What's happening in our learning spaces? 

STUDENTS OF THE WEEK

FOUNDATION 

We made it! We finally reached 100 Days of Foundation. We started the celebrations as the students walked under the rainbow balloon archway into Saunders Yard. The smiles on the student's faces as they entered the learning space was priceless as they saw balloons, streamers, party hats and badges everywhere! 

To set the mood, we read “The Night Before 100th Day of School” by Natasha Wing on Monday and we then discussed the different things the students had brought in to share what 100 looks like. Some of us brought in 100 pieces of pasta, 100 buttons, 100 marshmallows, 100 cranberries, 100 Legos and even 100 cut-out love hearts. 

On the celebration day, we continued our story time with “100 Days of School” by Trudy Harris. We loved all the rhyming words and the outrageous 100 things the boy in the story had. We continued our celebrations with Mrs Monaghan as she courageously cooked up a storm and made and iced cupcakes for everyone to take home. We then made 100 out of all the cupcakes and even out of all the Foundation students! In between the fun, we completed different learning activities all about the number 100. This day was filled with so much joy and laughter, we all had a ball!

On Wednesday morning the students arrived at school to see Nonna and Papou sitting at the gate knitting and reading the newspaper! The rest of the retirement village arrived in dribs and drabs with their walking sticks, bushy eyebrows, long beards and permed hair-dos. Everyone was so excited to share their costumes with all of St Fidelis. We slowly walked with arched backs around Hawthorn Yard for the parade and posed for many photos. We couldn’t believe we still had the energy to continue our 101 Days of learning back in our spaces. 

Leanne and Alex would like to say a big thank you to our Foundation parents for all the support and effort you have provided over our two special days. The outfits for Wednesday were just amazing! The Foundation students have had the time of their lives and will remember these two special days for many years to come. 

This week, we are looking forward to our excursion to the National Gallery of Victoria on Wednesday 9th August to experience a designing and creating exhibition and tour. 

We will still be attending our library session on Wednesday. Some children are forgetting to return their books and bags before Wednesday. It’s imperative that books are returned so that students can borrow new books each week. 

We would also like to remind you of a few dates coming up this term:

• Excursion to the NGV Wednesday 9th August
• Dance Performance Night Thursday 17th August 
• Book Week Parade  Friday 25th August  

Have a wonderful week, 

Leanne Wenckowski & Alex Phillips

Foundation Team

YEAR 1/2

We have been super engaged in our learning this week in 1/2. We have been very excited to continue engaging in our discovery time stations, begin planning our own narratives and apply all our subtraction knowledge to solve problems. 

As part of our inquiry into Design and Creativity, we have continued to engage with design experts. Thank you to Paul Curry, Elliot Curry’s dad, for sharing his expertise about architecture. Paul discussed the many famous buildings and landmarks in Melbourne that he has worked on. He further explained the processes that he follows and the way in which he collaborates with other designers. We also had Jana Marin, Sienna Marin’s mum, who shared her knowledge of concept design, the process of refining her designs and working to meet the needs of clients. We even got to look at some of the materials that she uses to complete her designs. 

As readers and writers we are continuing to explore and use picture story books as mentor texts to identify the features of a narrative. We are using a story mountain to identify: 

• Characters & Setting
• Opening 
• Build Up to the Problem
• Solution
• Ending 

We are using the same structure to help us plan and write our own Narratives based on different picture prompts. We have also had the opportunity to add detail to our sentences using adverbials such as time, place and manner. As thinkers,t-shirtLight-coloured we have developed our vocabulary and created lists of words and phrases that we can use to help us with our word choice.

We have been busy practising our dance moves during our Footsteps program and are almost ready to take the stage! We are so excited for our concert on August 17th. Please note that students will be required to wear a costume to suit the Outback Australia theme. All students will be required to wear a khaki, beige, tan, olive green or cream shirt, with blue jeans. Please see the attached photos for reference. Contact one of the teachers if you require further clarification.  

1/2 Team, 

Alycia Marsico, Vania Sparano and Vicky Karalis 

YEAR 3/4

We are looking forward to our Around the World concert night on Thursday 17th of August. We will ask that students are dressed in all white and/or light clothing. A note has been sent home.

Examples can include:

As we continue to engage in Multiplication we have interpreted and learnt new strategies to solve multiplication strategies, some of the strategies we have investigated include, doubling and halving, fact families, arrays, friendly facts and repeated addition. We have also learnt some new games to play when practising our mental computation. 

We have had so much fun this week engaging in our Literacy rotation groups, we have had the opportunity to engage in finding out about contractions, prefixes and suffixes. We have also had the opportunity to curiously engage in a range of different learning opportunities including, Boogle, Comprehension, Roll an Activity, Book Study and Brain Bank. 

REMINDER: Home Learning is due this Friday 11th August. 

Have a wonderful week!

Year 3/4 Teachers

Belinda Panzarino & Bianka Zorzut

YEAR 5/6 

Four weeks down and what a fun time we had in the SLA last week! From celebrating 100 days of school with our buddies to retreat days and an incursion, we sure have been busy!

In Literacy last week, our students began exploring different Saints. Each of the students has chosen a different Saint to study and find out more about. It has been fascinating to learn about the incredible dedication to faith and humanity these people had, and their embodiment of the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit. Our current focus in writing is Informative texts, with our students aiming to create an engaging information presentation about the Saint they are researching. We look forward to sharing these with you soon!

In Numeracy, we finalised our multiplication unit with our students demonstrating such incredible growth and understanding of using efficient strategies to solve challenging problems. We are so proud of all their efforts and dedication to their learning. We now are beginning a new unit centred around Area and Geometry. The students began by designing the floor plan of their dream home! It has been inspiring to see their ideas, from indoor slides and trampolines to HUGE walk-in wardrobes! We are excited to continue developing our understanding of Area and building 3D models of our designs in Geometry. 

As Inquirers, our students are working in groups to create a project that will connect our community. The students have been planning interesting stories that they are going to turn into short films! We have been exploring different types of camera angles and storyboarding to assist in the planning phase of their projects. We look forward to beginning the filming stage and sharing our creations with our school community!

On Thursday, our Year 6 students engaged in a Confirmation Retreat day led by our Religion Leader, Annette Gasbarro. The morning began in the school chapel where the students unpacked the Rite of Confirmation and their understanding of the symbols associated with the sacrament. They then created stunning mosaic crosses and finished the day writing letters to their sponsors. We would like to thank all the students for their reverence and active engagement and Mrs Gasbarro for her organisation of the day. 

On Friday, our students participated in an incursion called the NewsRoom! Our students were tasked with creating their own news story including their own news logo, script writing and then becoming anchors and reports by filming a one-take news show! We saw it all from “Barbiemania Taking Over the World”, “Mutant Hamsters Invading St Fidelis” to the “Teachers Caught Dancing after School!” Our mini-reporters did an excellent job and we look forward to sharing our news programs with you!

We look forward to celebrating our Year 6’s this Sunday at 3 pm  for their Sacrament of Confirmation. 

Have a wonderful week, 

Olivia Sargent, Aoife O’Flynn and Graham Troy.