Teaching and Learning

Book Week

What a week it has been with the celebration of Book Week at Ballan PS! Yesterdays Grandparents and Special Friends morning was a huge success and there was a great buzz around the school. Thank you to our families for bringing along a favourite family recipe to contribute towards each grade's class recipe books. It was also a fantastic opportunity to showcase our classrooms and the work that we do in Literacy such as handwriting, fluency pairs and heggerty.

Today there has been lots of excitement in all classrooms with seeing our students and staff costumes and hear about the characters they have come as. Thank you to our families for the work you have done putting together such fabulous book week costumes. Everyone looks amazing! Our Book Week parade will be at approximately 2.30pm in the school gym and we very much hope you can attend. More photos to come in the following newsletters from Book Week.

Science Week

What an exciting week we had last week with the Aboriginal Survival Technologies Incursion for Science Week! Students were treated to amazing information through Philip Green’s presentation and images and, most excitingly, got to touch and explore big boxes full of artefacts, including kangaroo and possum skins, boomerangs, clapping sticks, fire sticks, mortar stones for grinding seed, emu eggs, bush medicines and so much more, and finally ‘touch and shuffle’ past the bigger artefacts (including coolamons, shields, bones and all manner of amazing Indigenous ‘thingys’) on their way out of the gym. It was certainly entertaining and amazing, and we are very grateful to Mrs Demunk for organising this special day.

Life Ed

Over the past two weeks, students have actively participated in Life Ed sessions with their grade across the school. Students worked with our facilitator, Kate, and of course Healthy Harold and covered curriculum content around physical health, safety and social and emotional wellbeing. The sessions were fabulous, grades were highly engaged and students came away with really important health messages to make a commitment to improving their daily habits.

Division Basketball

Two weeks ago I had the great pleasure of attending the Sovereign Division Basketball competition at Selkirk Stadium in Ballarat with our Grade 5/6s. 

The competition featured our three teams, Ballan 1 boys team, Ballan 2 boys team, and a girls team, and we enjoyed a very successful day overall. The Ballan 1 boys team had a remarkable achievement by remaining undefeated throughout the whole competition and ultimately winning the grand final. This is a testament to their skill, teamwork, and dedication. After a 1 point win in the semi final against Myrniong, they entered the grand final against Mt Clear full of confidence. After a close first half, they pulled away from their opposition in the second half to win the grand final and champions of Pool B. Congratulations to the boys.

The Ballan 2 boys team and girls team also experienced lots of success on the day, demonstrating great teamwork, sportsmanship and having fun. The Ballan 2 team finished the day with 2 wins and 2 losses and the girls made it to the semi final.

Overall, it was a fantastic day of basketball in Ballarat. Thank you to Mr Murrell for organising the day and training the basketballers prior to the day. Many thanks to our families for umpiring, scoring and their support and encouragement on the sidelines throughout the day.

Mr Baker's challenge of the week

Maths Riddle

A duck was given $9, a spider was given $36, a bee was given $27. Based off of this information, how much money would be given to a cat?

If you can solve the riddle, come and find Mr Baker and let me know the answer and the strategy you used to solve it.

Have a wonderful weekend!

James