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Dear parents and carers,
As we are now almost to the mid-point of Term 4, it is noticeable that our days are becoming very full. The children have been working across a wide variety of activities from publishing their current works to preparing green screen productions.
As we move into the busy lead up to Christmas, it is important to continue to drink plenty of water and have a good rest each night, so that we can get the most out of each day.
At present the cool mornings, windy days and dusty afternoons are causing some problems with hay fever etc. Thank you to those families who are being proactive in reducing the side effects of hay fever and other ailments that present at this time of the year.
On Monday, we participated in the Remembrance Day service. Congratulations to Skye McLelland who did a beautiful job of sharing some of her family history that involved both of her great grandfathers.
On Tuesday, staff worked with Mrs Lamont from the Schools Services team in Canberra, to continue the process of revising our behaviour management processes. The process of learning new ways of implementing rules is underway and the children have been working on embedding ways to prepare for class after breaks by being organised and sitting outside their classrooms.
We are also looking at events that can be recognition for those who are working well both in class and while on the yard. These rewards will be small in the first instance and build over time.
We have also hosted Mrs Carolyn McFarland and Mrs Carroll-Farjada from the Schools Services team in Canberra. They worked with staff in preparation for the 2020 school year.
Kinder Transition - Orientation mornings for our 2020, Kinder students continued yesterday. The children have begun preparing a small presentation for our final Transition morning in a few weeks’ time. They also completed a variety of activities in their classroom.
We are looking forward to the commencement of our Sporting Schools program today. This term the children will be participating in an introductory gymnastics program with the coaches from PCYC at Cowra.
Grandparents Day – is coming up tomorrow, the children are looking forward to sharing their published works with our visitors and challenging their grandparents in some interesting board games.
We look forward to seeing visitors from 10:30am.
Congratulations – to Skye, who has really taken on board the Mary Mackillop philosophy of seeing a need, and choosing to do something about it! Please see the message below to find out more about Skye’s project!
Arriving to school early – please note that children are not supervised until 8:45am. If arriving to school between 8:30 - 8:45am, all students are to sit outside the Yr. 5/6 classroom. This is not a time for playing or running around the school grounds.
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 Friday, 29 November 2019.
Year 6 Graduation Mass Presentation Photos – We would like to kindly remind parents that school related photos of your Year 6 child, depicting a range of activities throughout their schooling, for the end of year school Graduation Mass presentation, are to be submitted to the school as soon as possible. Submitting these now will allow ample time to compile the presentation.
Sincerely
At the beginning of this term, I invited any interested students from Years 2 to 6 to become part of a Mini Vinnies group at the school. Mini Vinnies is about becoming aware of social issues in the local community and what people can do about these issues. The Vinnies model of ‘See-Think-Do’ is relevant to the students and the first practical application of the model (the food collection for the Christmas hampers) has been highly successful.
Today we will embark on another practical application of the ‘See-think-do’ model, as three of the children who volunteered to be part of the Mini Vinnies group will be visiting the Grenfell Food Bank to help with unloading and sorting food for Friday’s food bank. I’m sure they will learn a lot from this experience.
This term’s fundraising is centred on collecting food items for community-based Christmas hampers. Each week there will be a new category for the donations. This week we have been collecting biscuits. Next week we will be collecting drinks. Below is a list of the other items we will be collecting on a week-by-week basis as well as a tally of what we have already collected. We welcome all donations, including items to add to the previously collected tally.
Week 6- drinks (juice in boxes or plastic, tea, coffee, Milo etc.)
Week 7 – treat foods for Christmas (chips, lollies, Christmas biscuits or puddings, long life custard, cranberry sauce, chocolates, Christmas crackers etc.)
At the end of Week 8, all of the items that we have collected will be delivered to the community groups that will be preparing the Christmas hampers.
Current tally of food collected
Tinned food - 65
Pasta and rice – 28
Boxes of cereal -13
Condiments and Sauces- 13
Biscuits- 13
Kate Eppelstun (née McSpadden)
I graduated from St Joseph’s Primary School in 2005. I always enjoyed having a go at swimming and athletics carnivals, and the cross-country. I particularly remember the excitement of attending the Boorowa Netball Carnival and dressing up for the school’s entry in the festival parade each year.
Science was always my favourite subject, but I also really liked art, especially the Christmas crafts Mrs Franks came up with at the end of the year.
My favourite memory of St Joseph’s is the support network. Not only were we lucky to form great friendships, I remember the genuine care and interest staff had for our well-being.
After school, I graduated from Charles Sturt University with a Bachelor of Animal Science (Honours) and started working at the RSPCA ACT shelter the next day. Of my three years at the RSPCA, a career highlight was my time working in the animal welfare inspectorate. I am currently a Technical Biosecurity Officer at the Department of Agriculture. My day to day work involves assessing dairy products (including the ice creams and baby formula you find on the supermarket shelf) to ensure there is an appropriately low risk of the imported products bringing animal diseases, like foot and mouth disease, into Australia.
My advice for current students is that while it can be great to think ahead, don’t get too caught up in making set plans for the future. If you always try your best and are open to taking on new challenges or opportunities that come your way, you might be pleasantly surprised at where they take you in life.
In Science K/1 have been learning about movement. We looked at the ways that animals, people, toys and other objects might move and how some things can move in multiple ways. We have also looked at voluntary and involuntary movements. We’re looking forward to carrying out some experiments in the coming weeks to test what happens when we consider different variables.
In K/1 History, we are looking at what life was like in the past for generations before us. We learned that many of the things that people used to use have been replaced by a single item…the smart phone! We’ve also learned that things would have taken longer before electricity.
In K/1 PDHPE, we have been looking at how to be safe around medicine. We learned that some medicines can be put on our skin, given via drops or needles, eaten or drunken. We learned that we should never take other people’s medicine and that we should always speak with a parent before having medicine. We are also starting to look at how medicines and chemicals should be safely stored.
In 5/6 Music we have revised what we know about rhythm and pitch, keeping in mind that “Every Good Boy Does Fine. These notes sit on the line. F. A. C. E. Face. These notes sit in the space”. As well as playing a number of musical games, we are also working towards performing a Christmas carol on the glockenspiels.
In 2/3/4 History, we have been busily learning about the exploration of the world. We were astounded to learn that the Southern hemisphere stayed a mystery for so long because people thought the further south they went, the hotter it became and they didn’t want to boil to death in the southern oceans. We learned that many people reached Australia before Captain Cook and that many people were sent to Australia from Britain as convicts.
Kindergarten and year 1 students have been investigating the properties of 3 D objects. Students categorised the shapes according to how many faces each object has. Then they counted corners – vertices and edges. Running their fingers along each edge.
Year 2/3/4 have been using pattern shapes to investigate area, symmetry and tessellations. We played celebrity heads with 2 D shape names and students wrote questions about shape properties to give clues as to which shape they were.
Year 5/6 have investigated Statistics and Probability. We began with a task of gathering data using tally marks then graphed the results. Then we picked different coloured counters from a collection of 20. Students then assigned fractions, decimals and percentages of the picks, once they discovered what the value of each counter represented, it was easier to achieve.
