Class News
Foundation Commemorates
Anzac Day
Last week the Foundation children enjoyed the beautiful book ‘Anzac Ted’ by Belinda Landsbury to discover the past and meaning of ANZAC day.
The book looks at a young soldier who takes his teddy bear to war and how the bear provides comfort to the other soldiers.
Children attended the moving Anzac service with the school at Anzac House and this experience raised many questions on what events and symbols we use to remember people who have served and fought in war.
The children in Foundation also had their own little Anzac service where they prayed for people who fought and died in war. Each child placed a red poppy in the front planter of the school.
Well done Foundation!
AFL Footy Skills with Foundation
What a great time the Foundation children had last Friday with Joey from the AFL.
Joey exhausted the children. They were running, catching, passing the ball and playing games that all the children loved. The games helped the children with their developing ball skills.
Thanks Joey for a wonderful session.
See you on Friday! The children can’t wait.
Cathy Busch
Foundation Teacher
The Year 1s have moved upstairs!
We are very excited in Year 1 as we have moved into our new classrooms!! We are enjoying being in a brand new space and being around lots of other year levels.
A big THANK YOU to all the wonderful parents who were so generous with their time and helped us move furniture and resources last Friday afternoon.
What we like about being in our new classrooms...
‘I like having new desks and new chairs’ Tilayo
‘I like that that we have this new space and that it isn’t as crowded.’ Valentina
‘I like our new built in whiteboards’ Eddie
‘I like how clean and tidy it is. I also like being near the other classes. I am looking forward to using the bridge when it is built.’ Saxon
‘I like our new technology, particularly the TV screen.’ Jack
‘It is very different and cool.’ Toby
‘I like being next door to the other grade one class.’ Victoria
‘I like how we have a lot more room and that everything is shiny and new.’ Ptolemy
‘I like the carpet because it is really clean.’ Ethan K
‘I love our lockers and I like how everything is new.’ Ava N
‘I like being next door to the other year 1 class.’ Megan
‘I like that we can see nature.’ Ava T
‘I like that there is lots of light.’ Audrey C
‘I like all the windows because we can see the sky and the clouds and we can see the other classes too.’ Massimo
‘I like the really long lights. They are cool!’ Ella
‘I like the view from our classroom because you can see below.’ Hugh
‘I like how the chairs are different to our old classroom.’ Ethan C
Bridie Slater and Olivia Quinlan
Year 1 Teachers
Year 5
The first two weeks of Term Two have been busy and have included a couple of public holidays, a whole school sports carnival and an inter school Soccer tournament (Friday 3rd).
Throughout the term ahead, both year 5 classes will be participating in a range of both academic, sporting and collaborative activities where they will be able to show their skills and knowledge through a variety of tasks.
Year 5 will be participating in the ‘Brighton Schools Cluster Day’ which allows the students in both 5 and 6 to collaborate, communicate and share their skills and knowledge through a range of activities with other students from schools within the Brighton district. This will be in Week 3.
The students will also be participating in the Holt District Interschool Netball and Footy Competition, which will be on most Fridays throughout the term.
On the 14th, 15th and 16th of May, the Year 5 students will be completing their NAPLAN assessments, which will allow them to show their prior and current knowledge in Numeracy, Writing, Language Conventions and Reading.
In Mathematics, we are currently delving deeper into the topic of “Time”, in particular, elapsed time, time tables, 24 hour time, basic time conversions and digital and analogue time.
In Literacy we will be focusing on Spelling and the ‘SMART Spelling Process’ which has been implemented to enhance our teaching and learning of spelling. Expect your children to be working on spelling words each day as part of their home learning.
In Writing we will be exploring persuasive texts and techniques to create creative pieces of writing.
As part of our Connected Learning focus for this term “Our story new and Old”, we will be focusing on the history of Australia, in particular Australia as a colony. Within this unit, students will be able to explore the context of their own family trees, exploring the early Australian colonies (pre-federation), piecing together a timeline of historical events, investigating influential Australians, developing a greater understanding of the geography of Australia and individually researching an area of Australian history we are most interested in. Plans are afoot for an excursion to Sovereign Hill (part of researching the colony of Victoria) and we're hoping to get to the city to visit the Ian Potter Gallery to view famous Australian paintings. We'll keep you posted!
Today (Thursday 2nd of May) the students participated in our 'Inside Out' Expo which was the end product of a major wellbeing project started in Term One. The project involved the students completing 6 to 7 tasks in response to the movie, Inside Out. These included spelling, grammar and comprehension tasks as well as presenting the entire project in the digital form of their choice.
We are looking forward to a safe, engaging and successful Term 2 here at St James with all students, staff and community.
Sarah Contin and James McMahon
Morning Tea With Mr Wilson
On Friday the 26th of April, the Year 6 Community Leaders (Ella D, Savannah S and Reuben J) went to Visit Tim Wilson for morning tea. He also invited other local schools to get to understand what his campaign was about leading up to the election on May 18th.
Our journey began when we caught a taxi with Mr Mac and we were driven to Tim Wilson's office in Bentleigh. We were then escorted by his assistant Amy, into a room full of yummy goodies. Once all the school leaders had arrived, Tim Wilson came in and greeted us individually with a handshake. After, we were each presented with a lovely certificate for attending his special morning tea and showing leadership. Then each school group were given the opportunity to take a photo with him. When all the schools had left, we stayed a little longer to ask him some extra questions (thanks to Mr Mac). Our journey concluded when we were back at St James, with Mr Mac making us some tasty hot chocolates and reflecting on our morning tea.
Mr Wilson's message was to inform the school leaders that anyone can make a difference in the world. He said that we can do this by being a responsible community member and being responsible at home and doing little things like making our beds or doing the dishes. Little things like that make a difference. So the key message was that helping with the little things leads to something bigger.
We will now write a letter to Mr Wilson for a new flag post and 2 new flags we will also ask him for funding for a bigger and better playground.
By Ella D, Savannah S and Reuben J
Year 6 Community Leaders
