Photo of the Week

Posted on March 19, 2020 by Newsletter Editor

2020-03-19 (8)

Posted in Photo of the week | Comments Off

Julianna Term 1 Week 7

Posted on March 19, 2020 by juliannam

Hello Everyone,

Many crazy things are happening with the heightened anxiety and sheer panic of people.

Please see the article reminding us all how we can still care for each other and to keep our kids in an environment of calm, flexibility and creativity to manage each day as it comes. We will continue to listen to all official advice and communicate to you accordingly.

A Box for donations. This is sitting in the front foyer for anyone that can donate a roll of toilet paper. This will be given to members in our community that have compromised health issues.

End of term social – with the unfolding events we will not be having a social at the end of this term

REMINDERS…….

Council Meeting – Monday 23 March

 EMERGENCY WALKWAY behind the classrooms. All staff, parents, kids, please be super vigilant that you DO NOT in any way block this walkway.

 Cheers Julianna

Posted in Coordinator's news | Comments Off

Preschool News Term 1 Week 7

Posted on March 19, 2020 by katrinaa

Hello everyone,

We’ve been keeping things as normal as possible in preschool at the moment considering all the uncertainty that’s happening in the world. We’ve had a real focus on effective hand washing before and after eating as well as on arrival and departure at preschool. Thank you to all the families that have kept their children at home if they show cold and flu like symptoms. We have families in preschool that reside with grandparents as well as parents with compromised immune systems, so it’s really important that we look out for each other right now!

In regards to COVID-19 and social distancing we’ve been making our group times smaller to ensure that children don’t have to be too close to each other. As our little preschool people are hands on and tactile, this is a work in process. We’ve been cleaning all surfaces the children use with an anti-bacterial agent every morning before children arrive. This is on top of the daily cleaning the contracted cleaners do each evening and the standard wiping down and cleaning of all surfaces that we do each day in preschool.

We continue to see a great interest in dramatic play throughout the day. This is a great way for children to gain a greater understanding of their world and also a lovely way for children to connect with each other. The rocket and cubby house that was created last week in craft was an extremely popular and favourite place for children to play. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts the cubby house was sodden in the weekend rain and needed to be taken down. The rocket house was fortunately spared. The rocket play was extended this week when the children painted it, the children are having a great deal of fun with craft and making things out of cardboard at the moment.

Thank you to Harry in Jess’s class for the donation of bucket hats to preschool. We’re currently missing many of the preschool spare hats so it great to be able to replenish our stocks. Thank you also to the washing fairies that have continued to wash and return our much needed preschool laundry. Thanks to Valentina and Theodore for lending preschool some books on creating with cardboard, it was one of these books that inspired the children to create the rocket ship!

That’s it for this week!

Love

Katrina, Michael and Hannah

Posted in Preschool news | Comments Off

Jess’ Class Term 1 Week 7

Posted on March 19, 2020 by Jess

Dear Parents,

Wow – what a difference a week makes. Thank you to everyone for supporting the efforts we are making at Currambena in relation to hygiene and social distancing. As you can imagine, in a class with young children this can is tricky, but I we’re certainly doing our very best. We are also being vigilant in relation to any cold symptoms that pop up and ensuring that children stay home as necessary. It seems we do have a head cold circulating through the class at the moment though, so our class numbers have been quite low.

In the classroom, with build week behind us, it’s been nice to get back into our English and maths program with the children showing a lot of focus. This week, my younger children have studied the letter R (Rabbits reading) and the letter O (Orange Octopus). We had a fabulous and messy painting session today with many orange octopus now hanging on the line to dry. If you are self-isolating at home, you may wish to expose your children to these letter sounds and to review the way we write them. You may also want to explore the way we write the numeral 2 and 3. My elders are continuing with their PIPs and doing a marvellous job. I am hoping they are all brave enough to present them to the class in week 10.

On Monday, we had a lot of fun researching the compound eye of an insect and looking through our insect kaleidoscopes to see how they see. Some of the artwork that the children created was fantastic.

Thank you to Sarah for covering for me on Tuesday whilst I was sick.

Wishing you all good physical health and calmness during these difficult times.

Jess x

Posted in Jess's Class | Comments Off

Charles’s Class Term 1 Week 7

Posted on March 19, 2020 by Newsletter Editor

Hello Everyone

I hope you all have had a wonderful week. Due to the current circumstances our weekly swimming at Lane Cove Aquatic Centre has been cancelled for the foreseeable period. During this time, we have been discussing the importance of proper hygiene and the best ways to keep germs away from ourselves and others. There has been a lot of discussion within the classroom about the importance of getting the right information and not spreading misinformation and fear to other people. These discussions have been accompanied with an engaging science experiment using pepper, water, and soap to simulate how germs are repelled from your hands by washing with soap.

On a lighter note, in Literacy we have been continuing our informative text topic, learning a lot about different animal’s diets, appearance, characteristics and habitat. This ties in well with our current science unit, living world, in which we have been looking at the different external features found on other animals and how they help them survive in their environment. These investigations are accompanied with an outside bug and animal investigation in which the children have been collecting data on the variety of animals they can find and their accompanying features.

In Numeracy, the children have been introduced to fractions, specifically wholes, halves, quarters and thirds using hands on materials and outside engagements. The children have also been very engaged working with each other in maths group rotations, where they are given a choice in which hands on activity they would like to participate, providing an opportunity for the children to work on an aspect of maths which they would like to improve or feel comfortable completing.

Reminder
• We have a planned reptile incursion for Wednesday the 25th of March for the children to learn about the diverse range of Australian reptiles and amphibians.
• If your child is not feeling well or experiencing some symptoms of a cold or flu. Please do not send them to school as during this time of year a number of children may have low immune systems.
That’s all for the week!

Charles

Posted in Charles's Class | Comments Off

Sarah’s Class week 7 Term 1

Posted on March 19, 2020 by sarahm

Hi Everybody!

As you can imagine there is much talk and discussion about the COVID-19. So this week, we talked about things we can do to help prevent the spread of germs. We made a list of ALL the times we should be ‘hand-washing’ and watched a video on how to do this thoroughly. We talked about how we need to be mindful of not sharing our food and making sure we are sneezing/coughing into our sleeve. This is something we talk about, at the best of times, but given our current climate a reminder is definitely needed. Unfortunately, library visits and swimming are cancelled for the remainder of term. So, on Tuesday we did an outside/inside obstacle course. The children started the course at the door of the classroom, ran under ‘keepy-uppy’ then up and through the ‘tunnel’. Once down the other side they ran across the basketball court and through the ‘dome’, up to the top deck, down the slippery dip and across to the Jacaranda tree. Here they did forward rolls and jumped into and out of hoops. They then came back into the classroom, crawled under the big tables, over the whiteboard tables and onto the carpet. They did 10 sit-ups and 10 push-ups, crawled under more tables then went back out and did it again!!!!!! There was much enthusiasm and an eagerness (for some) to be 1st. A couple of children expressed they were not happy with this competitiveness and some were disappointed they were overtaken. So after everyone had completed the course we had a discussion. The majority of children said it shouldn’t matter if you were overtaken, as it wasn’t a competition. And if you are doing it for fun and fitness does it matter where you come? It was wonderful to hand this discussion over to the children and hear the optimists and pragmatists express their points so clearly. We also talked about how it feels when you choose to quit, when things don’t go your way, or something is difficult. We will do the course again next week and I might even throw in/add a few more obstacles for them to navigate.

After this, we did a meditation/visualisation. The focus was on creating a sense of CALM. With eyes closed the children were encouraged to visualise a television screen with the word CALM. Then, to bring in all the things that made them feel CALM. They were encouraged to feel this in their body and target exactly where the feeling was and how it felt, to be in this state. Towards the end of the process the meditation talked about how quickly and easily you can access your own personal TV screen of – CALM – when feeling stressed and/or anxious.

We continued to work on our comics this week. And we talked about how a comic uses visuals and pictures to tell a story, and it doesn’t (usually) have many words. So the next thing we will be doing will be to take the ideas (from the comic) and start writing the story of what happens – using words! For Maths , we did some revision of place value and also looked at rounding numbers to the nearest 10 and 100.

Next week, as long as it goes ahead, we have 2 incursions booked. One is a Science show which will focus on Chemistry. And the other will include a presentation and visit from reptiles.

I think that’s us for this week! Hoping the weekend will include something wonderful for you.

Love, Sarah

 

Posted in Sarah's Class | Comments Off

Leesa’s Class Term 1 Week 7

Posted on March 19, 2020 by leesaj

Hi Everyone,

Thank you to everyone for supporting the class and school throughout this time. As a class we have discussed hand washing, social distancing and making a conscious effort not to put our hands on our face or in our mouth. We have enough soap in our classroom so we can wash our hands before and after eating and any other time we deem necessary.

Over the week we have continued to explore length for Mathematics, writing stories, looked at adjectives, completed a range of activities on the sound ‘d,dd’ , cut open a soaked seed to see the inside, completed mentals in regards to addition and continued our work on personal interest projects.

Thanks to Ewan and his family for allowing his two pet rats to visit the classroom on Monday. We thoroughly enjoyed the visit and had to remind ourselves of the noise level in the classroom.

Thank you to Xavier and his family for bringing in a collection of coins for us to examine. It was a great opportunity to explore other currencies, remind ourselves about the Australian coins and making sure we wash our hands after handling money.

Next week we have two incursions occurring. One is on Monday that involves a chemistry show and the other one will be on Wednesday which involves reptiles.

There won’t be any swimming or Lane Cove Library visits for the remainder of the term.

If you are self-isolating at home, taking home textbooks will ensure that your child continues the work we are completing at school. This week we have completed:

  • Sound Waves Unit 6
  • Think Mentals Unit 4
  • Handwriting next two pages
  • Personal Interest Projects
  • Writing – Continuing with narratives

Thank you to Vinnie for covering for me on Wednesday and Sarah on Thursday while I recover from a sinus infection. I will return on Friday ready to see everyone’s smiling faces.

That’s it for this week.

Leesa x

Posted in Leesa's Class | Comments Off

Wendy’s Group Week 7 Term 1

Posted on March 19, 2020 by wendyp

We had hoped to be at Little River, enjoying this glorious sunshine, but the camp was cancelled in the interests of health and safety. We have planned a lovely relaxing time for these three days to help us cope with the disappointment! I have also tentatively booked for us to go to Little River in Week 2 Term 2, if everything has settled down by then.

So… our Maths topic, Whole Number, is almost complete and we learned about HCFs and LCMs earlier this week. Maths text books unit 3 needs to be complete this week (in spite of camp cancellation!) and we will soon move on to Chance and Data.

In English, we are in the process of choosing a new class book to share. People who want to suggest a book for us must have read it themselves. They tell us about it and read aloud the review on the back of the book, then we read the first chapter. So far, we have read the first chapters of five very different books and it’s been really interesting! We have two more first chapters to go before the vote! We have also been continuing with our story/journal writing and, of course, individual reading.

Today, we are planning to go for a bushwalk and have a picnic before returning to school. That should be good fun. Not sure which walk we’ll take yet. We’re having a very relaxed time and making decisions as we go. Very good for everyone’s stress levels.

Tomorrow, we would like to watch a movie…. we are not going to walk up to the shops because that would involve exposure to unknown people out there! The movie the children have voted for is called “Hotel Transylvania 3″ and is PG so I will need permission from every family for this to go ahead. Please respond to the email asap if you haven’t already. It’s an animated movie and Commonsense Media says it’s silly and fun and suitable for over 7s. (We watched the trailer and it certainly looks silly and fun!)

Please rest assured that we are following all the directives from the authorities in regard to COVID19. We have also begun setting up options for on-line learning in case the school has to close some time soon, although so far, we are told schools will remain open. It’s all very unsettling and difficult, to say the least, but we’ve been taking appropriate action to implement social distancing as much as possible and reminding everyone to wash hands frequently, especially before and after eating and after using teh toilet. Many of the children are bringing hand sanitiser which is useful. We do have a good supply of soap in our room too.

Stay well and have a great week. Love, Wendy

Posted in Wendy's Class | Comments Off

Minutes of School Meeting Friday, 13th March, 2020.

Posted on March 19, 2020 by wendyp

CHAIRED BY NOAH AND SIENNA
1. Swearing by Elke.
A reminder not to swear here at school because we have an agreement that we won’t.

2. Handball by Ryan.
A request not to ride things with wheels through handball games.

3. Lockers by Harry.
Please do not take things out of other people’s lockers.

4. Bamboo Dome by Jasmin.
Jasmin asked if we could keep the bamboo dome up for longer since it took so long to build. The meeting voted that the temporary constructions will come down at the end of the term.

5. Staples by Soren.
A reminder not to leave staples pinting upwards because it is very dangerous.

6. Lunch boxes by Xavier.
Please don’t take people’s food.

7.Rats by Ewan.
Ewan is bringing his pet rats in to school today and his class has made agreements about them. Come and see them if you like but please keep the agreements.

8. Books by Leesa.
Some Currambena library books were left outside over the weekend and have been completely runined by the rain. Please look after our school resources.

9. Flying Fox by Lochie and Gabe.
Lochie and Gabe wanted to know whether they could use the Flying Fox during Blue Umbrella time. after some discussion, the meeting said that they had to have permission from the BU adults and they have to keep all the agreements already made about it.

10. People on wheels by Phoebe.
Phoebe asked if people with wheels could have the handball court for themselves sometimes but the meeting suggested that wheels can use quite a few other areas and so the answer was no.

11. Lunchbox by Zariah.
Zariah told us she had trouble with her lunchbox on Monday and was unable to get enough food from canteen.

12. Library by Tess.
A reminder that the library is looking good and needs to be used and looked after.

13. Gardening by Wendy.
Shona won’t be here to do gardening today so could the people on that job just water the vegie gardens please?

14. Build week construction agreements by Crafty.
Chris read out the agreements about the different pieces of equipment and the meeting voted that the temporary ones (Dome and Keepy Uppy) will come down at the end of term.

Meeting adjourned. Preschool first. Sustaining Currambena.

Posted in School Meeting | Comments Off

Photo of the Week

Posted on March 12, 2020 by Newsletter Editor

IMG_20200310_083951

Posted in Photo of the week | Comments Off