Classroom News 

PREP

We have been very busy in Prep this week. 

We started our social learning program called ‘Social Explorers’. Our first book was called ‘Thinking thoughts and feeling feelings. We learnt how our brain is our thought maker and our heart is our feelings keeper. We don’t know what someone is thinking until they put words into their talking bubble, but we can tell how someone is feeling by looking at them from their head to their toes. We look forward to all of our ‘Social Explorers’ units ahead. 

In writing, we added the “where” into our colourful semantics. We talked about what a 'where' word is and that it is a place that you can go. We had some great suggestions like “an enchanted cave, a haunted house, a cafe, the shops and the neighbours farm”. Next week we are going to put all of the 4 colourful semantics boxes together that we have learnt and create a sentence. 

Our big write today was all about where we might be going next Wednesday for our excursion. We had some amazing ideas about where it could be. The children then found out that we will be going to COPACC to watch a live performance with the Year 1/2s. 

This week in numeracy Dani’s class have been playing race to 10 and Gemma’s class have been playing number bingo to 20. 

Both classes have also played a doubles game with dice and have been doing so many other things to do with numbers. 

Our Prayer Gathering is in week 6 on the 2nd of June.

Gemma Blake    gblake@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Dani Conheady   dconheady@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

GRADE 1/2

We hope all the mothers, grandmothers and other special women in our lives had a wonderful Mother's Day. The children were so excited to give you their personalised Jigsaw Puzzle gift! Thank you to the Mothers who organised these gifts for us! 

This week we have enjoyed visiting the Book Fair to look at new chapter books, picture story books, activity books, funky pens and posters. Some children were even lucky enough to win prizes in the class raffle! 

Today we participated in a whole school Cold Write. The topic was 'My mother/grandmother should be the mother/grandmother of the year'. It was so lovely to read about all the amazing qualities and skills our Mothers or Grandmothers have. 

Next week we are having a special visit from Bravehearts. Bravehearts mission is to provide a coordinated and holistic approach to the prevention and treatment of child sexual abuse. The Keep Safe Adventure Show is underpinned by the following six principles of personal safety:

                           1. Differentiating safe and unsafe feelings

                           2. Recognising the bodies warning signs

                           3. Identifying private body parts, public body parts, and private and public                                      places

                         4. Helping children identify language and feelings associated with secrets,                                   and to identify adults to Go and Tell for their Safety Team

                          5. Reinforcing that there is no secret that children cannot tell someone

                          6. Knowing what to do if they feel unsafe or unsure

Parents and Guardians are very welcome to attend the show. It will be on Tuesday the 23rd of May at 11:35am in the Library. 

We have 2 excursions coming up this term. Next week on Wednesday the 24th of May we are heading to COPACC to see the stage show 'Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge'. Please make sure you sign the permission form on PAM. More details can be found on the PAM form.

On Friday the 2nd of June we are heading to Flagstaff Hill to further explore our Inquiry topic 'Time Travel Adventures'. Please keep an eye out on PAM for the permission form and more details. 

Kascha Popping    kpopping@smcolac.catholic.edu.au    

Leah Martin            lmartin@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Miriam Collins       mcollins@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Matt Absalom        mabsalom@smcolac.catholic.edu.au    

Emma Roberts       eroberts@smcolac.catholic.edu.au  

Kerryn Williams     kwilliams@smcolac.cathlolic.edu.au

GRADE 3/4

We are having a fabulous week in Year 3/4 with lots of new learning happening. 

Our spelling and reading intervention groups are running smoothly, with the children working hard and coping with the new routines. It would be great if you could ask them what they have been learning in their groups.

Next week is Catholic Education Week. As part of the celebrations for this week Year 3/4 will be the special guests at the Trinity Concert Band performance in St. Mary’s church on Monday, 22nd May at 11:45am. We will also celebrate Mass on Friday, 26th May at 10:00am with our school, Sacred Heart and St. Brendan’s. We will come together after Mass and have our morning tea with our friends from the other schools. 

On Monday some of our students will be participating in the Inter School Cross Country competition. If your child is participating you will have received a PAM notification. Please ensure you have given permission prior to Monday.

Deb’s class has been working hard this week to prepare Prayer Gathering for this Friday which is around the theme of reconciliation. All families are welcome to join us.

Forward notice - Thursday, 1st June - Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea and an Open Classroom morning, beginning at 9:30am. 

Thank you.

Elissa Rodger      erodger@smcolac.catholic.edu.au      

Deb Holland         dholland@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Lauren Ryan         lryan@smcolac.catholic.edu.au     

Meg Knight          mknight@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Judy Carr               jcarr@smcolac.catholic.edu

Jodie Hassett      jhassett@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

GRADE 5/6

We are already halfway through Term 2! Time flies when you are having fun and there has been a lot of fun in 5/6 this week.

After a fabulous day of staff working on our ReLATE program on Monday we were back to business on Tuesday. Our new unit of work in Mathematics is on Multiplication and Division, we will be building on our skills and strategies for solving these problems.

The school has completed a Cold Write from Prep to Grade 6 showing our understanding of persuasive writing this week. We are looking forward to looking through what everyone has done.

We are wrapping up our Rod Clement Author Study this week after 4 weeks of studying and comparing different texts by the same author. We have also used our VCOP work, including vocabulary building in these sessions. It has been a fun way to include picture books meaningfully in the senior school.

Jade’s class have had a permanent change of their PE timetable, they will now do sessions on Thursday’s so this will be a change in what day they are to wear their PE uniform. On the topic of uniforms it is very important that we are dressing for the weather we are having. There is no bad weather, just poor preparation. Students should be wearing winter uniforms.

Next week is Week 5 which is Catholic Education Week. We will be celebrating with a Mass with the other schools in our Parish at 10 am on Friday the 26th of May. Next Monday we also have Colac Divisional Cross Country. Thank you to everyone who has sorted out permissions for that on PAM. It will be a great day!

Rachel Downard     rdownard@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Paula Parish              pparish@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Jade LoRicco            jloricco@smcolac.catholic.edu.au 

Dan Cannon             dcannon@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Susie Scott               sscott@smcolac.catholic.edu.au

Maegen Potter        mpotter@smcolac.catholic.edu.au.