Filter Content
Dear parents and carers,
This week has been much colder, thank you to those families who have jumpers and coats clearly labelled so that we can return these to their owners easily.
Some of the children are experiencing colds and sniffles, and we appreciate those who have been monitoring this on the home front and taking the necessary precautions and measures to prevent the spread of these bugs.
It is noticeable as we move towards the end of a very busy term, that the children are becoming more tired as they try to keep pace with the busyness of both home and school. For those who are tired, an early night can work fabulously in restoring children to their regular selves.
For those who enjoy their technology, limiting the use of devices at home (e.g. no use of technology devices after 7:30pm) can also help – not allowing devices to stay in bedrooms overnight goes a long way towards avoiding late night messaging of friends, which is often a cause of tension at home.
Be aware that the issue of nits continues to be the cause of deep frustration in our community. We have been in contact with Community Health and the best advice available is for outbreaks to be treated at home. Please be aware that it is important to monitor for reoccurrences over the next few weeks after the initial treatment to ensure that all lice/eggs are removed. Further to this, it is useful for everyone to be regularly checking for outbreaks.
As you are aware teachers have been working on collating reports for the first half of the year. These are due to be sent home next Thursday, June 27. There is opportunity for you to discuss these reports with your child’s teacher at the parent teacher conferences set down for Wk. 10.
Parents have asked for the opportunity to make bookings online as they find this a more convenient way to manage their time. Please use the link below to book your interview time.
Parents of children who have personalised plans are asked to book a 30min time slot to enable a quality discussion and collaboration around preparing the personalised plan for Term 3.
https://www.schoolinterviews.com.au/code?code=9rjbh
Be aware that the online booking system will close on Friday June 28 at 2pm.
If you have not made a booking by that time, you will need to contact us and arrange a time from those remaining available slots.
The smooth running of our event relies on all parents keeping to the timetable. Please consider other parents and end on time.
Facebook page – in order to find the school’s Facebook page, you need to search for St Joseph’s Primary School, Grenfell.
Please be aware that this page is only for promoting teaching and learning at school, it will not be used as a general communications page.
Sincerely
Sacramental News - There will be an important meeting after the 9:30 am mass on the 30th of June for all parents of this year’s sacramental candidates. Parents must attend this meeting in order for their children to celebrate the sacraments.
All three sacraments will be celebrated in St Joseph’s parish this year. Candidates for Confirmation will be in Year 5 or above and will already have celebrated the sacraments of First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion.
Eligible candidates for First Reconciliation and First Communion will be in Year 4 or above.
Please contact Leslie King on 6343 1514 or via email (leslie.king@cg.catholic.edu.au) if you require any further information regarding the sacraments.
I smile when I hear people talking about how ‘freezing cold’ it is in winter here. Freezing to me still means -25 degree temperatures and the moisture in your nostrils turning to ice when you breathe in. It means plugging in your engine block overnight to make sure your car will start the next morning. On snowy days, it means waking up half an hour earlier so that you can shovel your driveway and scrape the ice off your windscreen before driving to work. That to me, is winter!
Still, winter, in whatever form it presents itself, gives us plenty of opportunities for reflection. Sitting in front of a crackling fire, chopping up vegetables for a slow cooked soup or stew, indulging in a cup of hot chocolate, snuggling up in bed with a good book; all provide us with opportunities to take some time to be grateful for the good things we have in our lives (even if you don’t think winter is one of them)! If nothing else, winter helps us appreciate summer more, although, for me personally, it’s winter that helps me to endure the relentless heat of summer.
Winter in all of Our Lives
There is a winter in all of our lives, a chill and darkness
that makes us yearn for days that have gone
or put our hope in days yet to be.
Father God, you created seasons for a purpose.
Spring is full of expectation, buds breaking, frosts abating and an awakening of creation before the first days of summer.
Now the sun gives warmth and comfort to our lives
reviving aching joints, bringing colour, new life
and crops to fruiting.
Autumn gives nature space to lean back, relax and enjoy the fruits of its labour, mellow colours in sky and landscape as the earth prepares to rest.
Then winter, cold and bare as nature takes stock
rests, unwinds, sleeps until the time is right.
An endless cycle and yet a perfect model.
We need a winter in our lives
a time of rest, a time to stand still
a time to reacquaint ourselves
with the faith in which we live.
It is only then that we can draw strength
from the one in whom we are rooted
take time to grow and rise through the darkness
into the warm glow of your springtime
to blossom and flourish
bring colour and vitality into this world-your garden.
Thank you Father for the seasons of our lives.
- Author Unknown
Wow, what a busy term. We were involved with many aspects of the Henry Lawson Festival and many students from our class had starring roles in our school play.
In Religious Education, we have explored the Three Worlds of the Text as a framework for understanding Bible stories. We looked at The Good Samaritan as a whole class study and now the students are working on their chosen texts. With choice available for presentation, we are seeing some students choosing Google Slides and others have chosen to create a story map.
In English, we have been working on creating information texts. We have revised our work on the differences between facts and opinions. We have also been working on developing our paragraph writing structures. Many of the students have enjoyed reading the information text collection from the Literary Resource Room. Each student is now publishing an information text that includes a table of contents, subheadings, paragraphs and a glossary.
In Mathematics, we have been revising our understanding of using place value to read and order large numbers. We are also revising number facts to 20 using efficient strategies. All students were given multiplication tables to learn for homework, hopefully this is going well.
In Science and Technology, we are continuing our unit on Living Things. We have studied plants, fruit and vegetables and will begin to investigate animals in the remaining weeks of the term. I have asked children to bring in samples of animal homes, so far we have some amazing photographs of a bird nest (thanks Mel) and some leaves that an insect has chosen to use as a home and some seashells.
Our History unit has investigated Aboriginal local heritage and their connection to place. We were lucky to have Terry Carroll visit us and share his knowledge. The students read some stories and Terry left us with a comprehensive list of Aboriginal language. Thanks Terry.
In PDHPE, we have continued to inquire about healthy living. As the school grounds were a bit wet last week we did some dance in the classroom. We learned to move to the Peppermint Twist, The Mexican Hat Dance and the Hokey Pokey. Peppermint twist was the overwhelming favourite.
In Creative Arts, the students have been investigating the ancient form of Indonesian Shadow Puppetry called Wayang Kulit. Small groups of students are now working on developing a story for their own shadow puppets based on an Aboriginal Dreamtime Story.
NUMERACY
Year 5/6 students have continued their investigation of volume and capacity. Students were challenged to discover how many centicubes it would take to fill a 1 meter cube. Students were able to work this out by discovering how many centicubes it takes for the length, then they were able to apply their knowledge of the row – column – repeated layer structure of volume to discover the answer.
The next challenge was to discover how many geoshape cubes needed to fill the cube. This was challenging as the cubes measured 7x7x7.
Students using a storyboard to complete a number of activities with the data gathered from the grid box volume investigation. This provided opportunities to create a table, a graph, draw the boxes, record the formula and write about the investigation using mathematical language.
Year 2/3/4 are developing efficient strategies for working with numbers. Our warm up this week was to look at a collection of dice and discover the total number of dots showing on top. We discussed the strategies that were used. We used grouping and friends of ten, counting on
Grouping the number of dots
Making friends of ten. The next challenge was to add the total number of dots under the dice to find the hidden total using knowledge of dice opposite face totals.
Kindergarten and year 1 have continued to develop understanding of length. Kindergarten used a strip of ribbon measuring 30 cm. They discovered items that were the same as, longer than and shorter than 30cm. Year 1 students used ribbon 1 metre long to do the same.
We also made some gingerbread dolls to join together and make longest and shortest.
