Infants and Primary

Infants

What a fantastic time everyone had at the athletics carnival thank you to all the organisers and Ms Brougham and Miss Birney for the organisation of the Infants activities.

As the Autumn weather has set in, we would like to remind families to label all articles of clothing. Children going in and out of classrooms throughout the day means they often remove coats and or jumpers which do not always make it straight into bags. At the end of the day, we often have several jumpers and coats to try to find owners for. Labelling makes this so much easier.

Kindergarten

Kindergarten is doing a fantastic job with their learning. They have well and truly settled into routines of literacy and mathematics learning and are applying the skills they have been learning to read, write and problem-solve with a high degree of focus and expertise. They are truly focused little learners.

Last week we took a walk around the school to show other classes the wonderful job Kindergarten are doing with hearing sounds in words and then writing words. The other classes were enormously proud of the Kindergarten children, almost as proud as the Kindergarten children were to show their work.

This week we had a great incursion about recycling. Sarah from Enviro​Mentors visited and taught us all about worms and the fantastic job they do recycling scraps in their worm farm home. We found out what we could and could not put in a worm farm and even got to hold worms (those who were willing to get some worm poo on their hands). Despite all of Sarah's reassurances, not everyone believed that worm poo does not smell!!

Year 2/3

Year 2/3 have had an exciting start to the term. In science, we had to create an esky to keep our ice from melting. We found newspaper and foil did the trick. We have been researching and writing information reports on a variety of animals, then we presented our research to the class in the form of a speech. 

In STEM, we have been designing and building bridges that must be able to support a weight. We discovered that small triangles are extraordinarily strong. 

In mathematics, we have been learning about capacity. We had relays where we had to use a small cup to fill up a large container. We discovered that the bigger the container the longer it took to fill it up. 

In personal development & health, we have been talking about being kind and how to be a good friend to others. We wrote down kind things about each other and shared them. We all felt really happy after this session. Year 2/3 would like to share a message with everyone: In a world where you can be anything - Be kind!

Ms Natalie Downey I Class Teacher

Yindyamarra 

Yindyamarra students enjoyed the many events and activities at the Athletics carnival last week. Some of our students achieved wonderful results and we are immensely proud of their efforts.

In class, we have been enjoying using hands-on concrete materials to learn simple mathematic skills such as sorting, patterning and addition. Concrete, hands-on materials are learning tools that children can pick up and manipulate, an important form of education in which children learn by doing. By using a variety of accessible household items such as buttons, coins, beads and dice, students can learn simple counting, addition and subtraction skills. Hands-on learning is fun and helps to build fine motor coordination and strength. 

Mrs Kirsty Miller

Yindyamarra Classroom Teacher 

Primary Department

Well, the cold weather has certainly hit us quickly this year! We've had frosty mornings here at school and they will continue, please ensure your children are wearing school jumpers and a warm coat each day for our outside playtimes. Another gentle reminder also that our supervision at school only starts at 8:30 am, students should not be arriving at school before 8:30 am as we can't supervise them on the school grounds.

Our Athletics Carnival on Friday was a roaring success. As always, it was 100 miles an hour right from 8:30 am, with kids doing events all day until just before 3:00 pm. I must apologise for a glitch we had with our results computer system, which did not allow us to announced Champions and Runners Up on the day. These will be announced and celebrated during an upcoming assembly. A huge thank-you to all of our fantastic parent-helpers also. The day simply would not happen without you!

Last week we sent out a 'Commitment to Participate' note for our Year 3-Year 6 excursion in November. I understand this is early, but we need to have set numbers to book our accommodation and activities. If all notes for the excursion can be returned by Friday 4 June 2021 it would be greatly appreciated. 

Jason Stuart 

Assistant Principal Primary (Relieving)

Year 4/5

Year 4/5 enjoyed getting outside in the sunshine last week for our annual Athletics Carnival. It was so good to see all students participating and having fun on the day. In the classroom, we have been finishing up our unit on fractions. Students enjoyed combining art and maths this week, where they had to create a character on grid paper and colour it with ten different colours. They then had to work out what fraction of the picture was taken up by each colour.

In English, we have been learning about persuasive texts. Students have done a great job in persuading people to choose outside play instead of watching television. Next, we will be looking at how to structure our writing into paragraphs to organise our ideas. In art students have been working to create amazing artworks using different techniques, especially shading, we can't wait to share these by the end of term. 

Mrs Kylie Corcoran I Classroom Teacher

Year 5/6

The 5/6 class has thoroughly enjoyed time in STEM activities in the secondary school woodwork rooms. We are currently constructing bridges with Mrs Bridge! In mathematics, we have finished our focus on fractions, decimals and percentages, and have moved onto measurement and angles. In English, we have written excellent narratives on a video story named 'Wing', and we will move onto our novel focus soon!

It is becoming even more apparent as the year goes on that times tables must be practised every day by our students to commit them to memory. All students should be regularly reviewing the times tables. I have USB resources for this if you wish to copy them onto a computer at home.

The new school jackets look fantastic! Please see the office for more details - it's essential to keep warm whilst in the playground during a Boorowa winter.

Jason Stuart 

Assistant Principal Primary (Relieving)

Transition to Kindergarten and High School