Welcome To Week 4
Good afternoon parents,
Welcome to Week 4...apologies for the delay in getting a post out this week!
I was lucky enough to head up to Perth this weekend to celebrate my son's 13th birthday.
All he wanted to do was go to Adventure World with a couple of friends and it was all good until I had to prove that I could be a cool mum and go on The Abyss with the kids...
I can not stress enough how much of not a roller coaster person I am...according to Mark (who did not go on the ride I might add!) I only had to be brave for 23 seconds.
This is something that resonates with me quite often as I am a huge scaredy cat, but I gathered my bravery and off we went.
What we hadn't seen was the inside part where it's completely dark and you go round and round inside whilst being upside down...it turned out I actually had to be brave for 45 seconds which is much, much longer!
Not the best photo ever taken but it is one that has been shared with pretty much everyone I know so I thought I would also share it with you!
My best friend and Mark thought it was hilarious...there are multiple video's circulating the various groups I am in and none of them make me look good!!
It will be a great story for our Monday morning briefing and the joy, delight and pride in my 13 and almost 15 year old's eyes made the intense fear and panic all worth it!
Moving on from my traumatic experience, I am super excited to share our Character Strength for this week which is Curiousity.
To be curious is to explore and discover, to take an interest in ongoing experience for its own sake.
Curiosity is often described as novelty-seeking and being open to experience, and it’s associated with the natural desire to build knowledge.
It is fulfilling to journey toward an answer, to engage in a new experience, or to learn a new fact.
There are two key components to curious individuals: They are interested in exploring new ideas, activities and experiences, and they also have a strong desire to increase their own personal knowledge. Pope Francis says: "The secret to joy: never suppress positive curiosity; get involved, because life is meant to be lived"
A few Reminders for the coming week...
Masks - You would have received communication late on Friday recommending that students in Years 3-6 wear a mask whilst inside during our lessons. We are of course watching case numbers rise so this is a way to help us all stay happy and healthy.
This is a recommendation - they are not compulsory.
We will work with the students to become more comfortable and familiar with them and incorporate breaks so that the students have time to get used to them and develop a positive attitude towards wearing a mask.
If I can also remind you to please check in if you are coming up to the school at all using the 4DEL QR Code which is pinned to the outside of my door.
Laptops - PAT Assessments will be completed this week, if you can please support your child with bringing them charged to school each day so that we will complete these.
Apologies for the delay, the students needed the week to settle into no swimming lessons so Ben and I felt it best to postpone them until this week.
Hair Styles - As per my post a couple of weeks ago, there are a number of students with a style that currently breaches our policy.
If I can ask you to please make sure that your child's hair is tied up if it sits below their collar and that their fringe is clear of their face.
On Friday, the Year 4 students came together to celebrate a beautiful whole school liturgy giving thanks for each other and asking us to think about how we can show friendship, compassion and generosity to those we love, but more importantly to those that we don't.
We had a great discussion on this topic and the students had some excellent examples of ways they could do this. We also discussed the importance of extending this to our environment as well to ensure that we are looking after this precious resource.
I had tears in my eyes listening to the students sing along to this beautiful song that they have been learning with Mrs King in Music. It is called The Blessing of Australia and is a beautiful video to watch showcasing our amazing country and the many different people found in it. I have included the link below if you would like to listen!
I would like to congratulate our first award winner for the year...congratulations to Harry Hodgkin for winning our award for being an all round awesome young man with a positive attitude and a kind and caring heart. Well done Hazza, keep up the great work!
Our hard work continues this week! In our Writing sessions we have begun working on a class setting description based on an image of a favourite place. Some of you may recognise this place, it is a favourite of mine and one where I have spent many happy hours!
We are currently working in the We Do model, where the students and I co-construct a setting description so they have a good example to refer back to when they move to creating their own.
In the coming days the students will then choose their own favourite place - it can be one they have take a holiday to, their bed, a treehouse or any other location that they love.
If I can ask you to help your child either take a photo of this place or give them a copy, perhaps from a holiday that they can use as inspiration.
I tell the students all the time, that their best writing comes from writing about things they love! It helps them to feel inspired and connected to their writing with the goal of then sharing their joy in this place with their audience. They will need this photo by Wednesday please.
Our Spelling focus this week is the phoneme k found in words like bucket, celery, glue, kangaroo, pencil, squid, knife and mailbox. This sound can be made up using a variety of different graphemes such as those found below.
In Maths this week we will begin looking at fractions beginning with identifying what a fraction is and how to represent the most common ones before moving on to being able to compare and order fractions on a number line. Conversation with your child about where they see fractions at home or anywhere can provide really valuable learning that helps them to make connections to new content being presented.
In HASS, we are looking at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Peoples’ long connection with Country and how we know it? We had a fantastic session last week when we began looking at a timeline to show how long Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's had been here and the students had to figure out a way to represent this and then include European settlement. They found this quite challenging but were super creative in showing this!
In our Religion lessons, we are undertaking our preparations for those students that will be receiving their First Eucharist at the end of March. We looked at the story of the Great Banquet where Jesus asks us to invite those into our homes that can't invite us back. From here, we learnt about the events of Passover and we are now moving into learning about how the Last Supper connects to this historic event.
Homework - Week 4
After a rocky start to our new set up, I am hopeful that after our reflection session on Friday that the students are more confident in how to set this up and then complete their Reading Log and Times Tables.
Top tips for you as parents:
- Please mark their tables - particularly their first night so they don't repeat any errors.
- They need to read each night and fill this into their Reading Log on One Note - you need to write a comment on their reading just once.
Thank you for your support, have a great week and stay cool!
Kindest regards,
Mrs Delane
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