Dear Parents / Guardians

In English we have been practicing the following phonograms: “a, s, t, p, i, n, d, g, o, e, h s, r, c and k” The students are learning about why we need to learn our phonograms and how to blend the known sounds together to make cvc words; e.g. c - a - t makes the word cat. The students are also learning to write the learnt phonograms correctly.

In Mathematics we are focusing on patterns. Students are learning to recognise, copy, continue and create their own patterns. We are continuing to work on writing numbers 0-20 sequentially and counting forward to a 100 and backwards from 20.

The Prep assembly will be week 7 the 13th of March 2020. We are looking forward to seeing you all there.

The Year 6 students came over for buddy time where they read books, build puzzles and drew pictures.

Year One have had a smashing week!  We learned that nouns are the names of people, please and things.  We love singing our, “Look, look look around” song, ask me to sing it to you!  We learned that compound words are words made up of two smaller words. I love thinking of my own compound words - test me!  Next week we will be learning that English words don’t end in “i”. When I here the “a” sound in a word, I choose ai for the middle of the word and ay for the end of the word (rain, day).  Can you think of some other examples and ask me to tell you my spelling choice? Next week we will be practise writing super sentences which have 4 characteristics:

1. Start with a capital letter
2. End with a full stop
3. Be about someone or something (noun)
4. Make sense

Can you give me a noun and I will orally tell you a super sentence?

In Maths we will be developing our understanding of place value by focussing on bridging to ten and partitioning numbers.  We will be learning our friends of ten (9 and 1, 8 and 2, 7 and 3 etc). We will also be learning to identify how many tens and how many ones.  Money is a relevant way to help me understand these concepts. When paying for items, ask me what coins we would use to pay. Eg. If my ice cream costs $4.50, we need $4 plus 2 x 20c and 1 x 10c or 1 x 50c etc.

We have been discussing and learning about the 40 days of lent in our classroom.  I have made a lenten promise and am working hard to commit to this. While we are driving home, ask me to reflect on how I’m going with my promise and whether you can see me trying really hard to make sacrifices to achieve this.

Throughout the week, we work really hard to demonstrate the 4 Rs.  Each time a teacher sees us demonstrating behaviour that is Respectful, Responsible, Resilient, Ready to Learn, we get a Joey’s Token.  Students with 20 Joey’s tokens each week are invited to Golden Time on a Friday afternoon. Here are some photos of Year 1 enjoying Golden Time.

Year 2 have been busy working hard in all areas over the past two weeks. We are more than half way through the term and it obvious that the class has settled in well the routines and expectations of Year 2.

This past week we had a lot of fun in Science trying to collect air in plastic bags. It was interesting to see the different ways the students tried to achieve this task. We then did an experiment to test the effects of air on falling objects. Did you know that the larger the surface area of an object, the slower it falls to the ground?

Our classroom is starting to become an art museum with a range of self-portraits completed by each student. So far we have looked at sketching, paper collage and pop-art cartoons. It is delightful to see all students attempting these tasks with enthusiasm and enjoyment.

In maths we have focused on time. Students are learning how to read quarter-hour time. We have also spent the past week revising the months of the year and the seasons as well. It was to complete an artwork in maths which showed our understanding of the four seasons.

I am so proud of the whole class for their performance of the poem ‘Making Friends’ at the week 6 assembly. Well done Year 2, your hard work and dedication paid off.

Congratulations also to the four students who received awards at the past 2 assemblies – Hugo, Flynn, Jack and Paetyn.

Thank you to all the families for being a part of our assembly last week. It was great to see so many of you there to be a part of our celebration of learning.  I have included some photos below for you to enjoy!

This fortnight we have 12 students attending school 100% of the time which is an improvement from last week - thank you for encouraging your child to come to school everyday. Attendance is key to enable the staff at St Josephs to support your child’s whole development - not just academic but the social, wellbeing and spiritual development of the child. This is what makes up the whole child and learning will not take place if those needs aren’t met.

In maths we have completed the five week unit on Number and Algebra where we were focusing on place value and properties of numbers. Now we are moving into our unit about units of measurement. We will spend one week each on length, mass and capacity. Check out our photos of exploring measurement with counters and rulers below.

In writing we are wrapping up our unit of narratives and have been hard at work constructing stories from scratch. This can be difficult but with the help of picture prompt cards or a teacher the ideas can start flowing. We have also looked at how to improve our stories with the inclusion of similes and editing techniques.

Thank you for bringing homework back in on a Thursday, it has been great seeing all the maths sheets getting completed. The reading log books are a great way to track how many days your child has read over the year. Just simply fill in the title of the book, add a smiley face and continue the counting of days read from the previous day. Any questions or concerns please contact me.

Design and Technologies

In this unit students will design and create a Marble race track, to explore force and motion. The goal is to maximize friction and move the marble down the board as slowly as possible, using provided supplies. Students will collaboratively experiment with their tracks to come up with solutions to improve surface speed. The students are collecting their materials this week to construct in their groups next week their own Marble Run track.

Laptops and Bags

The students have received their new Laptop Bags this week and have participated in the Digital Citizenship Lessons in regards to Cyber Safety. Please encourage your child to talk about this very important theme regularly. Ask them what it means to be Cyber safe and always ensure these practices are being adhered to. Please ensure Laptops are charged upon returning to school and  are used for educational purposes.

Religion

This week in Religion Year 4 are learning about –

• How important is it for us to make good decisions in our class family and how the choices we make can affect ourselves and others.
• How are the messages and actions of Jesus lived in the church community today?

Reminders

Auslan is on Monday 

Library Day is Wednesday – please ensure Library bag is packed on that day

Physical Education is Thursday – please wear Sports Uniform on that day

Health is on Friday

Our email addresses are mturner@cns.catholic.edu.au and sulanas@cns.catholic.edu.au

we will endeavour to return your email within 24 hours.

Kind regards,

Ms U and Ms T.

The past two weeks in Year 5 have been outstanding. There have been so many things that we are simply ‘nailing’. We have had two weeks in a row where all students have had homework handed in and completed to a high standard. The students enjoyed a nice icy pole and principal award stickers for their troubles. We are also sitting at the highest for attendance across the school for the second fortnight running. Adam the fish is being well looked after, with multiple requests per day to feed him. Rest assured, he is fed once daily and we hope to pass him onto another year level soon. Proud is an understatement. I have the students, as well as the parents of the Year 5 cohort to be thankful for. Being at school and putting in 100% makes for fun and engaging learning. 

Last week we were fortunate enough to be able to sit with the Prep students and read to them. We were buddied up and enjoyed a variety of our picture books and the odd non-fiction book. There were plenty of smiles and overly excited students. From both Year 5 and Prep. There has even been a request or two for many more reading sessions. When time permits, this would be a wonderful option when reading for enjoyment. 

During our Math lessons we are now focusing on length and perimeter. The students are identifying familiar shapes within our learning environment to determine accurate measurements using our rulers. We will start looking at measuring using decimal centimetres and metres. Once this is mastered we will move onto area. 

Our Geography lessons have been action packed with us using our atlas’s and Google Earth to locate places around the world. We competently know how to use mapping conventions and are becoming experts in labelling countries on continent and world maps. In our mid term assessment, we all completed the assessment with confidence and received great results. We are on the right track to success. 

In Religion we were lucky enough to go to the church and look at the symbolism within the church. This helped us to visualise the many important items within the church we see and may even use when we are there. It also helped us to improve our understanding of Confirmation and the Holy Spirit. Thank you Miss Newell for taking the time to share your knowledge with us. We have also begun our journey to better understand how Project Compassion assists the many people around the world. This has tied in well with Geography. We have taken the opportunity to collaborate and discuss the needs of the people mentioned in the videos and how Project Compassion is helping to improve their lives. Every little bit counts and with support many people’s lives can be improved. 

Every student is ploughing through our work tasks. Many of the topics are information based to begin with, requiring copying down or recording items in written form.  Then once we have that information, we can form into groups for research or are given specific tasks. We have discussed the importance of neat bookwork and presentation when writing information down.  This is to enable the student, others and myself to be able to read it clearly and refer to it for assistance/reference for future tasks. 

So our Ready To Learn focus has been clear setting out, neatness and organization of pages.  It is becoming a really vital skill and each and every student is showing improvement in this area! PEN Licences are been granted in Week 8.

English:  Our writing to Inform genre has given us many different writing experiences.  Last week they wrote interview questions, then interviewed a peer about a specific topic.  Students wrote a News Article, then reviewed and gave feedback to another student on their article. We have been reviewing the 3 types of sentences expected in a writing piece (simple, compound and complex) and using Text Deconstruction (with the help of stimulus pictures) in partner work to encourage more descriptive and extended vocabulary.  We have discussed the use of noun groups, similes and metaphors as well to include in their writing.

Maths:  To understand the “Order of Operations” concept, we have been working in pairs every session using the BOMDAS sequence.  This helps us to decode the operation, work logically to a formula and check with a calculator.  We have observed how easy it is to make simple errors, (I made a few!) and the importance of checking over your working out.  Really great progress here to “get it” but it took repetition, repetition, repetition to consolidate the concept.

Religion: Modern Day Prophet assessment tasks were completed.  I am very impressed with some of the connections made by students about how the message of their prophet related to their lives, our 4 R’s at school and the teachings of Jesus from the Bible.  The students presented these to a small group and were given feedback from them.  This week we have been exploring the Project Compassion website. We are learning about the challenges faces by ordinary people in different countries, how they have changed their loves and how we can GO FURTHER TOGETHER.  We learnt some startling facts about poverty and how some families love compared to us.

HASS:  We are looking at the 3 Levels of Government, what the role of each government has and how this affects us.  Classic question from a student was “Do you pay tax?............”.  Next few weeks will be looking at Parliament, the constitution and democracy.  We continue to look at Federation and the viewpoint of different people during this time.

Please keep up the food in lunchboxes and good sleep patterns. Keep up the great effort!

Congratulations to Luke and Angus, Sophie and Jasmine who ran the assembly last 2 weeks.

Prep - Ethan Saunders, Addison Lyon, Mindy Anderson and Elias Williams

Year 1 - Kaylee Hofman, Niamh Horwood, Nina Ward, Archie Williams and Bryn Andresen

Year 2 - Hugo Anderson, Flynn Stainkey, Jack Potter and Paetyn Nash

Year 3 - Silvie Hynes, Nate Robinson, Jayce Christie and Israel Pongot

Year 4 - Lincoln Scikluna, Jade Andresen, Arki Hagenmaier and Levi Payne

Year 5 - Sydney van Pelt, Levi Jenkins, Casey Oastler and Samuel Hancock

Year 6 - Kai Abbott, Angus Larcombe, Charlie Hockey and Jaiden Kappu