Learning & Teaching 

LITERACY - Vira Pirrotta

BOOK WEEK 22 - 26 August 

https://cbca.org.au/cbca-book-week 

Throughout the week we will be celebrating lots of book-related activities in our learning spaces. Teachers have planned lessons around the shortlisted books for this year's Book Week competition. After this week, students will have the opportunity to borrow them from the library. 

We will also be holding a Dress Up Day parade on Tuesday 23rd AUGUST at 9 am. This will be held in the hall and parents are welcome to attend. The students can dress up as their favourite book character of their choice or use the theme – ‘Dreaming with Eyes Open’ as an inspiration for their costume.

The theme is about stepping into your own story. It invokes thoughts of ancient times, and of listening to Country as the first storyteller. You can, of course, adapt it to your dreams and future ambitions. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or your child’s teacher. 

Also as part of the week, we will have a Book Fair, where students can purchase a variety of books. It will be open every morning before school and after school. More information will be sent home as the date gets closer.  We look forward to celebrating with you. 

NUMERACY - Colleen Monaghan

SUSTAINABILITY - Annette Gasbarro

Our Sustainability learners are all very excited as we begin preparing to plant our spring vegetables in our garden beds. As researchers we researched various vegetable plants that can be planted. We discovered that some vegetable plants and herbs can be planted all year and others are seasonal plants.

Our Sustainability learners are always so excited to share their stories about their grandparent's or their own vegetable gardens. We ask our grandparents, parents and community friends who are keen gardeners and have any extra seedlings or vegetable plants that could be donated to our school, which would be greatly appreciated. All donations can be left at the front office. 

Our worm towers have been installed in our garden beds and this week we will begin adding food scraps to our worm towers to begin the compost process. If any of our keen gardeners have worm farms at home and are able to donate a few worms from your worm farm, this would also be greatly appreciated so we can speed up the process. 

This week our Sustainability learners will continue designing a compost label which will be placed on the compost bin. Our Sustainability learners will continue researching various fruit scraps that worms like to eat and how often our worms need to be fed.

Did you know? Rubbish like fruit scraps, grass and leaves is called organic waste.

SPORT & PE - Michael Jennings

SSV Codes of Conduct For Students, Parents, Spectators, Teachers & Coaches

School Sport Vic follows and enforces codes of conduct for all participants in SSV events whether they are students, teachers, coaches, sporting officials, parents, spectators or administrators.  

Parent Code of Conduct

STEM - Joe Frazzetto 

Last Thursday, the St. Fidelis students had the opportunity to showcase their talents as innovators and designers at the STEM MAD showcase. They did an amazing job presenting to the judges and sharing their ideas. They were even radio stars. 

The day was a real success and the students were amazing, I am so proud of each one of them. The 12 students who pitched and showcased their prototypes were in their element. You could see the learning assets in action, and you all probably heard it when they were explaining their prototype on the RADIO. That was an experience for all of us.

The best thing was seeing the children smiling, and sharing the feeling that they had created something different and new! The icing on the cake was when they announced the winners. Once again, ST FIDELIS was up there!!! I congratulate Scarlett, Connor, Ethan and Catherine for winning the category 'STEM' for Sustainability Award for their CLEO The Whale prototype and pitch. What a fantastic achievement!

Here are our STEM MAD students reflecting on the day:

Sonya Mazzarella 5/6CG When we got to the STEM MAD Showcase, we were one of the first teams at the booths, which gave us extra time to practise. Judges, teachers and even students visited our table. We ended up with only nine business cards left. The judges asked us for every detail and a couple said that the SHS should be a real-life thing. It felt like forever waiting to go on the radio but we got to wear giant headsets and broadcast LIVE. It was an amazing experience and it would be great to do it again.

Ethan Mercadante 5/6OS What happened on the Showcase day? We arrived at MACS, we set up our table, and we organised our model and business cards. Our showcase began. Many judges and Sponsors came to our table. I had a lot of fun sharing CLEO's function and purpose with the judges. While I was on the radio the adrenaline rushing through my veins was immense. Then the presentation of the winners… several schools were called including St Joseph's like five times. But then…“The Winner of the Sustainability Award Gifted by SEAMS is… St Fidelis cle-” I didn't even hear the rest of the sentence because Scarlett, Connor, Catherine and I rushed up to the front to collect our certificates. It was such a rush of joy; it took months to prepare for this very point and it was a success.

Olivia Fontana 5/6VC STEM MAD was fun, I loved giving out our business cards to the judges and people from different companies. 90% of the students that came to our booth were nice and 99% of people wanted to know about our prototype. It was so, so, so, so, so fun to share our prototype with others. We got to see all these amazing prototypes from other Catholic primary school kids along with most of the high school! It was an amazing opportunity and I am very happy that CLEO the Cleaning Whale won for our school.

Louis Pirruccio 5/6BP Thursday the 4th of August, my team and I went to the STEM MAD Showcase.  I was nervous at the start but it was fun. We set up our booth. After a while, judges and people were asking about our prototype CSS and they asked for our business cards. The day's highlight was when my team was on LIVE FM radio to talk about our prototype the CSS. That was a real-life experience. We had free gelato and it was okay!

Luca Sortino 5/6CG STEM MAD 2022, what a day! We started off getting our booth ready for the big day ahead. All around us we had groups just like us ready for the day ahead. The first showcase session started with a judge at our stall, we explained how our project works and how it could revolutionise the health industry. The rest of the showcase session went the same, with us describing our prototype to the judges. The next session, on the other hand, was different; all three teams were invited to speak on the radio. Group after group, we went up and explained our big question and our project, the SHS (Super Health Scanner). We explained that our scanner sends tiny nano-bots into your body. These nano-bots survey your body in the contents of 20 seconds. If it detects any germs or viruses it will send this information back to the scanner, which then can put it into your records as well as send it to your phone. At the end of the day, we went into the main hall to watch the award presentation. Sadly we didn’t win any awards in our group, but at the end of the day, our friends’ prototype won, and at least we tried!

Catherine Francione 5/6OS The STEM MAD Showcase was an amazing experience. At first, I was a bit scared because I had never done anything like it, but when the showcase started, I found it fun. It was rewarding seeing people marvel at our prototype and say how cool our project was. The best moment was when Shelley Waldon (the organiser) announced that my group had won the sustainability prize from SEAMS. I felt like the happiest person ever, and I'm sure that my group felt the same. When I got home, I felt tired but extremely content with all the work I had put in in the last 5-6 weeks that got me to the Showcase. Overall, I learned a lot and I'm excited for next year.

James Lucus Kowalyk 3/4BP What a great experience being at the showcase! It was a whole new experience for me (except for the ice cream of course). Building the wooden cars was super fun even if we couldn't get in an F1, race at the Monte Carlo track 17 times, and win by a landslide. And finally, the radio interview was SOOOOOOOOOO fun but a bit spooky knowing that the whole school was listening to us (even though I DIDN'T KNOW THAT FOR SOME REASON AHHHHHHH-) Anyway, I’m not gonna lie I was a bit disappointed that our group (The C.S.S) didn’t win but hey, I’m not complaining because I got a water bottle and that’s what counts. So all in all, it was an 8/10. It was a blast of a ride and I can’t wait to see if we are finalists for the Nationals!  

Scarlett Falsetta Spina 3/4KD My experience at the STEM MAD Showcase was fun. I felt very confident about our group’s prototype. I did not think I would get this far with our invention, but we did. My favourite part was looking at everyone else's designs and prototypes. They were all very good. A lot of judges and people came to our booth and they liked our prototype CLEO the Cleaning Whale. They wanted to see more of it. After that, we had a morning break and I was so excited to hear that I was on the radio to talk about our prototype CLEO. Then we came back and went to see the light and shadow puppetry. They were all super cool looking; we played in the other room with some wood puzzles. This was a very fun and tiring day.

Amber Smith 3/4GT I found my experience at the STEM MAD showcase exciting and I felt very proud of myself because I never thought I would make it this far. I loved working with my team and exploring what others have done. We had a nice big booth so we could fit our large prototype on the stand. They were amazing and I found them inspiring. So many people came to our booth it was crazy! And they all loved our prototype, the Super Health Scanner. We showed them how our prototype works and they loved it! Then we got free gelato, it was nice because we were all pretty tired from all the work. Overall, I enjoyed going to the MACS STEM MAD Showcase.

Connor Portelli 5/6OS My experience at STEM MAD was fun and exciting because we were able to present our prototype to people from ScienceWorks, Google and the Australian Zoo just to name a few. It was amazing seeing other schools' creative minds and ideas presenting their prototypes. My favourite moment of the day was when we were on the radio talking about CLEO and all her features with my group on the radio. The final moment of the day was when they were announcing all the winners there was a nervous wait and silence. CLEO the sustainable whale has won the sustainability award from St Fidelis. It was an amazing day.

ITALIAN - Rosa Fokianos

BUONGIORNO!

Buongiorno a tutti. Che bella giornata è oggi! 🌞

(Good morning to all. What a beautiful day it is today!)

Auguri per cento giorni di scuola! 

In this week’s newsletter, I would like to congratulate all the Foundation children for achieving another school milestone, that is, attending 100 days of learning/school last Wednesday (mercoledì). We are so happy to have been able to achieve this face to face this year! 

Last week, my Foundation grade discussed and learnt how to say the number 100 in italiano, (cento). We then started to make gli occhiali per cento giorni di scuola, (a pair of glasses for 100 days of school). Some children were even able to make a connection with the word for eyes, (occhi) to the word for glasses, (occhiali). This showed the children’s comprehension level of the language. Bravissimi bambini!!  

I then asked Mrs Wenckowski if she could get the grade to finish off making the craft task on Wednesday, since I did not have the grade that day.  I have included below a photo taken by Mrs Wenckowski of the grade with the occhiali. The children did a fabulous job. I’m sure they had a great day!

Auguri again to FLW  e grazie Mrs Wenckowski per la foto!

Buona settimana a tutti!

Signora Rosa 🌹