The Northern Natter - Week 2, Term 4

Week 2, Term 4

Calendar Dates:

May

13th-15th - Grade 3 and Grade 4 camps
15th - Education Week Open Morning
17th - Division Cross Country (select team)
22nd - Gr 3-6 House Athletics
24th - Sorry Day
27th - Reconciliation Week
28th - Region Cross Country (select team)
29th- Grade P-2 Parent Teacher Interviews
30th- Grade 3-6 Parent Teacher Interviews

Dear CNPS families,

It has been a big week at CNPS, with another big week ahead, especially for our Grade 3 and 4 students and their teachers, as they head off to camp on Monday. A big thank you to Mr Scott and Claire for organising these camps, and to Hannah Crawshaw, Louise, and Ash, who are also giving up their time for the camp. We hope that the trips to Sovereign Hill and Lady Northcote are fun-filled and sickness-free!

PASAR SEKOLAH UTARA

We enjoyed another fabulous Pasar – Indonesian Market Day – this week. A huge thank you to Kimberley for pulling this whole-school event together; it is a lot of preparation in the weeks leading up to the day, as well as a huge day of preparation and clean up. Thank you to the parents who assisted with the event. It was great to have Aaron and Nita visit us again, and the performances after lunch from the Grade 3 and 4 students were amazing. Thank you to parents for sending along the $5 for the day, to support the visiting artists, the food for the market day, and the sponsorship for World Vision. I took a couple of videos of 5/6HG practising their Gamelan piece this week; Prep E were a captivated audience for this informal performance.

Also in Indonesian this week, the Preps have been practising their knowledge of colours – pictured here – Digby, Stella and Miles with their lovely colourful ice-cream pictures!

OPEN MORNING WEDNESDAY

Next Wednesday, as part of our annual Education Week calendar, we will open our classrooms between 9am and 11am, for parents to visit. Typically, we mostly get prospective Prep parents visiting on these days, however I encourage current CNPS parents to take the opportunity to visit your child’s classroom, or specialist class, and enjoy our school learning culture. We will have fliers on the day with our school leaders at the Hunter and Bull St gates, which will inform you of the activities happening in each classroom for the 2 hours. Please come along if you can!

EDUCATION SUPPORT THANK YOU DAY

Next Thursday, May 16, is Education Support Appreciation Day. We will be thanking our ES Staff at CNPS, but if your child enjoys their support at school, please feel free to drop in and say THANKS! Our Education Support Staff are:

Jen Oliver – Prep Classroom support, Front Office assistant, First Aid.
Jan Cox – Reception, Business Manager
Angela Carland – Library
Charlie Chapman – Grade 3/4 Maths tutoring
Ash Callendar – Grade 3/4CN Classroom support
Belinda Park – Grade 5/6HG Classroom support

SORRY DAY AND RECONCILIATION WEEK

On Friday 24th May, local Primary students will gather at the Western oval to hear speeches and participate in activities, to acknowledge Sorry Day (which is on Sunday May 26). Students from CNPS will participate in classroom learning about Sorry Day throughout the week, and this will lead into Reconciliation Week from May 27-31. There is also a school activity on Monday June 3 (the following week). As we are a large school, we are not able to take all students to all activities, so the following program is what we have planned:

Sorry Day for schools – Friday May 24 – Grade 3 + all SRC students to walk to Western oval for local schools’ event. Time TBC.
Sorry Day for schools – Friday May 24 – whole school assembly – 2.45pm – led by Prep-2 students and Steph Carson.
Monday May 27 and/or Monday June 3 – CNPS assembly – students from various classes to speak about Reconciliation Week and their learning in class.
Monday May 20 – Grade 1/2 students to visit Boorp Boorp Boondyll exhibition in Castlemaine (self-guided)
Friday May 31 – Grade 5/6 students to complete the Reconciliation Walk in Chewton. More information to follow via email to parents.
Monday June 3 – Grade 4 students to visit the Boorp Boorp Boondyll exhibition in Castlemaine, guided by Kath Coff.

As mentioned above, these events are in addition to the classroom learning in the leadup to, and during Reconciliation Week. Parents are welcome to join the Gr 5/6 students on the Walk on Friday 31/5 – if you are not a senior student parent, please email me for details.

MUSIC TUTORS

I have had a couple of requests about students beginning private music tuition – please see below for our Music Tutors email addresses:

Sarah McDonald: sarahmcdonald0101@gmail.com Keyboard, voice, woodwind

Carl Pannuzzo: carl.pannuzzo@gmail.com keyboard, drums

Scott Sanders: thehouseofandersen@gmail.com drums, guitar

CROSS COUNTRY

Congratulations to all students who ran in the District Cross Country event last week, and well done to those who have qualified to run in the Division Event next Friday. We look forward to hearing your results!

KIMBERLEY’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE

Next week will be Kimberley’s last week with CNPS until Term 3; she is heading to the Northern Territory for the final 6 weeks of this term for a new and exciting teaching experience. She will be working in a school in Alice Springs teaching Art, P.E and working in the classroom, and hopefully learning some of the new languages they teach there too, including Arrernte, Mandarin, and Spanish. We wish Kimberley well for this amazing experience and look forward to some email updates! Ben Wilson will be replacing Kimberley while she is on leave.

OSHC UPDATE

Frustratingly, the process to establish our service is still in the approval phase with the department. I am unsure why this is taking so long; however, we have been in communication with Uniting (our chosen provider) this week, and they have informed me that recruiting continues to be a challenge. Apparently, there are over 10 services within a 50km radius of Castlemaine that are advertising for OSHC staff and there are low numbers of applicants across the board. I am sorry that this process is dragging on and I hope we have some productive news in the coming weeks.

Have a great weekend,

Sam C

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Hello from the Prep Rooms!

This week in Literacy we met two more of Milo’s friends: Eddy the elephant and Queenie quail. We have continued to practise writing our letters and using capital letters, finger spaces and full stops in our writing. We have even written two sentences this week! In Maths, we have been working on learning our pairs to 10: two numbers that add together to give us 10. We continue to practise writing all our numbers 0-10 every day as well.

For our Big Question time this week we were very excited to have an inflatable planetarium visit our school. We enjoyed seeing the night sky and learning about day and night, constellations and other amazing things! This week the teachers have been doing a daily weather report and now it’s the prep’s turn. Over the next couple of weeks, everyone will have a turn at dressing up and presenting the daily weather to the class, just like a real weather reporter.

On Wednesday we had so much fun participating in the school Indonesian Day. We enjoyed watching the school dance and musical performances, tasting delicious foods, getting our faces painted, toy swapping and many more activities. We want to say a big thank you to Ibu Kimberley and everyone who helped organise this day.

Next week in Literacy we will meet two more of Milo’s friends. For Big Question Time we will be looking at the sun and how we get shadows. In Maths we will be focusing on reading, writing and making teen numbers.

Have a great weekend.

Nicole and Lauren

Hello from the Golden Wattle building!

What a fun-filled week we have had! A highlight for this week has been the beginning of our Star of the Week program in our classrooms. Well done to Robbie, Theo and Ollie who were the first students to share their Star of the Week posters with their classmates, which they did with confidence and bravery.

This week the classes have been learning about adjectives and matching adjectives to nouns in our writing. In Maths we have been investigating measurement using informal and formal units of measurement. We were busy ordering, comparing and measuring the length of towers, classroom objects, one very big bear and we even measured our shadows at different parts of the day.

In our Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships program we have been focusing on our personal strengths. We have learnt how to identify and describe our personal strengths and discussed how our personal strengths can contribute in a positive way to our family life, friendships and school community.

On Thursday we had a fantastic time at the Indonesian Pasar, where we got to eat some yummy Indonesian food, have our faces painted, ride a becak and play some games. Students also had the opportunity to get new toys in the toy swap. Grade Two students participated in an Indonesian dance and Gamelan workshop and were very excited to dance in the Barong Parade. In the afternoon we were treated to a wonderful Indonesian shadow puppet performance. A huge thank you to Ibu Kimberley for her coordination of creating such a rich tradition for our students.

As part of our Big Question, “How do we explore the world?”, students attended an incursion with Science Discovery Dome. There was lots of excitement as we explored a Portable Planetarium and Science Education Dome and investigated the topics of night and day, moon and stars and the seasons. This complimented the work that students have been completing at home as they have been practicing their research skills by observing changes that occur in the sky and landscape in the evening.

Next week we look forward to learning how to expand our sentences using adverbs and exploring mass and capacity in Maths.

Have a lovely weekend!

Wendy, Sarah, Bec and Sally

Students enjoying Friday's incursion!

Hello from the Ironbark team!

This week the students have thoroughly enjoyed reading and writing about an iconic Australian animal, the Southern cassowary. Students used what they had learned about the Southern Cassowary to write an Information report.

In Maths, students have enjoyed playing a warm up game: Perhaps you could play this at home with your child/children. It’s heaps of fun! We have also delved into multiplication, and specifically looked at using 2,3,4,5 & 10 strategies to solve multiplication problems.

In our Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships program we have been focusing on our personal strengths. Students have been exploring their personal strengths that help them learn new things, to be fair and get along with others in order to help stay in control of their emotions and behavior. Students also relish the opportunity to put on a play for their peers and acted out some of emotions that can be show up throughout the school day!

Thursday was a very exciting day for the Grade Three & Four students. It was the day of the Indonesian Pasar, where they got to eat some delicious Indonesian food and participate in some fun activities. Perhaps the best activity of the day were the workshops, where all students participated in learning a dance, music, or martial arts. And to top it off, showcase this performance at the end of the day concert for all Prep-Grade 4 students and teachers.

Finally, the week of camp is here! Students and teachers are very excited and looking forward to their adventures. The teachers will be surely stocking up on sleep over the weekend and be ready, bright-eyed and bushy tailed Monday morning. If you have any concerns or questions, please feel free to reach out to your child’s teacher. We hope to make this camp experience a fun and memorable one for all! Have a great weekend!

The Ironbark team!

Here are some snippets of our Information reports about the Southern cassowary:

The Southern cassowary is a very special bird that lives in North Queensland. It lays eggs, but not just any ordinary eggs – green eggs! Yes that’s what I said. The normal eggs are like peach-colour or something.

Milly

The Southern cassowary is one of Australia’s iconic wildlife species. Southern cassowaries are a large, flightless bird native to Australia and are super dangerous. They are vertebrates which means they have a backbone!

Their mating season is from June – September. Once the light green eggs hatch into chicks, the female will leave and go to find another mate.

Samuel

It eats a big variety of things including: fallen fruit, insects, snails, nuts, fungi (pronounced fun-guy), eggs and small mammals, They are truly omnivores.

Finn

Have you heard about the Southern cassowary? The Southern cassowary is an amazing bird, and it is not a mammal. As an ancestor of the dinosaurs, it has a thing on its head that’s called a casque. The bigger the cassowary, the older the cassowary.

Henry

This magnificent bird is found in North Queensland, Eastern Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Its most preferred environment is the rainforest, but it can also be found in woodlands, melaleuca swamps and even beaches. But if you went to the beach and saw one – don’t worry because it probably hasn’t got eggs.

Elke

The male cassowary looks after the chicks and teaches them to find food and water, so that when they are out in the wild, they can find food and water by themselves

Sadie A-R

It’s been a big week in the Silver Banksia building!

It was great to see the senior students take on leadership roles and support Kimberley in the Pasar on Wednesday. It is always a highlight for the CNPS community. If you look close enough you might recognise the two front feet of Barong... is that you Mr. Higgins?

5/6R started their stint in the food garden and chook monitors. It is always a pleasure to be out in the sunshine with the class getting our hands dirty! Thank you to Nico and Mikaela for providing our students with this opportunity, as well as all the parent helpers who come along to support the program.

Maths!

Students have begun their floor plans for our house designs in Maths, using their knowledge of area and perimeter to calculate costs for flooring in each room. We continued with 2 minutes of power; it has been rewarding for students to see improvement in recalling addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. Moving into next week, our focus will shift to strengthening division skills and applying this to our house designs.

Literacy!

Students are working hard on their narrative planning and will soon start putting all the pieces of the plan together. We’re looking forward to reading all the amazing ideas students have been working on. During our War Horse study, we have explored new vocabulary while following the journey of Joey as he experiences life as a horse in WW1.  

RRRR

Each week, the 5/6 classes participate in a Resilience, Rights, and Respectful Relationships lesson. We have been looking at Personal Strengths and strategies for positive coping so far this term. Next week, students will begin to explore the topic - Positive gender relations. As we delve into this topic, activities will assist students to:

• Identify different manifestations of gender-based violence, including physical, verbal, psychological and sexual, and the ways in which these types

of violence can play out in face-to-face and digital environments

• Explore the relationship between negative gender norms and acceptance of gender-based violence

• Identify and practice behaviours that demonstrate respect and recognition of the rights of others within interpersonal relationships

• Demonstrate use of protective and assertive behaviours that can be used to maintain safety or dignity in situations involving gender based violence

• Demonstrate proactive peer support and help seeking strategies that can be used in response to instances of gender-based violence.

We look forward to returning to semi-regular programming next week, with only a few events in the week. School Captains will be visiting the Council Chambers on Wednesday with Hannah and selected students will be participating in Division Cross Country on Friday!

Have a great weekend and see you all in Week 5.

Hannah, Mr. Higgins, Liz, Jay, Sam and Giovanna

District Cross Country Gallery

A highly successful day for our students with huge thanks to the staff and parents who attended, especially those who did course marshalling and finish line duties.

Division Cross Country - Friday 17th May

Select students have been given a permission note this week to participate in this event which is once again at Wesley Hill. Students from our Castlemaine District participate alongside students from Maryborough District and Macedon District. Students compete in their age groups, which are calculated at the end of this year. Students will travel by bus with a teacher. Cost is $10 to cover the $5 entry fee and $5 for the bus. Parents and carers are needed to assist, please indicate on your child’s permission form – some tasks include course marshals, finishing line and recording.

An approximate schedule:

10:00 Introduction/Course outline/Expectations/Marshals

10:30 12/13 Boys/Mixed

11:00 12/13 Girls

11:30 11 Boys/Mixed

12:00 11 Girls

12:30 10 Boys/Mixed

12:45 10 Girls

The top 12 from this event progress to Region in St Arnaud on Tuesday 28th May.

On Wednesday we held our annual Indonesian day, The Pasar Sekolah Utara (The North School Market). Students participated in a range of fun activities including dance and music workshops from ‘Baguskan’, Canang Sari craft, cooking and traditional games to name a few. We had a special visit from our resident lion-dragon, Barong, followed by a parade and dance performance from some grade 3/4’s. The junior students were also treated to a special ‘Wayang Kulit’ shadow puppet show in the afternoon. Students also tried Indonesian foods, Nasi goreng & Klepon and you’ll find the recipe below for anyone who would like to try making this at home. Thank you to all the parents, teachers and grade 5/6 students who were involved in the running of our successful day, as well as our resident teachers & performers, Aaron & Nita. This day is not only a fun cultural immersion for the students, but it is also a fundraiser for our World Vision sponsorship of a community in an undeveloped area of East Sumba in Indonesia. Your contributions are helping children and their families live better lives. The money we raise also helps us support two orangutans, ‘Poppy’ and ‘Mary’ through ‘The Orangutan Project’. Thanks so much again to everyone who was involved!!

Recipes:

Nasi Goreng – Fried rice

Ingredients

2 spring onions/shallots
1 garlic clove
Carrots – handful
Cabbage – handful
Fresh ginger - 2 teaspoons(approx)
1/2 tablespoon kecap manis
Tamari/soy sauce to flavour
200g pre-cooked (overnight Basmati or Jasmine works best)
1 egg
2 tablespoons oil
Chilli(optional)

Extras – cucumber, tomato, kerupuk(many variations found in Asian food stores)

Method

Cook rice the day before & cool immediately. Leftover rice is perfect for this!

Break the cold rice using the back of a spoon so they don't clump together.

Heat up a wok and add oil, shallots, garlic, carrot, cabbage & chilli.

Stir-fry until aromatic – 3-4 minutes.

Add the rice into the wok and stir well.

Add kecap manis and tamari into the rice and continue to stir-fry and make sure that they are well blended with the rice.

Beat egg and fry, omelette style. Or just fry.

Serve with cucumber & tomato slices + kerupuk (prawn crackers)

Recipe Notes

* In Indonesia, Nasi Goreng is often served with various sides such fried prawn crackers, fresh vegetables such as sliced cucumber, and sliced tomatoes and kerupuk crackers. It's also great topped with egg or tempeh.

* The above proportions are estimates – just think fried rice!

Klepon - Sweet rice balls

Ingredients

1½ cups glutinous rice powder
¾ cup lukewarm water (optionally coconut milk)
2-3 drops Pandan essence
8 tsp. grated coconut sugar/Java dark brown sugar/gula Jawa/palm sugar
1 cup fresh-grated coconut, mixed with ½ tsp. salt

Method

Mix the glutinous rice powder with the lukewarm water and pandan essence into a firm but flexible dough.

Pull off one full teaspoon of the dough and shape it into a ball with approximately 2½ cm (1 inch) in diameter.

Push a finger into the centre of the ball to make a hole, and put in approximately ½ tsp. of the grated sugar. Seal, and roll it back into the ball shape with the palms of your hands.

Prepare all the balls and set them aside.

Prepare a pot half filled with water and bring it to a boil.

Drop the balls into the boiling water. Remove the balls with a spoon once they float to the water surface and then roll the balls in the grated coconut.

Serve at room temperature.

GAMELAN

Over the past four weeks students from Grades 3-6 have been learning the gamelan. We are very fortunate to have such a wonderful resource, one that originates from Java, at our school and it has been a great opportunity for our students to follow on from their learning with workshop opportunities at the Pasar this week. Here are some of our students at work. Enjoy!

😊 Ibu Kimberley

Prep E

Miles Sherry - for your enthusiasm when practising your reading every day.

Digby Furze - for the impressive way you are ysing spaces, and sounding out words to write sentences.

Prep N

Alice Dalley - for having the confidence to 'have-a-go- at writing independently.

William Edwards - for the persistence and enthusiasm you show when reading.

Gillian Crawshaw - for being a wonderful role model in our classroom with your kind and positive attitude.

1/2S

Minka Drofenik - for your enthusiasm when finding ways to make 10 in Maths.

Mahlee Chaplin - for your confidence and accurate measurement in Maths.

Sierra Egan - for the kind and respectful leadership you showed during our Indonesian workshops.

1/2SB

Flynn Lacy - for the care and thought you are putting into your writing at the moment.

Kuli McHaffie - for always checking in with your classmates and caring for them when they're in need.

1/2W

Louis Ryan - for your thoughtfulness and courage including your spelling codes in your writing.

Archie Wilson - for your thoughtful and beautiful choice of adjectives during our literacy response.

3/4CN

Emmett Livingstone - for the leadership and dedication you showed during our 'Play Is The Way' games.

Jack Bishop - for the enthusiasm you put into your Cold Write.

3/4H

Dylan Lindley - for putting in effort and trying your hardest in Maths.

Flynn McNab - for sharing your uplevelled sentence in writing.

3/4L

Milly Pratt - for your contributions to our Maths discussions.

Ren Duckworth - for taking the time to clarify Maths concepts.

3/4PS

Elijah Adeoba - for the passionate way you worked during the information report writing sessions.

Nina Fitzgerald - for the courage you demonstrate when implementing new writing techniques.

Emilia Everett - for kindly going out of your way to comfort others.

5/6HG

Maya Forbes - for seeking to extend your learning both at school and at home.

Orlando Favero-Williamson - for volunteering to water the class plants.

5/6J

Otto Cormack & Henry Casley - for taking your Pasar job seriously and running a fantastic event.

Whole Class - for the honesty and courage you showed in our class meeting. Now it's time to put it right!

5/6R

Amaya Millard - for all the hard work and effort you've put into maths this term. You've achieved some big goals!

5/6SL

Lani Millard - for the incredible focus you showed in every task on Thursday. Well done!

Greta Watson-Bonnice - for the way you applied yourself when solving division problems. Amazing work, Greta!

Grace Frederiksen - for the way you have tackled challenging maths tasks. You're doing an amazing job!

Indonesian

Clancy Kelly - for the focussed way you worked on your story 'Di mana domba hijau'. Bagus!

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