5 June 2019

Newsletter Articles

Dates to Remember

Principal’s Messages

KINDER INTERVIEWS

We have been conducting interviews for the prospective Kindergarten children for 2020. It has been encouraging to hear the reasons why new families are choosing OLV for their child’s education. There seems to a great sense of satisfaction and success in these families reasons, which has come from positive comments heard from others. It is very pleasing to see the number of students rising as well, currently estimating a cohort of around 23-25 students next year.

REPORTS and INTERVIEWS

We are coming close to the end of term and your children’s reports will soon be available. The reports will be available online using the COMPASS App. The COMPASS App will also be used to schedule times for your interviews with teachers. Question - Are you familiar with the COMPASS App or would you like a refresher course? If so, there is a refresher course on Monday afternoon 17 June at 2pm – just before school pick up.

WOOLWORTHS EARN & LEARN

We are excited to be taking part in the 2019 Woolworths Earn & Learn program again. Thanks to your support last year, we were able to purchase some very valuable play resources and musical instruments with the points we earned. From now until June 25th 2019, the stickers are available to collect at Woolworths that go towards the Earn & Learn points. For every $10 you spend at Woolworths (excluding the purchase of tobacco, liquor and gift cards), you will receive a sticker. These stickers can then be given to your children to collect on a special sticker sheet. Just bring them into school or pop them into the OLV School Box at Jesmond Woolworths. Don’t forget to collect them from your friends and relatives if they are not supporting other schools.

The more points we earn, the more we can redeem from a choice of over 10,000 educational resources including Mathematics and English resources, art & crafts materials and much, much more! We are grateful for your support and look forward to a successful program. If you have any questions, please ask at School.

SOO1

Pikachu has prevailed in game 1, better luck next time Winnie.

OOSH is HERE

St Nicholas OOSH put a lot of work into providing a compliant service for OUR school and approval has been given to conduct a service on site at OLV. We have already had interested parents and the service has begun. It is important that we support the service so that it stays as a viable service for our community.

One issue that may arise is the need for Casual Care on occasions. If you think that you might need this, it will be necessary to be enrolled in the service prior to making a booking. Remember that you need to contact St Nicholas OOSH to book your child in, as we can’t do it through the school.

Their contact details are,
Christine 0432 162 470 or tracey.sweetman@stnicholasoosh.org.au

If you intend to use the OOSH either before or after school, you might like to download the application forms, fill them out and send them into school for processing.

Check out this link for more info on St Nicholas OOSH.

Vacation Care

Please find attached St Nicholas OOSH Vacation Care Program. Don’t forget to book your children in for the up coming July School Holidays. Please see program attached.

RE News

Sleep Out

We are looking forward to the Vinnies Sleep Out tonight. Remember to arrive at school after 7pm and bring plenty of warm things to put on.

We have 33 students and 3 teachers sleeping out. You will be able to enter the school via the top gate near the Year 2 classroom. All students will need to be in their pyjamas and already have had their dinner. Please make sure you wear warm extra clothes to bed because the hall has no heating at all. The children will need to bring their own sleeping equipment. If you would like to support these children please sponsor them.

Friday Sausage Sizzle

Don’t forget we will be having a sausage sizzle on Friday all proceeds will be donated to St Vincent de Paul.

Family Mass

Please join us Friday 21st June to celebrate mass together. Kindergarten will be leading our mass. The theme is "Family" so it would be wonderful if we could get a member of each family to join us.

From The Office

Office Hours

The NEW office hours are:

The office is unattended between the hours of 11.30am to 12.00pm.

School Fees

Our Term 2 school fees for 2019 have been sent home. All school fees are due by the end of May 2019. It would be appreciated if all accounts are paid promptly.

If you would like to manage your account with regular payments, please contact Leanne in the office, who can help you with a payment plan. Those who are in legitimate financial hardships can make application for consideration by making an appointment to see the Principal.

Entertainment Books

Thank you to everyone who has purchased an Entertainment Membership.

All Entertainment Books are due to be returned as soon as possible. Could you please return your book or make your online payment. Proceeds of the sale of the entertainment book are helping OLV.

P & F News

BUNNINGS BBQ

Thanks to all those that were able to help out last weekend. We had a great day and we raised a bit of money too. Just over $1100 will go towards STEM and Sporting resources for the school. WELL DONE EVERYONE!

ATHLETICS CARNIVAL

We will be running the canteen for the Athletics Carnival on Friday next week. So, we are looking for some helpers to serve during the day. Please let us know by Wednesday 12th June if you are available.

UNIFORM POOL

Our Uniform Pool is located in the Bell Room next to Year 1 classroom. We are open every Thursday 8:40-9:10 am.

• Back in stock are our new school bags ($60) and our library bags ($15).
• Also available for purchase are Art Smocks ($10) and with winter coming our School Jackets in selected sizes only (size 4,6,8,14) for $45 each.
• Variety of used uniforms starting from $2 an item
• Cash only purchases as no Eftpos is available

Uniform Shop

Please note our uniform pool runs on the generosity of those who donate their used uniforms. If you have any used uniforms you no longer require, please feel free to drop them at the school office for recycling through the uniform pool. We would really appreciate any winter uniforms and sports uniforms that no longer fit your child.

The Uniform Pool is located in the Bell Room next to the Year 1 classroom. It is open every Thursday morning 8.40am - 9.10am

New school bags ($60) and our library bags ($15) are back in stock.

OLV Hair Scrunchie Packs are now available to purchase for $5 each at our School Uniform Shop. If you can’t make it to the shop on a Thursday Morning, then send your $5 in a labelled envelope via your child’s class note bag.

Pastoral Care News

At OLV we have dedicated gardeners. A little rain and gale force winds won’t stop them from checking for weeds or planting herbs.

Don’t Jesse and Bree look like they are having fun!

Thought for today:

How blessed are we? We can wake up every morning, be thankful that the sun has risen, and that we can witness it.

Have a wonderful week. Take care and God bless.

Karen

Class News

Kinder

In English we are learning to read and spell words that belong to the ‘ap’ and ‘an’ families eg. map, man. We participate in Literacy groups on a daily basis. Ipads are used for Lexia (our school wide Reading support program). Lexia can also be accessed from home and children are awarded certificates at Assembly for completing each level. If you haven’t received a note explaining how to access Lexia from home, let me know and I will send one.

Our Literature unit is “Going on a Bear Hunt”. You can view the author, Michael Rosen, acting out the story on YouTube. We are having fun acting along with him and are developing our Drama skills as well.

In Maths we learnt about ‘Area’. Area is the measure of the amount of surface. Surface refers to the outer faces or outside of an object. A surface may be flat or curved. We traced around our hands, cut them out and superimposed them on other students’ hand shapes to find out who had the hand with the largest area.

Science is very interesting this term as we continue to investigate the weather. We are learning how the weather changes and how we have to adapt by changing the clothes we wear and the activities we do. We viewed weather reports on You tube and are presenting our own weather reports in class. We name the weather, decide the cloud cover, decide the temperature and wind type and say whether there is any rain. We had to choose clothing to suit our weather report and name the activities we could do in this type of weather. We get to see ourselves on video giving a weather report. Well done Kindergarten, and thanks to parents for supporting us by sending in items of clothing.

The weather is sunny today

Year 1

I am really proud of the reading progress Year 1 have made this Semester. You will notice as of this week, the children have received new levelled readers in their homework folders. They may find them more challenging than what they were reading but certainly not beyond their abilities. It is also pleasing to see their progression with sight words and everyone has received new words to get to know.

In other English news, we have started a new story called ‘Wombat Stew’ by Marcia Vaughan. Year 1, have sequenced the story by characters and what ingredients they added to the stew.

Last week in Maths, Year 1 were collecting data using tables and tally marks. We found different ways to collect information from the class on different topics such as: favourite colours, animals and ice cream flavours. This week we are learning about multiplication strategies by making ‘groups of’ collections.

In Religion, we have been learning about the symbols of Baptism: Holy water and the Baptismal Font, the Oil of Chrism, a white garment and the Baptismal Candle. Year 1, have also been listening to the story of Jesus’ Baptism from the Bible.

In Science, we have been experimenting with play dough the different ways it can be manipulated. We created a word wall which had some of these words: bend, twist, cut, roll, squeeze, fold and a few others. We then tested some other materials in the room to see how they could be manipulated. First we made predictions and then tested them. It was important for us to learn the importance of making predictions and realising they don’t have to be correct. Everyone is getting to know our dance in Sport really well. It is great to see their enthusiasm each week and I’m looking forward to seeing their performance.

Year 2

During the next few weeks, Year 2 will be concentrating on persuasive texts. So be prepared because your children will be learning what language to use when they want to persuade someone. Some children really have a talent for this. Last week Year 2 learnt to use the jump strategy to add and subtract. Please encourage them to show you how to use this strategy. You can always YouTube an explanation of this technique. This week in Mathematics Year 2 are looking at multiplication and division. In Religion, we have started our new unit Mary and Saints. We began this unit by discussing how special our own mothers are and how much we appreciated them.

Year 3/4

This week in Religion, we started a new unit of work titled “The Trinity”. We are learning about the mystery that is God – three persons in one: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

In English, we have finished reading “The Letters of Rosie O’Brien” and we are completing some final activities centring on the book. One activity was to write a letter to the editor of the newspaper telling about the conditions that prisoners endured during their voyage to the colony. We also wrote an interview with one of the characters from the book and pretended we were on a chat show. For grammar this week we are focusing on the use of the apostrophe when showing ownership and when writing contractions.

In Maths last week, we completed work on multiplication and division. This week, Yr 3 is learning more about fractions while Yr 4 focus on decimals to two places.

In History we are writing a factual interview with an Aboriginal person asking them about their first contact with white people.

In Music, we are getting ‘funky’ learning about rhythm and rhyme in songs. Here’s a verse that Bree wrote: Funky in the basement Funky in the night Funky in the laundry Funky in the light.

Year 5

Another busy couple of weeks have flown by.

In Religion, we have concluded our unit on Healing, looking at the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, by ‘writing’ a letter to someone explaining all about the Sacrament. We have also started our new unit ‘History’ by looking at Abraham, revisiting what we already knew and adding more detail to that after watching an online clip of his story.

In science, students participated in an experiment to explore the properties of gas. Students pushed a tissue so it was secure into a plastic cup and lined the top of the cup with the surface of water in a container. They then pushed the cup down flat to the bottom of a container filled with water. When they removed the cup, they were able to observe that although air cannot be seen, it still is there acting as a barrier keeping the tissue dry. Students have also began creating an animation to represent their understanding of the three states of matter they have learnt so far this term.

In PDH, students have been continuing to look at the harmful effects smoking has on the body. They have been completing case studies associated with passive smoking. Students have been able to learn strategies to use in the case of experiencing passive smoking, enhancing their decision making skills to make informed choices.

In art, students have explored the works of Sidney Nolan. They have been closely looking at techniques Nolan uses in his artwork, distortion and abstraction and compared these with other techniques explored earlier in the term, naturalism and realism. Students have began experimenting with sketches of different landscapes with a focus on these techniques explored.

One of the really fun aspects of our week has been using the Spheros, bought by the P&F. We had so much fun learning to control them, programming them to do what we wanted using block code. We changed colours, sounds, directions, speed and duration all through code. We aim to make time each week to use them and build upon our learning.

Year 6

In Religion, we are finishing our unit on Sacraments of Service and have completed activities demonstrating our deepened understanding of both Marriage and Holy Orders. We are starting our next unit, “Beliefs” this week which will increase our understanding of the beliefs of the Catholic Church, through our study of the Creed and the Catechism.

We are currently working on addition and subtraction of decimals, in Maths. We revised the correct setting out, remembering the importance of place value, and we completed some interesting and challenging algorithms. We are revisiting the “Draw a Table” strategy in our problem solving practice.

In English we are studying the story, “The Lost Thing” by Shaun Tan. We compared our lives to that of the ‘lost creature’ and we also compared the different reactions, of the various story characters, to it. We have each drawn our own next page of the book predicting what we think will happen next.

In History, we have completed research tasks about the events highlighting the plight of the Indigenous people of our country over the last 80 years. The events include - The Day of Mourning, The Freedom Ride, The Aboriginal Tent Embassy, and The Wave Hill Walk-off. We researched actions taken because of unfair treatment of the Indigenous by white Australians and the government. We are sharing our research tasks with the class. It has been really interesting to discover this very inspiring side of our history.

We had fun, in Science, experimenting to discover the effect wind strength has on rain direction. We used a fan, a length of ribbon and a spray water bottle. We discovered that the stronger the wind, the force determining the distance and angle of the rain was greater.

We are really happy about the way our dance, in Sport, is coming together. All the effort is worth it!

Sport News

ATHLETICS CARNIVAL

Don’t forget about our ATHLETICS CARNIVAL to be held on FRIDAY 14 JUNE. It is really important to get your child’s nomination forms into school by the beginning of next week so that the program can be drawn up. We still need some helpers on the track, so if you are interested in being a timekeeper, starter, a judge for the shotput or long jump, please indicate your availability.

SOCCER GALA

The North Region will be conducting a SOCCER GALA on Friday 28 June. Interested CHILDREN FROM Yrs 3-6 will be able to participate. There will be 7-a-side non-competitive teams for Yrs 3 & 4 and a competitive senior side for Yrs 5 & 6. Any girls and boys interested can sign up but should only with your permission. Once we have an indication of who is interested, sides will be formed and more information will go home. Children have until Friday to sign up and put their name down on the sheet outside the Victory Café.

Class Awards