Around the School (2 of 2) 

YEAR 12 OES MT BAW BAW

As part of Year 12 Outdoor and Environmental Studies we went to Mount Baw Baw to learn about their different Environmental management strategies to protect the environment, including endemic species like the Baw Baw frog. 

The class also learnt how to snowboard, as active participants in different interactions with the environment such as recreation and tourism and how this influences your relationship with the environment. 

KINDER VISITS BELGRAVE LIBRARY 

By Kirsty Meese (Kinder Director)

In Kinder we love, love, love reading books and celebrating Book Week. Our week-long celebration kicks off with an excursion to Belgrave library, and as always no matter the excursion for the Kinder students the bus ride is the best bit! It is always fun to listen to their squeals of excitement as the bus takes off and their transferring of knowledge as they start to recognise local landmarks:

"This is the way to my house!!"

"I've been to that cinema!!!"

"That's the supermarket that I go to!!"

"My mum works there!!"

The list goes on, but today I wanted to tell you about my best bit of the Kinder excursion. The bit when the Kinder students shocked and amazed the librarian!

We arrived at the newly renovated library and were led to the reading room where we could select our own cushions to sit on to listen to Chris, the librarian read. As the children sat down, they noticed that behind Chris there were a lot of familiar books, books that we'd read (we love books in Kinder and I'm always on the hunt for new library books, and thankfully our fabulous library team at BHCS, keep me well supplied). But there was one book in particular that the children noticed, they began to point at the book "The Boy Who Tried To Shrink His Name" and began to tell the librarian that they'd read that book!! The librarian nodded at them, and said "oh, yes it's a good book" then her face turned to shock and amazement as the children all began to tell her that that book was about "Zimdalamashkermishkada!!". 

I just loved the passion and enthusiasm that the children showed for the book "The Boy Who Tried To Shrink His Name", their ability to remember Zimdalamashkermishkada's name, especially when we read this book right back in week one of term, seven weeks ago! This is a wonderful example of why we love books in Kinder, how stories can sit in your heart long after you have finished reading them.

MYSTERY READERS IN KINDER

By Kirsty Meese (Kinder Director) 

Another way that we celebrate Book Week in Kinder is by inviting members of our fabulous BHCS staff community to be a "mystery reader" and visiting us in Kinder to read a favourite story to us, to support us in widening and developing our literacy skills as well as engaging in our whole school community. 

This week in Kinder, we are privileged to have 30 staff members coming to visit us and to read 30 different books, our Principal, Deputy Principals, First Aid Officers, the Finance Manager, Senior School Teachers, Junior School Teachers, Learning Assistants, Road Crossing Officers, Administration staff, Bus Drivers, the list goes on. Oh, how blessed we are!! 

We have cherished hearing about diggers, dogs, wombats, school children, brains.... We have enjoyed getting to meet people from the BHCS community, listening to different voices and seeing different facial expressions that the staff have used to tell their story, to make it connect with us. 

We've adored that some staff members have brought props with them to make their story come to life, so that we can not only see and hear their story but we can feel it too!! We have been amazed that some of our staff have sung stories to us, and what voices they have!! We have been proud of the thank you gifts that we have given to our mystery readers, cups with drawings of them on. 

We have delighted in having whole classes come to visit us and listen to the story with their teacher, and we have loved seeing previous Kinder students, siblings, friends of siblings, teachers of siblings. But I think most of all we have loved how wonderful it is to be in such a fabulous community of people who love books just as much as we do!! Thank you Team BHCS!!