STUDENTS OF THE WEEK
FAM	Quinn -For your amazing work creating 3 and 4-part patterns this week with shapes, colours and objects! You have been a super mathematician. Keep it up!
FLW	Sienna -For always taking great care with the way your learning tasks are presented. Your illustrations are just amazing! Great effort, Sienna!
FOS	Lillian -For showing incredible resilience, embracing each new day with enthusiasm, and brightening our classroom with her infectious laugh. Keep it up Legendary Lily!
1/2VS	Matthew -For being a responsible role model in the learning space and always trying your best. Amazing start to the year!
1/2VB	Toni -For approaching your learning with enthusiasm and putting in lots of effort into all tasks this week! Terrific Toni!
1/2NA	Clark -For carefully sounding out words when writing independently and always having a go! Keep up the awesome work!
1/2CW	Arnold -for his willingness to help his peers and for being a reliable collaborator when learning with others. Well done, Amazing Arnold!
3/4BP	Alessandro -For being a confident learner and communicator who shares his thoughts with his peers. Awesome Ale!
3/4SH	Eponine -For her bravery and stepping outside of her comfort zone. You’ve worked so hard and written so much this week! Well done, Eponine! Orlando -For his excellent effort in Literacy this week. You’ve shown superb perseverance in spelling, clever comprehension and worked hard in writing. Outstanding work, Orlando!
5/6ZK	All 5/6ZK Students -For showing the St Fidelis values whilst your teachers were away. We are so proud of you all, fantastic effort!
5/6NT	Elizabeth -For her heartfelt and compassionate prayer, as well as her contributions during our discussions about the class novel.
5/6MC	Alfie -For the focus and effort you have been putting into your work this week, you have been trying your best and working hard. Keep it up! Well done Alfie!

FOUNDATION NEWS

We have been very busy in Foundation this week! Today marks our 14th day of school as we count to our 100th day. Each day we are practising our forwards and backwards counting and getting better and better!

As members of a faith community, we continued exploring Prayer. As researchers we went for a tour around the school to discover prayer symbols within our class communities. We discovered that each classroom has a cross, prayers, a prayer cloth and some also had bibles and candles. We discussed what each of the symbols we found meant and how they connected to our faith. We then documented our thinking in our learning journals, drawing the symbols we found.

As writers, we have been working hard to develop our recount writing skills! Over the past few weeks, we have been learning how to write sentences and structure a recount by sharing our weekend experiences. To support our writing, we have been focusing on drawing detailed pictures and recording the initial sounds we can hear in words. These strategies are helping us build confidence in our writing skills. We are so proud of the progress in just four weeks of school! Take a look at some of our fantastic work - we can’t wait to see how our writing continues to grow.

This week we will be exploring…

Numeracy: counting, ordering times of the day such as morning, afternoon and night and connecting them to familiar events
Reading: We will begin our InitiaLit program and will be exploring words, sentences and letters, as well as concepts of print and rhyme
Writing: drawing detailed pictures, recording initial sounds, and handwriting practise
Inquiry: Discovery Time sessions!
Religion: Tuning in to Ash Wednesday
The Resilience Project: exploring feelings and emotions

A friendly reminder that we have the Foundation Buddy Mass at St. Fidelis Church this Sunday at 11am. We look forward to seeing you all there!

We are excited for the week ahead and look forward to more wonderful learning!

Foundation Team,

Alycia Marsico, Leanne Wenckowski and Olivia Sargent

YEAR 1/2 NEWS

Last Tuesday morning, 1/2VS joined 3/4BP for a class mass led by Father Brendan Reed. It was a beautiful mass, during which he shared the gospel and reflected on Jesus as the "bread of life." One of the most special moments was seeing the Year 1 students read their own written prayers of the faithful. It was truly inspiring to watch them express their thoughts and prayers in such a personal way.

As inquirers, we have been engaging in lots of opportunities to strengthen our understanding of what it means to be a learner. We have been focusing on the dispositions of being responsible and respectful. Yarra Valley Water visited our school on Thursday and we explored where water comes from, how people consume it, and why we all have a role to play in saving it.

As learners, we have been exploring growth mindsets. We listened to the story Bubble Gum Brain by Julia Cook, which helped us understand the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. After reading, we discussed how making mistakes is a part of learning and the importance of never giving up, even when faced with challenges. Take a look at some of the encouraging phrases we've come up with to inspire us in our learning every day!

A big thank you to all the families for supporting your child’s learning at home, especially with reading, spelling words, and maths! Your involvement makes such a difference in their progress and success.

Important Dates:

Thursday 6th of March - Responsible Pet Ownership Incursion

Vania Sparano, Vivian Boggis, Nadia Ascenzo & Chloe Wang

1/2 Team

YEAR 3/4 NEWS

As a faith community, 3/4BP and 1/2VS participated in Class Mass on Tuesday. Thank you to our wonderful readers, Sophie and Sebastian A, and to the parents who joined us.

We continue to engage in the SMART Spelling program and are becoming more aware of different spelling patterns. We reflect on the digraph /oi/, making the sound ‘oi’ as in coin. Take a look at our learning!

In week 5, our focus will be the digraph /ti/ making the sound ‘sh’ as in station. In week 6, our focus will be the plural rule words ending in f or fe, drop the f or fe and add ves.

As thinkers, we engaged in the Yarra Valley Water Watcher incursion on Thursday. We learned about where water comes from, how people consume it, and why we all have a role to play in saving it. We learnt a lot and even got our own water watcher to take home with us!

As mathematicians, we continue to break down the Place Value system and have been learning about:

Writing large numbers in their standard expanded forms (for example, 4296 is 4000 + 200 + 90 + 6),
Renaming large numbers (4296 can be 4 thousands, 2 hundreds, 9 tens and 6 ones or can be renamed as 2 thousands, 22 hundreds and 96 ones)
Adding more or less to large numbers (10 more than 4296 is 4306. 100 less is 4196)
Odd and even numbers (4296 is an even number, because the last digit is 6 which can be split equally).

Year 3/4 Teachers

Belinda Panzarino & Sarah Hogan

YEAR 5/6 NEWS

This week we continued to explore our new SMART Spelling program, this is where each week we focus on different letter sounds. This week's focus is the digraph /ou/, making the sound “u” as in young.

As a catholic faith community, the SLA (3-6s) have been engaging in shared prayer opportunities each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning. This week, 5/6ZK led us in the prayer they created as a class.

Below are some of the prayers they included and created:

Dear Lord,

Thank you for the freshwater we drink, animals who provide us with food and joy and plants that give us oxygen. May we take only what we need and take care of our Earth.

All these things bring us beauty and joy and remind us that we only have one planet. May peace spread to end war and poverty.

Please help us to be respectful and kind to our friends, family, teachers and neighbours. Help us to be a friendly and caring community where everyone feels welcome. Help the people who are sick and struggling to see the light in their lives.

Thank you for the courage to persist with our learning when it's challenging and complicated. May the friends from God help us learn and give us the voice to share our ideas and strength to push ourselves through challenges. Help us to build patience within ourselves to deal with problems.

God, we thank you for the land that we stand on and everything else you have worked to give us. We are grateful for our families and the way they take care of us. Thank you to our brothers and sisters, who we play with and learn with.

In Jesus’ name, we pray.

Congratulations to everyone for their outstanding sportsmanship during the first round of interschool sports! It was wonderful to see the children connecting with each other and with the students from St Bernards. Their kindness, support, and sportsmanship throughout the day truly deserve recognition. This was a fantastic start to the summer sports season, and we're excited for what's ahead!

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

AWAY Interschool Sports

Newlands

Buddy Mass

11am

Important Dates:

February

Friday, February 28th, Round 2 - Interschool Sports

March

Buddy Mass 2nd March 11 am
Friday, March 7th, 5/6ZK Assembly
Friday, March 7th, Round 3 - Interschool Sports
Friday, March 14th, Round 4 - Interschool Sports
- Tuesday, March 18th, School Photo Day
- Friday, March 21st, 5/6NT Assembly
- Friday, March 21st, Round 5 - Interschool Sports
- Tuesday, March 25th, 5/6ZK The Huddle Game Day Excursion
- Thursday, March 27th, 5/6NT The Huddle Game Day Excursion
- Monday, March 31st, 5/6MC The Huddle Game Day Excursion

April

Tuesday, April 1st, ZK Class Mass

August

Sunday, August 10th, 3 pm Confirmation

Have a wonderful week,

5/6 Team,

Bianka Zorzut, Vicky Karalis, Maddie Comrie and Nick Tresize

TheirCare OSHC