SPOTLIGHT

KINDERGARTEN GRADE SPOTLIGHT

Kindergarten has had an engaging couple of weeks of learning. They had a visit from Mrs Rowsell who helped them with Maths concepts as part of her role of Subject Matter Expert - MaST Project. Kindergarten also took part in a workshop from our visiting author, Dr Cameron Selzer.

 

THE FUN CONTINUES IN YEAR ONE

We have been busy bees in the Hive.

 

In Science, we have been learning about the importance of the 3R’s - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. We explored the Curby Soft Plastic program and encourage you to utilise this program at home to recycle your soft plastic items that commonly end up in landfill. Year One teachers and students also had noticed that the blue recycling bins around the school were not being used properly, so we decided to explore what should and shouldn't go into these blue bins. Since then, Year One consider themselves to be the recycling leaders of the school encouraging other students to place their bottles, cans or poppers in the blue bins and general waste in the red bins.

 

This week in English, our Cold Write encouraged us to be authors writing persuasive texts about designing a new facility to be built for children. Some students had excellent suggestions including a new waterpark, treetops adventure park and museum. You might like to ask your child what facility they chose and the reasons why.

 

In Mathematics this week, Mr Unwin introduced halves and quarters by sharing his liquorice strap with Mrs Sedon. This hook activated students' prior knowledge of linear fractions and introduced vocabulary that the students will be encouraged to use throughout the rest of the week. Use the tips below to help your child explore their Mathematics topic this week.

 

Tips for parents:

  • Involve your child in cooking activities which require half a cup of an ingredient. They could half-fill the cup measure for you. 
  • When making sandwiches or cutting other foods, talk about how you cut them into halves. Use words such as half, even, equal, parts;
  • Involve your child in sharing with another ensuring that each person has a fair share. Both halves need to be equal.

 

YEAR 5 SPOTLIGHT

Year 5’s have been working hard throughout Term 2. In Maths we have been learning about Time. One of the cool activities we did in Maths was where we had to go outside with a list of activities/tasks to complete and we had to use a stopwatch to time and record how long it took our partners to complete it. Some of the tasks were: shooting a basketball in a hoop 3 times, bouncing a basketball 15 times in a row, running across the oval, climbing across the monkey bars and many more wonderful activities. Personally, my partner and I really enjoyed this activity. It was a lot of fun and I could also see that all the other pairs around me were enjoying it as well. This activity was very worthwhile as seeing time in action helped our understanding.  I am very glad that our Year 5 teachers chose it.

 

In Science, we are learning about States of Matter. We have been doing experiments in most of our lessons, which is really exciting and fun. One of my personal favourites was the experiment to learn about the behaviour of gas. The equipment for this experiment was a water jug, water, a plastic cup and a tissue. We got the plastic cup and squashed the tissue down into the bottom of the cup so it would stay. Next, we made sure that the water jug was filled up so it wouldn’t overflow. Then we lined up to have a turn to push the plastic cup to the bottom of the jug really fast, then pull it up. After everyone had a go the tissue remained dry. Everyone agreed that it was because of a gas bubble. Other experiments we did were to determine the viscosity of a liquid and the compression of the different matter. Science has been a lot of fun this term.

 

We were thrilled to begin our lessons with Jay Stone this week. We have been doing high jump and have also begun our trials in long jump, gearing up for the Athletics Carnival later this term. We will continue our sports trials throughout the next couple of weeks. 

 

by Lani Allen

COUNCIL OF CATHOLIC SCHOOL PARENTS NSW/ ACT

 

CCSP is excited to invite all families who have children enrolled in Catholic schools across NSW and the ACT to join us in a literacy event. Acclaimed author and scientist, COREY TUTT will read from his book, THE FIRST SCIENTISTS to you and your child. Parents and carers, you can pick up a few tips to help get the most out of reading with your child at home to improve their literacy skills.

 

Two of our students were the lucky recipients of a copy of Corey's book The First Scientist.

Gideon McHugh and Amarnii Ramirez
Gideon McHugh and Amarnii Ramirez