Dear Parents / Caregivers

The Father’s Day Colour Run was amazing! The students definitely had a fabulous time along with their teachers and parents. This Friday the 6th of September the students will be participating in a science day led by Dr Peter Eastwell via Skype.

The students have been exploring planning and drafting a simple narrative. They are having great fun making up their own stories and retelling their stories to peers. We are continuing to practice reading and answering simple comprehension questions. 

In science the students have been exploring how different toys move, e.g. a ball can bounce and roll because it is round. They have been given the opportunity to draw their own toys that can bounce, slide, roll or spin. 

In Health the students have been learning about the importance of being hygienic and eating healthy. They have identified healthy food and things we can do to keep ourselves hygienic such as washing hands or brushing our teeth. 

Our attendance for 2019 to date is:

Have a wonderful week. 

Kind Regards

Miss Andrieka Knight

What fun we had at the Colour Run last week!  Thankyou to all the parents who supported the event by setting up, joining in or washing dirty clothes afterwards!  The students had a terrific time and it was joyful to spend some time together as a school community celebrating our dads.  

Our attendance is 95% year to date - well done!  We have 1 student who has 100% attendance so far this year.  Next Wednesday we will be having a Principal’s morning tea for students with 100% attendance this term.  Year 1 will have 5 students attending. We will also have 5 students attending the morning tea for receiving 4 St Joseph’s wristbands.  To receive a wristband, a student must receive 40 Joey’s tokens in a week. Well done to these students.

Our focus in Literacy has been writing our finding tales.  We have completed the writing process: brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing and publishing.  The students are putting the final touches on their illustrations and then we will send our stories home to share with you.  We have been learning to use adjectives and adverbs to make our writing more interesting. Next week we will be learning about contractions.  The students’ reading is progressing really well and we will be focussing on vocabulary to help us understand the new texts we are reading. 

In Maths we have been learning about fractions and how one half is one of two equal parts.  Perhaps you could find opportunities at home to talk about sharing and equal or non-equal parts.  We have also been learning about measuring using informal units - measuring the length of objects, measuring capacity (how much an object could hold) and measuring volume (how much an object is actually holding).  Next week we will be consolidating our knowledge of chance and probability to gather, analyse and record data. We will show our learning by creating different types of graphs.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, the Year 1 students have been enjoying reading to the Year 6 students.  The Year 1’s love showcasing their reading prowess and the Year 6’s love asking comprehension, vocabulary and connection questions to the students.  Below is a photo of the students enjoying this special time together.

Hi Parents,

Thank you for sending in your child’s homework folder each day as per the email. It ensures the notes sent home are much more likely to reach you!

You should have all received a letter regarding our role play of Jesus’ time for Monday the 9^th of September. It requests that each child bring a plate of food that people would have eaten in the time of Jesus e.g. Bread, meat, olives, grapes and dates. It also asks that each child bring something to wear to replicate clothes in Jesus’ time such as a tea towel, pillowcase, sheet and belt.

Additionally, you would have hopefully seen the Health homework note requesting for photos of your child, family, hobbies and different aspects of life due Tuesday the 10th. We are hoping to discuss similarities and differences and celebrate the unique qualities that different students bring to our class.

In Maths, we have been learning strategies to solve multiplication and division problems. We have been using pictures to display groupings and matching them to related facts. The students have done incredibly well with this new concept.

In English, we are wrapping up our persuasive writing unit. Students are asked to respond to the question, “Should McDonald’s come to Weipa”? They need to come up with their opinion and reasons why they feel that way. We are using the language of persuasion to convince our audience.

For example;

Exaggeration- The worst thing in the world…

Rhetorical questions- Would you really want.?

High modality verbs- definitely, absolutely, incredibly, clearly etc

Thank you for your continued support!

Please get in touch if there is anything you wish to discuss!!!

Kind regards,

Holly

How fantastic was our Father’s Day Colour Run? I know that the students in Year 3 had a blast. Thank you to those who helped out with setup and pack up, as well as coming along to join in the fun. There was plenty of colour and muddy fun had by all. Our students were lucky enough to enjoy the air show by Dr Peter Eastwell on Friday with some serious air action. There was also a session with some explosions of liquid nitrogen. We have been super busy in class with our information reports. The students will receive their feedback this week and have an opportunity to talk with myself on how they can improve for the end of term assessment. In Maths we have been looking at directional instructions using maps as well as fractions. Our understanding of numerators and denominators is becoming more solid with students knowing which is which when writing and verbally telling fractions. The reflections we completed in Religion have proven we understand the scripture at a deeper level and are beginning to understand the moral behind each of the bible stories we have looked at. In Science we are understanding the phases of the moon and how eclipses work. In coming weeks we will create an iMovie showing our understanding about the Earth, Sun and Moon. There may be some in class work brought home as homework over the next week or so. This is for students who either have been absent or needing a little extra time to finish tasks off. Our attendance over the past fortnight has been a lot better with fewer students needing to be away or for illness. 18 of our students have been at school 100% of the time. Well done. 

This fortnight in year four, we have been focusing on creating sentences that express a complete thought and paragraphs that have only one idea. Only having one idea in a paragraphs challenges us to describe the event in clear detail for the reader to understand. Our recounts will be made up of an introduction, body paragraphs and a conclusion. Although we were in a learning pit with paragraphs at the start of the week, we are starting to climb out the other side as we seek help and give everything a red hot go.

In maths, we moved onto looking at time and how time can be expressed in different ways. Some of us thought that time only meant the time on the clock but we also know that days, weeks and months are different expressions of time. We also know what AM and PM to split up the 24 hours of the day. Alternatively, we can tell time using 24 hour time. This weeks homework is about practising this concept.

Our attendance this fortnight is that 12 students are attending 100% of the time. Students who have consistently been attending school will be rewarded with a morning tea next week. Attending every day helps support students academic growth and it also helps their peers develop. I often tell the students that they can be leaders and lead by example and help other students. 

Next Friday the 13th of September, grade four will be presenting assembly and we hope to see you all there supporting us!

What a busy few weeks we have had in Year 5. We finished last week with the colour run which was a huge success, students are still talking about all of their favourite obstacles in particular the mud and jelly. Last week, Year 5 was also lucky enough to have an NRL session with some members of the Cowboys. We did some exercises, learnt some new skills and played a game of footy with some amazing footballers. 

In class, we have been continuing to explore narrative poetry as part of our English unit. Students have been reading and analysing poetry in preparation for writing their own narrative poem in the coming weeks. In Science, we are continuing our learning about Earth and its place in space. Each student has assumed the role of a scientist and is preparing a powerpoint to present to the class about our solar system. Much research is being done, data is being tabulated and presentations are looking really professional. All students have been working really hard on these presentations and enjoying the process. In Religion, we have been learning about the life of Mary Mckillop, and all of the ways in which she helped those less fortunate. Through this learning we have reflected on how we can also help others around us. Year 5 is continuing to kick goals, both on the field and in the classroom!

A photo of our awesome class all dressed up for book week a couple of weeks ago:

As we draw near to the end of third term, the year 6 students have been working on a range of assessment tasks. Each of the students has been researching a famous person who has some link to their own name or family, and we have discovered some very interesting and unusual people. We have also completed our work on Cyclones, and the students are well equipped to help their families prepare for staying safe in the coming cyclone season. 

At all times in the year 6 classroom we are conscious of the four Rs in the St Joseph’s Way. As leaders in the school, we are often called upon to be Responsible and Resilient, and I am pleased to say that most students rise to these challenges very well. Being Respectful - to school staff, fellow students and to ourselves -  is also an expectation As we move into our final term of Primary school, we will be spending a lot of time working through the implications of being Ready for Learning, and the skills and attitudes that will be needed to succeed in the transition to High School. 

Fridays in this fortnight have been devoted to other types of learning outside the classroom. In week 7 we had visitors from the NRL who worked with the students to develop some rugby skills and team building. They also had some interesting things to say about keeping fit and taking good mental and physical care of ourselves. Later in the day we participated in the Fathers Day liturgy, and the Colour Run was a wonderful explosion of fun. It was great to see many of the students running with the fathers and with younger siblings. Then Friday in week 8 was mainly taken up with an exciting Science show, with the opportunity to watch some exciting explosions and reactions, as well as some hands-on experiments.