PREP

The last two weeks in Prep have flown by. We have been busy with lots of learning and having lots of fun too.

We have been busy in our sharing unit for numeracy. We have been exploring concepts through concrete materials, worked examples and whole class mathseeds. We are learning about how many groups, how many in each group and fair/equal shares. This week, because we are such smarties… we did sharing with smarties. What a treat! Next week will be our last week on multiplication and division. For the last two weeks of term we will be doing transformation.

Our stage 4 little learners love literacy learning has been great fun. We are well on our way to mastering our new sounds and learning new words. This week we met a new animal in our sentence and book. Her name is Kaz and she has six pups.

In our whole class language group with Jo, we have been learning to describe an object/thing. We have to give clues about the object/things shape, size, colour, taste, feel and sound.

Last Friday, our Preps participated in year 6 Maegen’s Prayer Gathering. They got up with their Buddies to sing the butterfly song.

Tomorrow, we have our whole school Book Week Celebrations. We invite your child to dress up as a character from a book. This doesn’t have to cause stress or cost too much money. Just whatever you have at home will be perfect. This could be as simple as a princess or superhero costume. Our whole school parade will take place at approximately 9:30 after prayer gathering.

A friendly reminder, we have a no toys from home policy at St Mary’s. We don’t want your child to bring something and then it get lost or be broken. Thank you for your understanding with this.

Gemma Blake gblake@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Dani Conheady dconheady@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

GRADE 1/2

We can’t believe it’s Week 7 already!!! Week 7 also brings ‘Book Week’ which is creating plenty of buzz across the Grade 1 and 2 classrooms.

Students have been busy in numeracy lessons learning about multiplication and division. Students have been busy organising collections by displaying them as arrays and sharing collections evenly between groups. In the Grade 1 classroom students are beginning to learn about fairy tales while the Grade 2 children are starting to learn about information texts.

Both classes are busily preparing their wonderful art pieces for the upcoming Art Show. The Art Show will be on Tuesday 12th of September. More details about time specifics will become available in the near future.

We welcome Rachael into Year 2 Emma/Kerryn for the next 2 weeks. Rachael is studying teaching at Deakin and we are looking forward to having her in the classroom. Welcome, Rachael.

On Friday we encourage students to come dressed as their favorite book character from the theme ‘Read, Grow, Inspire’. There will be a Book Week Parade directly after Prayer Gathering at approximately 9:30 in the courts.

Year 2 Emma/Kerryn have been flat out preparing for their Prayer Gathering this Friday. Students will be sharing the parable of ‘The Lost Sheep’ and how it is important to leave nobody behind. We invite families and the wider community to St. Mary’s Catholic Church at 9:00 Friday to witness our wonderful Prayer Gathering.

Students will have their last week of swimming lessons next week. They have been doing a fantastic job to be commended on how they have represented the school whilst being out in the community.

Kascha Popping kpopping@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Leah Martin lmartin@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Miriam Collins mcollins@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Matt Absalom mabsalom@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Emma Roberts eroberts@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Kerryn Williams kwilliams@smcolac.cathlolic.edu.au

GRADE 3/4

We have been working really hard on our convict research projects this week, and are learning so much about how people were living in Australia 200+ years ago.

While we are working away we are also learning how to find correct information, take notes down in our own words, and present our information in an appealing way.

These projects will form the central piece for 3/4 at the end of term Art Showcase.

We look forward to sharing them with you.

REMINDERS:

-Book Week parade will follow Prayer Gathering this Friday, approximately 9.30am.

-3DH/LR ‘Father’s Day’ Prayer Gathering next week, 1/9

FORWARD NOTICE-2024 CAMP DATES!

Year 3 Camp 27th and 28th March Kangaroobie

Year 4 Camp 27th and 28th March WarraGnan - Warrnambool

Please pop these dates in your diary now to avoid date clashes, as these are the final two days of Term 1 2024.

Elissa Rodger erodger@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Deb Holland dholland@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Lauren Ryan lryan@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Meg Knight mknight@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Judy Carr jcarr@smcolac.catholic.edu

Jodie Hassett jhassett@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

GRADE 5/6

We are very busy in the senior area of the school preparing for our end of term festivities including our barking spider presentation and amazing race activities. Our amazing race kicks off at 12pm next Friday the 1st of September. Please meet in the courtyard at 11.45am to go over the instructions and rules of the game.

Back in the classroom, we enjoyed working on our book week activities this week and are very excited about the book week parade tomorrow morning. A reminder that we have winter sports later in the day, so students will need to change into their sports uniform after first break. We are continuing to work on information and poetry in Grades 5 and 6. Students also completed a cold write last week and there were some great narrative pieces that came out of this writing session.

In Numeracy, we have started new units on shape and angles and will finish the term off with time as our last topic. We will also start our units on health, focusing on puberty, nutrition and respectful relationships.

Well done to Maegen’s Grade 6’s who held their prayer gathering last week. It was a beautiful prayer gathering and lovely to see the Prep buddies join in with their Grade 6 buddies.

Rachel Downard rdownard@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Paula Parish pparish@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Jade LoRicco jloricco@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Dan Cannon dcannon@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Susie Scott sscott@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Maegen Potter mpotter@smcolac.catholic.edu.au.

Calendar of Events

Beginning 21st August, 2023