Student News

Story Workshop at Home in Year 1

Kids in Team 1PYKB are continuing Story Workshop at home. It has been amazing to see the materials they have gathered and shared with us. Some have taken responsible risks and even considered water as a new material to explore!

What is Story Workshop?

Story Workshop is a structure of learning that supports language, literacy, and the arts. We encourage children to find memories and imaginative stories through play and hands-on opportunities with a vast array of materials. Children are able to spend time playing with materials whilst sharing their ideas aloud. As they do this, they are able to consider more details, build vocabulary and become stronger at sequencing their ideas.  We support them by asking questions about their materials and stories, and encouraging them to write down the stories they find the most meaningful. The goal of this approach is to enable our students to become confident and passionate writers.

What materials are used in Story Workshop?

Materials can be anything! So far this year, we have explored:

• Pencil
• Coloured pencils
• Textas & Sharpies
• Plasticine
• Playdoh
• Clay
• Whiteboard and whiteboard markers
• Loose parts – these can be anything (buttons, leaves, jewels, shells, etc)
• Blocks & Lego
• Small World setups – these are life scenes that we or the children set up to play. We have found lots of interest in dinosaur scenes, space scenes, ocean scenes and wild jungles.

A few Magical Moments from Team 1PYKB:

• Morning team chats – the kids are so excited to see each other!
• Matisse - created an amazing family board game
• Aki – confidently teaching his teammates origami during our morning meet
• Destiny – her inner artist is shining through
• Hunter – fabulous P.E. videos
• Gael – his passion and excitement for Story Workshop is inspiring
• Ragnar – playing songs on his piano for us
• Daneen – wonderful reflection time with her siblings
• William H-K – building an awesome fort for STEM

Highlights of Week 1 in 3/4H

• Hunter - Amazing progress in Prodigy!
• Natalie - Writing activities have been completed in a detailed manner.
• Max - Completing activities to a high standard!

Students busy at home

It has been wonderful to see what our amazing students have been doing at home. Learning new skills and getting creative!

Ashton built and planted his own garden bed. He is growing Dutch carrots, broccoli & one flower so it’s pretty. He will be eating his carrots and giving baby broccoli to our parrot cos he loves them.

He loves having his own garden bed.

Esther and Joshua at home.

Jack busy on assignments.

Clara has done wonderful art!

Annabelle's great art!

Scarlett has been doing Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems - the author of Don’t let the Pigeon drive the Bus and The Elephant and Piggie books. In one of the lunchtime sessions, Mo shows a game that he plays with his family on this video. It’s called Super Bounce: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5guOVOuVMs 

The way to draw the game is from about the 7min 20sec mark, and all you need is a piece of paper and a marker. You can make the game over and over again and do different things with it each time. It’s been a lot of fun for us as a family as the rules are simple and it’s easy to play (but also fun for all ages). See attached for the version we are playing at the moment.

Our daughter Isabella enjoys the on-line school very much! 

She likes the one-to-one conference with her teachers. After talking with teachers via the video calls, she sang by herself for very long time, that shows how HAPPY she feels to talk with her teachers! She likes the teachers’ video classes.  After classes, she sits for hours trying her best to complete the homework. 

She likes EPIC Online Library, (how thoughtful it is for the School to provide this wonderful online library for free for families!). Everyday, she would ask me again and again, even just before sleep: “Can I read READ-TO-ME books again?” 

You can't imagine, how happy and how proud we feel as parents, to see how much Isabella loves and enjoys her school learning! Every day! Even during this very isolated and difficult time. 

The on-line schooling is engaging, full of variety and providing rich resources (e.g. EPIC library). Thank you Principal Mrs. Rosemary! You are leading your team doing an amazing job! As parents, we feel so grateful for all the teachers’ hard work during this very difficult time:) We also hope all teachers safe, healthy and happy:)

Luther and Tom have been busy with their visual art project and their coding project.

Venice has been walking and running about town and doing yoga to keep fit and healthy as well as lots of art!

Alice's fantastic craft for Prep E

Ellie busy with  art and craft! 

Bella writing stories and making wonderful art. 

Ollie enjoying online activities  and the visual arts - emphemeral art project.

Felix and Albert have been busy at home.

From Felix:

I have been writing a joke of the day and sticking it up on our house window to keep everyone who walks past laughing. I wrote lots of Easter jokes. Now I’m writing loads of school jokes. LOL!

My favourite school joke is:

How do you get straight A’s?

Use a a ruler !

From Albert :

We didn’t have an iPad stand so we made one from Duplo LEGO.

Ethan is creating comic books - great work!

You are not alone

Reach out to your children's friends families and take turns to organise a brief playdate, I have hosted online with kids from school, mostly on weekends:

• karaoke
• show & tell
• scavenger hunt
• assignment challenges where a topic was assigned and then kids agreed to meet to present on something around that topic

Claudette (F&F President), Logan and Vivienne's Mum.

Note Class Rep contact details are provided in F&Fs section.