Classroom News & Events

Sunny Stones Camp

Day 1

The 3, 4, 5, & 6 students came out of the bus cheerfully but not expecting a 2-hour hike to camp. All smiles turned upside down but not for too long. We all met our instructor, Dave, who told us some fascinating facts. For example, there were over 150 species of birds and over 600 species of plants in the local forest.

After an hour and a half, we sat down on these cool looking logs and ate our snack. After eating our snack, we had to walk across a creek, stepping on logs and rocks to make it across. We finally arrived at camp and ate our lunch.

Our first activity was hut building. The rules were explained to us and we started building using sticks, branches, logs, rocks, and leaves. Dave cooked damper cake and made billy-tea for us during the activity.

We headed back to camp and started a night walk. On the walk, we struck stones together to make sparks and were able to see Venus in the night sky. The day finished with everybody sitting around a campfire eating delicious marshmallows.

Day 2

After a very quiet night’s sleep, we were kindly woken up by Brianna and welcomed to a breakfast of toast and cereal. Once we had finished, we returned to our rooms and got refreshed for our next activity, geocaching. We gathered ourselves into teams, got a GPS and set off to find hidden items to trade our points with. The aim of the game was to earn the least amount of points possible. After the time was up, we congratulated each other, no matter what the scores were.

For morning tea, we had scrumptious apple scrolls cooked by the staff at camp.  The next activities were rotations of archery, a low ropes course, and bush cooking. For low ropes, staff challenged us to a balance game. We then took our knowledge of balance to the low ropes and completed the course.

Bush cooking was a delicious, tummy-filling activity. To start off, we created banana splits with chocolate inside, which we then cooked on a campfire. After eating our banana splits, we made orange cake by taking out the insides of an orange and pouring in cake mix. Next, we had archery. Archery was very complicated but once we had a try, we were pros.

After 3 long hours, we headed back to the camp site for tea. We had a very nice tortilla. Brianna taught us how to control the amount of ingredients that we put into our wraps.

We all went to our cabins after a big feast and got refreshed for a live talent show. Some of the acts were amazing and everybody had fun. Teachers passed around chocolates to everybody for something special they noticed about us while on camp.

Day 3

On day 3 of camp, we woke up with a beautiful day ahead of us. We kicked of our day with a scrumptious choice of cereal or toast. Once we had breakfast, we had time up our sleeves so we went into the best room, the games room.

Later, we had morning tea which were salada biscuits and cheese. We played a survival game with students divided into herbivores, carnivores, humans, and germs. The herbivores ended up winning. We finished off with a bbq and left Camp Sunnystones to return home.

Written by

5/6A Students

Gracy, Morgan, Ratan and Bennet

Year 1/2 Term 3 Overview

We are ready for an action-packed term 3 in the Grade 1/2 grades, with lots of learning and lots of new experiences! We would like to welcome our newest teacher to the 1/2 department, Kate Di Battista, who will be working with all of our students across all curriculum areas. Kate is excited to be working with us at Dohertys Creek College.

Literacy

Reading continues to be our major focus. The aim is to develop your child as a balanced reader - being able to decode (say) the words on the page, comprehend (understand) what they are reading and to read fluently with phrasing (reading smoothly using the punctuation). Students are really enjoying reading a variety of text types while exploring strategies such as predicting, visualising, questioning and summarising.

We are also exploring how to write information reports and explanation reports, which links in perfectly with our Inquiry science unit. Students will go through the whole writing process - collecting ideas, drafting, revising, editing and publishing. Our SMART spelling program is well underway. Don’t forget to look out for the spelling homework sheets in your child’s reading satchel each week. 

Our Sharetime program is continuing this term and we thank you in advance for supporting your child with their preparation at home for their presentations at school. Our students are becoming more confident in speaking in front of their classmates. A reminder that the topic this term is: Bring a toy from home to school. Tell us how it works - do you need to push or pull it to make it work? Does it have lights or sounds to make it fun? If it does, what is the source of the lights and sounds? How do you play with it? Give it a rating (score) out of 10 and tell us why you gave it that score.

Numeracy

This term, our students will cover the units of Addition & Subtraction, Time, Money, as well as measuring Length, Mass and Capacity. There are lots of different concepts to explore and understand. We have also been lucky enough to have Michael Minis working in our classrooms with our students and teachers on problem solving strategies and tasks.

Inquiry

Our units this term are Science units - Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences. Students will be involved in conducting experiments around pushing, pulling, light and sound, as well as investigating the life cycle of plants and devising experiments to best help plants to grow. We will endeavour to answer the big question of How Does The World Work? We are also planning a STEM unit for the last two weeks of the term. Stay tuned for information about an upcoming exciting incursion on forces.

Ways to help your child at home:

Become familiar with the goals set on Compass every three weeks for your child and together work through the suggested ways to help your child work on their goals

Listen to your child read every night and talk about their book together (refer to the list of questions in your child’s reading satchel)

Set aside a time for your child to regularly work on their assigned Mathletics tasks

Support your child to prepare for their Sharetime presentation

Encourage your child to complete spelling activities as listed on Compass with their five spelling words each week

Arrange for your child to have a sleepover at a friend or family member’s house before our Grade 1/2 sleepover in September

We believe in strong links between home and school to best support your child. If you have any questions or concerns about your child, please pop in and see us or send us an email. 

Thanks,

Ellie, Natasha, Kate, Elysia, Anne

100 days of Prep

Our students and staff had a fabulous time celebrating 100 days of Prep.  Here are some of the photos taken at breakfast.

Book Week

Each year across Australia, the CBCA brings children and books together celebrating CBCA Book Week. During this time schools, libraries, booksellers, authors, illustrators and children celebrate Australian children's literature.

Throughout the year, the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) works in partnership with authors, illustrators, publishers, booksellers and other organisations in the children’s book world to bring images and stories into the hearts and minds of children and adults. 

The CBCA is a not for profit, volunteer run organisation that aims to engage the community with literature for young Australians.

Established in 1945, the CBCA was founded at a time when Australian children’s books were few, and Australian authors and illustrators were virtually unknown. In 1946 the CBCA established annual book awards to promote Australian children’s books of outstanding literary and artistic quality. These awards are now the most influential and highly respected in Australia. 

The CBCA Book of the Year Awards Winner and Honour Books will be announced on Friday 16 August and CBCA Book Week commences the following day. Across Australia, the CBCA brings children and books together to celebrate CBCA Book Week.

During the week, students will have the opportunity to undertake activities celebrating Australian literature.  As part of the celebrations at Dohertys Creek College, we are inviting students to dress up as a character from a favourite book.  Students do not have to wear full costume but may prefer to wear something that represents their character, for example a hat or glasses.  Dress up day with be on Thursday 22nd August.

Kind regards,

Malinda Vaughan

Book Week Coordinator

Lost Property

There is quite a lot of Lost Property including clothing, drink bottles and toys.  If you are missing items please come an collect your belongings.  

We encourage our families to label everything for easy identification unfortunately we still have a lot of items without names on them.

Goodbye Cheryl

Hi Everyone,

I have resigned from my position with OSHClub. My last day will be Friday 9th August. I have enjoyed every moment getting to know all of you. Your children have made my time here fun and it has been a pleasure to come to ‘work’, and I will miss each and every one of them.

Sabine will be taking over as coordinator, some of you would have met her as she helped out with a few shifts last week. We are hoping to have Sabine come in next week to make the transition as smooth as possible for all children and families.

We will be having a little party on the Friday 9th of August after school, if you would like to pop in and say goodbye.

Thank you

Cheryl aka Chezz 😊