Next week in Room 13 we will be constructing photo frames from recycled stationery. We are seeking old pencils, crayons and textas which can be glued to the surface of the frames. Could you please have a look at home, or ask family and friends for their old and unwanted things? It is that time of the year when pencil cases are being emptied into bins so please send these items our way instead!

As you would be aware, this term the children have attended a weekly Humphreys Dance lesson. They have been taught a range of individual and partner dances. The children have worked hard to master the moves and to develop rhythm and musicality. I have been so impressed with their enthusiasm and skills. A note was sent home yesterday to notify all parents that next Tuesday 29^th November, all parents and family members are invited to attend a viewing of this weekly dance session from 8.45am-9.30am.  It will be an informal presentation where parents are encouraged to join in on the dancing with the children. Please feel free to join us in the undercover area at this time! The Presentation Evening will be held on Tuesday of Week 10. The song that has been allocated to our group is “Latch” by Disclosure and Sam Smith. It would be really helpful for the children to be listening to and dancing along with this song at home in the lead up. There will be correspondence regarding costuming to follow shortly. 

This time last term, we went on an excursion to the Red Hill Waste Management Facility. Since then, we have been undertaking many sustainability based projects around the school including weekly battery collection and also the construction of our Recycled Robot. This robot has been made from recycled materials sourced from home and around the school. We are very proud of our final product!

Today we said goodbye to the wonderful Miss Zaffino who has been working with us throughout the term. Miss Zaffino is a Pre-service teacher from ECU who has been completing her practical placement at Wattle Grove Primary School. We have been lucky enough to have her teaching and supporting in Room 13 and we wish her all the best with her future teaching career.

We were very productive in Room 13 today! The students were responsible for separating, sorting and bagging the lolly donations to produce a number of lolly bags for the upcoming Family Fun Night next Friday. Whilst we are extremely grateful for your generous donations thus far, we are now seeking further donations. At this stage, we are concerned that we have not generated enough lolly bags for us to meet the demands and sustain the length of the Family Fun Night. We are looking specifically for larger sized lollies such as lollypops, WizzFizz, fun sized chocolate bars, Red Skins, Mentos packs, etc. We understand that it is a very busy and trying time of the year and continue to thank you for your generosity and support. All donations would be wonderful as soon as possible so that we can continue with the production of lolly bags.

Today Room 13 hosted a Multicultural Banquet. It was a wonderful celebration of culture and family. Our Room 1 buddies also attended our banquet and we thoroughly enjoyed the time together. It was fantastic to hear all of the Room 13 students speak about their cultural foods, and foods that are special to their families. The students enjoyed trying new foods from lots of different cultures, as well as speaking to their buddies about the food they were eating. Thanks to our wonderful Room 1 buddies for joining us for our multicultural banquet and a very special thank you to all of the parents who organised, cooked and supplied food for our banquet. All of the students had a fantastic time! 

On Monday Aryan and Noah presented at the Year 3 Super Scientist Assembly. They represented our class extremely well and I was very proud of the way they conducted themselves and for the confidence they demonstrated. The audience was engaged and highly entertained. It was a very impressive display of all things science and the competition was tough. In the end, Georgia from Room 18 was chosen as the overall winner and she will go on to present at the Whole School Assembly on Friday. We wish her well and thoroughly look forward to this event.

As you know, today the students also presented their Super Scientist Presentations. I must say, the standard of these presentations were outstanding! I have been so impressed by the way the students have prepared and delivered such engaging presentations. Thank you once again to all parents and families who have provided the children with support in the lead up. I know there is a lot happening as it is an extremely busy time of the year! It was very difficult to choose our 2 Room 13 Super Scientist Finalists, but in the end it came down to those students who demonstrated excellent presentation skills, were well rehearsed and provided something quite unique and innovative. Congratulations goes to Noah and Aryan, who will be presenting at the year level assembly on Monday afternoon, where 2 winners will be selected to present at the whole school Super Scientist assembly next Friday. Good luck boys!

I would also like to acknowledge our honour certificate winners – Jai, Kasimira and Sidd. You should all be proud of yourselves for your accomplishments this term. A special mention also goes to Dean and Raymond who were awarded the values and science awards respectively. You work so hard throughout the year and it is lovely to have the opportunity to reward you on a day like today.

I would like to congratulate all Room 13 and Room 23 students for an outstanding Senior Assembly performance today. You all spoke clearly and performed with such confidence. You also looked fantastic in your onomatopoeia costumes. Thank you to all students and families for the preparation and practise you have been conducting at home. I am sure you will all agree that it has certainly paid off! I think we were able to really teach the school a thing or two about the different types of figurative language! A wonderful effort by all involved.

This term we are focussing on Earth and Space Sciences. The children will be learning about the relationship between the sun, the moon and the Earth. As part of this unit, the students will be tracking the movement of shadows on their own sundials, graphing sunset and sunrise times, making their own barometers to measure air pressure and writing an information report about the sun, the moon and the Earth. They will be exposed to a range of different resources to support them in learning these scientific concepts. During class we have been watching a range of educational videos called “Crash Course Kids.” I have supplied the links below, and would encourage all students to watch these videos to reinforce the learning taking place at school. This is a great way to stimulate discussion between students and families at home. Happy viewing!

Here Comes the Sun

Earth's Rotation & Revolution

Following the Sun

Seasons & The Sun

Everything Revolves Around You

Weather Vs. Climate

Over to The Moon

Below are some examples of the Weather/Climate Collages the children have been preparing during this week. The students will be allocated time during class this afternoon to work on these. However, if the students are unprepared or require extra time, they will need to complete them over the weekend, as they are being marked and put on display on Monday. It is important that your child works on this independently and takes responsibility for their own organisation and work.

Hello everyone

Below is a copy of the note sent home during the week regarding the Term 4 Super Scientist Competition. There is now a sheet in the classroom where children must nominate the name of the experiment/topic of the presentation they will be presenting. This is to ensure that everybody is on track with the organisation of this and to make sure that there are not too many double ups. Every child must have entered this information by Monday 17th October Week 2. All Room 13 Term 4 Super Scientist Presentations are due to be performed Friday 28th of October Week 3. We will spend the day working through these following our Senior Assembly in the morning. All students are invited to bring their experiment equipment/posters/presentations and so on into the classroom to be stored in a safe place as early as Monday of Week 3.

11 October 2016

SUPER SCIENTIST COMPETITION TERM 4 2016

Dear Parents,

Our ‘Super Scientist’ competition is back again!    As in Term 2, all students from Years 1-6 are required to research, create and deliver a short presentation based on a scientific concept or principle. Teachers and students will assess each presentation and then determine an overall winner from each year level.  This student will then deliver their presentation at a special assembly in Week Four, and receive a special prize and certificate.

The students can choose a scientific concept from any of the science disciplines – Biology, Space and Earth, Chemistry or Physics.  The students can present their research in the form of an experimental demonstration, or a chart, or MS PowerPoint , or written report.  Each presentation can be a maximum length of 8 minutes. The students should aim to engage and ‘capture’ their audience but also (critically), demonstrate a clear understanding of the science.

Timeline:   

·         Weeks 1 and 2 : Students need to choose their concept, and then prepare and rehearse their presentation.

·         Week 3 : Students deliver their presentation to their class.  Class teachers select their top TWO ‘super scientists’

·         Week 4 : (Monday – Tuesday) Year Level classes get together to watch the top entrants from each class. Teachers confer and then select an overall ‘Year Level’ winner.

·         Week 4 : (Friday, 4 November, 9.00 to 10.00am) The six winning students (from Years 1 – 6) deliver their presentation to the school community. Certificates will be presented to all students who were class finalists, and a special prize will be presented to the overall ‘Year Level’ winners.

We are looking forward to seeing some wonderful presentations!

Carl Sanderson

Science Coordinator

Welcome to Term 4. This term we will be running homework and morning work a little bit differently. This is to streamline the whole process, reduce the stresses at home and prepare the children in readiness for Year 4. Our aim is to encourage a stronger emphasis on spelling to ensure improvement and consistency in test results. Please encourage your child to strive for improved results each week. Every child has been given an "Every day Spelling Book" which must be taken to and from school every day. This will be used for both homework and morning work. It is each child's responsibility to make sure this book is well looked after and taken home and back to school accordingly. There are a range of spelling tasks available in the PowerPoint attached to this Term 4 Spelling Tasks PowerPoint, which the children can access and use to make sure they are learning their weekly spelling words. Thank you for your support.

Thank you to all parents and family members who attended our Room 13 Learning Journey yesterday. It was a great success and so wonderful to see so many of you there. I am sure you were impressed with the efforts and achievements of your children this term. The children were encouraged to speak clearly, reflect on their learning, pause to ask you questions and give you a tour of the classroom in their own words. I hope you enjoyed this experience. We would also like to thank you for the written feedback, which is a very important part of our goal setting process for Term 4. 

Just a reminder that next Tuesday, the 20th of September, is Learning Journey afternoon. The classroom will be open from 2pm - 3.30pm for you to come in and see all of the outstanding work your child has produced over the term. I hope to see you all there to celebrate their achievements. If you are unable to make it, perhaps another family member can attend in your place. All students will remain at school, under my care until 2.30pm which is the normal dismissal time on a Tuesday. If you wish to take your child prior to that time you will need to sign out through the office as per standard school protocol.

 

During the Learning Journey, I won't be holding parent teacher discussions about any student's progress, as this session is dedicated primarily to celebrating all of your child's hard work with them. If you would like to discuss your child's progress we can arrange a meeting for a more suitable time as per normal.

 

When you come into the classroom, please allow your child to direct the discussions and lead you on a tour of the room. They have been preparing for this for some time, and a lot of thought has gone into the running of the Learning Journey. Please ask your child questions throughout, encouraging them to explain, elaborate and reflect upon what they have been working on and what they have learnt from each experience. There will also be a survey for you to complete at the end.

 

Looking forward to seeing you all on Tuesday afternoon!

On Friday we went on our excursion to the Red Hill Waste Management Facility, and it was thoroughly enjoyed by all! The children were beautifully behaved and well mannered – I feel that they certainly represented our school very well. The excursion included a guided bus tour of the facility, a range of hands-on, interactive rotational activities and a session working with earthworms, magnifying glasses and compost! The excursion was a wonderful success because the children were given the opportunity to engage in authentic experiences, rich with enquiry and learning. Upon returning to school, the children have begun working on a Waste Management Report which they look forward to sharing with you at the Learning Journey on Tuesday Week 10. 

Friday concluded our 4 week Olympics unit of work. During the term, we have designed and constructed Olympic Rings mobiles, graphed the medal count of different countries, coloured flags for 3 dimensional mapping, designed alternative Olympic medals and Australian uniforms, researched Olympic sports for our PowerPoint projects and much more. Many of these activities are on display in our classroom walls and windows for you to see.The children have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the Olympics. To finish things off, we wrote a procedure for and cooked a delicious Olympic Slice. It was a wonderful way to finish the topic and end the week! Perhaps this is something the children could teach you how to make at home!

We would like to congratulate Ella, Kane and Savannah for receiving Merit Certificates at today’s Senior Assembly. You represented Room 13 very well with big smiles on your faces!

You should be very proud of your achievements this term. Keep working hard to achieve your goals!

This term our focus has been on Biological Sciences, and the children from Room 13 and Room 18 have teamed up every Monday afternoon to work through the various scientific concepts. As part of this unit of work, we have been investigating the way different materials change state from solids, liquids and gases. This has involved making jelly, melting chocolate and most recently, designing and constructing "tissue box eskis" with the challenge of preventing an ice block from melting when left out in the sun. It was an afternoon of scientific thinking, innovation and creativity. Thank you to all families who donated empty tissue boxes for this activity. I would also like to extend a huge thanks to Anthony Vacca for generously donating the materials for construction. We are very lucky to have such supportive parents!