PREP GRADE

This week in Prep has been another fantastic week.

We have been exploring another story about our friends Pip and Tim. This week they have headed to the carnival to ride all the rides. We talked about our favourite rides at the Carnival and the Colac Show. We have been using our phoneme fist more and more to sound out words in the story. The Preps did a fantastic job with the work inside their reader bags last week and we cannot wait to see some more incredible work when they bring them back next Monday.

In maths we are continuing to learn all about patterns and have focused on making our very own without any help. We are all fantastic at making one, one patterns and two, two patterns and are now focusing on one, two patterns. Next week we will be creating some beautiful pattern artwork for our classroom so keep an eye out for that.

Today we had our Opening School Mass where we had our Buddy Blessing. I am sure all our special guests that attended would agree that the blessing in particular was gorgeous and a beautiful memory for our Preps and Year 6s to treasure.

We cannot wait for our families to visit us again tomorrow afternoon as we show off all the amazing learning we have done so far this term.

Gemma Blake gblake@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Dani Conheady dconheady@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

GRADE 1/2

We are now officially halfway through the Term! What a wonderful start to the year we have had!

Today we gathered as a school to celebrate the beginning of the year. Each class presented their prayer cloth to the school and it was also a lovely chance to see the tradition of the Prep - Year 6 buddy blessing.

Tomorrow the whole school is having an open afternoon. We are inviting families to visit classrooms and check out all the amazing learning the children have been doing.

In Maths, Year 1's have been finishing up their unit on Chance and Data. The children enjoyed showing off their sorting, tally mark and graphing skills while enjoying an M&M and Skittle snack. The Year 2's have begun their place value unit and are looking forward to problem-solving and learning about numbers up to 1000.

Kascha Popping kpopping@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Leah Martin lmartin@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Miriam Collins mcollins@smolac.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

As part of our Inquiry unit for Civics and Citizenship, this week we enjoyed visits from guest speakers Kate Hanson and Josh Goonan. On Monday Kate, who is a Councillor for the Colac Otway Shire, came to speak to our classes about the responsibilities of the Local Government. On Tuesday Josh, who is the Senior Constable at the Birregurra Police Station, came to speak about his role in keeping the community safe and about the importance of laws. The students were very engaged in both presentations and asked some very insightful questions.

Today we celebrated our Beginning of Year Mass as a whole school community, welcoming our new Prep students to the St Mary’s family with a beautiful buddy blessing. We also presented our special prayer cloths and learning statements that we created during ‘Learning to Learn.’

Tomorrow is Hayley Knight’s last day of her teaching placement in Year 4. Hayley has been with the Year 4 classes for the last four weeks and the students and teachers have really enjoyed having Hayley as part of the team. We wish her all the best for the remainder of her studies and her future career as a teacher.

We will also be hosting our ‘Open Classrooms’ tomorrow afternoon from 2:15 and we look forward to seeing some visitors to our classrooms.

A reminder to check PAM permissions as there are still a number of outstanding permissions for different activities. Also, there are still a number of students who do not have a set of headphones for use at school.

The Year 3 and Year 4 Overnight Camps will be held in the last week of this term. Please look out on Dojo for information regarding the camps in the coming weeks.

Finally, a big congratulations to our SRC representatives: Reuben Baillie and Louisa Roe in Year 3 and Charlie Groves and Taya Egan in Year 4. Next Friday 10th March, all of our SRC leaders will receive their badges at a special Prayer Gathering lead by Dan and Susie’s Year 6 class. Everyone is welcome to attend.

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

It is hard to believe that we are now over halfway through the term!

Today we celebrated the beginning of our school year at Mass with Fr. Michael. The Grade 6s blessing their buddies was such a highlight; it was so beautiful to witness the special connection they have with their buddies as they begin their journey at primary school. We are looking forward to welcoming all our parents for the open afternoon tomorrow from 2:15pm.

This week in Grade 5 and 6, students have been practising Reader’s Theatre. Reader’s Theatre is a great way to practise fluency in reading. It also increases comprehension and is fun too, which is a bonus! We will be trying to do some Reader’s Theatre twice a term this year. In Maths, both Grade 5s and 6s are doing some work on Data and different ways to represent information and will then begin Addition and Subtraction in the second half of the term.

The Grade 6s are looking forward to their jumpers coming - hopefully by the end of this week! Well done to all children who represented St. Mary’s at Lawn Bowls on Monday - whilst not making it to the next round, they participated very well in the competition.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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.

Birthday Wishes