One More Thyme!

 The Pot Thickens!

Buenas tardes a todos, 

It seems like the weather has decided to go against the popular vote by putting on a show of disappointment. While we are unable to do anything about the weather except appreciate the diversity of umbrellas in our school grounds, we can definitely share some of the great learning that has taken place at Newlands this week. 

The F/1s have continued with their oral storytelling, adding incredible actions to support the story. The amount of potential jazz hand specialists in this area is remarkable. It has been fantastic to go into the F/1 Spanish Builders this week, seeing the students work together on different tasks focused on building place value knowledge. Students were showcasing their learning by demonstrating their knowledge using materials, symbols and numbers.

The 2/3s in Spanish this week have moved onto fractions. The students are learning about the numerators, denominators and learning about fractions less than one. The 2/3s have been categorising and learning about animals in preparation for the Zoo excursion that will take place later in the term. 

The 4/6s have been sharing their strong opinions about the Lorax. The students have been discussing the psychology of the Lorax, the environmental implications within the movie and how this relates to the world we live in. While that’s been happening the 4/6s had their Term 1 Genius Hour Projects. It was a fantastic time with lots of food, fun activities and artistic design! A big shout out to Marlowe, Sam, Addison & Esther for providing the vegan and gluten free options!

I would also like to say a congratulations to Hugo, Rafael, Oliver, Adele, Woody & Lara, with whom I have been working in preparation to run our school tours. The tours began on Thursday and these students have been incredible in their desire to represent our school in such a positive way! 

Cross Country was another success for Raul! Not only did he ensure a successful event where all the students had a fun day running around the wilderness, he also came home with 50 unclaimed water bottles. Congratulations to all the students for trying their best on the day and to all the students who will represent Newlands in the Cross-Country District Finals. It was fantastic to hear all the House Chants and parents involved!

As discussed earlier, the weather has not only sapped joy from our lives, it has made the PFA postpone tonight’s Outdoor Cinema Encanto Movie night. They are going to try and make it happen next Friday, it just depends on if Pepa is on our side or not! 

Next Friday the 12th of May, the teachers from Newlands will be putting on a Mother’s/Special Person's Day Breakfast for our community. This is our way of saying thank you for all your support in making sure that your child comes to school on time, does their reading every night and gets a nutritious breakfast and lunch every morning (Sorry Dads, your formal recognition comes later in the year). The school will be serving Newlands Value Sandwiches to all our great families as a thank you. While we appreciate the recommendation of an all vegan event, the school has decided to provide options for all types of vores. I recommend the famous Newlands 'Keystone Bun'.

SCHOOL COMMUNICATION – ADD 9354 2928 to YOUR PHONE!

To further clarify, school communication procedures at Newlands, we recommend:

• Reading the Newsletter each week for information about general learning and upcoming events
• SENTRAL will send out reminders about upcoming events, but also is the only way to give permission to events/incursion/excursions

• If you’re late, need to leave early, need information about events, support with student admin, CSEF and/or SENTRAL issues contact Denise at the office on 9354 2928 or email her newlands.ps@education.vic.gov.au ATT:Denise
• If you require OH&S, First Aid/Student Medical assistance or newsletter support, please contact Bronia at the office on 9354 2928 or email her newlands.ps@education.vic.gov.au ATT:Bronia
• If you have finance related issues outside of CSEF, please email Mandy newlands.ps@education.vic.gov.au ATT: Mandy
• If you have student wellbeing concerns, attendance concerns or requiring student/family support contact Sonya on 9354 2928 or newlands.ps@education.vic.gov.au ATT: Sonya
• For Out of Hours Care Inquiries, please contact Jill on 0491273710 or newlandsooshc@gmail.com
• For anything in relation to child’s learning, please contact your teacher via SENTRAL. If you need to organise a meeting a formalised meeting, contact your child’s teacher through SENTRAL. Please note: That teachers are available before (8:50am) and after school each day (3:45pm). Please note: Teachers are unable to be contacted during school hours 9:00 – 3:30. 

If you have any concerns or questions, please don’t hesitate to contact the school through one of our Communication Channels! We take parent concerns seriously and will do what we can to support! We will continue to add questions to our newsletter if we think it is beneficial to our family community. 

It was not long ago that we had our incredible Spanish Fiesta! In between being a fabulous human and much loved member of our community, Jose has put together an incredible video to remind us of the great time we had!

Finally, a big thank you to Sole, our incredible Learning Assistant, who is leading the Spanish Parent Classes. We all had a great time and have given up our weekend to meet her study expectations. 

Tengo que practicar mi tarea

Que tengas un gran fin de semana

Luke

F/1 Term Overview

2/3 Term Overview

In Literacy this term, students are learning to write an informative text. Students are being exposed to new language features as they read a range of informative texts. These texts have been selected to build student content knowledge related to our inquiry topic. Students are therefore exposed to a wide range of vocabulary on animal conservation in English. In Spanish, they are also learning about different types of animal categories (mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, insects and arthropods), their habitats, diets and survival behaviours.

After reading informative texts, students record facts and enthusiastically add them to our collective online fact bank on Padlet. They will then expand on the facts through learning to write compound and complex sentences. Next, students will turn sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into a whole text by following the Writing Process (plan, draft, edit, revise and publish) and considering our ongoing learning on grammar, spelling, punctuation and word choices. 

In Maths, we are focusing on Addition and Subtraction in English, and Fractions and Decimals in Spanish. Through Number Talks, we focus on student problem-solving skills by applying their addition and subtraction strategies to solve worded problems. Students will ultimately improve their fluency and their capacity to work with larger numbers as well as to build an increased range of strategies when it comes to solving addition and subtraction problems. Students are learning to read and represent fractions by using different manipulatives and visual models such as fractions in different 2D shapes and number lines. They are using their knowledge of multiplication and division to build their understanding of fractions and even challenge themselves to work with equivalent fractions.

Year 2 and 3 students are thrilled to hear “Lights, camera, action!”. In Inquiry, having storyboarded and scripted in Term 1, we have started to film our movies on the School Values. Students have taken on different roles in their groups, such as director, camera operator, editors and actors. They have been rehearsing by considering the desired angles and music for their movies and the effect this would have on their storytelling. Students have been enthusiastic to collaboratively record their movies by using cameras, microphones and tripods independently. 

In Week 4, our inquiry unit on Ethical Capabilities will get started with an excursion to Werribee Open Range Zoo. This experience will provoke ideas about animal treatment and conservation efforts as well as provide a meaningful experience to reflect upon as they continue to explore different ethical considerations to ultimately build an understanding of fairness.

4/6 Term Overview

IDAHOBIT day 2023

We are going rainbow to support the building a world free from discrimination on Wednesday May 17th.

All students and community members are encouraged to wear a rainbow of colours on the day.

Students will be engaging in class lessons aimed at developing an understanding of why we are wearing our bright colours. Lessons will be developed using department guidelines and will be age appropriate.

Merri-Bek Bicycle User Group

Merri-bek BUG are preparing a submission for the parliamentary Inquiry into road safety behaviour and its impact on vulnerable road users. https://new.parliament.vic.gov.au/roadsafetybehaviours

We are conducting a survey to inform our submission and are looking for the experiences of riders and their stories across Merri-bek.

The survey is here:  https://forms.gle/y5DQLjiYFYPAJtgU6

We need to have responses back Sunday 14th May. 

I'd really appreciate it if you could share this with your community so that we can gather responses from as diverse a range of riders as possible. I think it is especially important that we have the feedback of younger riders and families,