The Learning Zone

"Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today." - Malcom X

Crunch & Learn

‘Crunch & Learn’ is a time at the beginning of the school day where students eat an extra serve of fruit or vegetables to support good health and to help learning. 

Students simply bring a piece of fruit or serve of vegetables into the classroom to eat during the morning session, while continuing with their regular routine. 

Please send your child to school each day with an extra piece of fruit or serve of vegetables to eat in the classroom.  Something that can be easily taken into the room and eaten without causing too much mess is ideal, for example:

• An apple, banana, carrot, celery sticks.
• A small container of sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes, grapes, strawberries, cucumber or capsicum sticks, broccoli bits or chopped melon.
• Fresh is best but fruit in juice or water is okay sometimes.
• Dried fruit like sultanas or apricots are allowed but should be limited as the dried fruit clings to teeth and is a concentrated source of sugar, increasing the risk of tooth decay.

Please don’t send fruit or vegetable products (e.g. fruit straps, popcorn, fruit or vegetable breads), fruit canned in syrup or jelly or with artificial sweeteners, flavoured or marinated  vegetables. 

If your child is ordering fresh fruit from the canteen on Thursday or Friday this will arrive at 11am and be eaten during the first break (recess). This is after the Crunch & Learn time which occurs at the beginning of the school day so, even if ordering from the canteen, children will still need to bring something from home for Crunch & Learn.  

Thank you for your supporting Crunch & Learn at St Joseph’s.

Home Reading

Please see a copy of the Home Reading Information Sheet for parents and carers attached below.

Armidale Diocesan Mathematics Initiative (MaST)

This year our whole school from K-6 are part of an Armidale Diocesan Mathematics Initiative known as the MaST Project. I would like to commend our teachers for their hard work and diligence to ensure this initiative enhances the learning experiences for their students. We are so lucky to have such dedicated professionals at St Joseph’s. Please see the information below to assist your child at home.

Maths At Home:

Kindergarten - Whole Number

Counting is an important start to our unit on whole number. Students can count a group of objects or their toys. What numbers can you recognise, read and say? 

Try the links below to help you.

Nursery Rhyme - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Once I caught a fish alive

Stage 1 - Whole Number

Counting Tips:

Count stairs, letter boxes, or objects in two, threes, fives and tens whenever opportunities arise;

Put out the number of knives and forks needed for dinner and ask your child to count them in sets of two;

Talk about numbers whenever opportunities arise. Ask questions such as “Which is bigger/smaller/the same/different?”, house numbers on long streets;

Take note of larger numbers as they occur (e.g. house numbers, page numbers in books).

Encourage your child to read the numbers and talk about other ways they could have been written.

Talk about the order in which you complete everyday activities such as preparing a meal, setting the table. Use words such as first, next, last, third, to describe the sequence of actions.

Give your child directions using the language of order eg “First put the rubbish in the bin and then go and do your homework”.

Ask your child to arrange objects in order, eg the family’s shoes. Talk about the order using words like first, second, third, last.

Stage 2 - Data

Link to the NSW Department of Education - tips to help your child with representing and interpreting graphs and tables.

Stage 3 - Number

Here is a problem Stage 3 to get you thinking about number!

When a certain number is multiplied by 4 and 3 is added, the answer is 39. What is the number?

First person to give the correct answer to Mr Patterson receives a cool prize.

"Coming together is the beginning, staying together is progress,

and working together is success". - Henry Ford

Have a great week of learning and fun!

Maree Holland & Greg O'Toole