What an epic Book week celebration we had today! Thanks to EVERYONE for your dedication and the tradition of CBC Australia! Especially to our parents for their preparation, to our teachers for their enthusiasm and to our Ms Lou for her absolute love of literature! Our children had an awesome day. It’s just so great to be able to celebrate together!

As we close the chapter on another Book Week, let’s take a moment to appreciate the awesomeness that is our STM staff who went above beyond to get into the spirit of all things literature!

During term 3, the Preps have been learning all about Community Helpers for Inquiry.

This week the preps ventured off to West Street. On our travels we came across road signs, street names/signs, house numbers and even a postie! When we arrived at West Street, we saw many parts of the community including shops that provide goods and services, such as; hairdressers, grocery stores, nail salons and cafes. We were even greeted by friendly community helpers. We all walked safely, stopping at each curb, looking both ways, listening for cars and then walking safely across the road. The rain even held off for us, we were so blessed! We had so much fun on our first mini excursion.

WRITING

Inspired by the Book Week Text, ‘When the Waterhole Dries Up,’ in Grade 1 we have explored how to use alliteration to make our writing more interesting. Alliteration is when two or more words that start with the same sound are used repeatedly in a phrase or a sentence. The repeated sound creates the alliteration, e.g. angry alligators ate apples. We then each made an alliteration sentence using the first letter of our name.

INQUIRY

During Inquiry, we have been learning about the process of our food and how it gets from the farm to our plate. We have looked at all the steps that farmers do and the difference between organic and non organic foods.

This week we were lucky enough to have a special guest come in and teach us how to make bread. We used our knowledge of procedural texts and followed the instructions with the assistance of Vesna from 'Make Bread' and made our own dough and then enjoyed the delicious hot bread rolls we had made!

WRITING & RELIGION

In Writing and Religion we have been working on publishing our recipes that we have written with the help of our parents. We have learned how to use different features of Google Docs and include bullet points, headings and tables to list our ingredients, equipment and method. We will be selling our cookbooks for St Vinnies and all money raised will be donated. Stay tuned for more information regarding purchasing the cookbook and helping the Grade 2’s show solidarity and raise money for St Vinnies.

The Grade 3 learners have embarked on a project titled ‘Start Travelling More’ where they have taken on the role of an influencer or travel agent to encourage the community to start travelling more! Learners have each chosen a country to research, and were given topics they must cover, and extra topics to choose from. Vlogs, interviews, posters and brochures - we are giving learners the opportunity to decide how they present their research to convince future travellers to choose their country as their holiday destination.

In recent weeks, the Grade 4s have been learning about information texts. They have been practising the skills of note taking, researching, and paraphrasing information about Uluru. Students then presented their information in the form of a mindmap, including the features of thick colour coded branches to show their subtopics and thin colour coded branches to outline the information they have learnt about Uluru. These skills are now being used to research a country of choice and produce their own information report.

83% of the time it’s the positive memories of people, the positive actions are what fill my memories with people. It has to be really bad if I only remember negative things about others. It is important to be remembered in a positive way because you want to be remembered as a good person or if someone you used to know talks about you it should be about all of the good things you have done and how you were such an amazing person.

Ava B

To me, this precept means that if you're good you’ll receive good things in return, but it also means how you want to be remembered and how our actions impact how we are remembered. Do you want to be remembered positively or negatively? I would like to be remembered in a good way so I deliberately choose good actions. For example, my choice was to be my own man. Being your own man means when your friends do not make choices for you and instead you make them yourself by using your voice and blocking out the peer pressure. Peer pressure means when you are being forced to do something that your friends are telling you to do. That's why when given the choice to be kind, CHOOSE KIND! These two precepts are similar in this way. Peer pressure is also when you're feeling it and when you are a follower that’s why BE YOUR OWN MAN/WOMAN.

Michael

When given the choice between right or being kind, choose kind

Sometimes it's hard to tell the truth and accept the fact you might have to sacrifice being right for being kind. To achieve happiness and kindness, we must take into consideration that we must remain nice and friendly. Like this football game a boy missed a goal but his team backed him up and comforted him to get another one. Then he did just by telling what they wanted to hear and they will achieve what they want to do. Kindness is one of the foundations of life and being true to God is a key thing when doing this. You will want to make fun of someone and hate someone. But if you really think it's not kind and it turns out you don’t want it then don’t! “Think before you act” my mum told me it helps you in life even if you’re stressed out it can help you in any situation.You don't have to work towards being kind you just have to be yourself.

Xavier

A precept is a rule that is important to you. When given the choice between being right and being kind, CHOOSE KIND. Choosing kind means that you care about others' ideas and feelings more than what you think. When you choose to be right you only think of what you believe is correct. This precept means to me that kindness is above being right. CHOOSING Kind will invariably overshine being RIGHT!

Lucy

This precept means to choose KIND because then others around you will feel secure and safe at Saint Thomas More. When you are kind to others, you will make a change to those around you as you will be spreading happiness and making others feel loved. If you only choose to be right then you are proving to others that they are wrong. So it is important to make people feel happy around you rather than doing what you think is the right thing to do in different situations.

Petro

Term 3 has been extremely busy for the Grade 6’s. We recently celebrated Spirit Day with a visit from Bishop Terry and lots of fun and insightful activities that helped us reflect about our religious journey so far.

We are so proud to say we have nearly raised $1,500.00 for our Hope in a Suitcase fundraiser. We have been able to buy 3 different suitcases and fill them with clothes, toiletries, accessories and toys to help foster children in need. We are hoping to continue raising money through our Art Festival for this great cause.

Grade 6’s have been getting ready for Confirmation by completing their Saint projects and heading down to the church regularly to make sure the evening goes well. We are looking forward to seeing candidates on Thursday evening and wish them all the best.

Last week we celebrated Book Week which was a fantastic day! Grade 6's got into the spirit of dressing up for their last Book Week of their primary school journey and had the best time competing against the other classes during the quiz. We are SO excited to finish our literacy study on Holes and are eagerly awaiting 'Holes Day' where we are going to compare and contrast the movie alongside the book!

Parents, carers, children and friends are invited!!!

FINALLY, an Arts Festival where we can gather face to face and showcase the amazing talent of our students here at STM. Our 2022 Arts Festival is quickly approaching and everyone at St Thomas More is working hard to create art pieces for our special event. The students are busily creating 2 art pieces with their classroom teachers and they are also making pieces in Art class. The hall will be set up like an art gallery with all of the students’ artistic work on display. Drama and music classes, as well as band, choir and the STM Factor will be showcasing talent in the performing arts.

The Grand Opening will begin at 5:30pm on Thursday 13th October, 2022. Tickets will be sold via CDF pay.

Please mark this event in your calendar and stay tuned for more information coming soon.

We hope you enjoyed reading about the amazing learning that has been happening in our classrooms this term!

Kate Korber

Learning & Teaching Leader