What's happening in our learning spaces?
STUDENTS OF THE WEEK | |
| FLW | Matilda - For always trying your best when completing your learning tasks throughout the week. Thank you Matilda for being a wonderful example to everyone in Foundation LW of how to be a focused learner. You are a STAR! |
| FAM | Leo- For the care and effort you put into all of your learning. You are determined and hard-working and should be super proud of yourself! Amazing Leo! |
| 1/2VS | Damien -For demonstrating the qualities of a good friend to your peers. You are very compassionate and show empathy to others. Keep it up Damien! Amelia -For always demonstrating responsibility and being respectful to others. You really are a wonderful role model to your peers. Amazing Amelia! |
| 1/2VK | Jude - For your awesome work with fractions! You are a maths wizard, I can’t wait to share half of your fraction pizza. Grazie. Sofia - For being a wonderful contributor, you have gained so much confidence in sharing your ideas with the whole class. Well done, Sofia, and keep it up! |
| 1/2VB | Mason - For approaching your learning with enthusiasm and putting in great effort into all tasks. My oh my Mason, you’re amazing! Liam -For always trying to put a smile on our faces. You brighten up the class with your funny jokes and stories. You’re like a light, Liam! |
| 3/4BP | Jeevan -For writing a descriptive poem using imagery to paint a picture in the reader’s mind. I was able to visualise how the wild things were stomping around with King Max. Well done! |
| 3/4SH | Ariana - For being an amazing contributor to our classroom discussions and giving 110% in every lesson. You’re a superstar, keep it up Ariana! |
| 5/6OS | Lennix - For not just cracking fractions—but building a wall with them! Without being asked, he made fraction walls for every single classmate, proving he's not just good at maths, but also at stacking up some serious initiative. Way to be a fraction superstar, Lennix! |
| 5/6BZ | Estelle - For fearlessly facing the sharks when pitching her clothing brand Neon Haze. Your persuasive skills convinced the sharks! Eager Estelle! |
| 5/6MC | Julius - For all your hard work and focus this week in Maths when starting our fractions unit, you are connecting all the parts to make a WHOLE understanding! Well done Julius! Amelia - For her focus and dedication to complete her design and advertising project to a high ability. Your execution and presentation was outstanding. Custom Cases is going to be a sell out one day - keep it up Amelia! |
OTHER Literacy | Orlando - This award celebrates your effort in writing metaphors describing the game by making comparisons to other things to help explain it. Your persistence with this task was great. Well done! Abby - This award celebrates your enthusiasm for reading and use of punctuation to enhance expression and fluency especially when reading dialogue. Your love for reading is shining through. Well done. Keep up the great work! James - This award recognizes your excellent preparation for Literature Circles and respectful contributions to discussions. Your thoughtful insights and engagement enhance the learning experience for all. Well done! |
| Maths | Congratulations to Lincoln 1/2VS Hugo 1/2VS - Well done on all your hard work in morning maths, Lincoln and Hugo! You've made incredible progress with your number skills. Keep up the fantastic work—congratulations! |
| TRP Awards | Estelle -for her amazing art work, designing the logo for the cover of the 2025 TRP Journal. Well Done! Leon -for entering his artwork logo for the TRP journal Lennix -for entering his art logo for the TRP journal Samuel -for entering his artwork logo for the TRP journal Makayla -for entering her artwork logo for the TRP journal |
| TEACHER OF THE WEEK (to celebrate Teachers' Day) | |
| Mrs Wenckowski | For being kind hearted to her students and always making them giggle, while making them think with every question they are a true superstar! |
| Miss Marsico | For being there for all her students being kind and passionately teaching the class to write on the baseline in there work books thanks for everything Marvellous Miss Marsico. |
| Miss Boggis | For being and loving and caring teacher to all of her students as well as teaching fun and intriguing topics and subjects. |
| Miss Sparano | This award is for always trying to help everyone in your class and always being the kindest person in the room! You always try to teach your class the best you can even when it’s difficult! |
| Miss Karalis | For being a loving caring and a funny teacher during teaching and on yard you always make sure everyone is happy,you have the biggest heart in the school. |
| Miss Zorzut | For Miss Zorzut you are a great teacher! You put songs on in class once a month and you bring us all together with our 1000 piece puzzles (but someone keeps screaming the Kung Fu Panda song). You are wonderful. |
| Miss Maddie | For being an amazing kind and cool teacher, you are such a funny person and tell the best jokes , you bring joy to the SLA. |
| Miss Sargent | For always being a kind and caring teacher that you can always go to and talk to about anything and always being there for you when you need help with your learning. |
| Miss Hogan | For always being there for her students and making hard work really fun and exciting for her students. |
| Mrs Panzarino | For always helping and being there for her class. She's always willing to give a helping hand. And she even sometimes smiles! |
| Miss Sally | For being so kind and caring you make everyone happy and you fix things like friendships you are a wonderful teacher!! |
| Miss Pirrotta | For always being there when we need help and being a kind and caring person and for being the go to person when the teachers need help. |
| Mr Jennings | For all the great dad jokes he tells, the amazing effort he puts into sport lessons and all the positive vibes he brings to the school community. |
| Mr Frazzetto | For helping us a lot he gives us good activities And lets us do fun activities with the bee bot and he organises things like Lego League and S.T.E.M Mad and he's really funny when doing art. You could say he's part comedian,Picasso(or Vincent van gogh) and part technology genius. Fabulous Mr Frazzetto. |
| Mrs Watson | For being nice to all children and is very respectful and is always kind and caring to her students. Her decisions make the school a better place and she always has a smile on her face. Marvellous Miss Watson. |
| Mrs Gasbarro | For being really kind, caring and nice to all of her students when teaching art. All of your Students really appreciate you and your work for our Religion and Art learning. |
| Mrs Parnis | For bringing the greatest books to the school and always reading new interesting books to us. You are one cool Miss Frizzle! |
| Senora Rosa | For teaching us a language we can speak with all our italian nonni. Thank you so much for being our guide booklet for all the italian festivals you go to! Buon lavoro-ei un'insegnante di italiano straordinario. |
| Mrs Monaghan | For having amazing hair, being great at all maths work, making maths the best subject and wearing amazing clothes! Who knew maths could be so fun! |
FOUNDATION NEWS
There has been lots of excitement in the Foundation spaces again this week, not only because of the wonderful, warm weather, but because of some very special visitors.
We would like to welcome Ms Yasmin Pitisano, who is a second year student teacher from ACU. Yasmin will be doing her placement in FAM with Miss Marsico for the next three weeks. We are super excited to have her in Foundation with us!
As inquirers, we continued to explore our big question ‘What’s good for me?’ On Monday morning, Matilda’s mum and dad, Maggie and Deon, who are paramedics, joined us in our learning spaces to help us learn about how they help to keep us healthy and safe in the community. As researchers, we found out about what they do, we looked closely at some of their medical tools and equipment, and we even got to go inside of a real Ambulance. We explored the different things inside the ambulance, laid on the stretcher and spoke about why we might need an ambulance and how to get one in an emergency. We especially loved seeing the flashing blue and red lights and hearing the siren. Thank you Maggie and Deon for this amazing experience and for helping to keep people in the community healthy and safe!
On Tuesday morning, we continued to explore what’s good for us with another parent expert. We welcomed Doctor Gillian Porter, mother of Caleb (grade 5) and Daniel (grade 1). As researchers, we listened carefully as Doctor Gillian, who specialises in family practice, shared lots of information with us about the different ways she helps people stay healthy, such as checking our temperature, heart rate or blood pressure, looking at our throats and ears and giving injections. As communicators, we unpacked our thinking by recording what we did and what we discovered.
As mathematicians, we tuned in to Shapes and Fractions. We began exploring different 2D shapes. As researchers, we went on a shape hunt to see what shapes we could find in our school. We sorted shapes and looked at their features, such as how many sides and corners they have. This week we will explore halves!
On Friday, we rocked up at school in our finest socks, all for a wonderful cause, Socktober! We raised money for Catholic Missions by wearing crazy socks and bringing in a gold coin donation. As researchers, we watched a video to explore the purpose of Socktober. We dIscussed the difference between our lives and their lives and why it is important to be grateful for what we have. As communicators, we even had time and opportunity to design our very own crazy socks!
It is a very busy term, so here are some key dates to remember…
- Christmas Card Competition due by Friday 1st November
- School Closure Day and Melbourne Cup Day- Monday 4th November and Tuesday 5th November
- Art/STEM Show- Thursday 14th November
- School Athletics Day- Friday 22nd November
- Christmas Carols and Christmas Picnic- Thursday 12th December
Have a wonderful week!
Leanne Wenckowski and Alycia Marsico,
Foundation Team
YEAR 1/2 NEWS
It has been another busy week of learning in the Year 1/2 cohort! The teachers would like to commend students' efforts this week. Students have shown persistence and their contributions are always valued. The conversations have been rich and students are making lots of wonderful discoveries!
As readers and writers, we have been exploring compound words. These are two words that are placed together to create one new word. For example: sun + flower = sunflower. Below are some examples. You may like to continue consolidating these at home by writing word lists, creating a memory card game, placing words into sentences orally or in writing or even identifying these words in texts. We have also continued to explore the structure of a persuasive text and will begin exploring language features this week. This will be explained further in the next newsletter piece.
As mathematicians, we have been finding out about fractions. So far, we have learnt that a fraction is a part of a whole. Last week, we folded and cut paper squares to show how to make halves in different ways. We know that half means one out of two equal parts. On Friday, we made delicious fairy bread and cut the bread into halves. We then extended our thinking to show quarters. We discovered that 2/4 is the same as 1/2. We also had so much fun participating in Maths Games Day on Thursday. There were many opportunities for us to show off our amazing mental maths skills. A big thank-you to Mrs Monaghan who organised this day, to the parents who helped run the games and to the winners! The teachers are extremely proud of the students' efforts and you are all winners in our eyes!
As people of faith, we attended a year level mass on Tuesday. It was a lovely way to come together in prayer and reflection. We have also been exploring the month of October being dedicated to World Mission Month. Together we viewed a video from the Catholic Mission website. The video showed us videos of Pope Francis asking members of the Catholic community around the world to recognise themselves as missionary disciples and to show support to others in our community and around the world. As a cohort, we are beginning with Socktober and Carry a Can mission.
Reminders:
- There will be a school closure on Monday 4th and Tuesday 5th of November
1/2 TeamVania Sparano, Vicky Karalis, Vivian Boggis and Miss Marissa
YEAR 3/4 NEWS
As inquirers, we have been learning all about democracy and decision making in Australia as part of our inquiry unit. As a year level, we have been fortunate enough to have parent guest speakers come into our class and explain their decision making processes at home, at work and in their daily lives. We asked lots of questions about what life is like as an art teacher, lecturer, psychologist and zoo keeper. They were able to tell us about the different rules, laws and policies that are relevant to their industries and how these impact the choices they make. A huge thank you to Sarah (Gus' Mum), Lisa (Lizzy's Mum), Jana (Asha's Mum) and Megan (Roderick R's Mum) for volunteering their time to talk with us.
As writers, we have been exploring various language devices such as alliteration, imagery, metaphors, onomatopoeia, similes and personification. We have used these in our work to create a picture in our readers head and to make our writing more interesting, engaging and exciting.
As a school community, we participated in Crazy Sock Day on Friday as part of our Socktober celebrations. We donned our brightest and best socks to raise funds for programs that support education, healthcare, food and water, for children in need. Check out our crazy socks!
Important dates to remember in Week 4:
Tuesday 29 October - Gateways for Year 3 students
Wednesday 30 October - Gateways for Year 4 students
Have a lovely week!
Belinda Panzarino & Sarah Hogan
YEAR 5/6 NEWS
We kicked off our week with some fantastic presentations! The kids showcased their own products and logos in a Shark Tank-style pitch, with the teachers playing the role of the judges. Let’s just say the teachers might have gone a little overboard, dipping into their wallets to invest in more products than they probably should have!
We saw so many amazing and original designs, including lollies, drinks, toys and clothing! Congratulations to the year 5/6 students for engaging in this learning!
Thank you to those who attended 5/6BZ’s assembly and the donations provided for Sockober. We loved seeing so many silly socks around the learning space to help raise money for a good cause!
2025 School Leaders Process:
As we draw closer to the end of the year, our Year 5 students begin to look towards their final year of primary school and with that begin to put forth their desire to become a school leader for 2025. The following outlines the process for students and parents in regards to applying for a role.
Students have been given a preference form that includes the leadership roles and are asked to write their preference of role from 1-5. It also includes a few questions for students to answer. We ask that students complete this form at home and please return it to their teacher by week 7.
Students are also asked to write a short speech that will be delivered to their peers, teachers and our school leaders, Mrs Watson, Ms Pirrotta and Ms Gasbarro. We are providing time during our Literacy sessions for students to work on their speeches or alternatively these can be done at home. We encourage our students to consult with their parents and practise their speeches at home. They can use their responses to the questions on the preference form to support them in creating their speech.
Speeches typically include:
- Why a student believes they would make a positive school leader
- What they would like to contribute to the role of school leader
- How they will be a role model to other students in our school community.
- What characteristics and skills the student possesses that would make them a strong leader.
Students will present their speeches on Monday the 2nd of December (week 9) with the leaders announced in the final week of term.
Please note: Any students who will be absent on this day can film their video and send it to their classroom teacher to be played/presented on the day for their peers.
Important Dates:
- 1/11/24- Whole School Assembly- All Saints Day
- 4/11-5/11/24 - School Closure (Melbourne Cup)
- 11/11/24- Remembrance Day
- 14/11/24- STEM/ART show
- 22/11/24- Whole School Athletics Day
- 27/11/24 - Maths Games Day
- 4/12/24- Year 6 End of Year Excursion
- 6/12/24- Year 6 Graduation Night
- 12/12/24- Family Xmas Carols
Have a wonderful week,
5/6 Team
Olivia Sargent, Maddie Comrie & Bianka Zorzut