What's happening in our learning spaces?
| STUDENTS OF THE WEEK | |
| FLW | Bridget - For confidently sharing and recording information describing the features of a chicken when writing your information report. Fantastic effort, Bridget! |
| FAP | Amara - For your fabulous writing about our 100 Day celebrations! You were so resilient and tried your very best, especially when writing your sight words. Amazing Amara! |
| FAM | Sebastian -For always demonstrating persistence and determination in all that you do. Your wonderful efforts show! Keep it up! Marley -For being a curious learner and sharing so many amazing discoveries and wonderings about giraffes! Marvellous Marley! |
| 1/2VS | Adam -For showing enthusiasm and persistence when solving challenging multiplication problems! You are a superstar Adam! |
| 1/2VK | Arnold -For showing excellence in your writing. You wrote some fantastic facts about Eagles. Well done Arnold. Angelica -For demonstrating enthusiasm and positivity towards your learning! Well done and keep it up! |
| 1/2VB | Patrick -For being a curious learner and always eager to contribute facts about the many things that you know about the world. You’re amazing! |
| 3/4BP | All of 3/4BP -Thank you for being a wonderful class while Mrs Panzarino was away. I am very grateful to have such a lovely class. |
| 3/4SH | Isaac -For his curiosity and engagement at our scienceworks excursion and during literacy this week. You're a solar superstar, well done Isaac Mazzarella! |
| 5/6OS | Jacob - For being an excellent role model to his peers and taking on challenges with determination especially the tricky 4’s maths task. You are a Mathematical Superstar Jacob! Joe - For being a positive contributor to class discussions and for taking initiative in his learning especially whilst creating a circuit that included powering a lightbulb and an alarm! Circuit Superstar Joe! |
| 5/6BZ | Gemma -For bringing characters to life with your descriptive and imaginative writing. Miss Trunchball has never sounded scarier! Fabulous Gemma! |
| 5/6MC | Jake -For being a leader in the classroom who shows respect to his peers and teachers by following expectations and reminding others to as well. You have been a great helper. We also thank you for filling the quietest of times with noise. Well done Jake! |
| Maths | Caleb -Congratulations on your amazing work with the 3rd Olympiad, achieving a perfect score of 5/5. Congratulations Caleb! Samuel -Congratulations on your work with the 3rd Olympiad, achieving a perfect score of 5/5. Congratulations Samuel! |
FOUNDATION
What an exciting week it was for us…we made it! We finally reached 100 Days of Foundation! Celebrations began as we walked under the rainbow balloon archway and into Saunders Yard. There was laughter and smiles as we entered our learning spaces and saw an array of balloons, streamers, party hats and badges.
To set the mood, as readers, we read “The Night Before 100th Day of School” by Natasha Wing on Tuesday and discussed the different things we had brought in to share what 100 looks like. Some of us brought in 100 pieces of pasta, 100 pieces of Lego, 100 paper clips, 100 Uno cards, 100 sultanas, 100 beads and 100 bobby pins. Come and check out our displays! On our 100th day, we continued our story time with “100 Days of School” by Trudy Harris. We loved all the rhyming words and the outrageous 100 things the children in the story decided to bring to school.
As mathematicians, we cooked up a storm with Mrs Monaghan as we made and iced cupcakes to take home. We measured, we poured, we stirred, and we whisked! We counted to 100 by 5s and 10s and worked out how many groups of 5 and 10 there were in 100. Some of us raced to get to 100 as we rolled and added different numbers, and competed to see how high we could build a tower with blocks in 100 seconds. We made paper crowns and explored the number 100 in every way! As thinkers, we even estimated how many pom poms are in a jar!
As writers, we wrote about what we wish we had 100 of and what we didn’t want 100 of. We even recounted our amazing celebrations!
Then on Thursday morning, we arrived at school to see Nonna Wenckowski, Nonna Marsico and Papou Alex waiting at the gate! The rest of the retirement village arrived in dribs and drabs with their walking sticks, bushy eyebrows, hair curlers and grey beards. We were so excited to share our costumes with all of St Fidelis. We slowly walked with arched backs for the parade and posed for many photos. We couldn’t believe we still had the energy to continue our 101 Days of learning back in our spaces.
As learners, we have come so far, and our ability to be confident, courageous, curious, persistent and respectful learners, communicators, collaborators, researchers, thinkers and self-managers is something to celebrate and be proud of. Alycia, Leanne and Alex would like to say a big thank you to all of the Foundation parents and families for the support and effort you have provided not only over our two special days, but during your child’s first 100 Days of School.
Our days were filled with so much joy and laughter, we all had a ball and will remember these days for many years to come. Let’s see what the next 100 days of school will bring!
Leanne Wenckowski, Alex Phillips and Alycia Marsico,
Foundation Team
YEAR 1/2
On Tuesday, we put on our problem-solving hats and into the shoes of an engineer as we were paid a visit by Engineers Without Borders. EWB is a humanitarian organisation of engineers whose purpose is to create positive change in the world and foster a sustainable community.
As collaborators, we had to discuss and design a plan for a floating house and then build it using limited resources and staying within budget. This was probably the hardest part for us! Afterwards, we tested our designs to see if they would float and how many people (marbles) they could fit. Every team came up with interesting and creative ideas, and ultimately, we had one group fit a total of 38 marbles inside their house until it began to sink.
During The Resilience Project, we had time and opportunity to discuss emotional literacy and learn useful strategies for how to deal with issues that arise with our friends. As thinkers, we role-played how to communicate our feelings nicely to others, and we also identified strategies when we had no one to play with. We had robust conversations and were able to brainstorm many ideas; we can’t wait to continue to display this outside in the yard.
As readers, we have been continuing to engage in reading focus groups to develop our reading behaviours. We have also explored lots of non-fiction texts about animals to identify the features, which include a contents page, headings, sub-headings, labelled diagrams, glossary and index page. It has been exciting to discover lots of wonderful facts about animals and share these with our peers. We will continue our exploration by reading a variety of information reports to identify text structure. As collaborators and researchers, we continued to practise using our research skills to find interesting facts on topics of interest.
Reminders:
- Book Week is August 23rd. This is a reminder to begin thinking about your child's costume. The theme is “Reading is Magic.”
- This is just a reminder that we are looking for any scientists, parents, or members of the community who would like to join us during Science Week. A date has yet to be confirmed, but it will take place between August 12th and 16th. If you are interested or know someone who is, please email your child’s learning space teacher!
1/2 Team
Vania Sparano, Vicky Karalis and Vivian Boggis
YEAR 3/4
As inquirers, on Wednesday we visited Scienceworks to further develop our understanding of Earth and the Solar System. We watched a short movie called ‘Tilt’ in the Planetarium, where we learnt how the four seasons are caused by the tilt of the Earth’s axis and how the seasons and length of day vary across the Earth, from the poles to the equator.
We also had time to explore other exhibitions; we particularly loved the sports sections because we could race against Cathy Freeman.
We participated in another show called ‘Earth, Moon and Sun’ show, where we engaged in demonstrations to explain the Earth’s rotation on its axis. We are excited to learn more about Earth and our Solar System in our learning spaces.
As a faith community, the Year 4 students engaged in a Eucharist retreat day on Thursday in preparation for their celebrations on Saturday. We read the scripture story ‘The Road to Emmaus’, explored our wonderings about the sacrament of the Eucharist, gathered in the Church to reflect, and created a chalice with our family name. Thank you to Mrs Gasbarro for all her effort in organising this for us. We wish all the Year 4 students all the best for their first Holy Communion this weekend.
As communicators, a big well done to the 3/4SH students for their assembly on Friday. You all did a fantastic job!
Have a lovely week!
Year 3/4 Teachers
Belinda Panzarino & Sarah Hogan
YEAR 5/6
We have had such a wonderful and busy few weeks back at school!
On Tuesday, the children stepped into the profession of an Engineer. This is where they learnt about access to clean water and water filtration. This included finding out about clarifiers, desalination plants, and reverse osmosis. We also found out about different filters, such as solar water disinfection and ceramic and sand filters. Students then had the opportunity to create their own filter for a country they were provided with, they were given currency to purchase different materials to help create their water filter, this included, coarse sand, rocks, bark, cloth and elastic bands. As collaborators, the children have a wonderful time working in small groups to create and test these filtration systems.
As inquirers, we explored electrical circuits. Students were problem solvers when they identified why some circuits were and were not working. An electrical circuit is one system that we have learned about as part of our inquiry learning. We look forward to continuing our exploration of circuits this week and engaging the students in experimenting in creating their own circuits. We may have some future sparkys on our hands!
We have been continuing to unpack and understand multiplication using the box, split and algorithm strategies in our mathematical thinking. It has been wonderful seeing all of the children so determined to engage in these learning opportunities and challenge themselves with their multiplicative thinking.
Reminder: Quick recall of multiplication facts is very beneficial when solving these problems; we appreciate you practising these with your children at home to support them in this learning.
Our little Olympians will compete in the SSV Coburg District Athletics Carnival this Wednesday, August 7th. We wish all those students representing our school the best of luck and thank Mr Jennings for all his hard work in preparing them for this special event. Go, St Fidelis!
We welcome a new face in the SLA this week. ACU student teacher Adam will join 5/6OS to complete his final teaching round. We wish him all the best, as he will be with us until the end of Term 3!
We hope you have a wonderful week!
The 5/6 Team,
Olivia Sargent, Maddie Comrie & Bianka Zorzut