Dear Parents, Carers and Community Members,
It has been a delightful start to Term 4 with the sun shining and students enthusiastically returning to school.
Holiday Projects
While all students were on holidays, the school was still very busy and saw a lot of trades coming in to complete work in the school.
We have had such a beautiful start to Term 4. Our Foundation students have been learning all about seasons and weather: in particular, over the last two weeks – Winter, Spring and Summer. It has been so exciting to hear what students already know about different weather that we experience here in Ballarat. Last week we even made some snow! As we are in the season of spring right now, we have spent some time making a weather diary and drawing a picture of the weather each day!
We have made some beautiful spring flowers from coloured paper and have learned all about blossoms on trees. In Maths this week we have been learning about data, and students spent some time walking around the class, asking their peers what flavour of ice cream they liked best to collect some data. It has been a wonderful two weeks so far. – This term will fly by!
Onto Week 2 and the Grade 1/2's have been busy practising their songs for school concert. I am loving seeing the students sing with enthusiasm and embrace the 'dance breaks' in the music to add some fun to rehearsals.
As the term goes on we will learn new songs and add actions and movements to create a magical performance for you to enjoy! If you would like to practise at home, the songs are available on the website under the heading Community > School Concert.
The first two weeks of this term have been all about space. Thus far, we’ve looked at Earth and its place in the universe.
We have investigated planets in our solar system and know that there are the inner, rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) and the outer gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune). Additionally, there’s poor-old Pluto that seems to be constantly promoted and/or relegated from the honour of being a planet.
Additionally, we’ve looked more specifically at aspects of the space such as the length of a planetary year (Mercury = 88 Earth days and Neptune = 165 Earth years); this is the time is takes for a planet to orbit the Earth. Furthermore, we know that Earth does not orbit the Sun in a true circle, but rather in the shape of an ellipse (slightly-squashed circle).
Over the past fortnight, students have been exploring the fascinating world of Earth and Space. Soon, each student will choose a space object for their individual project, where they will dive deeper into a topic that sparks their curiosity. In Writing, we've been learning about figurative language, and students are applying this to their space-themed narratives, making their stories even more exciting and vivid. Our class text for the term is A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. Through reading, students have been developing their comprehension skills and gaining a deeper understanding of this thought-provoking novel.
In Maths, students have been practicing their multiplication skills through fun and engaging warm-up games. They've also been learning to calculate the area and perimeter of shapes, drawing shapes on a Cartesian plane, and converting fractions into decimals and percentages. It's been a busy time, but students have shown incredible resilience with a new teacher and have demonstrated great courage in sharing their ideas and positively challenging their peers. Keep up the amazing work!
Term 4 in Auslan has started with us reviewing all of the content we have learnt throughout the first 3 terms. It has been fantastic to see all of our students consolidating their Auslan knowledge.
We have also looked at Question words (who, what, where, when, why, where, how) as well as tie words including today, tomorrow and yesterday.
On October 11, Braxten proudly represented our school at the Greater Western Region Track and Field Championships, in Ballarat. During the competition, Braxten excelled in the Shot Put event, securing 1st place once again with an impressive performance.
Thanks to this outstanding achievement, Braxten will now advance to compete at the state championships in Melbourne, scheduled for November 6.
We are all excited to see Braxten showcase his talent at this major event!
Happy Birthday to the students who have celebrated their birthdays recently or will be celebrating in the days ahead.
