Jess and Susan’s Class: Term 2 Week 6
Dear Parents,
This week we acknowledged Sorry Day. The day marks the beginning of Reconciliation Week and recognises the hurt caused by government policies that promoted the separation of Aboriginal children from their families and created the Stolen Generation. We welcomed Aunty Leanne to the school where she spent time with each group in a ‘Tools and Technology’ workshop. Other sessions included participation in Traditional Indigenous Games, damper making and weaving. At the end of the day, we watched a video of Archie Roach reading his book ‘They Took Them Away’. It was a very emotional way to finish the day, and I know from the reflections the children wrote, that they felt his sadness deeply.
We did some targeted work on division this week, recognising it as an inversion of multiplication – something we need to continue working on. As a science activity, we magnetised needles and made compasses by floating them on water, which integrated nicely with our unit on navigation. The children really enjoyed this hand-on activity and had a lot of fun experimenting with magnets.
The tadpoles continue to be a strong source of curiosity and we have now established a secondary eco-system that we are slowly transferring the tadpoles into. This new environment will cater to the tadpoles as they begin to grow legs and breath air.
On Thursday, we completed our position topic in maths and explored translating, reflecting and rotating shapes. We also practiced diagonal joins in cursive handwriting and continued working on our PIPs.
PIP presentations will be held on the afternoon of Tuesday June 30. The exact timing will be confirmed after the parent rep shares a preference survey and we receive the responses.
Tuesday sport next week is the beginning of our 4 weeks of tennis at Lane Cove Tennis Club. Children should wear appropriate shoes and may choose to bring their own racquet.
Just a reminder that, as we had to cancel the library on Monday afternoon (due to rain), you may have books that need to be returned directly from home.
Lastly, I’ve been impressed by a number of the children in the class who have recently stepped into roles that require some leadership skills. Ettie and Lucia, completely unprompted, are heading a committee of children who are interested in hosting a ‘Soup Day’ in term 3. Ezra (with Oli) confidently wrote and delivered the Acknowledgement of Country in front of the entire school on Sorry Day, and on Monday as no parent volunteers were available, Ash, Aidan, James, Ezra, Eli, Ettie, Lucia and Emma took turns to serve morning tea to the school. These are wonderful examples of children stepping up when they feel they are ready and testing out what it means to be an ‘elder’ in the school. At Currambena, leadership is not granted, imposed or won, but is a natural step children take for themselves, when they are ready.
Warm regards,
Jess and Susan