Learning and Teaching
Literacy
Getting sick of ‘I SPY’?
Play a Game of ‘Hot Potato’ with synonyms (words that have a similar meaning). Choose a word, and then your child has to think of another word that has a similar meaning. Take turns until someone is stuck. For example, you may say, “Cold,” and your child might say “Freezing.” Then you could say “Chilly,” and so on.
Building your child's knowledge of synonyms can enhance their writing vocabulary.
MATHEMATICS:
Michael Minas -Love Maths has many engaging math games that can be played with very limited equipment at home - his newest game is Equationle - If you like Wordle, you'll especially love this maths version of the game. Easy to play, almost no set-up required at all and super engaging for your child of any age. Check out this and other games on his website.
Playing games is an easy and fun way to help. Ask your child to teach you a math game that we play at school.
Literacy and Numeracy tips to help your child everyday - pdf document from Vic Education Dept with great ideas to support your child.
Sustainability News
Clean Up Schools Day
Tomorrow we will be participating in Clean Up Australia Day by picking up rubbish in and around our school. Prep to Year 4 will pick up rubbish in allocated areas within the school grounds and Years 5 and 6 will be cleaning up the carpark and outside the perimeter of our school. Please pack gloves if you would like your child to wear them or some tongs. If you have any recycled plastic bags including bread / potato bags or buckets, please have your child bring them along also. We also encourage all students to pack a waste free lunch tomorrow.
It’s important to remember that clean up Australia day isn’t just about picking up rubbish. It’s about reducing it in the first place. Many of our students have already made a pledge to reduce our environmental footprint. We would love to hear of the pledges that families may make together to decrease their environmental footprint. Please send them to your child's teacher so we can add them to our next newsletter.
Clean Up Schools Day coincides with Clean Up Australia Day which is this Sunday. St Mary's Parish invites us all to join them in their mission by meeting them under the bridge near the Visitor's Information Centre at 8am.
700 Pancakes Waste Free
St Mary's takes reducing waste very seriously and this Tuesday was no exception! With the help of some amazing parents, staff members and Year 6 Leaders we achieved cooking over 700 pancakes with zero waste! We had chooks with very full bellies that day! We made use of our green waste bin and minimal use of our recycle bin. We look forward to stepping up with similar challenges with events moving forward.
A huge thankyou to all Year 1 and Foundation families who donated ingredients so we could make our pancakes from scratch.
St Mary's Parent Green Team
We are excited to welcome new families on board our St Mary's Parent Green Team this year. Last year was the first year of having such a team and their support, passion, ideas and action made a huge impact on our school which included helping St Mary's win the Loddon Mallee Sustainability Goal Kicking Competition against 52 other RSS schools! They were also responsible for creating hundreds of beeswax wraps, including a gift to every Prep child.
This year we will endeavour to meet once a term to share ideas, set some goals and then frequently communicate via email.
If you have a passion to contribute to helping St Mary's continually be the best we can be on the Sustainability front, we would love for you to join our team. Perhaps you are an ideas person, action person, have a green thumb, have a knack with words for grant submissions, love a project or are simply curious! If this is you, please contact our Sustainability facilitator, Terrina Phelan via email tphelan@smechuca.catholic.edu.au.
Third ResourceSmart Module Certified!
Recently we received feedback from our RSS Facilitator and Sustainability Victoria in regards to the third RSS module we were working hard on. Congratulations to the many involved!
Our 4th Star we will be focusing on this semester is Water.