Week 3, Term 3

SRC News

Winter Warm-Up

This year’s Winter Warm-Up is on Friday 22 August. 

It’s a day where students can dress up in pyjamas, dressing gowns, slippers etc. and eat FREE soup & bread for lunch, kindly provided by parents/carers.

What is needed to make the day a success?
🥣 2 x pots of soup per class
🥣 Lend slow cookers
🥣 Help serve on the day

Look out for WhatsApp class notices to join the soup group if you are able to help with the above, or message Andrew 0407 747 775. 

In week five, the Grade 3–6 students will be participating in workshops with Alice from the ‘Grow your Mind’ organisation. Grow Your Mind have developed an evidence-based program to equip kids, educators and families with the knowledge about what mental health is and the key skills essential for supporting it. University of Wollongong have been evaluating their program for the last 4 years and are seeing positive outcomes.   

Alice from ‘Grow Your Mind’ is also offering a free parent session on Tuesday August 19th from 5:30 – 6:30pm at the Senior Citizen’s Centre in Castlemaine. Check out the details at Eventbrite.

Hello from the Prep rooms!

This week in Literacy, we have been exploring words with five sounds, focusing on CCVCC words such as drink and blend. The students are becoming more confident in listening carefully to each sound and identifying them in their reading and writing. We also met two more characters from the VCOP gang – Connie Connective and Penny Punctuation! Penny reminds us to always use punctuation in our writing, including capital letters, full stops, and exclamation marks. Connie helps us make our sentences more interesting by using joining words like because. During our writing sessions, we have introduced dotted thirds to help guide students with the size and formation of their letters. Students have been practising their ‘grass’ letters (letters that sit only in the green section of the lines) and are eagerly looking forward to exploring ‘sky’ and ‘dirt’ letters in the coming weeks.

Our Big Question, “How are we connected to living things?”, continues to be our focus for Inquiry learning. This week, we explored animal sounds, homes, and habitats. A highlight was becoming animal detectives and heading outside with magnifying glasses and paper to record what animals we could find living in our school environment.

In Maths, we have been learning about subtraction. We’ve practised drawing picture and using tens frames, to represent subtraction stories and to write subtraction equations to match.

In Wellbeing, we practised using self-calming and self-control strategies for when we feel angry. Ask your child if they can show you their favourite calming strategy they use when they’re feeling upset or frustrated. 

Next week in Literacy, we will be focusing on the new code ‘ck’ and learning the rule for when to use it. In Maths, we will continue working on subtraction concepts, including finding the difference between numbers and using number lines to solve problems. For BQT, students have been given a homework task to research an animal they are interested in learning more about.

In STEAM, they will use this research to help build the animal’s habitat. Families will be invited into the classroom to enjoy our mini expo and view the students’ wonderful creations. More information about this will be sent next week.

Next Thursday will be our Neurodiversity Celebration Day. Please remember to come dressed in a colour of the rainbow to help celebrate this day.

Hello from the Golden Wattle building! 

This week, we’ve continued our exploration of the Big Question, "How are we connected to other living things?" by looking at the symbiotic relationships of animals. We’ve learned that many animals rely on each other to survive in their habitats. We’ve looked at the relationships between the hermit crab, sea anemone and the bristleworm in Julia Donaldson’s book ‘Sharing a Shell’. The hermit crab shares its shell with the anemone and bristleworm, and in return the bristleworm keeps it nice and clean, while the anemone protects the hermit crab from predators with its stinging tentacles!

Our Literacy focus this week has been on the four different sentence types: statements, questions, commands and exclamations. For one task this week, we combined our Big Question by drawing a scene from ‘Sharing a Shell’ and wrote a different sentence type for each character. We also had a Big Write, where we created an information report on an animal of our imagination!

In Maths, we have started looking at sharing and division. We started by sharing quantities evenly into groups before looking at how we can arrange groups of objects into arrays of even rows and columns. One activity involved drawing arrays of cookies on trays and writing their matching number sentences.

In Wellbeing, we have continued our focus on ‘Help Seeking’ as part of the Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships curriculum. We looked at the size of different problems and how we can solve some problems by ourselves, whereas bigger problems we might need help to solve. We thought about the people in our lives who we can go to when we have a problem.  

Next week, we’ll use the knowledge we’ve gained throughout our inquiry to design our very own animal and its habitat. It’s also Science Week and we will be participating in a range of fun science experiences! We’ll continue expanding our understanding of multiplication and division in Maths and are looking forward to Neurodiversity Celebration Day on Thursday.

We hope you have a great weekend,

Wendy, Laura, Claire and Andrew

Hello from the 3/4 Team! 

It has been wonderful to welcome Louise back from long service leave this week and welcome Carly to the 3/4 team in her new role teaching 3/4H on Fridays.

In Maths, we have continued focusing on multiplying multi-digit numbers. We have enjoyed a fun maths game called The Product Game. In this game, we take turns multiplying two numbers and placing a counter on the total number. The challenge is to be the first person to get four numbers in a row on the grid. It's a great way to practice our factors, multiples and strategic thinking, all while having fun! Throughout the week, students continued to extend their multiplication skills by multiplying multi-digit numbers, with and without regrouping, using area models, vertical algorithms and the ‘rack and stack’ method.

In Literacy, our Grade 3/4 students have been engaged in exploring the history of the Aboriginal flag. Students developed their notetaking skills when watching an interview with the designer, Harold Thomas. They found out why there was a need for an Aboriginal flag, how it came to be created, what the different parts of the flag symbolise, the “#FreeTheFlag” movement and how the flag continues to be used and recognised today. Students also read about the Wave Hill Walk-Off and how this led to the protests around Land Rights for First Nations Australians that inspired the creation of the Australian Aboriginal Flag to unite behind. Building on this knowledge, the students practiced writing a factual recount using a topic sentence, supporting details and a concluding sentence. 

In our Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships lessons we have been discussing help seeking strategies as part of our wellbeing program. Students created help-seeking hands where they could identify people they can turn to for help if needed as well as identify people they are able to help.

Students have also got their creative juices flowing this week while they have designed their artworks for the Crazy Camel Fundraiser for this term.  We have been impressed with the pride, effort and care that they have put into their artwork.

Next week students will continue our novel study in BQT/Literacy, investigate division in Maths, practise ways to ask for help as part of our wellbeing lessons and celebrate CNPS Neurodiversity Day on Thursday. 

We hope you have a great weekend,

Louise, Mr Scott, Sally, Hannah and Carly

We hope this message finds everyone well, especially as winter bugs continue to make their way through our school and wider community! Thank you to families for keeping unwell children at home. Although illnesses have kept some students away, we’ve still packed plenty into our week!

This week, we welcomed Nicole Wagstaff to our classrooms to support our RRRR program. Nicole spoke with students about “help-seeking”—exploring which kinds of problems can be solved independently or with friends, and which ones require support from a trusted adult. Nicole will be working with our 5/6 classes fortnightly, helping students build important skills.

Who knew Smacka could become a maths lesson? Classes faced off in four rounds of this beloved outdoor game, collecting results after each round. Next week, students will use this real-life data to create and analyse graphs—a fun way to connect mathematics to everyday activities.

Our novel study has followed Ruby as she moves to Big Sky Station, facing new experiences and challenges. Each session, students explore and act out key vocabulary from the story—this week we embodied a “wry smile”, being “startled,” and what a “gnarly” moment looks like. It’s been wonderful to see everyone engaging so enthusiastically with the language and themes of the text.

Bron returned for the second week of our P4P sessions. This week, our senior students learnt new information and focused on respect within the group—reminding each other that while some topics might feel uncomfortable, it’s important to listen kindly and never laugh at others’ experiences. Puberty is something everyone goes through, and these sessions help us learn and support one another.

Wishing all our families a great weekend—bring on Week 4!

Hannah, Jay, Bec, Ben, Nicci, and Mr Higgins

Prep

Our Preps have been exploring the art of paper weaving this term. They carefully followed steps to fold and cut paper into looms, then practiced the rhythmic pattern of “under, over” to weave colourful stripes. To finish, we added a playful twist—crafting snakes weaving through the grass! 

Grade 1/2

Students began by learning about warm and cool colours, then created two versions of the same image: one with a warm-coloured background and cool-coloured shapes, and the other reversed. Once complete, they transformed one painting into a loom and wove the two artworks together. The final pieces are wonderfully abstract and full of contrast!

Grade 3/4

In Grades 3 and 4, students are working on circular looms. Starting with painting vibrant patterns onto paper plates, they then cut and prepare their looms before weaving from the centre outward. The results are bursting with colour and texture—creating interesting radial designs!

Grade 5/6

Senior students have been learning about the Hermannsburg Potters, an Aboriginal art collective located 130km from Alice Springs. Inspired by their terracotta coil pots, which feature painted stories of daily life, Dreamtime, bush tucker, and football, our students have created their own lidded pots. This week, we completed the sculpting stage, and next week we’ll begin painting personal stories onto each piece—adding a sculptural element to the lids just like the Hermannsburg artists.

Loddon Mallee Region Soccer – 19/8 

Our Grade 5/6 Girls’ Team were the Goldfields Division Soccer winners last term. We wish them well as the team prepares to head to Swan Hill on Tuesday 19th August to compete in the Loddon Mallee Region Soccer. Teams need to arrive at 10:15 for an event briefing before their first match at 11:00. The day will conclude at about 2pm. Rules and fixtures can be found on the School Sport Victoria event webpage.

Jay will be the teacher attending, but transport will not be provided by school. Families will need to organise transport for their children – carpooling is possible but needs to be arranged by you.

PARENT HELP WANTED!

We are chasing some volunteers for our Whole School Performance later this term. If you are able to assist with the production in any way, please let us know by filling in the form below.

Prep E

Tato G - for the impressive way you are reading fluently.
Susanna C - for the positive way you accept mistakes are a part of learning and being willing to have another go.

Prep N

Cassia W - for the effort and focus you are putting into hearing the sounds in words when writing.
Roan K - for showing great persistence and focus during our long jump activities in PMP.

1/2 CS

Theo A - for the courage you showed by continuing to try your best even when feeling unwell.
Alice O - for showing curiosity during BQT and bringing in a book to share with the class.

1/2 L

Hugo S - for demonstrating a thorough understanding of the 4 sentence types in your speech bubble task.
Mahlee C - for creating an absolutely stunning collage to show the symbiotic relationship between green sea turtles and yellow tang fish.

1/2 WA

William E - for the care you are taking with your handwriting.
Torrie L - for progressing beautifully with your reading.

3/4 PS

Lola H - for consistently demonstrating the ability to focus and give your best effort in all tasks.
Evie F - for consistently showing courage in embracing challenges and striving to elevate your work.

3/4 S

George C - for the kind and supportive way you taught a classmate a new maths game.
Rufus E - for the impressive way you took pride in your maths work.

5/6 BH

Beatrix V - for the bravery you showed when volunteering to read our class novel aloud.
Hugo A - for the way you supported a younger student by encouraging them to make strong choices during challenging times. 

5/6 H

Ivy R - for accepting the challenge of solving a maths problem on the fly.
Freida B - for your dedication to improving your skills.

Indonesian

Louis R - for your impressive wanted poster and for always putting in your best effort

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