Dear parents and carers,

The excitement has been building for a while, but it all came to a head on Wednesday when the new Kindergarten students arrived for their first transition day! They were very quiet and serious about their work…I wonder how long that will last! There were also some very happy siblings and Year 5 Kinder buddies. We look forward to their visits in the upcoming weeks as they find out more about life at ‘big school’.

We thank the Archdiocesan Relationship Education Team for coming to our school to present the ‘My Body, My Life’ program to our Year 5 and 6 students. The students were broken into groups and were presented with information about puberty and what going through this stage of their lives might look and feel like for them. The students were engaged and respectful during these learning sessions. Year 5 and 6 parents may wish to follow up with conversations of their own with their children. Being able to converse openly with your children as they approach the high school years is vitally important.

Monday the 8^th of November is our school’s photo day for 2021. As we will not be having photos until after recess, it might be wise to avoid packing foods which can easily be spilled down the front of a shirt (such as yoghurt) in your child’s lunchbox. This year’s photo is summer uniform so short sleeved shirts and shorts or skorts please. 

My smile for the week this week is not a joke or a riddle. Instead, it is something I have witnessed through my office window on a number of occasions in the last week. Several of the older students have chosen to use the painted footprints on the footpath outside of the toilets to give themselves a ‘brain break’ on the way back to class. It is great to see these students recognising the need to help their bodies and minds to be reinvigorated for learning and displaying the initiative to solve the problem in a simple but effective way. 

Kind regards,

Acting Principal

Kindergarten Transition

This past week we had the pleasure of meeting and teaching our new Kindergarten students for 2022. All children were eager and excited to find out more about their new school environment. From meeting their new buddies, to a personal tour of the school buildings and play spaces and participating in motor skills activities and playing outside in the playground (the play equipment was hugely popular) the students enjoyed a range of experiences on their first day of Kinder Transition. We look forward to our transition program continuing in the ensuing weeks and all this has to offer.

The following is a prayer for our Kindergarten Transition children… 

 Christmas Food Drive – Grenfell Food Hall

Our school community can play an important part in renewing hope for many locals who face an uncertain Christmas. Together, we hope to bring relief to those who need it through a food drive. We aim to focus on collecting non-perishable food items for our local Grenfell Food Hall. 

Each week there will be a new category for the donations. Next week would like to start to collect food in plastic packets or bottles such as pasta, rice, salad dressings, cooking oil, etc., as well as food in tins and jars such as beans, spaghetti, corn, tuna, soups, tinned tomatoes, pasta sauce, stir fry sauce etc. Please send these items in if you can. 

Below is a list of the items we will be collecting on a week-by-week basis, but we are open to receiving them at any time during the drive. For all items, please check that expiry dates extend into 2022. Thank you in advance! 

Week 6: Food in plastic packets or bottles (pasta, rice, salad dressings, cooking oil etc.) and/or food in tins or jars (tuna, baked beans, soup, tinned tomatoes, pasta sauce etc.)

Week 7: Food that comes in a box (cereals, jelly, biscuits, cake mixes etc.)

Week 8: Treat food (chips, lollies, pavlova nest, long life custard, chocolate, crackers etc.)

 At the end of Week 8, all the items that we have collected will be delivered to the Grenfell Food Hall. 

Thanks for your support in this and all our school fundraising projects. 

Sacramental Program News

 Reconciliation and First Communion are both sacraments of initiation which form part of a child's spiritual journey. Sacraments sustain us and are visible signs through which the Christian Community celebrates God's loving presence or Grace. Congratulations to the children undertaking this journey.

 Sacramental meetings for Reconciliation and First Holy Communion have commenced. Meetings will be held at 6pm at St Joseph’s Church. One parent is to accompany their child to each of the meetings.

The remaining meetings will be held on the following dates:

• November 10^th
• November 17^th
• November 24^th

Please have your child bring their booklets with them to the meetings. The booklet for First Reconciliation was sent out last term and the First Holy Communion booklet is yet to be given out.

For more information, please contact Miss Schneider. Email:

danielle.schneider@cg.catholic.edu.au

Danielle Schneider

Acting Religious Education Coordinator

The K/1/2 students have had a great start to the term and are very engaged in their units of learning. 

In Religious Education this term, our unit is linked with Personal Development and Health. The students have been investigating our uniqueness, talents, and passions. They will identify the members of Jesus’ family, identify the qualities of a good friend and describe how we know Jesus loves each of us through our relationships with family and friends. This lens focuses on how we work toward our potential, develop resilience, build healthy relationships with others, and make wise choices, using Jesus as a role model. Socktober was also an exciting part of our learning. We learnt about children in need in Thailand, raised money for these children, and took part in our Socktober Mission Day with a series of soccer ball and ‘sockball’ games and a special liturgy with Father Joe.

 

This term, in English, the students have been focusing on persuasive texts. We have been exploring the structure of persuasive texts, looking at some of the language features of this text type, and why it is important to select high modality words to make our texts more convincing and persuasive. Later in the term we will be looking at information reports and we will learn about the text structure and language used in this type of writing. The writing skills of the students are developing very well!

 

Thus far this term, in Mathematics, the students have been looking at fractions. They learnt to record fractions of objects using drawings, recognise that fractions refer to equal parts of a whole, recognise the relationship of the parts to the whole using pictures and fraction notation, and to recognise when a collection of objects has been shared into halves, quarters or eighths. The students have also been learning about chance and data. This has had the students focusing on interpreting information presented in a data display to answer questions, organising objects or pictures of objects in a data display, recording observations based on tables and picture graphs developed from collected data, and comparing familiar events and describing them as ‘likely’ or ‘unlikely’ to happen.

This term, in Science and Technology, the students have been focusing on identification of light, sound and heat energy, and how they are sensed and produced. The students were invited to use their senses to explore the properties of familiar objects and phenomena, identifying similarities and differences, such as investigating differences between unpopped and popped popcorn. Later, they will infer simple cause and effect relationships from their observations and experiences, including using the sun to melt a chocolate frog. They will also compare observations, using plastic bottle maracas arranged by softest to loudest sound, and learn ways to organise and record observations.

In Japanese, the students have been furthering their Japanese language skills, and have been focusing on learning to describe people and objects with adjectives using colour, shape, and size. They also learnt to draw Mount Fuji using step-by-step instructions and then described their pictures. 

We have much to look forward to as the term progresses. We will be having our annual school photos taken next week. We also look forward to continuing the Kindergarten Transition program and getting to know our new Kindergarten students of 2022, while they get to know us as well!