News from the classrooms
Chinese New Year
Gong Xi Fa Cai/Xin Nian Hao (Happy New Year) DCC families!
This Friday the 12th of February, we welcome a new Chinese Lunar New Year, the year of the Ox.
We would love for you to help us mark this occasion by making some lanterns out of recycled soft drink bottles. We have used red and gold to decorate ours as these are colours that represent good luck in the Chinese culture.
Click on the link below for a step-by-step guide.
Once your lanterns are complete, please bring them to school to add to our display for all to enjoy.
Xie xie (thank you)!"
Family Art Workshop (18th February)- Book now!
To celebrate "Chinese New year"we are offering a fun art activity after school for children and parents. Anu, our artist, will run a workshop making lanterns. The workshop will run from 3pm to 5pm.
Come along and make a lantern. You need to bring one or two empty soft drink plastic bottles.
The workshops are free and will be held in the art space. We will have limited numbers due to social distancing requirements. To book your spot, please click below.
Cultural Inclusion
On Monday Deanne Gilson held a smoking ceremony in our new Yarning circle followed by two days of introducing Year 3-6 students to the wonders of painting with Ochre as well as other Indigenous activities such as story telling.
"A smoking ceremony is an ancient aboriginal custom in Australia that involves burning various native plants to produce smoke, which has clensing properties and the ability to ward off bad spirits from the people and the land and make pathway for a brighter future"
Ekam, Yr 5.
Breakfast Club
Breakfast Club has started! Between 8.00am and 8.30am every Wednesday morning during Term, students are invited to be part of the Breakfast Club. Breakky is served out of the student Kitchen in Djirri Djirri (the gym). Please enter from the back foyer entrance.
With a huge turnout of more than 100 students in our first week, parent volunteers are always welcome. If you are interested in volunteering your time, please contact our new Community Liaison Officer, Kellie Yeow, on 8560 6079 or kellie.yeow@education.vic.gov.au.
Language Assistants in our school
During 2020 and 2021, Ying Wang has been working in the Mandarin Room as a language assistant. He is studying to become an Education Supporter. Ying holds a Bachelor degree and is fluent in Mandarin. Working as a volunteer, his persistence, resilience and his passion for supporting our students adds great value to the Mandarin classroom.
Born and raised in Beijing, Robert Song joined our Mandarin classroom at the start of this year. Along with his passion and sense of humour, he is very versatile in different sports and activities. The students are encouraged to talk to him in Mandarin as it is absolutely his passion to help improving our young learners’ speaking skills.
Science & Sustainability Update
Students have really enjoyed being back in the Science and Sustainability classroom over the last week. Finding a room full of animals to play with makes everyone’s day better! Our science room now has in residence 2 guinea pigs, 1 turtle, 1 Blue Tongue Lizard, 2 Green tree Frogs and over 50 Spiny Leaf Stick Insects with new babies hatching daily. Today we had 8 babies hatch! We have also had a guest appearance from Colin the miniature Dachshund, who has helped lots of students with their work, as well as getting to understand the needs of living things and giving great cuddles!! Students are being taught the correct way to approach a dog and how animals display their feelings in similar ways to us. This term we are using the inquiry model of learning to explore our environment and understand what makes us good learners.
If anyone has any spare newspaper, can you please send it in with your children for the Science room animals, we do go through quite a bit! Many Thanks, Heather.
Kitchen Garden
Our new kitchen garden program commenced last week with students from grade 2 to 6 the first students of Dohertys Creek College to participate. As we are patiently awaiting our exciting new garden to be constructed, students have begun learning by investigating and exploring seeds, fruits, vegetables, and herbs. We will learn about the different jobs and tools required to maintain our space to harvest foods in the coming months.
A huge thank you to the Mandarin team who invited students into the kitchen to understand how fresh produce is used to create fillings for Chinese dumplings (a traditional food to welcome in the Chinese New Year).
