From the classroom

P/1 Excursion

On Monday 10th November, Prep/1 Pascoe and Prep/1 Ross travelled to Bendigo for a fun-filled excursion to reinforce what we have been teaching in the classroom. The Prep students visited Pevan and Sarah at Ulumbarra Theatre with Mrs Pascoe, Beck and Sandra, while the Grade 1 students enjoyed a trip to Little Ninja Warriors with Mr Ross and Miranda.

It was a delight to see how excited the Prep students were to see Pevan and Sarah off the screen and in real life! They sang, danced, laughed at the jokes, and had an absolutely fabulous time. Pevan and Sarah is an educational group whose catchy songs and music is used regularly in the classroom to consolidate learning objectives.

Meanwhile, the Grade 1s had a blast exploring Little Ninja Warriors—a play centre packed with jumping castles, slides, and climbing challenges. It was the perfect way to celebrate their amazing year of learning and friendship!

We went to Bendigo. I liked Pevan and Sarah. I liked some of the songs that Sarah sang, I liked the song called ‘You are my VIP’. I liked Jimmy's scarf magic. I liked Sarah’s dress. It took us a long, long, long, long time to get there. We saw Pevan and Sarah on the stage. We saw lots and lots of schools coming to the show.

By Meliyah

On Monday we went to Pevan and Sarah on a bus. We started with the Morning Song and then we sang other songs. My favourite one was the VIP song. I also liked Jimmy, he had a scarf and he was funny. We ate and we went home on a bus.

By Meg

I liked when Pevan and Sarah did the ‘Loud and Quiet’ song. By Charles

The Grade 1s went to the Little Ninja Warrior and it was so fun. There was a gigantic park. I saw a big jumping castle and we were playing tiggy and Miranda was it. On the playground there were monkey bars and there was a big see-saw. I went on the see-saw, it was so fun, we went high up. We played hide and seek and Mr Ross was the counter. We all ran to hide and I hid up high in the park. I ran to hide in the slide, but I fell down the slide but Mr Ross was on the hunt. I quickly ran to hide in a different spot first he found Piper. Then Piper found me!

By Iylah

Hands on Learning

We have enjoyed Hands on Learning this year because we get to cook and learn new skills. It is very social, we have got to know the other students better. We always work as a team, we always feel included. We love to see the smile on peoples faces when they see the food that we have prepared, and we are proud of the compliments. We learn lots of useful life skills. I have been very grateful to have been able to do Hands on Learning because I have learnt so much. 

Even if something is difficult, we work as a team and help each other to succeed.

Some of the things we have been involved in include during our time in HoL;

• Making pancakes breakfast for Mothers’ Day.
• Providing Egg and Bacon Muffins for Fathers’ Day.
• Making lunches for the staff to purchase. 
• Making biscuits and slice to sell to the students.
• Providing a ‘Thank you’ lunch for the Echuca (208) Primary School Construction Team for making the ‘Mud Kitchen’ for the students at Rochester Primary School.

– by the HoL (Hands on Learning) Cafe Team

The Hands-on-Learning Café has been running at Rochester Primary School since term 2 this year. The students have had the opportunity to be involved in several activities to develop their social, emotional and practical skill. The above was written by the current students involved in the program. Students involved in the program can opt out when they feel they have achieved what they wanted to get from the program. 

The students meet weekly after recess. We have a chance to discuss how our week has been, read through the day’s recipe (usually a main and dessert) and then students are assigned a role for the day. After that we move on to our ‘Individual Focus’ (sometimes these last a few weeks and others may for a longer period) each student has input into their ‘Individual Focus’. They share and discuss how this focus might look like during the day’s session. After the cook, we eat lunch together and clean up. Then students again meet to discuss the cook, talk about next week’s recipe/s and revise how they went in regard to their ‘Individual Focus’. Students give each other feedback and individuals can opt to change their ‘Focus’ once they feel they have achieved it, in conjunction with Bridget and myself. 

We make each of the cooks purposeful either for ourselves (trialling recipes and learning new skills), cooking for the staff and students to purchase, for special events such as Mothers’ and Fathers’ Day. We are also working on a Community Project with the Community House to cook a lunch for some of the volunteers. 

Bridget and I have been very impressed by the way all the students have pulled together to make our maiden year such a success.