Monday 25 May 2015

Cystic Fibrosis Week

This week the school is fundraising for Cystic Fibrosis.  There are stalls around the school selling items that are $5 or under.  You can also purchase raffle tickets for $1 or 3 for $2.  First prize is a dozen long stem roses.  Today I purchases a lovely rose hair tie - it matched my outfit perfectly!  Stalls are open before school for parents to make purchases.  Please support our fundraising efforts.


 

Uniform and Equipment

Uniform
It's great to see that all my class come to school in correct uniform.  However, the mornings have been cold and a number of students are turning up in the morning shivering as they do not have a jumper.  Please ensure your child brings a jumper to school, even if it is kept in their bag.  As the weather gets colder they will need it.

Equipment
A number of students are attempting to write with pencils smaller than their hands.  This does not make writing easy and it certainly isn't neat.  Please ensure your child has at least 2 decent sized pencils to be working with at school.   

Friday 22 May 2015

Important Dates



Here are some important dates for the rest of the term:

Week 7
3 June: Dental Screening
4 June: P&C Sausage Sizzle lunch

Week8
9 June: 1.45pm Parents Life Education Van opportunity
12 June: Life Education Van visit

Week 9
19 June: Senior Assembly

Week 10
25 June: Year 3 Excursion to the Zoo
26 June: Winter Carnival

Week 11
2 July: Reports to parents
3 July: Last day of school for Term 3

End of Week 5 Notes

Assembly Certificates
Well done to our latest certificate recipients Latiesha, Shweta and Shaun.



Class Party
We had a fabulous 'End of NAPLAN' class party today with so much food!!  Thank you to those parents who organised and sent in food for lunch - we were all so full!!



Lexile Pro
A number of students have told me they can't log in to Lexile at home, however I have had no trouble getting them logged in at school.  

So here is the process:
1. Go to 'Scholastic Learning Zone'.
2. Select Australia as the country
3. If it asks for an organisation code, type in "2w3k".
4. Ensure that above the login it says "Wattle Grove Primary School'.
5. If it doesn't have the right school then click on 'change org' and go back to step 3.
6. Student then types in their personal login name.
7. The password is 'wgps5459'.

If you are still having issues, check that the login name is being typed in correctly.  See me if problems continue.
 

Monday 18 May 2015

Sneaky Art Visit

I was doing some photocopying while Room 17 were in Art.  I could see they were working hard at what Miss Randall had set them to do, and it looked like they were having fun too.  She always comes up with fabulous ideas in there!  Today they were working with clay, throwing it on the table and kneading it to get the air bubbles out of it.  I took a sneaky wander into the room with my camera to get some pics.





 

Wet Weather Morning Fitness

After a very rainy weekend, Monday morning was also a wet one.  But nothing stops Morning Fitness in Room 17.  We have our own fabulous Wet Weather Morning Fitness - we turn on Youtube and play 'Elmo and I know it'.  Students then dance away to the music, do the Elmo dance and the Mr Noodle dance... it's rather exhausting!!


 

Saturday 16 May 2015

Week 5 notes

NAPLAN is over! So proud of the effort the students in Room 17 made. They all looked confident going into the tests and were relieved when it was over. Back to our usual routine now.

As the Winter months are approaching and the cold weather is on it's way, please keep your child home if they are sick to prevent spreading the germs.  Also, if they have a gastric upset, please do not return them to schoo,l until they have had 24 hours without vomiting or diarrhoea. 

Our Library day is Tuesday and we swap books on even weeks. Last week there were a number of students who did not return their books and they are now overdue. Because of this, they will be allowed to bring them back this week. Book swap can also be done Tuesday and Thursday lunchtimes.

I checked through all Reading Logs last week and was a little disappointed with the amount of reading taking place at home. Students should be reading every night and recording what they read and parents sign. There are home readers available in the classroom or students can record other books they read such as library books. 

Our class lunch will be Friday. Notes went home last week- please stick to the sweet or savoury requirement, to ensure we don't have an overload of sweet and therefore a sugar-rush afternoon. Please remember not to send anything with nuts and those students who don't bring a share plate need to provide their own lunch. 

Sunday 10 May 2015

Christian Religious Education

On Tuesday afternoons, we have been enjoying learning about God and the Bible.  Students are very eager to learn, listen to the stories and participate in the lesson.



Special Guest in Room 17

During the week we had a very very special guest!  Mrs Munro dropped by with baby Ruben to see how everyone was going.  All the students loved seeing her and the baby.   They both looked very happy and healthy.  Baby Ruben had a little snooze while he was in here too.



Saturday 9 May 2015

NAPLAN

NAPLAN starts next week!!  Students have been very busy practicing and I am expecting great things!!  Please ensure that your child is logging into Studyladder to complete the NAPLAN tasks set and do their homework this week.  I handed out homework today - it was 5 pages but there is not too much on each page. I will instruct students on what homework pages to complete each night, for example the maths homework can be done Wednesday, ready for Thursday's test.  All the homework is NAPLAN related and will assist them when they do the tests.  The test dates and times are as follows:

Tuesday, 9am              Language Conventions (Spelling & Grammar)
Tuesday 10.50am        Writing
Wednesday 9am          Reading
Thursday 9am              Numeracy

Library Monday!!

Due to NAPLAN this coming week, Room 17 will have Library on Monday. Please remember to bring your books to swap as it is an even week. Make sure you have completed the quiz for your Lexile book.

Sunday 3 May 2015

Welcome Back

Welcome back to school for Term 2!  I am very happy with the way students have started this term - getting straight down to work.  And what a big term it is going to be.  Already we have had the ANZAC assembly which was a lovely way to commemorate those who went to war and sacrificed so much for us.

NAPLAN and Studyladder
NAPLAN will be held in Week 4.  We have been practicing a lot in class to ensure we are ready.  We worked through the NAPLAN Numeracy test recently and had the help of Miss Plaistowe and Mr Jones (our two student teachers) to help work out how to solve the problems.  I have set NAPLAN tasks on Studyladder for student to complete at home.  These tasks are a good study tool for students.  Studyladder certificates are being awarded in class, so please ensure students are doing these activities as part of their homework.  We will occasionally do some during our computer time on Fridays.





Lexile Pro
Students sat their Lexile test for the term today in the computer lab.  It is great to see some improvement in their reading and comprehension.  Please encourage students to be reading their Lexile books, which they get out of the school library and complete the quizzes.  Students can have the book beside them when doing the quiz to refer to.  Quizzes are easy to pass if students have read the whole book and complete the quiz immediately after reading and have the book beside them.  I have been tracking student progress with the quizzes and I really would like to see more quizzes completed successfully!


 
Timetables
Room 17 have been enjoying the Timetable challenge and I am asked regularly to give them tests.  For Year 3, students need to know their 2, 3, 5 and 10 timetables.  A number of students have already achieved this and we have two students - Shaun and Gnanadeep - who know ALL their tables!!!  Nightly practice is needed to learn these.


Financial Literacy
If your child has come home telling you that Miss Calvert is giving out money, don't get too excited!!  I'm not that rich!!  But we have started out Financial Literacy program in Room 17.  Students were given a bankbook and envelope to keep their money in.  I give students a wage of $5.00 for coming to school every day and they can also earn rewards and fines.  We also have a 'shop' where students can use the money they have save to purchase items such as a free seat during silent reading.  Ask your child how much money they have earned so far!



 Assembly
Today was our first assembly of the term.  The new Student Reps in Year 6 were announced as well as Faction Captains.  The Principal's Challenge Top 5 and 100% students in every year level were also announce.  Well done to Shaun who was one of the Top 5 in Year 3!!