Dear TPS school community

You would have noticed the two massive billboards at the front and back of our school gates announcing to you all that the festival is fast approaching. November 16 is just over 3 weeks away! (Special thank you to Di and Laura for expertly designing and coordinating the billboards)!

The teachers, music department, parent craft group, art department and parent committee have been very busy behind the scenes getting things organised. This year the theme for our festival is…

CIRCUS!!

The festival relies greatly on the generosity of our wider school community, especially with regard to coordinating food and activities for the children. If you have a special skill (or even some props, costumes or other materials) that may contribute to the CIRCUS theme, please get in touch. For parents who are new to the school, this is the perfect opportunity to meet some other parents and teachers.

ART AND CRAFT ACTIVITIES

The festival is a showcase of children’s art and craft. The Babajen will be transformed into a spectacular art and craft wonderland. The Multipurpose room and the main stage will also host performances from children throughout the day.

We are also incredibly lucky to have a very talented parent craft group who work tirelessly throughout the year to make things to sell at the CRAFT SHOP. Money from this goes directly into supporting the art and craft department.

As in previous years, we will have a $10 wrist band entry for all children to participate in activities. Some of the confirmed activities are:

Some of the confirmed activities are:

Juggling balls with Georgia & Joyce

Gods Eyes with Jo and Megan

Brian’s Secret Filming Booth

Art room art / craft activities with Antoinette

Games on the basketball court with Keith

Face Painting, nail art and tattoos with Aunty Viv + Grade 6’s

Dress up and photo booth

We are now looking for people to assist with the following things:

Roving entertainers (clowns, jugglers, magicians, acrobats, fortune tellers etc)
People to coordinate art & craft activities, or mini workshops for children such as hula hoops, CIRCUS yoga etc
Costumes, plus a team to coordinate a dress / photo booth
A team to run a play dough/nature craft area (this has always been a big hit with the prep kiddies)

DONATIONS

We are asking for donations to run some of our circus themed art activities. If you have these unwanted items laying around and are wanting to recycle them then we want them.

Bird seeds, unwanted tube pasta

Balloons and bags of rice (for juggling balls)

Wool/sting

Patty cases, paper plates

3 or 4 mini trampolines (to borrow)

These items can be left in the art room, or contact vaiano.antoinette.a@edumail.vic.gov.au to arrange.

Please contact Antoinette or Kester to let us know if you are able to help with any of the above mentioned activities, or if you have any other ideas! There can be activities that run throughout the day, or for a set time. vaiano.antoinette.a@edumail.vic.gov.au or kesternaismith@gmail.com

CLASS FOOD STALLS

The famous cake drive / stall will of course be happening, and this year will be coordinated by Susie (3/4S) and Peta (3/4S and 5/6S).

The following other stalls are confirmed:

Fruit kebabs / homemade lemonade stand - 1/2B & 3/4C

Coffee / iced coffee – Marcus from 1S

Afternoon tea - 2S

Popcorn and drinks - 5/6C

Zooper Doopers – 1/2C & 1/2D

Falafels 3/4A

Circus food fiesta (hot dogs, corn and nachos) - Prep A & Prep B

Chai Tent / bliss balls (and lots of lovely activities) - PrepS & 5/6JA

BBQ / Sausage sizzle – 3/4B & 5/6B

Burgers - 1/2A & 1/2C

If you have any questions about food stalls, please contact Olivia Stewart on libby009@hotmail.com Olivia will be working closely with the stall Coordinators to make sure there are lots of volunteers to help on the day.

The Arts Festival Committee meet in the Art Room at 2:30 every Friday. Please feel free to come along if you would like to get involved, or get in touch with Kester - kesternaismith@gmail.com

If you have any ideas or would like to be involved, please feel free to get in touch with Kester - kesternaismith@gmail.com

We will be putting a call out for general volunteers via Sign Up in the next week or so. This will include volunteers for the few days before, on the day and afterwards.

SEE YOU AT THE CIRCUS!

Walk to School

NAIDOC Banner for Yarning Conference

Well Done to Tara in Year 5/6 for your drawing being chosen for the design of our 2019 NAIDOC theme banner used at the Yarning Conference. A big Ngoon Godgin (Thank you) to Zoe who helped finalise the design for the printers. It is amazing how many helpers we have in our TPS community to support our school events.

Lunches

Kii TPS community,

Wednesday grown-up crafters are gearing up to make lots of lovely items for the upcoming Arts Festival.

Under the guidance of the talented Annabel W, we have put together a very special feltscape up for raffle. Here’s a little sneak peak of what’s on offer

Please look out for the notices with further details.

As we gear up for Arts Festival, if you would like to join in some crafting and a cuppa whilst we’re doing it, we are in the Arts room every Wednesdays, all welcome, but we ask if you can email us at tpscraftgroup@gmail.com in case plan changes for a specific week.

Some examples of what we’ve been crafting for Arts Festival are these little friends

Craftily yours,

Bernie and Yaz

CROSSING SUPERVISOR

TPS community welcome John to our crossing on Murray Street to support our families crossing safely in the mornings and afternoons. Darebin Council has responded to the business of our streets and are working with us to make travelling to and from school safer for everyone.

The Enviro Team has been busy finishing our Native Food and Dreaming Gardens for their big big launch on Friday November 1st.

All members of the TPS community are invited to attend the launch:

Assembly at 11.45am on Friday November 1st, in front of the Babajen, or Join us at 3.30pm straight after school for an Australian native food inspired bbq and cake stall.

This is the culmination of the last five years of the Garden Dreaming project and Junior

Landcare Grant.

Garden Dreaming was a consultative process with the whole school community that has

resulted in the marvellous shade sail, landscaping and synthetic turf area in front of the

Babajen building. Two Trivia Nights helped fund the project.

The Junior Landcare Grant was focussing on using Australian native plants to support

teaching, learning and the school environment. This was through a strong focus on plants

used by Australia’s First People, in particular the Kulin Nation, but other Aboriginal nations as well. Plants used for food, fibre, wood, weaving, medicine, tool making are featured, as well as plants for the local wildlife, especially pollinators. The plants and garden spaces will be invaluable for teaching Woiwurrung Language and Culture, FoodWeb, nature, science and wellbeing.

Trees are being planted as part of the succession plan for the school grounds. Almost the

whole school is getting some new plants, but in particular :

the new landscaped areas in front of the Babajen
the front Food Forest and Weaving Gardens
the Rainforest Garden next to the Farm
a new nature space south of the bike shed where the big shady tree used to be
the perimeter fence to the north and west
tree Island will finally be getting some more trees

Many TPS students have been involved in planning, planting and mulching the new garden spaces in their Foodweb sessions with Aviva Reed. Working Bees over the last two years have been preparing the Food Forest which was home to many environmental weeds, and planting and mulching.

We ask that you encourage your children to respect the new plants, let them grow, enjoy the flowers, but leave them on the plants for the enjoyment of all especially the native butterflies and bees. There will be some plant guards, barriers and low fencing to protect plants, which need to stay in place. Please keep dogs off the front gardens, except in the new designated dog parking spot near the St.Georges Rd. end gate on Hutton St..

Many thanks to the support of TPS Leadership Leon Bell and Megan Noy; Aunty Terri and

the TPS Koorie community; TPS Social for feeding us during Working Bees and supporting

the launch bbq.

Thanks to the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) for the

Junior Landcare Grant.

Biggest thanks to everyone in the TPS community, especially anyone who’s been in the

Enviro Team or come to a Working Bee to help get these gardens happening. At times it’s

been a very hard slog, but worth it.

In memory of Uncle Phil Cooper for the inspiration to create a Woiwurrung teaching garden.

Dhumbadjirri "Talk Together"

Issue 5 · 01 Nov 2019

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