Weekly Notice

Week 5 Term 2, 2017

*We are holding an information evening on: ‘What it means to attend a Catholic School’.

This is for anyone to attend who would like to know more about the unique aspects we cover at St Mary’s and the promotion of Catholic values as a Catholic School. We will look into the RE content taught, Sexuality programme taught, expectations and community spirit as well. WHEN: 5.30 - 6.30pm, Wednesday 31st May 2017, WHERE: St Mary’s School, Rooms 14. WHO: New families, those interested in continuing in the Catholic education system via JPC,.re we go for Week 5....

*We do have Head lice in Room 13.  Please check your child's hair and treat if necessary.  There are also a lot of nasty cold and flu bugs going around.  If your child is unwell, please keep them at home.  School is not a great place to be when you feel miserable and of course the bugs are then shared out with everyone....including ME!

*Writing - this week we are looking at explanation and focusing on compound sentences - these are sentences that have and or because or but joining two ideas that are linked.  We will also be talking a lot about rereading sentences after we write them to ensure they sound right and have the correct punctuation.

*Maths - We will be spending the week on Statistics this week.  The children will be deciding on a Mathematical investigation and will be gathering and recording data, and then presenting their findings.

*RE: we are currently working on the God strand.  We are discussing how God created the world and how we are responsible, as God's family, for preserving the gifts he has given us.  This fits in nicely with our Reduce, Reuse, Recycle study.

*Reading - I am really pleased with the reading assessments.  Some kids have moved up a level and that is always pleasing.  As a result of this testing I have found the following:

-the kids need to really focus on the meaning of the story which is comprehension.  Many of them could read the higher levels very well but could not answer the questions at the end.  It's a great idea to have a talk to your child after reading to ensure they have understood what they have read.
-some of the fluency and phrasing was low.  Fluency can be gained from rereading texts often and phrasing can be improved by ensuring the kids read the punctuation carefully.  Thank you for your support with home reading.

*Spelling - we will have a spelling test in Week 9.  The test will be on the words the kids have been bringing home to practice.

*Cross Country - our race is coming up and we are practising as often as we can (weather dependent).  I will let you know the details as soon as I know.

Golden Time - this week we will be making recycled art.  Please could we have anything metallic you might have at home.....nuts, bolts, wire,old cutlery, necklaces, beads.  

Have a great week
Annie

Head Lice

We have head lice in Room 13.  Please check your child's hair and treat if necessary.
Thank you

Weekly Notices

Hi everyone, sorry this is so late, I was sick on Sunday and Monday but here is the outline for the rest of the week....

*No sausage sizzle this Friday!!!!!
If our kids want to bring $2, I will get them hot chips and sauce for lunch instead.

*Cross Country is for Year 3-6 only!  Our Cross Country will be later in the term.

*Mass on Friday at 9am - Pentecost.  All families are welcome to attend.

*Writing - we are writing retells this week about the Pentecost story.

*Reading - I am finishing off the Running Records, our kids are doing so well.  Keep up that lovely home reading and please ensure you are reading to your children as much as possible.  We are great role models and we can show our kids what good reading sounds like.

http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/read-aloud-to-children/

*Maths - this week we are finishing our unit on skip counting.  There is lots of maths that goes with skip counting eg doubles, halves, evens, odds, 10's groupings etc.  Some practice while in the car or the bath or at bed time would be super.  We are using it to solve problems like:
Makenna had 5 friends to her party.  Each friend had their hair in 2 ponytails.  How many pony tails were there altogether.

2,4,6,8,10
The kids sometimes need to draw a picture or use some materials to help them keep their counting ordered.  Some will simply know that 5 groups of 2 or 5x2=10.  That's great too.

*Golden Time: We will definitely do our recycled pencil holders this Friday.  There will be no assembly so we will have plenty of time.  Please send in any old buttons, fabric, beads, feathers etc so we can make them amazing!

Have a great week.
Annie

Class Visitor

Yesterday we had a wee visitor with us in Room 13.  We took the opportunity to do some research on how to care for kittens as well as some statistics in the afternoon.  The kitten was very well behaved and as a result of his visit, he got a new home.  Thank you to the Burborough family who have adopted our little friend and given him what I am sure will be a wonderful life.

Here they are....

Class Reminders

Hi all, just a few reminders for tomorrow....

*Movies: We are all go for the movies.  If you wake up and the weather looks uncertain, please bring your child's booster seat to school as we will take the kids in cars.  A notice will come home today with this info on too.

*There will be no sausage sizzle tomorrow.  We are having a pizza lunch which was to be covered by our Auction money.  However, we are a little short so if you would like to contribute, the kids can bring along $2.

*Many thanks to the parents who have offered to help with the movie trip.  The kids are very excited.


Annie

Lava Lamps

Today our experiment was to make a lava lamp.

We asked ourselves a science experiment:

Will oil, water and an effervescent tablet react and look like a lava lamp?

We had a hypothesis: what we thought would happen:

Yes.  The oil and water will separate and the tablet will make bubbles which will make the oil bounce around the jar.

We got our equipment:

oil, water, a jar, food coloring and an effervescent tablet.

We wrote our procedure and then we waited and watched.

This is what we saw.......

We also realised that scientists don't just carry out experiments but they also write about what they did, what they saw and why they think that happened.  Here we are being scientists.

Science Experiments

This week is Science Week.  We are learning how to carry out a scientific investigation and we started today finding out whether we could put a skewer through a balloon.  We started with a question, then googled our question to find some research.  After that we decided on a hypothesis and then noted the materials we would need and how we would carry out the experiment.  This is us in scientist mode....

Well done you  budding scientists!

Week 3, Term 2, 2017

Hi everyone, welcome back to another fantastic week of learning in Room 13.  

*The Movies: we will walk to the movies on Friday at around 9:45.  If you are able to accompany us, that would be super.  Please email me to let me know your availability.

*Maths: This week we will be working on skip counting to solve maths problems.  We skip count in 2's, 5's and 10's and this helps us solve problems like.....


The three bears lived in a warm cosy cave.  Every day the bears ate 2 pots of honey each.  How many pots of honey do the bears eat each day?



                                                       

                    2       2       2                  

We can either use repeated addition 2 +2+ 2= 6 

or skip counting 2,4,6     

*Writing: This week is Science week.  We will be carrying out some science experiments and writing them up.  

We will be writing about Autumn next week.  We will be going on an Autumn walk to inspire our descriptive stories then we will do some art work and display both our writing and pictures in the hall foyer.  We will also write some fun stories like "what do teachers do after school closes?" and "what if I met an elephant on the way to school?"  We are currently working on planning stories and using labels to help us in our story writing.

*Recycling: Please could we collect egg containers this week in our recycling containers.  We will use them for sorting and practising our skip counting.

*Golden Time: This week we will be making our recycled pencil containers.  Our Mothers day cards were quite labour intensive so we didn't get to them last Friday.  Please send along a recycled tin can if you haven't already.

*Sadly Mrs Halls Mum died during the weekend.  We will all be thinking about her in our prayers this week and hoping that her mum is safely with God in Heaven.

*Now that the weather is getting colder, the kids will be needing warm jackets to and from school.  The school polar fleece is a great option because they are allowed to wear them at play time and lunch time.  They can be found in the Warehouse now and wash and dry very easily.

*Our class are working beautifully together at the moment.  Thank you for your continued encouragement of the kids and their learning.  Keep up that great home reading and spelling and don't hesitate to give me a yell if you have any questions.

Have a great week

Annie

Assembly

I was super proud of Room 13 last Friday when we were in charge of assembly.  They were stars...well behaved, great role models, excellent speakers and enthusiastic learners.

Here they are:

This is what good learning looks like....

Here are some examples of great learning in Room 13.  What a bunch of super stars!

This is the way we get ready for Year 3, look at us learning!