Wendy's Class

Wendy’s Class Week 8 Term 3

This term is flying past and every week is very full!

Thank you so much to everyone who helped make the meeting on Monday night such a success. About 30 parents and students came along to hear about making the transition to High School and I especially want to thank our ex-students, Pat, Callum, Annabel, Ewan, Allend, Isobel and Alex who came along to share their experiences and answer questions about their various high schools. They made an impressive group, I thought.

We are delighted to welcome our two Macquarie Uni teaching students, Alyce and Josh, back with us over the next few weeks and they will be coming with us to CSIRO for a Chemistry workshop on Monday 21st September. We will need some drivers, please, who can help take us over to Ryde (Delhi Road) leaving school at 9:30 and returning in time for lunch. Please let me know if you can help.

We have been practising our Peace Songs for International Peace Day next Monday and everyone is asked to wear white t-shirts so we can make an impressive looking human peace sign. We are going to combine this with 350 Day raising awareness of global warming issues. Should be a good day.

Personal Interest Projects are actually due this week so these are getting quite a lot of attention during the day… applications for extensions must be in before Friday!! Some of the projects have already been handed in and they look great. Congratulations to those who completed them early!! Oral presentations will begin next week.

Also next week, we will be writing our play!!

We have a copy of the book “What’s Happening to Me?” in our class at the moment. It is all about puberty and is, of course, promoting some discussion! Please be warned that this will probably continue for a week or so and may provoke some questions at home. I will be reading it with the group and will answer any questions they might have honestly and directly. The book by the same authors “Where did I come from?” will also be in our room.

Next Wednesday we have the Italian performance, Comedia del Arte. This should be great fun. Thank you to Claudia for organising it. Next term there is an option for children to learn Italian again. Some suitable alternatives, including French, will be available for those who choose not to.

Have a great week. 

 Love, Wendy

Posted September 17th, 2009 in Wendy's Class by wendyp

Wendy's Class

Wendy’s Class Week 7 Term 3

Hi everyone. I hope you are all having a good week.

We are very busy this week (what’s new??). We are writing our play, working on PIPs, completing text book pages in spelling and maths, doing science experiments, reading some scary stories, writing and reading poetry, working on area and perimeter and volume, singing and playing…

Some of our singing is in preparation for Peace Day on Monday September 21st. We are practising songs for the whole school to sing together. We are thinking of combining this day with 350 Day… a suggestion from Rachel… which is a day to promote awareness of climate change. 350 is the number of parts per million pollution in the atmosphere that scientists think the planet can sustain. Lots of issues to research and discuss.

Please remember the HIGH SCHOOL meeting at 7pm next Monday 21st September. Everyone is welcome. We will be talking about how children make the transition to High School, how we go about preparing them and how they manage the challenges of the different schools they attend. Some of our ex-students have been invited to come along and share their stories and it promises to be a good night.

A couple of other practical things: firstly, please help us to deal with the enormous amount of lost property around the school. PLEASE NAME EVERYTHING so at least we can return it to your child if it is left lying around. A big problem at the  moment is plastic containers. It’s wonderful that people are trying to reduce the rubbish by sending re-usable containers but if they become lost property, it is even more rubbish. Naming these would be such a help. Permanent marker usually stays on for a while.

Secondly, my sister has offered to donate a rather good piano to the school so we would like to use it to replace the old one currently upstairs. The old one is not in especially good condition but might be fun for someone. If you would like it, or know someone who might, please let me know.

That’s all for now.

With love,  

Wendy

Posted September 10th, 2009 in Wendy's Class by wendyp

Wendy's Class

Wendy’s Class Week 6 Term 3

Now it really is Spring … or so we’re told! It has felt like it for a while now!

Last week’s Soiree for Moses Aaron’s farewell to story-telling was a great success. He was immensely impressed by the quality and enthusiasm of the children’s performances and we all had a great deal of fun, singing, reading stories and poetry and listening to Moses tell his last stories as a professional story-teller. The children who have heard him before had their old favourites to request and we all jumped in fright at the scary story of The Golden Arm. Thank you very much to Aarhon for filming the event. We will all look forward to watching ourselves!

This week we are writing stories again and poetry, practising handwriting, completing spelling and maths text book pages, revising area and volume, conducting more science experiments and working on our play writing and personal projects! The meditation group on Monday is working really well, enjoyable and impressive! The piano players were very impressive at School Meeting last week, too. We do have such a talented group of children at our school!! There will be more performances this week, too. Come along at 9:30 if you wish to be part of the audience… School Meeting is first, of course.

Unfortunately, nits seem to be around again in their hordes! If everyone could do a treatment this weekend we might have a chance to be nit free for a while.

Enjoy your week.

Love  Wendy

Posted September 3rd, 2009 in Wendy's Class by wendyp

Wendy's Class

Wendy’s Class Week 5 Term 3

Our Maths unit on data has been filling our days with very real information to graph in a range of ways. The data collected about how Currambena people travel to school was fascinating. Last week, Elaine ( our Scientist in Residence) helped us to collate and then analyse the data and to calculate that we generate about 170kg CO2 per day as a school in our travels. Next step is to figure out what we might do to reduce this! The walking bus sounds like a  good start!

Then we had our Rubbish Free Lunch on Wednesday where we audited the lunch waste in the afternoon. We have graphed the results which were very interesting. We managed to reduce our rubbish significantly between the two waste audits… see the report in this Newsletter.

Our third graphing exercise started this week with some daily times tables practise after which we are  graphing our individual results.  We have a whole group of emerging statisticians!!

This week we are also reading and writing poetry with great enjoyment. Please send in any books of poetry you would like to share with us. I hope you will read some of the original creations – and some transcribed for the joy of it -  in this Newsletter.

As well as all this, our friend Moses Aaron, story teller, is coming to our group this Friday for his final story-telling performance. He is retiring from storytelling and has asked us to hold a Soiree, where he will not be the only performer. Quite a few of the kids will be performing songs, reading poetry or stories or dancing. Then we will all walk up to Lane Cove for lunch together. Should be a fun day.

The piano players will also have the chance to perform on Friday at School Meeting. Good thing that lessons are back to normal schedules this week! Keep playing and practising and bring your books on Friday. We will take the keyboard down to the spare room for the meeting.

In other areas, Personal Interest Projects are now underway. Due date is Friday 18th September. Art/craft lessons with Chris are producing some wonderful creations on Thursdays. Colour mixing, charcoal drawings and special glazes have featured over the last few weeks. The children are learning some great new skills. Our Science Experiments have recently given way to our other activities but we still have a list of experiments to conduct… Bubble experiments are next!

Thank you to everyone who has come in for Parent Interviews. I have very much enjoyed talking about each of the children with you. Speak to me about making a new time if you were unable to make your interview.

Please also speak to me if you are interested in the possibility of going to Moree for the Y@G Aboriginal dance festival there in the week starting 21st September. It might be possible to go just for the first day or so to get the feel for it with a view to a future Currambena excursion/camp.

That’s all for now, except to thank Margaret, Peter’s mother for her donation to the school of an “Eye Clops” magnifier which can be plugged into the Tv and used as a microscope! That will be great fun for us all!

Have a great week.

Love,   Wendy

Posted August 27th, 2009 in Wendy's Class by wendyp

Wendy's Class

Wendy’s Class Week 4 Term 3

Hi everyone.

Firstly, thank you to Rowena for taking the group last Friday when I was away. The kids all seemed to have a   great day.

This week in Wendy’s class we are running a Rubbish Free Lunch Day to raise awareness about the amount of rubbish generated by school lunches. Last Wednesday we conducted the first audit of lunchtime rubbish and today we are doing the same…. after an education program with each class about how to reduce, recycle or re-use instead of just chucking away! We will write  a full report about our findings for next week’s newsletter. If we are able to substantially reduce the amount of rubbish, we may be eligible for a grant from Lane Cove council to purchase more worm farms and compost bins.

Also this week is the 40 Hour Famine which starts at the end of the week. Some children are giving up technology or talking and some will be fasting. Please give generously for it’s all in a good cause. The funds this year are going to assist famine victims in Africa.

We are choosing a new book to read aloud this week and there are many suggestions! Children in our group read widely and have strong opinions about what they would like me to read to them! We are completing comprehension questions and mini projects about our new pet rats to ensure we all know as much as possible about their needs. In Maths, we are completing a unit of work on data, graphing and some beginning  statistics. Elaine (our scientist in residence)  is working with us this morning on the statistics we collected about how children travel to school each day.

Our unit on science (chemistry and other experiments) has been on hold with so much else going on but we’ll be doing more of that next week and possibly visiting CSIRO for a science excursion later this term.

Parent interviews are proceeding well… remember to come and speak to me if you are having trouble finding a time to suit. From Monday next week, piano lessons will be back to normal. I am sorry for all the disruption and I hope everyone has continued to play, play, play!!

I think that’s all for today. Please feel free to come in and look at our new pet rats. The agreements about handling them are on a poster on the door.

Have a great week.

Love,  Wendy

Posted August 20th, 2009 in Wendy's Class by wendyp

Wendy's Class

Wendy’s Class Week 3 Term 3

There are many very important things happening at the moment, among them Parent Interviews. Thank you to everyone who has signed up for a time already. Please speak to me if you have trouble finding a suitable time.

Thanks also to the people who worked on saving the trees from the encrouching tanbark at the weekend, and thanks also to those who came to our Laura Presentation night last night. It was good to revisit that wonderful experience and share photos and thoughts. There is certainly some enthusiasm for doing the trip again in 2011 when the next festival will be held. There is also interest in the idea of attending a dance festival in Moree in September, the first to be held in NSW since 1938! The details of this are in this Newsletter. Because this event is so soon, families who want to go should contact the organisers and make their own arrangements.

Several of the children have written about the new pets in our room. I hope you will read all about them.

Also, I have made the booking for Jervis Bay at the end of the year for the week commencing Monday 30th November. This is our week long end of year camp so please put it in your diaries!

With Parent Interviews most days, please make sure that children check the time for their piano lesson is not taken for an interview.

That’s all for today.  Have a good week. 

  Love,   Wendy

 

RATS!!

Wendy’s class now has rats in their class so you need to be quiet and do NOT put your fingers through the gaps or they will bite you and we will have to get rid of them. Only Wendy’s class can open the cage. Wash your hands before and after you hold the rats and also you have to ask Wendy and one of Wendy’s class has to get it out. Use two hands to hold them.   Always keep the cage closed. Only hold one at a time. The rats’ names are Ellie and Sooty and you can play with them. By Lillie .   picture to go near this please Tracey…!!

In our class we just got some pet rats and we have some class agreements. You can come in our classroom to have a look at the agreements if you want. The rats have personalities, like Ellie is known for being very adventurous, but quiet at the same time, she is brown with white near her tail, and Sooty is also known for being  adventurous, and she also loves her food, she looks a lot like a dirty chimney sweep covered in soot, that’s probably why she is called Sooty. By Holly .

Wendy’s class have now got pet rats! There is, Ellie, and Sooty. There are some agreements for the rats. First of all you have to be quiet. Rats are nocturnal and are not used to such loud noises. EspeciallyEllie.If you want to hold them, you have to ask Wendy first. You MUST WASH HANDS before AND after handling. ONLY Wendy’s class can take the rats out of there cage. ONLY hold one rat at a time. Hold the rats GENTLY and you must always hold them on you. Be sensible with them. If you are scared of holding them, it would be best NOT to hold them. Make sure you share rat time. ALWAYS keep rat cage closed! Use two hands to pick them up. Sit downwhile holding. That’s about it! Enjoy the rats! By Jody

Posted August 12th, 2009 in Wendy's Class by wendyp

Wendy's Class

Wendy’s Class Week 2 Term 3

Today I have put up a timetable for Parent Interviews to start next week. Please write your name in a time slot that suits you and come and speak to me if you are unable to find one that does. It is really important that everyone makes time to come in and talk about their child’s progress in all the Key Learning Areas. As usual, we will have written reports as the basis for these interviews. PIANO STUDENTS WILL NEED TO CHECK THE LIST ON THE DAY BEFORE THEIR LESSON  to see if that time has been taken for an interview. I hope to have the interviews over in a reasonable time so that piano is not disrupted for too long.

REQUEST! We are going to participate as a school in the North Sydney Region RUBBISH FREE LUNCH CHALLENGE. We will need some adult helpers for this and it will involve some time spent at school during a couple of afternoons in August. PLEASE speak to me if you are able to help. It is a very worthwhile exercise which aims to reduce the amount of rubbish generated by school lunches each day!

We also have the 40 HOUR FAMINE in August. More on this next week.

In class at the moment, we are concentrating on writing descriptions and working on fractions, decimals and percentages. I hope that some of the descriptions will appear in these pages! We are also doing science experiments and beginning to plan our class play for this year. On Monday, we had the first PE session for the term and the choices available seemed more than adequate to satisfy the interests of all the children. The meditation session I led was a great success with about 14 children learning and practising two types of meditation, one  based on breathing and one walking. the children will have another 2 sessions of this choice before changing to another activity.

I think that’s all for today! Have a great week.     

 Love,   Wendy

Posted August 5th, 2009 in Wendy's Class by wendyp

Wendy's Class

Wendy’s Class Week 1 Term 3

It was great to see all the children back yesterday, looking taller, rested and well! There was so much sickness around at the end of last term. Let’s hope we all stay well for a while now!

Thank you so much to the parents who came and cleaned up at the Maintenance Day on Sunday. It was gorgeous to come in and see everything looking so good on Monday!

We have started making plans for the term and we are very keen to go on lots of excursions, mainly to Museums and maybe to CSIRO Science Labs as well. We also have the 40 Hour Famine this term, Tree Day this Friday and a Rubbish Free Lunch event later in August. We also intend to write our play for the concert which is in week 4 of next term so we are definitely going to be busy… nothing new there!

On TUESDAY 11 TH AUGUST at 7 pm we will have a presentation about the Laura trip. We’ll show the photos and talk about the whole experience. We will also discuss the possibility of going again in two year’s time. There is another Indigenous Dance Festival, this time in Moree in NSW, this coming September and I will pass on information about this to anyone interested.

Another important feature of Term 3 is our Parent Interviews. I will put up a timetable for these in the next few days. Please talk to me if you are unable to find a time that suits you.

This week we are finishing off our Project Presentations from last term and completing some work on fractions and decimals. We are also starting a unit of work on description in English. The children are very keen to do lots of science this term so  that will be another focus in our planning. PE is going to be a bit different without Luuk and Willem but we are planning to offer a range of choices on Monday afternoons including dance, basketball skills, team ball games, bushwalking and meditation! Should be fun.

This term we are continuing with the Free Friday concept, which involves School Meeting at 9:30 and then a very flexible day with opportunities for 1:1 work, reading, times tables tests and catching up on anything incomplete  at the end of the week. Chris is here for the whole day and so the craft room is open and available to everyone. We all enjoy it very much!

Enjoy your week, too!               

 Love,  Wendy

PIANO AND GUITAR  lessons will start again next week. Thanks.

Posted July 29th, 2009 in Wendy's Class by wendyp

School Meeting

Minutes of School Meeting Friday 3rd July, 2009

Chairpeople: Alex and Olivia

1. Welcome to Codey, Michelle and Michael who have joined Currambena.

2. Volleyball by Lillie. A reminder to look after our new volleyballs and always put them away after you use them.

3. Bird trap by Alex.  A reminder to look after living things and not make bird traps.

4. Water tank by Wendy. There has been some confusion about whether or not it is OK to climb on top of the water tank. After some discussion,we agreed that no-one will climb on top of it.

5. Toilets by Wendy. Please do not put things like bits of wood and craft things in toilets !

6. Shelf by Sam. Sam suggested that the display shelf for Currambena art work needs to be supported or it will keep getting blown over as it was this morning. Chris R. offered to work with Sam to fix this.

7. Disc golf by Gabriel. Gabriel suggested that the school buy equipment for a game called “disc golf”. Gabriel will investigate what is needed and bring more information to the next meeting.

8. Projector by Jo. The projector is set up in the purple room and Jo asked that everyone keeps it safe by leaving it alone and asking if they want to use it.

9. Chickens by Sue. If anyone can take the chickens home this weekend please see Sue. If the chickens are here on Sunday for the Reunion, please watch out for them and help keep them safe.

10. Lost property by Chris. ALL THE LOST PROPERTY WILL GO TO ST VINNIES AT THE END OF TERM. PLEASE COLLECT YOUR BELONGINGS ASAP FROM UNDER THE BLUE UMBRELLA.

11. Stall by Chris. Next Tuesday is the stall to raise money for the school in Nepal that Currambena supports. Please bring money!

12. Cubby by Kiran. Kiran has made a cubby in the corner of the sandpit and asked if he could keep it. The meeting voted that he can.

13. Craft on Fridays. Chris R. is now here all day on Friday so the craft room is available to anyone who wants to work there. There was some discussion about how to manage cleaning up and we agreed that each person needs to check what needs cleaning with Chris before leaving the room.

14. Croquet by Darcy. Darcy asked about the croquet set we used to have and he was told that some of it has been lost or broken and Fran has one of the mallets.

MEETING ADJOURNED. PRESCHOOLERS FIRST.

Posted July 8th, 2009 in School Meeting by wendyp

Wendy's Class

Wendy’s Class Week 11 Term 2

Thank you so much to Karen and her hard-working team for the great success of Currambena’s 40th birthday party/reunion celebration on Sunday. The weather was glorious and so was everything about the day. The kids loved singing their song and there was just such a good atmosphere. It was simply wonderful for me to catch up with so many very special and precious people from so many years of Currambena’s history.  A real treat. Thank you very, very much.

Thank you also to Rowena who took my group while I was away yesterday. I finally succumbed to the nasty cold that has been going around. I hope no-one else comes down with it before the end of the week.

This week we have all the Personal Interest Project presentations to see and we will be finishing off and filing work samples for portfolios. Early next term we will have our Parent Interviews and I hope you will all have the chance to look through the portfolios before then.

During the holidays, I would like all the children to continue reading every day and to practise their times tables regularly. We had Lucie visiting on Monday (Lucie left Currambena for High School at the end of last year) and she reinforced how important it is to know times tables in High School! A timely reminder! Spelling and maths text books could also be taken home if any children want to do so.

I hope you all have very safe and enjoyable holidays. Keep well!

Love,  Wendy

Posted July 8th, 2009 in Wendy's Class by wendyp