Learning & Teaching 

L & T AND LITERACY - Vira Pirrotta

Learning & Teaching Events & Celebrations in Term 3  

Excursions and Incursions give students at St. Fidelis the opportunity to engage with experts and reinforce, complement and extend their learning opportunities beyond the learning spaces.  Our special celebrations allow the community to engage with teachers and students as we learn together. This term is going to be a busy and exciting one. Look at what we have planned!

• Grandparent's morning (Tuesday, 26th July) The morning will start with mass to celebrate the feast day of St. Anne, the grandmother of Jesus. The celebration will continue with an opportunity for all grandparents to work with their grandchild/ren in their learning spaces. The students can’t wait to welcome their grandparents to the school.
• F-2 Traffic School Excursions (Wednesday 27th & 28th July) The Foundation to Year 2 big question for Inquiry this term is What makes it move? The students will inquire into forces that create movement. They will also learn about the role of movement in our lives, environment and community. At the traffic school,  students will engage in an educational workshop and learn about road rules and safety.
• Fire Education Visits (Monday 1st & 8th August) Fire Ed for the Foundation students involves two visits to our school by the Fire Rescue Melbourne. On the first visit, the firefighters will facilitate a program about the essentials of fire safety. On their second visit, students will have the opportunity to explore the fire truck.  Students will also have activities to complete at home. Ms Wenckoski will send more information to families closer to the dates. 
• 100 Days of School for Foundation students (Wednesday 3rd & Thursday 4th August) Our Foundation students will celebrate the milestone of 100 days of learning. Mrs Wenckoski has some fun and exciting activities planned for these days. I can’t wait to see the incredible costumes. 
• Circus (Every Monday & Thursday starting from Monday 8th August) Students will participate in weekly lessons facilitated by talented performers from the Circus Crew. They will learn the values of trust, teamwork, taking risks, and having the opportunity to perform in front of an audience. Your child’s teacher will inform you of when your child’s class will be participating in these lessons. 
• STEM MAD Showcase (Thursday 4th August) Mr Frazzetto has been working tirelessly with six groups of students on their STEM MAD projects. The six teams designed a product, service or innovation to Make A Difference (MAD) to others or the environment. All six teams have submitted an entry and we can’t wait to see which entries make the final showcase. Mr Frazzetto will showcase all the entries on his newsletter page. The six groups designed an invention to make a difference in the following areas - 

1. Space
2. Health
3. Social Wellbeing
4. Sustainability
5. Safety
6. Environmental

• Science Week 13th August to 21st August National Science week promotes and encourages interest in science, engineering, mathematics, technology and innovation. The National Science Week theme for 2022 is Glass: More than meets the eye. Students will participate in activities and experiments based on the theme. We will aim to celebrate Science in many ways that week. Look out for the exciting activities planned for that week.  
• Book Week Monday 20th to Friday 26th August This year’s theme is 'Dreaming With Eyes Open'. This year we aim to celebrate with a week of book-related activities in our learning spaces and a dress-up day and parade. More information will be provided soon. 
• Foundation to Year 2 Scienceworks Excursion 24th August To continue their Inquiry learning, students will attend the Science Works museum. They will participate in learning experiences to help them learn and discover more about movement.  At Science Works, they will explore toys, forces and the weather. The teachers will send out more information soon. 
• Father’s Day Breakfast and Assembly Our celebration will include breakfast, morning prayer, assembly and activity in the learning space with your child. All dads are welcome to join for any part of the morning.  A special invitation will be sent out closer to the date with more information. We look forward to seeing all the dads. 

NUMERACY - Colleen Monaghan

PARENT MATH SESSIONS

Reminder: help your child learn their table facts parent session: 

• Wednesday 27th July 9am & 
• Thursday 28th July 2:25pm 

Maths and the Commonwealth Games 

(By Dr Angela Rogers)                               

Next week is the beginning of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham (United Kingdom). The games take place from the 28th of July to the 8th of August. For those of you not familiar with this event, it is held every 4 years and athletes from the Commonwealth Countries are invited to play 26 individual and team sports. 

In Australia, we love sport, and we love the Commonwealth Games because we are usually quite successful in terms of the number of medals our athletes bring home!

I remember in 2006 when the games were hosted here in Melbourne. We had a 6 week first term to make sure everyone was on school holidays during the games! Not even school gets in the way of the sport here!

Anyway, I just wanted to remind you that the Commonwealth Games are coming up, and they will provide a wonderful opportunity to infuse some authentic ‘Maths x Sport’ into daily maths home learning.

The Maths Commonwealth Games

The events below are suitable from F-6. The older students can use formal instead of informal units to complete all the required measurements. The following are the resources you will need for the Maths Commonwealth Games events. 

These are the events (in no particular order):

Cotton Bud Archery

Draw a target on the concrete with chalk. Each competitor has 3 cotton buds and needs to throw them from the start line. Their score is the total of where the 3 throws land (try saying that 3 times quickly!) For older students, you could use large numbers or decimal or fraction values in the circles.

Cotton Ball Shot Put

Each competitor has 3 cotton balls. They take turns throwing the balls from the start line. Each competitor measures and records their longest throw (using formal or informal units, depending on age)

Straw Javelin

Each player has 3 straws. In front of them are four plastic/paper plates marked 1-4. Their score is the total points of where the three throws land. For older students you could use decimal or fraction values on the plates)

For example, in the image the competitor’s score is 3+3+2=8

Straw and Cup Race

Competitors each use their own straw to blow a plastic cup across a table. The first cup to fall off the table at the other end is the winner. This could also be a timed event, where each child completes the task individually and is timed by the other members of your family using a stopwatch. The fastest time wins.

Long Jump

Competitors stand at the start line and complete a standing jump. Each competitor is permitted to have 3 jumps and they measure their longest jump. The competitor with the longest jump wins. 

Data Collection

Provide your children with a simple sheet to write their scores (older students should be encouraged to create a table themselves- this is an important skill in data collection and presentation). Provide time at the end of each rotation for the competitors to collate the results and award first, second and third place (ordinal number, tick!)

I hope you and your children have great fun competing in the Maths Commonwealth Games in your home!

Go Australia!

Sustainability - Annette Gasbarro 

What is a worm tower? A worm tower is made from a PVC pipe with holes drilled around the pipe. This allows worms to go and come as they wish. The theory holds that the composting worms will enter the worm tower, eat the food waste, depart the worm tower, and deposit worm castings around the garden, aerating the soil in the process.

Our Sustainability learners have been busy preparing our garden beds. Last term 

Mr Watson kindly made five worm towers for our garden beds.  Last week a group of children began installing the worm towers into our garden beds.

To prepare our garden beds we had to dig a big hole in the centre of the garden bed.  We had to make sure that the worm tower would fit in the hole.  We found it a little challenging when we discovered that we had to dig deeper.  We then had to secure the worm tower into the garden bed.                         

To prepare our worm tower we cut up paper, leaves, grass clippings, banana peels and dirt and placed them into the worm tower.  In a few weeks as the worms begin to deposit their worm castings into the garden beds, our rich soil will be ready for planting vegetables.

As researchers, our learners discovered that worms like to eat vegetable scraps, most fruit scraps, grass clippings and leaves.  They also discovered that worms don’t like to eat orange peels, mandarine peels and lemons.  Citrus fruits give worms a sore tummy and this does not allow the worms to produce good castings for our garden beds.  We also discovered that worms don’t like the sun. 

Important facts:Did you know that worms don’t bite nor do they sting. They are cold-blooded animals, which means they don't maintain their own body heat but instead assume the temperature of their surroundings.

Today during Sustainability I put tubes in the dirt then I put some leaves in the worm tower and cut up pieces of banana peel. We put in leaves again and the dirt and repeated this a few times. We then put the lid on the worm tower, evened out the dirt washed our hands and we were done. Ava Quarrell

Today at gardening we learnt about putting compost tubes which are called worm towers.  We dug out a big hole and put the worm tower into the soil. Then we scrunched up leaves and put them into the worm tower then we put soil and small pieces of banana peel into the worm tower. Patrick Hude

SPORT & PE - Michael Jennings

SSV COBURG DISTRICT SOCCER FINALS

On Friday 22 July the St Fidelis Boys/Mixed and the Girls Soccer Teams participated in the Coburg District finals against two other division premiers in the Coburg District.

Final results:

Boys/Mixed Soccer Team

St Fidelis 2 was defeated by Moreland 3

St Fidelis 1 was defeated by Coburg West 4

Girls Soccer Team

St Fidelis 1 defeated Coburg 0

St Fidelis 0 was defeated by Coburg West 1

Congratulations to both St Fidelis Teams on outstanding performances. The boys/mixed team was unlucky to lose the match in the final minutes against Moreland. Moreland was the eventual winner of the competition. The girl's competition was extremely close with all 3 teams finishing on equal points. The eventual winner was decided in a tense penalty shootout. The final result was Coburg 3, St Fidelis 2 & Coburg West 2.

SSV COBURG DISTRICT ATHLETICS

The SSV Coburg District Athletics Carnival will be held on Wednesday 17 August 2022 at the Coburg Athletics Track. Trials for Years 3-6 students are continuing to be conducted during physical education and sports sessions to select a St Fidelis Athletics Team. The team will be selected one week prior to the event.

Events include 100m, 200m, 800m, 4 x 100m relay, high jump, long jump, triple jump, discus and shot put. Events are conducted for  the following age groups:

9/10 Years

11 Years

12/13 Years

Each school can have one competitor participating in each event. A student can compete in a maximum of 2 individual events and a relay.

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

VISUAL ARTS -Joe Frazzetto

Last Friday, the ‘Say Yes to Respectful Relationships’ Poster Competition was announced virtually. 

I would like to say a huge THANK YOU to all of you for your support and participation in this year’s poster competition. 

Interrelate was overwhelmed by the amazing creativity, kindness, and respect, of all the students, families, and teachers towards this year’s theme of ‘Respectful Relationships Start With You’. 

The following students need to be congratulated once again for their fantastic poster promoting ‘Respectful Relationships. 

Darius Mazzarella

Ava Soares

Louis Pirruccio

Eliana Kachi

Hunter Fitzgerald

There were over 1200 entries nationwide, 41 finalists and they said it was the first time in the Interrelate Competition have had 5 finalists from one school. The amazing news is St Fidelis Catholic Primary School was the winner of the highest participation award this year. This is two years in a row that we have won this award. Congratulations to us all!

For those of you who missed Friday’s virtual Awards Ceremony, you can watch a playback of the ceremony now.  

STEM - Joe Frazzetto 

STEM MAD Part 2

STEM MAD is designed to acknowledge and promote STEM learning initiatives that address real-world problems and demonstrate how students in Catholic schools take action that matters. Student teams are invited to design a product, service or innovation to Make A Difference (MAD) to others or the environment. 

Last term students from years 3 to 6 students were selected to participate in the STEM MAD Inventors’ Team design sprint where they were placed into six groups and were tasked to explore, design and construct a prototype of their invention and share their idea to ‘Make A Difference’ to others or the environment by producing a 90-sec video pitch promoting their design to the STEM MAD judges. Only one of the six groups will be selected to enter the STEM MAD Showcase on August 4th. The six groups designed an invention to make a difference in the following areas- 

• Space
• Health
• Social Wellbeing
• Sustainability
• Safety
• Environmental

Here are the other three of the six video pitches which the STEM MAD Inventor Team have produced.

TEAM 4: Christian X, Violet A, Jessica T & Samuel  L

How might we use technology to better communicate with deaf people? 

Our prototype is called the TTD - Talk To The Deaf. We wanted to make a difference to people who are deaf and design a prototype because most people don’t know sign language, this will enable them to communicate and have a conversation with people who are deaf. This will make a difference for everyone as the prototype will allow someone to speak or text what to say into the TTTD App and in the Controller section, move the TTTD robot to the deaf person by speaking or texting, this will allow the robot to send a message through a text on a screen or in a hologram.

TEAM 5: Amber S, Sonya M, Dimitri M & Luca S 

How might we use technology to design and create a device that can maintain our physical health? Our prototype is called the Super Health Scanner, it is designed for doctors and nurses to diagnose their patient’s condition as quickly as possible so they will be able to further diagnose the patient’s medical condition or illness, so they can receive medical treatment right away. The Super Health Scanner will make a difference in the lives of doctors and nurses as they can save their patients’ lives and especially this will save time for both doctors and patients.

TEAM 6: Scarlett F, Ethan M, Catherine F & Connor P 

How might we use technology to fix earth’s problems by being sustainable? Our prototype is called CLEO The Cleaning Whale. CLEO is a robotic whale the size of a sperm whale that cleans and collects rubbish in the ocean. It is controlled by the CLEO Cleaning Whale App. CLEO the robotic whale swims into the deep ocean and senses rubbish, when it senses rubbish CLEO will collect it and its purpose is to try and keep our oceans clean without rubbish, so our oceans will always be sustainable for all life on earth.

ITALIAN - Rosa Fokianos

BUONGIORNO!

Benvenuti al terzo trimestre! (Welcome back to Term 3). I hope you have all had un buon riposo (a good break) and now your children are ready for some more great learning in italiano! 🙂

In this week’s newsletter, I would like to inform you all what i bambini - ragazzi (the children), will be learning this term:

• Foundation will be learning and identifying various body part names, le parti del corpo and shapes, le forme, in italiano, as well as listening to the narrative of Ecco Pinocchio. There will also be a guest appearance from a special visitor throughout the term! I wonder who that could be?
• Grade 1/2 will be revising the gender of nouns(maschile e femminile) and learning about the various singular forms of gli articoli determinativi - the definite article - “the,”(il… la… l’... lo…). This will be in conjunction with the topic of identifying parts of the classroom and objects used in the classroom. The children will then go on to learn some verbi, (verbs) in relation to Che cosa fai a scuola? - What do you do at school? 
• Grade 3/4 will be learning how to ask and respond to telling the analogue time in italiano…Che ore sono? Focusing on o’clock, half past, a quarter past and a quarter to. Plus learning about the 24 hour clock, which is quite commonly used throughout Italy in various situations.
• Grade 5/6 will be doing a historical unit on L’Impero Romano (The Roman Empire).

Here the ragazzi will be investigating topics including the timeline from the rise to the fall of the Roman Empire, Roman society, Roman architecture, Roman numerals and Roman entertainment, to name a few. The ragazzi will also be researching a chosen topic and presenting their findings to the rest of their peers during the term.

This martedì 26 Luglio, (Tuesday 26th July), St Fidelis will be having a mass to celebrate La Festa dei Nonni, (Grandparents Day). Nonni (Grandparents) are such an important part of everyone’s family, so it would be lovely to see some of our school community’s nonni attending mass with their nipoti (grandchildren). Hope they can make it. ♥️ To mark this day, I have included a poem below about nonni, titled I Nonni Moderni (Modern Grandparents). Perhaps some nipoti could read this to their nonni. Buon divertimento! 

Signora Rosa 🌹