Julianna Term 2 Week 10

Posted on July 2, 2020 by juliannam

Hi Everyone,

I have taken a couple of snippets from our  Currambena flyer ….

Currambena is an inspiring learning community…

There is a buzz of talking and listening, playing and creating..

Let’s share our thoughts and observations from this COVID journey. Are there   considerations/changes that we can discuss/implement? Keeping Currambena an inspiring learning community…..

We would love to hear your thoughts, so please email to either myself or to Council

Charles – Given this extraordinary year we have postponed any employment of a new teacher and have extended Charles’s employment until the end of the year. Many thanks Charles for accepting this extension. I am sure your kids will be delighted!

NITS are back!

Can we have a big nit blast over the holidays please

REMINDERS

Maintenance. Thank-you to all those who have put their names down for a job and to those who have already started.

The first week only of the holiday’s people can come in any day.

Please be aware we will also have tradespeople working on various repairs the first week

Second week Blue Umbrella is operating so there will be the usual limited access for all adults

You can come into the school grounds during any weekend Saturday and Sunday for maintenance

Have wonderful break

Take care, wash your hands, keep distance, cough into your elbow, disinfect and no sharing food

Julianna xx

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Charles’ Class Term 2 Week 10

Posted on July 2, 2020 by Newsletter Editor

Hello everyone

I hope you have all had a great week.

This week in literacy we have been completing our creative narratives for the term and getting ready to move into our next topic, persuasive writing! We have had lots of discussion around what we would like to learn next term ranging from marine animals and fossils to coding and the human body.

In numeracy we have finished up our area unit where we have looked at why people need to measure area for different jobs, and the different informal units of measurement you can use. This unit has allowed the students to explore their whole number, measuring and shape knowledge using hands on tasks individually and in groups.

In Music, the children had a fantastic lesson on Monday with Abbi (Hazel and Peppers mum) where they engaged with the musical scale through active learning, jumping, and running across a huge felt piano made by Abbi herself.

In science next term we will be exploring the wonders of the physical world, where we bend, twist, stretch, heat and cool all different to objects to observe the different changes we can see, hear and feel.

Have wonderful weekend!

Charles

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Sarah’s Class Week 10 Term 2

Posted on July 2, 2020 by sarahm

What an incredible Term we’ve had!!!!!

Firstly, I’d just like to say a huge and massive thankyou to everybody: to the school council and fellow staff who continue to rally and support each other through this roller coaster ride – called COVID!! An extraordinary thankyou to the children for showcasing their amazing resilience during isolation/learning from home and the transition back to school, it hasn’t been easy for everyone. And to you parents, for your ongoing trust, encouragement, patience and support. I do hope it won’t be too long before we can meet and get together on very different terms.

In the class this week, we focused quite heavily on our Heroes and Villains story writing. The children are designing a cover and back page for our class book and also a cover page for their own story. Once the front and back pages are complete we will vote on which one will adorn the book. We have continued with our reading sessions almost every day which the children are very engaged and committed to doing. As i mentioned last week, some are sharing the books they are reading and reading to each other. This is having a flow on effect, on especially those who may be a little reluctant to read aloud to a friend, or me. Now, they are all showing (at least at school) a love of  reading!

We did more measuring this week and got the scales out to look at grams, kilograms and tonnes. We finished the last of our project presentations and did an assessment on this past term’s efforts. It was wonderful to hear their thoughts and ideas of what their next term’s project will be.

Music with Abby this week took place out on the basketball court. She has been focusing heavily on teaching the children about pitch, rhythm, tempo, learning musical notes and now scales. It was a gorgeous morning with the group really engaged in the activity of ‘how one can write their own music’. Thank you Abby!

We also got the skipping ropes out on Tuesday and did some group skipping which was a lot of fun!!

Thursday will see us do our big clean and Friday we will probably end the term with a movie and some popcorn. However, I see someone is bringing this topic up at our class meeting in the morning (Thursday) so I guess we shall see.

I think that’s us for the week – short and sweet. Take care everybody, I do hope you all have a gorgeous break/holiday and that you do something beautiful.

Stay safe! Stay well!

Love, Sarah

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Leesa’s Class Term 2 Week 10

Posted on July 2, 2020 by leesaj

Hi Everyone,

Just like that, we are at the end of the term and half way through the year. What a unique term it has been! Thank you to the children, parents, staff and School Council for working together throughout the last few months to ensure our school community was safe during this time.

Over the last week we have continued to complete our topics for the term and have had discussions about what topic we would like to learn about for term 3.

During writing this week we revised plots of narratives and the children had a go at using all the knowledge they had gained from our writing sessions to start their own narrative. Some children decided to share their stories with the group and all I can say is WOW! The creativity, vocabulary and imagination shone through.

Over the week we’ve been hands on with two-dimensional shapes and becoming familiar with the features of these shapes. We have made tessellating patterns with shapes and colours and looked closely at quadrilaterals and the three different types of triangles. On Wednesday we completed a symmetry activity to finish a picture that had been started, these included spiders, rabbits, cats, robots, crabs, castles and owls.

The children voted to watch a movie this Friday for the end of term. Notes were sent home on Monday to gain permission to watch the PG movie ‘The Rise of the Guardians’. We have a backup G movie if all notes aren’t returned. It was discussed that the children could bring their own popcorn, chips or biscuits for the movie.

It is with great sadness that we farewell Lochie and Di on Friday. Thank you for your contribution to the school over the many years that you’ve been a part of the Currambena community. We will miss you very much and wish you all the best with your move and future endeavours.

That’s it for this week. Have a wonderful two week holiday and I will see you all next term!

Leesa x

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Wendy’s Group Week 10 Term 2

Posted on July 2, 2020 by wendyp

Some of the children were saying yesterday how very tired they feel and I really think the holidays are arriving just in time! What a stressful and difficult term it has been in so many ways and, even though I think all the children have handled it superbly, the many changes to our normal routines and anxiety about COVID has taken its toll. Two weeks rest is feeling like a very good idea indeed!

In our group, we are still having some children away each day with a nasty cold that seems to be doing the rounds. Thank you all for continuing to be so vigilant and for getting COVID tests done to confirm there’s no cause for worry.

Our group voted at Class Meeting yesterday to have pizza and a movie on Friday to celebrate the end of term. Children will need to bring enough money to cover whatever pizza they want and I will handle the order. I have sent a separate email about this and the movie itself.

In class this week, we are finishing our PIP presentations and very much enjoying these. The amount of work that has gone into them is fabulous and the children are obviously so engaged with the content of their investigations it’s great to see. Prezi and Google Slides are the most used presentation modes and we are seeing some very sophisticated visuals and highly skilful use of palm cards. It’s very impressive!

We are also continuing to work on grammar (types of verbs) this week in English and fractions and decimals in Maths. Our study of Japan is definitely going to spread into next term with Geography for the first few weeks at least.

We are starting to build on our skipping skills in preparation for the Jump Rope for Heart event which we will be running early next term. Lots of children can already do double unders and criss cross and some are now doing double under criss crosses!! There are some amazing videos of skipping on Youtube!

We had another great music lesson with Abi about the major scales on Monday this week and we’re looking forward to more sessions with her next term.

So, have a wonderful break everyone. Thank you all so much for your expressions of support during the considerable challenges this term. Thank you to Council, the previous one and our new one, for all the work involved making decisions to help keep us all safe. Thank you to all my colleagues who have worked so well as a team and navigated this time so skillfully and effectively… and very special thanks to all our wonderful children who have proved their resilience once again and even managed to take some positives from this whole experience!

Rest well, have a safe and restorative holiday and I’ll look forward to seeing you all next term.

With love, Wendy

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Photo of the Week

Posted on June 25, 2020 by Newsletter Editor

Benji

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Julianna Term 2 Week 9

Posted on June 25, 2020 by juliannam

Hi Everyone,

We are hearing lots of chats and comments about the positives coming from all these changes. I have included a letter from Sarah (Scarlett’s) mum with her Thoughts. We would love to hear how others are seeing these different times and suggestions for moving forward.

Maintenance. Thank-you to all those who have put their names down for a job and to those who have already started

Please remember you can only come into the school grounds during the weekend

We still have the limited access for all parents except those working in Blue Umbrella

REMINDERS

The news this morning about Lane Cove Primary closing reiterates our need to continue our vigilance with all our keeping safe from COVID practises.

Attendance. We are back to our normal school attendance requirements. Please remember to email your teacher if your child is not at school.

Drop off and Pick-up. Hope you are still managing to arrive on time. This really helps with the smooth running of this process with minimal confusion for everyone.

Please read the email from your teacher for times and which gate to be at!

Take care, wash your hands, keep distance, cough into your elbow, disinfect and no sharing food

Julianna xx

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Preschool News Term 2 Week 9

Posted on June 25, 2020 by katrinaa

Hi everyone,

Wow, we’re almost half way through the year and what a strange year it’s been!

In group times we’ve continued to focus on following instructions within the group setting with a particular focus on fine motor skills that involve pencil grip, drawing, writing and using scissors. The effort, thought and creativity that many of the children have been putting into completing these activities is really astounding!

We’re currently focusing on ways to ensure that there is a connection between home and preschool for children. We’d really appreciate families bringing in or emailing me a family photo and a photo of your preschool child as a baby please. During our preschool day we’re currently having lots of impromptu small group discussions with children about who is part of their family and what they were like as babies. As children are such visual learners we plan on making a display in preschool of all the children’s families as well as photos of each child as a baby to assist the children in learning more about each other.

We had a fabulous music session with Abi who is Pepper’s Mum on Monday. There was so much incidental and intentional learning in one experience. There was a focus on the importance of recycling, a puppet show, patterning, colours, rhythm, melody, singing and much more! We’re all looking forward to our next music session next Monday.

A reminder to everyone that to ensure we can physically distance people at pick up times preschool is currently finishing at 2.45 pm. We ask that parents sign their children out and be out the school gates before 3 pm each day. A huge thank you to everyone for assisting us with these changes.

Thanks to Lilith, a child in Charles class and her Mum Judy for the donation of scarves and a tea set to preschool.

That’s it for this week, have a great weekend everyone!

Love

Katrina, Michael, Hannah and Cee

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Jess’ Class Term 2 Week 9

Posted on June 25, 2020 by Jess

Dear Parents,
Our focus on conflict resolution is progressing really well and this week we have continued to explore a range of picture books related to emotions. The children are very engaged in telling and listening to stories about times they have felt strong emotions and why they felt that way. We have even got the puppets out to help us re-tell some of our more intense emotional stories. To complement our work in conflict resolution and to help promote harmony in the classroom, I have begun to emphasize the idea of rights and responsibilities in our school environment. It has been wonderful to hear the children display a solid grip of this. For example, “I have the right to be heard and I have the responsibility to listen to others ”.

In maths we have consolidated our knowledge of horizonal and vertical lines using page orientation with the children producing some gorgeous water-coloured self-portraits and landscapes. These are displayed outside our classroom at the moment but will eventually be sent home for you to treasure.

Literacy stations are continuing, and the children showed a lot more independence this week in their story writing and games. We have also been reviewing some of the letter/sound relationships that were covered during lockdown to ensure everybody has at least had some exposure to the same foundations. We have also begun looking at procedure writing in English and have used the now very familiar hand washing procedure as a model. Today, we will be making an exploding volcano using bi-carb and vinegar in the sandpit and then we will recall the steps we took and write up the procedure as a class.

On Tuesday afternoon we had some fun with Wendy’s class learning to skip. It was gorgeous to watch some of the children master the skill for the very first time!

Thank you to Abi who returned for a fabulous music group on Monday afternoon. The children loved seeing you and Hester again!

Just a gentle reminder to continue with your home reading. Wushka and Epic are fabulous online resources for this and are available to you until the end of June.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.
Jess x

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Charles’ Class Term 2 Week 9

Posted on June 25, 2020 by Newsletter Editor

Hello everyone

I hope you have all had a good week.

As we near closer to the end of term, the children have been working very hard building their friendships and practicing their conflict resolution. There have been many different changes in friendships which is wonderful to see. Everyone has been communicating with each other during our class meetings and yarning circles each day about how they are feeling and what they are doing throughout the day.

In Literacy we have started writing our imaginative writing narratives, making sure to include our finger spaces, capital letters, full stops and include verbs, nouns and adjectives to make our stories more exciting for the reader! We have started a new literacy groups program which allows us to get a lot more reading and writing done, as well as more opportunity to play fun games which target the children’s phonics and handwriting skills.

In Numeracy, we are completing our area unit in which the children are learning to measure the area of different objects and areas around the classroom using informal units of measurement.

Have a wonderful week!

Charles

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