The Wattle

Spotlight on Learning

Chinese Mid-Autumn (Moon) Festival

Friday 13th September 2019

  • The Mid-Autumn (Moon) Festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese calendar. It began as a harvest festival. Traditionally the festival was at the time rice was supposed to mature and be harvested. People took this festival as an opportunity to celebrate the harvest and show their gratitude.
  • In Chinese beliefs, the roundness of the full moon means 'togetherness', thus the reunion moon is very special in Chinese culture. The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on a "full moon day". On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the harvest moon is supposed to be at its brightest and fullest of the year. This festival also has an origin in moon worship.
  • Mooncakes (round shaped like the full moon) are shared amongst friends and families.
  • Lantern riddles are popular. Try these ones.

         Riddle 1: What building has the most stories?

                                  Answer: A Library

          Riddle 2: Which is faster, hot or cold?

                                  Answer: Hot’s faster. You can catch a cold

 

At DPS, we will be acknowledging and learning about the Chinese Moon Festival. We will be having a riddle competition (ask your child what their class riddle is) and hopefully celebrating with Mooncakes!

Wishing all members of our Chinese Community a wonderful Mid- Autumn (Moon) Festival this Friday.

Tournament Of Minds

Well done to Jade R, James B, Almira R, Abby M, Evan H, Clarice O and Stephanie L who competed in the Tournament of Minds competition on Saturday 31st August 2019. We were very proud to see creativity, teamwork, resilience and ingenuity of ideas during this incredible learning opportunity.

Congratulations on receiving the ‘Spirit of the Tournament’ Award. A well-deserved honour.

 

Mrs Sheaves and Miss Munday

Leadership Workshop

On Tuesday 10th September, the Peer Mediation leaders went to Ermington West Public School for a leadership workshop. We thought about and wrote down what job aspirations we had for the future, and also discussed and thought about what impacts there would be on our careers and how we could use technology in our future jobs. In our groups we discussed leaders that we admire and the reasons why. We then explored the qualities of a great leader and decided on what we considered to be the most important qualities.

The day gave us the opportunity to get excited about what our futures could look like and encouraged us to use the skills that we do have to become the leaders of our own lives.

Akshara E

Space STEM Morning

On Friday 30th August Kindergarten and Stage One students participated in Space STEM rotations to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. The teachers set up various activities in the Hall and in the Kindergarten building for students to engage in. They had to create a catapult to help the cow jump over the moon.  The students also designed and tested a moon lander and a robotic arm. They had to design a tunnel to move space rocks. They experimented with different ingredients to make a rocket and balloon take off. Students also designed a rocket that came to life in an augmented reality activity. The morning was will filled little engineers testing and redesigning their prototypes.

Celebrating the Arts

On the evening of Monday 2nd September Dundas Public School’s Senior Choir, Senior Dance Troupe and Junior Dance Troupe took to the stage at Parramatta’s Riverside Theatre to perform in front of a sold out audience at this year’s ‘Celebrating the Arts’ Festival. The choir sang beautifully and the dance troupes impressed the audience with their spectacular routines. Congratulations to all performers who rehearsed so thoroughly in preparation for the big night. Your hard work paid off as you represented the school with professional performances.

5/6 Steel

5/6 Steel have created bushfire artworks in the medium of watercolor and acrylic. With the recent devastation of the Amazon, and inline with Stage 3 Science Unit for Term 4, 5/6 Steel has discussed and recreated the power and destruction that fire can create on a local, national and global scale. Students examined the current issues from the farmers, government, environment and global community's perspective.