Year 3-4 

Wawa, Wumindjika

Welcome to Week 8

Upcoming activities

Tuesday 4th June  Incursion :  Discovery Dome, Earth and Space Science

Wednesday 5th June Burton's shopping trip for St. Vinnie's donations leaving at 9:30am (children can bring $5)

Thursday 6th June Crazy Hair Day - $ Gold coin donation for St Vinnies

Friday 7th June Feast of the Sacred Heart Mass  12:20-1:30

Monday 10th June Long weekend Monarch's Birthday 

Friday 21st June Celebration of learning 2:30pm

Monday 24th & 25th June Parent/ Teacher meetings

Wednesday 26th June End of Term 2

The Resilience Project

Over the past few weeks students have been developing their skills in order to recognise and understand body language, fostering empathy and emotional support among peers. Through interactive activities and practical exercises, students have learnt to observe subtle non-verbal cues such as facial expressions, posture, and gestures. This heightened awareness enables them to identify when someone is experiencing distress or discomfort, allowing them to respond with compassion and support. By cultivating these skills, the Resilience Project not only enhances students' emotional intelligence but also builds a more supportive and empathetic community, where individuals are better equipped to navigate and support each other through difficult times.

Literacy

Writing

Learning to write narratives involves mastering the structure and honing the process of editing, refining, and expanding ideas to craft compelling stories. The journey begins with understanding the narrative arc, comprising an introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. Writers start by brainstorming and outlining their ideas, ensuring a coherent flow and engaging plot. As the first draft takes shape, they employ descriptive language to vividly depict characters, settings, and emotions, immersing readers in the story's world. Editing follows, where writers critically review their work, enhancing clarity, coherence, and impact. This phase includes refining sentence structures, improving word choice, and eliminating inconsistencies. Peer feedback and multiple revisions are crucial, as they provide fresh perspectives and help polish the narrative…. We call this BUMPING IT UP. Through this process, writers transform their initial ideas into well-crafted, publishable stories that captivate and resonate with their audience. The students have been very excited about reaching the final stage of publication.  These will be on display ready for our celebration of learning later in the term.

Reading

National Simultaneous Storytime (NSS) is an annual event in Australia organised by the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA). It aims to promote the importance of reading and literacy, particularly among children. During this event, a selected picture book, written and illustrated by an Australian author and illustrator, is read simultaneously in libraries, schools, pre-schools, childcare centres, family homes, and bookshops across the country. The event is designed to be fun and engaging, fostering a love for books and reading while highlighting the role of libraries and literature in education and community life. By having thousands of children read the same book at the same time, NSS emphasises the collective joy of storytelling and the significance of early childhood literacy.

This year the was Bowerbird Blues, written by Aura Parker. Bowerbird Blues stars a beautiful bowerbird on the search for (you guessed it) BLUE!  It’s a moving story of longing and connection, that unfolds as the bowerbird’s search sends him soaring across the sea, sky and city. He swoops and snatches vibrant treasures for his collection, and soon his bower – a mix of natural and unnatural objects – attracts something greater and more fulfilling than he could ever have imagined. Students rotated through in various activities that connected to the book. We discussed how we all like to collect different things that are important to us. We even collected blue objects from around the school to make our own bower.

Spelling

We are continuing to work  on mastering spelling rules and sounds, as well as recognising tricky words! Students are learning phonics patterns and spelling strategies to help them with challenging words.

We'll practice through engaging activities and games that reinforce these concepts. As we work on spelling, students will gain confidence in reading and writing.

You can support your child by encouraging them to practice spelling at home and read a variety of texts. This helps reinforce the skills we're building in class. Above are the lists for the rest of the term just in case your child has misplaced the one given to them at the beginning of each week.

Premier's Reading Challenge

Congratulations to Matilda Eddy and Maya Raglus who participated in the Premier’s Reading Challenge.

The Challenge encourages children and students to read a set number of books over the year and record their efforts online. Since the Challenge first began in 2005, more than 4.3 million students have read over 60 million books.

Heggerty

You may have heard your child mention the word Heggerty.  It is a program that we are using to support our literacy learning. The Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum, Primary Extension, provides 12 weeks of daily systematic phonemic awareness lessons for use in 3rd, 4th, and 5th-grade classrooms. The lessons are short and engaging, designed to supplement existing literacy instruction to help students become phonemically proficient. 

It includes activities that help with

1. Blending phonemes into spoken words

2. Segmenting words into phonemes

3. Adding phonemes

4. Deleting phonemes

5. Substituting phonemes

Numeracy

Our learning in numeracy often looks different in our classrooms, compared to the classrooms that we as parents may have experienced. What has stayed the same is the development and understanding of mathematical concepts. Our students often engage in games that explore concepts. At other times they are given an investigation to explore based around a concept. We also venture out into the yard to make real world connections. Last week students identified the numerous angles around the school and were able to document and name them. Students were also able to represent their data on a column graph.  The Launch , Explore and Summarise structure that underpins our lessons is guided by Lauren Gould, a mathematics specialist, employed by the diocese of Sandhurst. Lauren not only supports staff but has also worked with our classes, supporting students with their learning. Our recent learning has been around angles and fractions. The students are learning how fractions are a unit of measurement and are equal parts of a whole. We are now venturing into converting fractions to decimals.

Inquiry

We have been learning about Australia's closest neighbours and what it might be like to live somewhere else. 

The students have participated in activities where they have explored features of place and locations on the map of Australia. 

They have researched the human and natural features of the Australian continent and on Friday we went for a walk down to the Sevens Creek park to explore some of the natural and man-made features of our local community. Mr Saxon spoke to the students about the changes that he has seen in the community. He also showed the students where a swimming pool used to be just on the edge of the walkway next to the creek. It was filled in and is a garden bed now.

Upon returning to school we had a visit from Rick Christian, a proud Wiradjuri man and parent in our community. He spoke about the meaning of Reconciliation Week and Sorry Day. He also spoke about his job as a counsellor in supporting troubled youth. The students listened respectfully and asked lots of great questions. Rick brought in his family didgeridoo and talked about how they were made.

Robotics

Our students actively engaged in a coding and robotics workshop last week.  They wrote codes for their robots, creating self-driving autonomous cars. 

Using block-based programming, students worked in pairs with mBots and iPads, developing STEM skills such as problem solving, creativity and innovation as they code. It was amazing to see how quickly they picked up on the coding and instructions. Students born into the screen era continue to delight and amaze us with their skills and problem solving abilities. It is hard to think that our students will be working in jobs that are possibly not even invented yet. 

Religious Education

Students have been learning about the Fruit of the Holy Spirit and Pentecost. They are also researching missions within the Catholic Church and our own local Parish. This week, we will be visiting Burton's Store to buy groceries and items to be donated to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, Euroa Branch, led by the Parishioners of St. John's.

What are the Fruits of the Holy Spirit?

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are manifestations of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). The fruit of the Spirit enables us to eliminate spiritual barrenness. He allows us to escape the corruption of the world, and to become partakers in Christ’s nature (2 Peter 1:4-8).

It is our responsibility to walk in the Spirit. As we do we develop this fruit that is the character of Christ in our lives. This will it cause us to grow spiritually, and be a powerful witness to unbelievers as well (2 Peter 1:8-9).

We have been learning what they mean and identifying them in those around us. We have identified those that we need to improve on and have written personal prayers to help us to grow spiritually.

This week we will practice acts of kindness and give hope and joy to others when we visit Burtons to shop for donations for the  St Vincent de Paul Society.

Uniform Reminders (part of our school rules!)

Please help us stick to the rules. This includes NO beaded bracelets, necklaces and smart watches.

Football

You may have noticed the football posters around the school. Please help us to reinforce the guidelines for playing football (and soccer) at St John's.

Until Next time,

Ally, Rachel, Lisa, Keira, Nic, Lisa and Damien

( Nic is currently on placement for his studies and has been replaced by Lisa and Damien until next term. We wish him all the BEST!)