Photo of the Week

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Newsletter Editor

IMG_6284

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Julianna Term 2 Week 5

Posted on May 28, 2020 by juliannam

Hi Everyone,

Currambena Annual General Meeting, tomorrow Friday 29th starting at 6.30pm.

This year, it is being conducted through zoom, and you should have received an email yesterday with all the details to log on. We would love to see you, and the fact that you do not need to leave your cozy couch, we should have no problem, meeting our quota of 21 to make a quorum!

Reminder

U-Turns. Our staff at the gate have been feeling very anxious by the number of people swinging round across the double line, in front of the zebra crossing. This is very concerning for the safety of our kids.

Maintenance

Is there any parent that has the equipment to come and cut the grass on the nature strip running up in front of the preschool? It is looking very unkept. Perhaps next term we should consider planting it out in ground cover natives. What do we think Gardening team?

Please, please continue to remind your kids about continuing to keep themselves safe at school, about the many times they need to wash their hands, not sharing food, being very mindful of others etc…

Take care,

Julianna xx

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Preschool News Term 2 Week 5

Posted on May 28, 2020 by katrinaa

Hello everyone,

It’s been lovely to see how engaged the children have been during their day at preschool. In no time at all everything feels just like it did before the pandemic. The children continue to discuss Corona virus with us and each other often throughout the day though everyone seems relaxed and interested in finding out more about it. We continue to go over the Corona virus agreement we developed in preschool on a daily basis to reinforce the importance of hand washing and cough and sneeze etiquette.

On Wednesday I received the latest health advice from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee in regards to early childhood services. They continue to recommend that unwell staff, children and visitors do not attend preschool. Children, staff and parents should use appropriate hand and respiratory hygiene and that preschool use an enhanced cleaning regimen. This is something we’ve had in place since the start of the pandemic. The AHPPC does not believe that the venue density rule of 4 metre square person applies to us nor does maintaining 1.5m between children. AHPPC continues to note that there is very limited evidence of transition between children with 0.8% of confirmed cases being children under 5 years of age as of 15 May 2020. They do recommend adults continue to physically distance themselves in staff rooms and when dropping off and picking up children. In light of these recommendations we’ll continue to ask parents to drop off and pick up from the front double gates at the start of next week, this will be reviewed by School council at our next Council on Monday night. Everyone is coping with this change to the drop off routine really well, showing what capable little people they are. We’ll also continue with the staggered pick up time of 2:45pm for children who don’t have siblings in primary to ensure everyone can physically distance.

We’ve continued to observe lots of interest in stories in preschool with some of the Elders being so well versed in the repeated reading in some of their favourite books that they are now reading them to their peers. In group times we’ve been looking at problem solving in play, agreements in preschool and group time behaviour. We’re easing the children back into the more structured elements of our day as after around 9 weeks of being at home for most children the transition back to preschool may seem somewhat daunting.

We’ve been developing some group goals for the preschool during our planning and programming. Currently we are focussing on fundamental movement skills, bilateral coordination, fine motor development and increasing children’s fine motor muscle strength. We’ve reintroduced the children to their journals and are currently working on developing their skills in independently using them. Lots of skill is involved with this. Children need to be able to turn the page to find the next blank to use and to follow our verbal instructions to undertake the task of completing a drawing that reflects on the group experience they have just been involved in. There has been some amazing results with this. Children are welcome to take their journal home, we just ask they bring them back the next day so they can continue to work in them.

A huge thank you to Kit’s parents for the delicious Indian feast they made for all the teachers in preschool, TBU and primary. We really appreciate your thoughtfulness, the food was truly amazing.

That’s it for this week!

Love

Katrina, Michael and Hannah

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Jess’ Class Week 5 Term 2

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Jess

Dear Parents,

It was so lovely to have the children back in the classroom again this week. There was a lot of play both inside and outside and all sorts of imaginative silliness going on. There was a disco on Tuesday and lots and lots of special letter writing over the week. If your child shows any interest in writing a letter at home, our post box is still open and awaiting deliveries.

Wednesday was particularly exciting, as almost all the children returned to the classroom and we were able to hold our first class-meeting for a long time. Despite being away from school for many months, surprisingly the children still had a lot to discuss.

This week is reconciliation week and Tuesday was “Sorry Day”, the anniversary of the day Kevin Rudd apologised the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on behalf of the government, for the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families. It is a serious topic to teach to young children and I chose to focus on reflecting on the purpose and power of an apology and what makes an apology sound genuine. The children reflected on their own “sorry stories” and drew/wrote some lovely stories.

We’ve also been exploring Dream time stories and oral story telling in Indigenous cultures as a way to record history and comparing this to our own family stories. There have been some fabulous presentations of family booklets from the children and these are now all on display in the classroom. Some of our elders have also presented their very first PIP (Personal Interest Project) which I was very impressed to watch – well done to them!

We’ve nearly finished our focus on time in Maths, with just a little more consolidation around days of the week and months in a year to go.

As we seem to be approaching a complete return to school in the coming weeks, I wanted to thank all of you for being so supportive of your children’s learning at home. Juggling work, teaching and everyone’s mental health has not been an easy task and one even more challenging for parents of younger children. I’m hoping that the silver lining is that you can feel more connected to the learning journey your child is undertaking and that the partnership between parents and the school can strengthen even further.

Wishing you all a lovely week,
Jess x

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Charles’ Class, Term 2 Week 5

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Newsletter Editor

Hello Everyone,

I hope you have all had a wonderful week. This week has been quite busy at Currambena as we begin to transition more and more children into the classroom throughout the week. We also had a furry visitor in the shape of a possum visit our classroom over the weekend. We have had a lot of fun looking at possums and learning about what they eat, where they live and what they look like.

I would also like to bring your attention to an issue which has concerned the Currambena
community, in which cars have been seen making U-turns on Longueville road over double lines in front of the school. We would like to extend our caution on the road as more and more children begin to attend school and traffic begins to increase.

This week in literacy we have been continuing our reading groups on Thursdays in class. We have also been continuing our narrative writing unit and refining our writing goals.
In numeracy students have been looking at maps and coordinates, which ties in well with our Geography unit as we read books about pirates, play whole class games, and create our own treasure maps.

In science, Leesa has been kind enough to coordinate a Science demonstration on Zoom which will be live streamed direct from Questacon next Friday. This will be a fun and engaging experience for all students to explore their curiosity in science develop their understanding of a number of topics.

That’s all for this week, stay safe and have a wonderful weekend!

Charles

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Sarah’s Class Week 5 Term 2

Posted on May 28, 2020 by sarahm

In a world full of pop heroes, fantasy heroes and sports heroes, we should never forget to look to the real heroes for real courage, real strength and real stories. - Steve Nethercott

Who would ever have thought that half way through a term it would look like this?!

As we start to slowly resume more face to face contact and enter a ‘new normal’ of our daily life, I think it is so important that (in this adjustment) we take moments to find Happiness in the littlest of things. This thought comes from a book I read to the children yesterday morning: “Where Happiness Hides”. Having found this resource I will continue to use some of it’s prose as lessons on facing adversity, dealing with difficulty and building resilience. This will also tie nicely with our Heroes and Villains until the end of term.

It was so, so lovely to have the whole group back together again on Tuesday. But unfortunately, we didn’t get around to having that discussion (I had planned) on the concept of Heroes/Villains. I think we all just bumbled and muddled through the day together, as if it were the first day of a new year. So much has happened, in between us ALL being together. However, we did manage to have a class meeting and some reminders and questions were brought up about social distancing, not sharing lunches, washing hands etc. I did have some exciting news to share: given there will be no school excursions this term, on Friday, 5th June Questacon is offering an exclusive Science workshop on ZOOM. I will post the time and list of materials early next week and then the Zoom details a day or 2 prior. Someone asked if this was a choice or not, to attend. My response was that it is on a Friday which is a day of making choices. But given we haven’t done any (in class) experiments this year, it would be good to participate. And, you may learn something exciting and have FUN at the same time.

A few weeks ago, I had the children make some playing cards: using their villain make 6 cards, give them a skill or characteristic and a point. Over the last 2 weeks we have been making a list of all the villain’s qualities and this made the basis for our lesson (on Tuesday) on Data and making graphs. We had quite a lengthy discussion about what data is; what it is used for and who gathers it and we looked at the different ways data can be displayed. The children then posed a question to each other, collated this using tally marks and will then formulate this into a graph.

Yesterday, the group were asked to Design a Workout. I asked them to create a physical workout that everybody in the class could participate in. We will make our way through everyone’s programs over the next few weeks, at school!

I reminded the children about personal projects and when they are due and for your information they are due on Friday, 19th June. Presentations will take place over the last 2 weeks of term. I’m not sure, at this stage, whether parents will be able to attend. But you will be informed over the next few weeks.

An important message: since the teachers have been standing at the gate, we have been noticing a number of cars doing U-Turns, across the double white lines, just outside the school. Aside from being extremely dangerous, it is illegal! Julie, our crossing guard notices this happening too. So please, take the little extra time to go around the block to keep everyone safe!

On that note, have a lovely weekend.

Stay safe! Stay well!

Love, Sarah

 

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Leesa’s Class Term 2 Week 5

Posted on May 28, 2020 by leesaj

Hi Everyone,

I can’t believe it is half way through the term! This week we have enjoyed learning about our topics for the term. Geography is a hit, with learning the Capital Cities of all the States and Territories of our country. Lots of information on when each State and Territory was established/named, natural and built features of these and the area of each. We have also mapped the bodies of water surrounding Australia.

Our sound for this week was ‘ai, ay, a_e, a’ as in snail, hay, cake and lady. In our Sound Waves books we completed activities on finishing spelling words, adding ed and ing, finding smaller words in the list words and unjumbling letters to make pairs of homophones.

Our Australia’s First People topic we looked at bush tucker. The children researched a variety of different bush tucker and completed a venn diagram comparing food from before 1788 and food from today. The similarities were the bush tucker that is still available today.

We read a section of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and discussed the descriptive language used in the text and how we can picture the ‘scene’. The children were asked what the effect would be if the descriptive words were removed. Discussion around how boring the book would be and that you wouldn’t read it for hours on end.

We continued with multiplication and are slowly moving into division over the next week. We have revised multiplication facts, extended multiplication (three-digits by one-digit) and how to complete division using our knowledge of multiplication.

Over the last few weeks while the teachers have been at the gate, we have noticed that some drivers have been performing U-turns out the front of the school.  This is extremely dangerous and not only that, it’s also illegal to do so over double white lines.

With more children attending school each day, could you please try to have your child at school between 8:30am-9am. A teacher will be at the double gates during this time to greet the children, check temperatures and provide hand sanitiser.

Next Friday 5th June, our class have been signed up to a Zoom Science workshop with Questacon. Yesterday I sent the materials list through email so that the children can participate in the activities. The workshop is called Survival Features of Wild Creatures and will be one hour long from 11:30am to 12:30pm. It should be lots of fun.

I can’t wait to see more of the children next week. Our class days are: Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Could you please remind the children to bring all their books to school on Monday.

Reminder: AGM via Zoom is this Friday starting at 6:30pm.

That’s it for this week. Have a lovely weekend.

Leesa x

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Photo Of The Week

Posted on May 21, 2020 by Newsletter Editor

Joshua Shave

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Julianna Term 2 Week 4

Posted on May 21, 2020 by juliannam

Hi Everyone,

Slowly, slowly our kids are able to return, and what a joy it is for us all.

 Remember to keep reading the updates from our Council so you can plan for your week ahead.

Please, please remind your kids about continuing to keep themselves safe at school, about the many times they need to wash their hands, not sharing food, being very mindful of others etc…

Maintenance

One of our neighbours in the street has pointed out to us about our messy  nature strip outside on the street, running up in front of the preschool.  Is there any parent that has the equipment to come and cut this grass please? Perhaps we should consider planting it out in ground cover natives. What do we think Gardening team?

Nature Sleuths

Puffin and Josh thank-you for the detective work on last week’s little critter. For anyone else interested, it is a broad-tailed gecko. This week I found what I think is a spider hiding in the garden; ideas please on what it is?

Take care,

Julianna xx

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Preschool News Term 2 Week 4

Posted on May 21, 2020 by katrinaa

Hello everyone,

Another week of returning back to our new normal. There’s been lots of joyful and purpose play involving children reconnecting, exploring and settling back into preschool.

We’ve continued to focus on how to keep yourself and others safe at preschool. This involves hand washing when you arrive and just before you go home, before and after eating, before and after playing on the outdoor play equipment and when you use the bathroom or cough or blow your nose and use a tissue. It’s important to not touch your face during the day, this is a tricky one for everyone, though if you do, go and wash your hands and only put food in your mouth. We’ve continued to ensure that wherever possible children are distanced from each other which is a difficult thing for a preschool child to grasp. All of these new procedures along with a few others will remain our norms.

We’ve continued to ask parents not to enter the school grounds. We’re bringing the sign in and out table to the double gates for parents to sign their child/ren in after using the hand sanitiser to clean their hands. Everyone has adapted well to this new routine and will remain in place for the time being to ensure the health, safety and well-being of the children, families and staff at Currambena. We would also like to remain with the 2.45pm pick up time to ensure there is enough space for parents to distance themselves appropriately at the front of the school. If your child is in TBU in the afternoon or has a sibling in primary they will remain in preschool until 3 pm.

All of these procedures are proving successful that in preschool we are happy to have children return on all their allocated days prior to the pandemic. To assist with staffing it would be greatly appreciated if you sent me and email if you are planning to continue to keep your child away from preschool or plan only to bring them back on certain days.

Reading has been a big part of our day throughout the year and continues to be a favourite and one of the most requested experiences in preschool. This week we’ve also placed the making table and paints back out for children to freely explore throughout their day. The children have also enjoyed lots of play on the outdoor equipment this week. The reintroduction of the rope swing has been particularly enjoyed by everyone!

We’ll offer Zoom meetings next week with our last one planned for next Friday 29th May, as we are now finding that often no one is joining these meetings, as most children are now in preschool.

Wishing everyone a restful weekend.

It’s great to have you back!

Love

Katrina, Michael and Hannah

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