Week 1, Term 3

NICOLE SEMMENS - an article by Bailey B

Nicole Semmens is a happy and thoughtful teacher who teaches Prep N. She grew up in Walmer, near Castlemaine. She enjoys playing netball and teaching. Her favourite food is Asian Cuisine, she likes the colour aqua and barracks for the footy team, the Essendon Bombers. If she could have any other job, she would be a Physiotherapist, and if she won the $20M dollar lottery, the first thing she would buy would be a house in Queensland. Her favourite place to go is Vietnam. She has an older sister, a younger brother and a pet Labrador named Buddy.

Welcome back to Term 3, we hope you all enjoyed a lovely break with your families.

We returned to school to find fresh new carpet in our classrooms, which is a wonderful improvement to our learning spaces.

But the real excitement was the arrival of Dion Brownfield (Bettie’s dad) and local Indigenous rapper Dallas Woods!  Along with Nellie, Christy and Mike (the film crew), they spent the week working with our students to write lyrics, record vocals, dance and create a music video for our very own song, "Chasing Dreams". 

This epic, week-long project gave our students a chance to step up and showcase their incredible talents. We are so proud of the bravery and enthusiasm each student displayed, overcoming initial fears and giving their best with lights, cameras, a recording studio and a film crew surrounding them. We were also lucky to have the talents of parent Steph Carson, our Performing Arts teacher Nicci and choir members Pippa, Sadie, Beatrix and Rider assisting with the recording of the chorus. Thank you to them for their help and positive energy they brought to the project. 

A true highlight and the perfect finale of our week was premiering the final video clip to our families, friends, Grade 6 buddies and special guests at a red-carpet event. We’re sure you’ll agree it was impressive! 

A massive thank you to Dion, Dallas, Nellie, Christy and Mike for making this such a memorable experience for our students. Their energy and passion each day were truly inspiring, and their kindness and patience made every student feel valued and confident to give things a go. We feel so fortunate to have had such talented and generous people share their time and expertise with us, leaving our students with lifelong memories.

A reminder for next Wednesday is our 100th day of School celebration. Students are asked to bring their projects to school on that day to share with the class.

Enjoy your weekend.

The weather may have been miserable this week, but that didn’t stop the fun and excitement of being back at school! We enjoyed reconnecting with friends and recounting what we’d been up to over the school holidays. There were trips to the beach, movies, bike rides, ice creams and even a new baby sibling!  

This term, we are reviewing an earlier Big Question, "How are we connected to other living things?", this time with a focus on animals. We learned about how animals have adaptations to help them survive in their habitat. We looked at the particular features of emus and quokkas and even designed a habitat for quokkas as part of our STEAM Challenge.

Our Literacy focus this week has been on including adverbs (words that describe a verb or action) in our writing. One activity included writing ‘Who Am I?’ clues describing how different animals move, eat, climb and even talk! Can you guess what the following animals are:

Who am I? I love to eat sweet honey quietly and I fly. (A bee). Albertine.

Who am I? I soar high and I eat mice. (An eagle). Elliot

Who am I? I swim slowly in the water. (A whale). Theo

Who am I? I slither quickly. (A snake). Asha

In Maths, we have been learning about shapes. We that learned a 2D shape with straight sides is called a polygon and shapes with four sides are called quadrilaterals. We went on shape hunts to find different 2D shapes in our classroom and around the school, made our own shapes using icy pole sticks and identified the different features of shapes, including how many sides and vertices (corners) they have.

In Wellbeing this week, we looked at stress management as part of the Respectful Relationships curriculum. We practised different relaxation techniques that can either cheer us up or calm us down. One of these was ‘Melting Moments’ where we scrunch our entire bodies up into a tight hard ball (like a block of ice), then slowly relax each part of our body like we are melting.

Next week, in BQT, we will start comparing different animals and the adaptations that help them survive in their environment. We will continue to explore adverbs in Literacy, and start to move from 2D shapes to 3D shapes in Maths. Our Wellbeing focus will be on help seeking strategies.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend,
Wendy, Laura, Claire, Sarah and Andrew

Hello and welcome back from the Grade 3/4 community. We hope everyone had a restful holiday and has returned refreshed and ready for the exciting learning ahead. For the beginning of this term, we welcome Giovanna, who will be teaching 3/4L while Louise takes long service leave.  

In Grade 3/4, we’ve kicked off the term with some fascinating new topics. 

We have begun this term by launching into our new Big Question "What lessons can we learn from stories?"  by beginning a novel study of ‘Yirra and her deadly dog, Demon’ written by Anita Heiss. This is a funny, heart-warming story of one girl and her wild dog which gives us an insight of urban Indigenous life in Sydney. Throughout our writing lessons, we have been revising the four different sentence types (statement, command, exclamation, question) and have been practicing expanding our sentences by adding extra details such as ‘who’, ‘when’, and ‘where’. Students also completed a Big Write based on a picture prompt of La Perouse, the setting of Yirra and Her Deadly Dog, Demon.

We began this week in Maths by using our multiplicative thinking skills to find the most efficient way to count the total number of dots on a collection of dice. There was lots of discussion when students were asked to create their own dice picture for a classmate to calculate. You might like to have a go at finding the total number of dots in some of our photos!  As well as counting dots, we’ve been revising using bar models to help us solve multiplication word problems and created our own multiplication number sentences from worded problems.

As part of our Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships wellbeing program, students have begun focusing on help-seeking where they described strategies they can use to support friends and seek help.  Students worked in small groups to discuss help-seeking scenarios and were asked to think about possible helping or help-seeking actions they could take in a range of situations to seek help when they are worried about a situation or feel unsafe.  

There are lots of exciting things happening this term including Neurodiversity Celebration Day, Book Week, Winter Warm Up, Grow Your Mind Incursion, Wear it Purple Day, District Sports (Basketball/Cricket/Tennis) and a Whole School Performance at the end of the term. More details regarding these activities will become available closer to the date. 

Looking ahead to next week, we will be writing a factual recount about the history of the Aboriginal flag in Literacy, multiplying two-digit numbers in Maths and describe why it is important to seek help from an adult for serious problems as part of our wellbeing lessons. 

Thank you to those families who have returned their child's learning journals. Could these please be returned as soon as possible?

Have a wonderful weekend! 

Mr Scott, Hannah, Giovanna and Sally

Welcome back to Term 3!

It's hard to believe we're already past the halfway mark of the school year – and there’s still so much to learn and experience. Please note that P4P has been postponed and will now begin on Wednesday of Week 2. If you haven’t already, please return permission forms and make payment as soon as possible. We’re excited to welcome back Hannah Ryan from maternity leave! Hannah will be teaching in 5/6BCH on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and Ben will be in the classroom on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

This term, we’re diving into the novel Us Mob Walawurru, a historical fiction story told through the eyes of Ruby, a young Luritja girl growing up in 1960s Central Australia. The novel explores themes like cultural identity, education, language, connection to Country, family obligations and ownership. Students are engaging in discussions and sentence expansion as we unpack the cultural perspectives and historical context that shape Ruby’s world.

Welcome to the Performance Term!  

It is a tradition at CNPS that we have a whole school performance every second year. Our last whole school performance was ‘Under the Manna Gum’ in 2023. At the end of last term, the Grade 5/6 students showcased the new performance and the whole school voted on a name. The name that was chosen was A Journey Through the Realms, which is fitting as the story is about a group of scientists that travel to the elemental realms of Earth, Water, Air and Fire.  

This year’s performance date is set for Thursday the 11th of September and will be at The Castlemaine Town Hall. To avoid missing out, we will be performing the show twice, a matinee during school hours and then an evening performance (time to TBC). Each grade will be working on a song for the show during their Performing Arts time this term.  

As with all great productions, putting on a performance takes a village – and we would greatly appreciate any help you can offer in the lead-up to the big event. I will need some assistance with things such as costumes, sets/prop construction, photography, videography, possibly transporting things to the Town Hall, creative help on the day and probably other things as well s the term goes along! I’ll send out a survey for parents to fill out how they can assist early next week. Please look out for this! 

Nicci

Preps

All students: for your amazing work when making the music video for "Chasing Dreams"!

1/2 CS

Edith K - for showing a growth mindset and challenging yourself when making shapes with parallel lines.
Austin T - for persevering when designing your quokka habitat. 

1/2 L

Ben E - for the enthusiasm you showed when reading The World's Most Ridiculous Animals.
Nina P - for writing a great 'Who Am I?' clue, using adverbs to describe how your animal behaves.

1/2 WA

Nathan M - for the thoughtfulness and care you took with your shape maths.
Winnie B - for your bravery and happy smile starting your new class.

3/4 H

Finn T - for returning to school and settling back in quickly.
Alban R - for reminding your classmates to be kind and respectful at all times.

3/4 L

James C - for your mindful attention to other people's feelings & looking out for your friends.
William C - for the brave way you started the week and continued to move forward.

3/4 PS

Ru W - for the wonderful way you've engaged in our activities.
Henry S - for the thoughtful way you supported a new teacher with a spelling lesson.

3/4 S

Dylan L - for your enthusiastic and effortless transition back to school after being away.
Azia D - for always using the most efficient strategy when solving problems in Maths.

5/6 BH

Luca S - for the thoughtful and detailed way that you engaged with your character analysis.
Ada T - for your determination and readiness to learn during Maths lessons.

5/6 BN

Lani M - for showing leadership, skills and excellent sportspersonship in the Grade 6 vs Teachers netball.
Brax G - for always looking at the practical thing that need doing in the class.

5/6 H

Jasmine R - for completing your work and offering to help others.
Otto C - for seeking to clarify your understanding of using brackets to solve equations.

5/6 J

Adelaide T - for the brave way you read our class novel to the class.
Ria B - for your rich contributions to our self-coping strategies discussion.

Indonesian

Nancy S - for your ongoing positive contributions to our class and for working so well with numbers in the hundreds.

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