have labelled your children’s uniforms to make it easier to find who they belong to – any unclaimed clothing will be taken to lost property in the front office after a week.
• We have noticed some children have been eating everything in their lunchboxes and are still hungry so please ensure there is enough food for morning fruit, recess and lunch time.
• Our learners have become very interested in buying food from the canteen! This is of course very exciting for the children and we along with the canteen staff are supporting them to look after their money. You can also purchase lunch orders via the QKR app where you can also purchase drinks and snacks.
• We are now seeking family photos to create a class belonging wall/family tree. Please bring in a hard copy of a family photo for us to add to our tree!

Ok, enough admin – now the fun stuff!

This week we have deepened our engagement with our word study and bookmaking pedagogy. Whilst bookmaking was made optional all of our learners chose to write a book or continue with one they have already started! We also started our sharing circle, where learners are invited to read their finished books to their peers at the end of our bookmaking session – well done to our brave learners who chose to share this week! For word study, focusing on our name’s – the letters, sounds, syllables – has supported our learners skills with recognising their names as well as writing them. This practice supports early literacy skills as they build their knowledge base of phonics and phonological awareness – and a love for everything literacy!

We have continued with our number sense and subtilising activities through dice games and numeracy materials on offer. By exploring materials before commencing a unit of learning on a mathematical concept learners are supported to develop a connection to the materials, how to use them and what we can learn from them.

We continued with our totem pole experience this week by taking all of our resources out to the oval and decorating our totem poles to display as our class family tree in our learning environment. We also finished our self portraits (there are still a couple left to do due to absences). They are on display in our learning environments so please pop in at drop off next time to view your child’s artwork and see how they view themselves through their mark making!

This week the learners in RLY also met their buddy class! We were all so excited to see some familiar faces and to get to know each other ahead of our joint class assembly next term!

Week 5 is book week so we will release more information closer to the date.

We hope you enjoy your weekend with your families and can’t wait to welcome you back for week 4!

Ms. Yeend, Mrs. A and Mrs. McGlone.

Niina Marni learners and families and welcome to the end of our first week of Reception!

It’s been a very busy but very beautiful first week of school for our community. We couldn’t be prouder of how well the learners have settled in to their new environments and routines.

For the first term the focus is on learner wellbeing, routines, expectations and relationships. Our goal is to support our learners to feel safe and secure and build a positive connection to school life in the hopes this will set a strong foundation for the next 12-13 years for them.

A few friendly reminders to get us started:

• Learners will be welcomed in to their environments at 8:50am each morning. They will be supported to put their lunch boxes in the fridge, drink bottles on the stand, and to sign in with their name stones.
• School pick up time is 3:00pm – please notify the office if you need to collect your children earlier than this so we can support them to get ready for your arrival. You will need to sign them out in the front office if they are picked up early.
• RIA will have P.E. on Tuesdays.
• RLY will have P.E. on Thursdays.
• Please bring your children in their P.E. uniform on their respective days.
• RIA will have library on Tuesdays.
• RLY will have library on Wednesdays.
• Please remember to send your children with their library bags on their respective days – we will be borrowing books for them to bring home from next week and they will need to return their books the following week before they can borrow any new ones.
• If you would like to do a lunch order you can do this via the QKR app on your phone.
• If you have any feedback or questions please email you child’s teachers:
• RLY – Laura.yeend@holyfamily.catholic.edu.au
• RIA – Iolanda.aufiero@holyfamily.catholic.edu.au or Emily.mcglone@holyfamily.catholic.edu.au

Now the fun stuff!

We spent each day exploring our new surroundings and getting to know our community a little better. This includes the playground, log park, the fish farm, the MUDLA and the library! We also visited the canteen and discussed where we go to collect lunch orders, where student services is, where the Think Tank is, and where all of the toilets are.

But we spent a lot of our time just exploring our new learning environments in Room 21 and 22! Here we started to build connections with our peers, teachers and educators. We engaged in relaxation, story times, and explorative playful inquiry! We also did our own self portraits that will be displayed on the walls, made our own locker tags and had multiple short circle times a day where we would learn about our new school and how to use safe hands.

We learnt how to use laptops with the help of some older students from Years 5/6 – a highlight of the week for some of us! And we even made our very own puppet show!

We had such a great first week of school and can’t wait to do it all again next week!