Week 1, Term 2

Miss Cox is a funny, kind-hearted woman who has worked at Castlemaine North for 48 years. Her favourite colour is blue and she enjoys eating roast chicken for dinner. Miss Cox insists that she never did anything naughty when she was a student at school. Miss Cox’s celebrity crush is the host of Tipping Point Australia, Todd Woodbridge. She has no pets but she has an older brother and a younger sister. It is an absolute blessing having Miss Cox at our school so I have written this article to show her and everyone how much we appreciate her. Thank you for reading this and Miss Cox, if you’re reading this, we would like to say thank you.

Welcome to Term 2 from the Preps! We hope you enjoyed the Easter break with your family. 

This week, we shared three things we enjoyed doing on our holidays. We drew ‘snapshots’ to display in our classrooms. In Literacy, we met one more of Milo’s friends, Roxy Rabbit, and learnt the sound ‘r’. We continue practising our handwriting every day and we are becoming confident at correctly forming the letters and saying the sounds to read and write words. We started our new Big Question ‘What makes us happy and healthy?’ by looking at the human body. We read several books to learn information about important body parts and included these on our student outline poster. In Maths, we focused on different ways to make 5 such as 4 and 1. We played some different partner maths games to practise. To finish our short week, we learnt about ANZAC Day and why we commemorate this special day. We read a book called ‘ANZAC Ted’ and then drew our own ANZAC Ted pictures to bring home. 

Next week in Literacy, we will meet two more of Milo’s friends. We will continue focusing on different ways to make numbers up to 10 in Maths. For our BQT we will look at how our bodies are growing and changing. 

On Friday, next week, we have our Prep/1/2 Tabloid Sports Day. If you haven’t already, please return the permission note and $5 on Monday 28th April.

Thank you to those who have already returned the Learning Journals. Can you please return these as soon as possible so that we can begin adding work samples from this term?

Lauren and Nicole

What a lovely first week back we’ve had in the Golden Wattle building. It has been wonderful to reconnect with everyone after the holiday break and we hope everyone enjoyed some family time together.

This week, we have jumped straight into our new Big Question, ‘What makes us happy and healthy?’. We started the ‘Tuning In’ phase of our inquiry by brainstorming all the different things that can bring us happiness and health. Next week we are looking forward to going on a walk around Castlemaine to see what is available in our community that can promote happiness and healthy lifestyles.

In Literacy, we have been working on expanding simple sentences to include ‘Where’ and ‘When’ details. We have also been revising what makes a sentence and have ensured that every sentence we write is a complete idea, starts with a capital letter and ends with a punctuation mark.

In Maths, we have been developing our knowledge of place value by working with 3-digit numbers in different ways. This included matching numerals with their words, identifying missing numbers on charts, working with number lines up to 1000 and regrouping hundreds, tens and ones.

In Wellbeing, we’ve been exploring personal strengths through the Respectful Relationships curriculum. We discussed and acted out different personal strengths and what these might look like before identifying what we think are our own personal strengths. We discussed how these strengths make the classroom, playground and home a happier place.

Next week, we’ll start the ‘Finding Out’ stage of our inquiry into ‘What makes us happy and healthy?’. As well as our community walk, we’ll be finding out about healthy eating and looking into how indigenous Australians use bush medicine. Students went home with some Big Talk homework in preparation for our Big Write next week so it would be wonderful if you could make some time to have a chat with your child to help them generate some ideas. We also have Tabloid Sports on Friday so please make sure permission forms are returned as soon as possible. Lastly, just a reminder to return learning journals as soon as possible so we can continue to add in work samples.

We hope you have a great long weekend,

Wendy, Laura, Claire, Sarah and Andrew

This week has been a short and sweet beginning to our second term. We have launched into our new Big Question: How can we be healthy and happy? Our created a class ‘tanglegram’ in order to build stronger classroom connections for a happier and healthier classroom. To do this, we responded to questions such as “what was the first toy you remember loving?”, “What food do you like when you are sick?”, “What is a new skill that you remember learning?”. There was a lot of nice conversation to be had!

Maths sessions have seen us investigating the measurement skills of volume and capacity. We have been practising the skill of multiplying and dividing by the powers of 10, which has helped us convert between units of measurement, eg. millimetres to centimetres.  

In Literacy, we have been learning about concepts about health and happiness. We also learnt about what life was like for the ANZACs at Gallipoli. As a response to this, we also posed a question: "Were young people happier today or back in 1914?" It seems most kids are pretty happy they are born in this time!

District Tabloid Sports Gr P-2 

On Friday 2nd May, all of our students in Grades Prep-2 will participate in the District Tabloid Sports from 10am-12:30pm. There will be a variety of activities and minor games that students play in mixed-school and mixed-age groups. These games are led by Gr 5/6 students from various schools. We require the assistance of parents/carers to supervise a small group of our students and support the Gr 5/6 game leaders as necessary. We will hang on to the permission notes for this event until early Term 2, when we will send them home with your child.

District Cross Country Gr 3-6 

On Friday 9th May, all of our students in Grades 3-6 will participate in the District Cross Country at Wesley Hill, along with students from other primary schools in the Castlemaine District. This event is usually run in two sessions. The 3km events for students who turn 11, 12 or 13 in 2025 are in the morning at 10am-12pm, while the 2km events for students who turn 8, 9 or 10 in 2025 are in the afternoon at 12-2pm. We will require the assistance of parents/carers to help supervise our students and act as marshals. Students who place in the top 20 in this event, in the 10, 11 and 12/13 year old age-groups only, will receive an invitation to the Division Cross Country the following Friday 16th May, also at Wesley Hill.

Prep E

Rassie M - for trying your hardest and not giving up when you find new things challenging.
Cole H - for the impressive way you are sounding out words and zipping them together when reading.

Prep N

Thomas S - for arriving each day with a positive attitude and for always trying your best.
Harvey K - for the care and effort you put into your ANZAC Ted activity.

1/2 L

Isaac S - for the great focus you always demonstrate during spelling groups.
Lilah G - for going above and beyond by writing four sentences with interesting 'where' details.

1/2 CS

Ella M - for the enthusiastic way you approach every task - your positivity is infectious!
Alice O - for the brave way you asked for help with a challenging maths task.

1/2 WA

Hazel S - for your beautiful and creative sentences in our literacy lessons.
Matteo T - for the thought and care you put into our big question.

3/4 PS

Arlo S - for the courage you showed contributing to our maths discussion.
Harper J - for the thoughtful way you consider others in the class.

3/4 L

Frances W - for your mature insight and personal reflections.
Thea R - for being an upstander and a positive role model for others.

3/4 S

Sierra E + Rider M - for your burning enthusiasm when asking questions relating to multiplication.

3/4 H

Frankie C - for staying back and charging the computers so we can use them.
Milly P - for always putting in the effort to present your work beautifully.

5/6 H

Luke C - for consistently making strong choices in the classroom.
Emmett L - for stepping up to take the lead.

5/6 J

Joni B - for supporting younger students to play fairly in the playground.
Keir E - for working hard to include a compound sentence in your writing.

5/6 BC

Aveline C - for your curiosity and determination during volume and capacity lessons.

5/6 BN

Pavin K - for the depth of knowledge you showed in your diagram of the energy flow in an ocean.
Dougie W - for your outstanding effort designing your art deco Dream House.

Indonesian

August B - for your quick responses and positive contributions during our 'Reading hog' sessions. Bagus!

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