Dear parents and carers,

Our second week of term has seen us working across a new range of topics for this term.

We have celebrated NAIDOC Week by looking at the Wiradjuri language story of Guulaangga the Green Tree Frog, it turns out that he had a clever way of avoiding storm water.

We have also celebrated National Tree Week by planting trees in our garden at school. We also gave quite a few away to the pre-schoolers last week. Thank you to the Weddin Native Nursery for supplying the trees for us. The K/1 children were very keen to see their tree go into the ground and get a good watering just before the rain came earlier this week.

We are also in the process of gathering together entries for the upcoming Grenfell Show. There are a number of different school based sections for our children to participate in.

Tomorrow, I will be attending the Regional and Remote Schools Conference in Wagga. Catholic Schools NSW has a number of participants in this conference, and I will be representing our region at the conference.

Annual Satisfaction Survey - An annual satisfaction survey of parents, students and staff will be conducted on behalf of all Catholic schools in the Diocese this term. The surveys are designed to gather feedback from parents, staff and students about our school and will be used to inform school improvement. Responses are confidential and individuals cannot be identified. 

School fees – the school fees for Term 3 were sent home via email/paper form. If you have any questions or queries, please make contact with Mrs Baker or myself. There are supports available for those families experiencing difficulties with fee payments.

Open Day – we will be holding an open day on Friday August 16. This is an opportunity for family and friends to visit us at school and spend some time in class with us. Feel free to bring a friend – the flyer for the day is included in this newsletter.

Sincerely,

Scholastic Book Club – the book club order forms have been distributed.  All purchased now need to be made online using Scholastic’s LOOP ordering system.  Instructions are on the order forms.  If you need assistance setting up an online account, please ask.  Book Club orders need to be completed by Wednesday, 7 August 2019.

Public Speaking - our public speaking topics for this year have been announced. Children in years Yr. 2/3/4 and Yr. 5/6 will prepare a speech to present to their class. These speeches will be adjudicated and winners will represent us at the inter school event with St Mary’s School, Young.

Our children will begin presenting their speeches in their classes on August 12, in preparation for the inter school event.

Our Yr. 2 students will prepare a speech for presentation here at school, but will not be participating in the inter school event. This is a fabulous opportunity to begin to develop their public speaking skills.

Topics are as follows:

Stage 2: Speeches will go for 2 minutes with a warning bell at 1minute 30 seconds and at 2 minutes.

Topic for Year 3 is      Best Friends               

Topic for Year 4 is      Good Advice

Stage 3: Speeches will go for 3 minutes with a warning bell at 2 minutes 30 seconds and at 3 minutes.

Topic for Year 5 is      Don’t try This

Topic for Year 6 is      The View from the Top

Book Week – Book week is coming…

The theme for 2019 is

Reading is my secret power…

Now is the time to start thinking about the Book Character parade and what characters we might be seeing on the day. Remember to bring a copy of the book that your character appears in to the parade.

Boorowa Touch Football carnival – we are in the early stages of preparing for the Boorowa Touch football carnival which is set down for October 25. Additional information was sent home in a separate note.

We will only be attending if we receive enough nominations to make the trip viable.

Changes to routine - Thank you to those families who are keeping us informed when children are absent from school, or there are changes to the regular routine. Please be aware that we are required to keep the rolls up to date and that thorough explanation for absences enable us to do so.

St Joseph’s Parish Grenfell

First Holy Communion and Confirmation

An invitation is extended to all, to attend a very special celebration at St. Joseph’s Church on Sunday. This year the sacraments of First Holy Communion and Confirmation will be celebrated together at the same mass. The celebration begins at 9:30 and will be followed by a ‘bring a plate to share’ morning tea. Please join us if you can.

The students in K/1 had a wonderful end to Term 2. On Pyjama Day, the students built cubbyhouses and as well as reading to themselves, enjoyed sharing their books with a friend. It was a great way to celebrate their achievements in reading thus far. Even the Kindergarten students are challenging themselves to read chapter books!

We also watched the film, Charlotte’s Web, as we had finished reading this novel as a class. It was great to hear the comparisons the children were making between the movie and the book. For some students, the movie really brought characters, like Templeton the rat, to life.

This term we are continuing to build student understanding of the sequence and patterns of numbers to 100. This includes oral counting from given numbers and working individually with number cards on a 100 chart. We have also been exploring fractions, and learning how halves and quarters relate to telling time on an analogue clock.

In English, the students are building their skills for persuasive writing. They are also looking at how sentences are created and ways they can make their own sentences longer and more interesting.

In Religious Education, we have been looking at Old Testament scripture passages. The students have been learning about Moses and discovering some interesting things about Ancient Egypt. The children now have a basic understanding of what pharaohs and pyramids were, and where Egypt is located on a map of the world.

In Science and Technology, the students will be looking at different materials and the ways that they can be changed and combined to suit different purposes.

The students in K/1 will be having their Music, Geography and Personal Development and Health lessons with Mrs Eastlake this term.

Welcome to week 2 numeracy. All classes have been investigation fractions and year 2/3/4 have been brushing up on their knowledge of decimals also.

Kindergarten and year 1 created a class poster with all they know about half and a quarter. We learned how to fold coloured paper to show these fractions.

The big hand on a clock can show half past.

Year 2/3/4 have been busy with investigating fractions and decimals. We used a decimat to show how a whole can be divided up into tenths, hundredths and thousandths.

Students practiced writing decimal numbers that matched a variety of coloured decimats. The one above shows 0.213

Students helping each other to shade and record a variety of decimals.

Year 5/6 have really enjoyed revising operating with fractions. This term we have revised addition and multiplication of fractions with different denominators as well as simplifying answers when needed.

We also used a pattern block grid activity where students worked out the fraction that matched.