Classroom News
PREP
A big welcome back to our wonderful Prep community. After what we hope was a lovely break for everyone, we were so excited to see everyone back for Term 3.
This week we welcomed a new student, Emily, into Prep Gemma. We have loved getting to know Emily.
In Auslan this week, we made spiders to consolidate our learning of Incy Wincy Spider.
Our Little Learners Love Literacy sentence this week has been fun. We met a new character whose name is Ron, he is Pip and Tim’s dad. We also had a red zone feeling in this sentence ‘mad’. We have been busy reviewing all of our sounds, letters and punctuation marks.
In writing this week, the highlight was doing our holiday snapshot writing. It was great to share what we did for the holidays and have the opportunity to write it down and draw pictures to match.
In numeracy, we have had a big focus on place value. We have been doing bundling and counting by 2’s.
Our Sport Day has changed from Thursdays to Wednesdays this term to account for our swimming program. Children can wear their sport uniform on Wednesdays in Term 3.
As posted on DOJO and on PAM, our swimming program begins this term, next week (week 2) and will occur on a Thursday. Information and a consent form can be found on PAM and is required to be read and filled out by all parents if you wish for your child to attend. More information will also be posted to Dojo next week. We welcome any parents that are willing to come along and help our Preps to get changed back into their uniforms after their lesson as this can be a busy exercise. Please let your classroom teacher know if you are willing and include when you may be available (every week, just once, etc.) You will require a Working With Children’s Check which needs to be supplied to the office before you attend the pool. Parents coming to just watch lessons do not require a Working with Children’s Check.
Gemma Blake gblake@smcolac.catholic.edu.au
Dani Conheady dconheady@smcolac.catholic.edu.au
GRADE 1/2
Welcome to Term 3!
The children have settled in really well after the holidays. We have lots of exciting things happening this term including our swimming program at Bluewater. The Year Ones and Twos will have swimming on Thursday. We will be sending home some information about the lesson times and what the children need to pack. We suggest that the children pack some extra food on Thursdays as they may be very hungry after swimming.
This term Kascha's children will have sport on Wednesdays along with some of the children from Leah/Miriam's class - those children's parents have been notified about the change of sport day.
Kascha's Prayer Gathering is on Friday 21st July, parents and families are welcome to attend the celebration. Leah/Miriam's grade will have their Prayer Gathering the following week on Friday 28th July.
On Friday 21st July the whole school will be celebrating International Pyjama Day. The children are invited to wear their pyjamas to school on this day.
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
Welcome back to Term 3. We hope everyone had a restful holiday with lots of fun family time. The children were excited to see their friends and share their holiday stories.
This week during our Literacy time we are learning about NAIDOC week. During Maths Yr 3s will be focusing on measurement whilst Yr 4s are learning about decimals. Our Inquiry topic for the term is ‘First Contacts’ during which we will explore Australia prior to, during and post European colonisation. Our Religious Education topic for the term is ‘Respect’ which will focus on how we can have respectful relationships with others and our world.
Next Friday, 21st July our school will be celebrating National Pyjama Day to draw attention to the needs of children in Foster Care. We hope to see our Year 3 and 4 children in their PJs or other comfy clothes.
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
What a busy term we have ahead of us. This Friday we start the long awaited Winter Sports, students get to nominate themselves for the following sports; football, netball,
t-ball and soccer. This week we take on Colac South West at St Mary’s and games will be played at the school and Lake Oval.
Next week the grade 5s have an excursion to Trinity for their Science and Music workshops, our Grade 6s attended last year and it was a great experience, so we are looking forward to that.
Next week the Grade 5s also start a program called the ‘Barking Spider.’
Barking Spider Visual Theatre artists collaborate with St Mary’s Primary School Exploring 19th century Magic Lanterns in Old Lens, New Light. Marrying scientific and artistic experimentation, we deep dive into the origins of contemporary animation and film to create a hybrid theatre and moving image work. Artists from Barking Spider intend to explore the theme of the Lake Colac and change over time to the lake environment and the impact of British colonisation on the environment. Artists intend to invite First Nations people from Eastern Maar to speak about the change over time, custodianship, care for the environment, sharing stories and resources with the children. This will be the inspiration for students to create stories through art, animation and projection. Work will be shared with the school as part of the Learning Expo and exhibition.
In Numeracy this week, we are all exploring ‘Location and Transformation’ and moving on next week to our ‘Fractions’ unit. Fractions will probably run for the next 4-5 weeks.
In Writing; the Grade 5s are looking at Information Reports learning about features and structures of this text type, whilst the Grade 6s have begun exploring Poetry and ways we can include poetic devices and elements of poetry to create our own work.
In Reading, the Grade 5s are learning how to do Reciprocal Reading, we will be introducing the 4 roles and applying these to gain a deeper understanding of texts. The Grade 6 students have completed a NAIDOC Literacy unit this week before starting a text study on Lewis Carroll’s The Jabberwocky on Monday.
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.