Preschool News Week 3 Term 1

Posted on February 18, 2021 by katrinaa

Hello everyone,

It was lovely to see so many preschool families at the Welcome breakfast on Wednesday. We’re really enjoying having families back on the school grounds and being able to provide community events that allow families to meet other Currambena community members. Attending events such as these are great opportunities for preschool families new to the school to meet other families both in primary and in preschool to learn more about how our school operates.

The preschool children are starting to come together as a group, spending time exploring the preschool environment, the wider school and each other. We’re currently in the “honeymoon period” for many of the new children. It’s not at all uncommon for children to initially feel excited and keen to come to preschool and then all of a sudden have difficulty in separating from their parents in the morning or feel very hesitant in coming. We’re always happy to assist with this so please don’t hesitate to let us know if you need help.

A reminder that next Tuesday February 23rd we’ll be holding a parent information night for preschool families. This is another opportunity to meet other parents, ask questions about anything you’re unsure about and hear more about our preschool year and happenings within the school. The evening will start at 6pm and finish around 7-7.30pm. They’ll also be a whole school parent community evening on Thursday 4th March, the time is yet to be conformed.

Each year in preschool we ask two parents to volunteer as parent reps. Parent reps organise social events such as play dates in the school holidays as well as communicate important information to other preschool families. If this is something you’d like to take on, please let me know. It’s a great way to meet other families and feel a part of the community.

One of our whole school agreements that preschool families might not know about is the importance of children independently climbing the outdoor equipment. Children develop a sense of a mastery as they independently develop the skills to do this on their own, an important rites of passage at Currambena. We ask that parents supervise their children while climbing equipment if it’s before or after preschool rather than lift them onto it.

A big thank you to Ash’s Mum for bringing in A4 paper (used on one side) for us to use in preschool. It’s great to be able to be able to recycle and reuse paper in preschool. If anyone else has access A4 used on one side we’d love to be able to give it one more use, so please bring it in.

That’s it for this week!

Love

Katrina, Michael & Lisa

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Photo of the Week

Posted on February 18, 2021 by Newsletter Editor

PXL_20210215_213309924

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Julianna Term 1 Week 3

Posted on February 18, 2021 by juliannam

Hi Everyone,

Thank-you to Wendy and her class for running a lovely WELCOME BREAKFAST.

Thank you to all the families that managed to join us. It was so good to catch up with people and have a chat

Our next event is……

 Whole School Community Evening Thursday 4th March. This is an opportunity to hear from our teachers about how  democratic education works and what makes us so special. We will be touching on Currambena philosophy, transition through the classes and hopefully have some ex-students to talk  a little about moving to high school and onwards. Please save this date, we would love to see everyone!

REMINDERS…….

Climbing in the playground – this is a reminder and information for our new parents. All children can climb trees, the climbing frames, up into the tree houses etc. One of the standing rules is: you cannot be helped up by another child or an adult. This is an important part of our play allowing children to manage these activities when they have the physical and emotional capabilities to do so. Often the children are upset and frustrated that they cannot get up but with persistence and more growth they finally achieve, and what a win that is for them!

Maintenance – Please have a look for our special page in the newsletter with a list of Maintenance jobs. This will be updated and added to each week.

 Signing in – Please remember to sign in using the QR code.

 Morning Drop Off – children can only come onto school grounds before 8.30am with parent supervision

 School Records -Please remember we use your child’s surname as the reference for all school data. I especially need this on the bank statement for when you pay the fees

Fees –due next week 25thth February. If you are requesting a payment plan please email your suggested payment schedule to enquiries@currambena.nsw.edu.au for confirmation before the fee due date. Many thanks to the families that have already paid

Dogs on School Grounds – please remember to send me an email requesting access for your family support dog

UP COMING EVENTS!

African Drumming Workshops – every Monday over four weeks, starting 1st March

The Medieval Show – Tuesday 2nd March

Cheers Julianna

“Dream lofty dreams and as you dream so shall you become.”

John Ruskin

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From Jess x (T1 W3)

Posted on February 18, 2021 by Jess

Dear Parents,
Thank you to everyone who came along on Tuesday evening. It was lovely to have everyone together and to discuss some of the practical things that are happening in the classroom. Thank you to Abi (Pepper’s mum) for volunteering to be our class parent rep this year. As I can’t give out contact details for families, please get in touch with Abi if you are happy to be added to her contact list and to be kept up to date regarding social events and other matters that concern our class.

Our first swimming session on Tuesday afternoon went really well and the children had a fabulous time. Thank you to Karolina, Jennifer and Chris for coming along and helping to supervise so vigilantly. The children did a marvellous job of managing themselves and their clothes and bags and they even maintained pretty good stamina for their first walk to the pool and back. I think everyone will be surprised how quickly their stamina continues to strengthen this term.

Our first class meeting was a fabulous success. Kit and Jion were very brave being our first chairs and did a wonderful job keeping the meeting on track. There’s still some confusion regarding procedure and process for some of the children, but as the weeks go on, I’m sure this will be sorted out.

Dressing up has been a popular activity in the classroom lately and yesterday in Spanish, the children really enjoyed being in all sorts of costumes and leaning about the Carnivale celebrations. Thank you, Carolina, for such a fun and interactive session with the children.

In English and mathematics, I’m slowly coming to understand where each of the children are at and together, we’ve developing some good work habits and routines. Already the children are showing increased ability to concentrate on tasks and are leaning to work on more focused activties.

I’m having feedback from some parents that lunchboxes are coming home full or at least partly full. At school, I’ve now asked all children to eat their morning tea and lunch before they go and play. With some children however, I’m finding that even though they may be sitting down with their lunchboxes, they still manage not to actually eat their food! I’ll be watching and making more effort to monitor food intake for these children, but please come and let me know if this is a continuing problem for you and your child.

Lost Property
Given the freedoms that children have at Currambena to choose their clothes, to remove their shoes and to manage themselves in the playground, lost property has always been a bit of a problem. In my classroom, there is a shoebox inside the classroom in which I ask children to deposit their shoes and socks when they are removed. There is also a hat box outside the classroom in which children can throw their hats as they come inside and from where they can grab their hats again as they go outside. And I will also be setting up a general lost property box next to the lockers for other items I find in my classroom. There is also a school lost property area outside the staffroom.

Labelling all of your child’s belongings is probably the one singular thing that you can do to improve the chances of your child’s belongings finding their way back home.

And if you could please regularly check if your child has accidently taken home any items that don’t belong to them (particularly hats) and return them to school so they can be returned to their owners.

Date for your term calendar – March 2nd
A band of medieval experts bringing costumes, stories and activities will be visiting Currambena. Should be a load of fun!

Maintenance
If you are looking for a maintenance job in the classroom, please come and see me. There are a few things that really need a bit of attention.
• Sorting and washing the items in the dress up box is quite a big job but one you could work through at your own pace, taking small bags home at a time to be washed and then returned. It also needs someone who is happy to use a little bit of discretion to sort and throw out items that are past their used by date.
• Spider web management. This is generally an ongoing battle around my classroom and I’d be happy for anyone to log an hour here or there to brush away spider webs around the lockers and under the eaves of the roof outside. This needs to be done on the weekends, when the chidlren are not on site. If you’re prepared to tackle a larger job with cobwebs, the back windows need a good brush down and to do this, they need to be accessed from the outside with a long pole.
• If you love to sort and order, you might like to offer some time to organise our take home readers.. A nice job for someone with an eye for detail.

Attendance and illness
If your child is away from school, please email me by 9am on the day they are away with an explanation for their absence. If they away because they are displaying cold like symptoms, it is the policy of the school that a negative COVID test result should be emailed to the child’s teacher before they can return to school. Thank you for your help with this.

Love Jess x

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Emma’s Class Week 3 Term 1

Posted on February 18, 2021 by emmab

Dear Parents,

It was lovely to see and chat with many of you at the Welcome Breakfast yesterday. Wendy’s class are such impressive leaders and role models for the younger students in the way they work together to make important school events run smoothly. We have much to live up to!

Our class museum is growing as interesting artefacts make their way to school, as is our wall of school photos. We’ve been looking at how toys have changed over time and after looking at some photos of toys from long ago, the vote was unanimous: ‘Toys from the past can be creepy!’ In Week 7, I would like to extend an invitation to any grandparents (or great-grandparents!) willing to join us in the classroom and form a panel of ‘Oral Historians’. To deepen our understanding of how childhood and schools have changed over time, we would love to ask them questions about their experience of school. Please email me if any grandparents would be able to visit from 9.30am-10.30am on Tuesday 16th March. Alternatively, if any of the children would like to share a short video of their grandparent talking about what school was like for them, that would also be exciting.

In Writing, we’ve been learning about the difference between a fact and an opinion and I enjoyed seeing the children speak with such passion when justifying why the sentences they wrote were facts or opinions. In Grammar, we’ve been learning about adjectives and the children have come up with many imaginative and descriptive words for everything from donuts to puppies.

In Maths, we’ve been looking at number sequences and identifying patterns on the hundreds chart and practising our skip counting skills in everyday contexts.

I will cover the following points at the parent evening, but here is some information about the coming weeks:

  • In Week 4, we will be starting to take home readers. They can come back to school and be changed at any time, although I suggest doing this weekly. I am always happy to receive an email requesting more readers or readers of a different level. I will also encourage the children to let me know if they are finding the readers too tricky or too easy.
  • From Week 4 onwards, I would also like to invite parent helpers to join us at school for Literacy Stations on a Thursday morning from 9.30am-11am. Please email me if you would like to join us.
  • In Week 5, the children are invited to present News to the class about something they enjoy doing outside of school. They are encouraged to use images or objects in their presentation and practise what they are going to say at home. I will be very close by should they require a friendly helping hand, but I feel there will be lots of confident presenters bursting to share their experiences with the class.

I look forward to seeing many of you tonight at 6pm for the parent meeting.

Love Emma

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Sarah’s Class Week 3 Term 1

Posted on February 18, 2021 by sarahm

Hi everybody!

How lucky the rain stayed away for our Welcome Breakfast to go ahead outside, on Wednesday morning. It was so lovely to see many of you mingling and chatting over pastries and fruit. Thankyou soooooo much to Wendy and her brood for organising tables etc and serving food and drinks.

This week, we immersed ourselves in the history of castles and discovered the first were called a Motte and Bailey. The term comes from Norman French words for mound and enclosed land. We watched a video and looked at a book, learning that the most important part of the castle was called The Keep. The ‘keep’ was built on top of a mound (motte) and was where the King & Queen or Lords resided. Below the motte, at the bottom of the mound, was an area called the ‘bailey’ where the noblemen and women lived. A wooden fence surrounded the bailey called the ‘palisade’. After discovering all this we then drew our own interpretation of this structure and labelled the different parts.

Also this week, we started making our swords. A couple of children were feeling slightly concerned about the fact that the swords might be seen, by others, as weapons. So we took the topic to school meeting and presented our case: the swords would be more like a wand and only used for wielding good. The school voted and the majority approved! I also discussed the possibility of us designing and creating our own castles. We also read a story about Queen Gwendolyn and unpacked the meaning of the word ‘righteous’ and the statement…..“It is your courage that will win battles.”

In a couple of weeks we have a Medieval show visiting the school. There will be a performance (for primary) where the children will have the opportunity to become part of a Medieval Court. They will be given some background on the period, be able to dress-up in traditional costume and try on some of the props. Should be fun!

We had another great swimming session this week where apart from building stamina to swim laps, we practiced crouch dives into the water and duck diving to reclaim a ring from the bottom of the deep end of the pool.

A few reminders…..

  • Next Wednesday, 24th Feb is our parent/teacher night starting at 6 pm. This is for adults only! In order to maintain the school’s COVID safety plan: Please make sure you use the QR code before entering the classroom.
  • Monday, 1st March we start 4 weeks of drumming. This will hopefully end with a drumming social on Friday, 26th but we are yet to confirm this.
  • Tuesday, 2nd is the Medieval Show.
  • Thursday, 4th is the whole school community night. Starting at 6 pm we will discuss the Currambena philosophy including the transition through the school.
  • Tues, 9th – Thurs, 11th is painting week!
  • Wed, 17th is Summer Hill day!

And one last thing: now that it has been approved by staff and council – I can let you know that I have finally gained my wings and clocked up 10 years of teaching and long service leave. So, I am planning to take 2 weeks leave at the end of this term and 2 weeks at the beginning of term 2 and will be away for a total of 4 weeks. For continuity, I have asked Vinnie to be here for the whole time and thankfully, he has accepted. I will discuss all planning and the required teaching and learning activities with him before I leave.

Have a nice weekend and I look forward to seeing you all next Wednesday, socially distanced of course!

Love, Sarah

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Leesa’s Class Term 1 Week 3

Posted on February 18, 2021 by leesaj

Hi Everyone,

What a lovely morning we had for the Welcome Breakfast yesterday. It was wonderful to see so many of the community attend. We’ve had another busy week exploring food and fibre production and watching a video on factory machinery for mass production of foods. We also read as a group about cities around the world that are banning or minimising cars in their city centres.

In Mathematics this week we’ve moved onto addition and have looked at the different written and mental strategies we can use. We’ll continue to practise these strategies over the next few weeks before moving on to subtraction.

On Wednesday we focussed on contractions and the reasons behind the apostrophe. Then we had some time to read and write some imaginative texts.

Our sound for this week was ‘a’ as in apple. The children completed activities that included rhyming words, synonyms, the spelling rule for adding ‘ed’ and the meaning of words with specific prefixes e.g anti.

The children discussed this week staying safe around electricity. We looked at a poster from Ausgrid about the different ways we can keep safe. The children were then given the task of making their own poster to inform others about being safe around electricity. Thank you to Wendy who received these resources and allowed our class to utilise them. You may see a handball and torch come home with your child once they’ve finished their poster.

Important Dates:

  • Wednesday 24th February – Class Parent Meeting from 6-7pm. This is a parent only event held in the classroom. Please make sure you sign in with the QR Code and socially distance. I will discuss the topics for the term, textbooks, events, reminders and of course answer any questions you may have.
  • Tuesday 2nd March – Medieval Show at school
  • Thursday 4th March – Whole School Community Discussion Meeting starting at 6pm
  • Tuesday 9th – Thursday 11th March – Paint Week
  • Wednesday 17th March – Summer Hill Day
  • Friday 26th March – Community Social (Time to be confirmed)
  • Thursday 1st April – We’re hoping to have a Primary Beach Day to end the term

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

Leesa x

 

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Wendy’s Group Week 3 Term 1

Posted on February 18, 2021 by wendyp

It was a lovely breakfast event yesterday and I was very proud of all the children from my group who got up early and arrived, some of them before me in the morning, to help chop fruit, arrange the pastries attractively and get the tables ready. The children did brilliantly, serving food, collecting money and selling tea-towels! We were very lucky with the weather and it was wonderful to see so many parents come along to share the time with us.

Thank you to those who came to the Parent Meeting last night. It was great to hear how you all found out about Currambena and what you and your children love about it! I also enjoyed talking about our group and our plans for the year. Please always feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns either by email or by catching me for a quick chat before or after school.

This week we have our two Macquarie Uni student teachers with us every day. Tasneem and Talitha had their prac postponed because of we-all-know-what and so this is their first prac and they are both doing really well. Please pop in and say hello if you can.

We have begun reading the first chapters of some books we might choose for our next shared book to be read aloud each afternoon. This is a fun process! In English, we are using adjectives at every opportunity and completing spelling textbook pages and learning our list words.

In Maths, we are working on whole number, how our number system works, converting between units of length and expanding our skills in solving word problems. Unit 1 in Maths textbooks needs to be completed this week.

In our Science topic on living things, we have moved on to the classification of animals, thank you Linnaeus! We are also looking at Australian animal adaptations to different environments.

Our art project in class this week was to create a name flag and I hope to get these sewn into a long piece of bunting to decorate our room.

Swimming went well this week as we had a lane in the lap pool and I was able to watch the stroke work of almost everyone in freestyle, breaststroke and backstroke. They are almost all very competent swimmers but even so, we will all wear life jackets for all water activities at camp!

Thank you for all the pink permission forms now returned. I hope you have all sent the money across to the school account by now with your child’s name and “camp” written in the reference line please. I will send a final note home about drivers, cabins and timing on Friday. Please make sure the children pack their own bags! By all means, supervise this process, especially the business of rolling things tightly so they take up less room, but please make sure they put the things in their bag so they have a good chance of knowing where things are when they get there! No lollies or phones or anything electronic please. Many thanks to the parents who have offered to drive us there and/or back.

Looking a little further ahead, please make sure you have the date in your diary for the whole school community gathering on Thursday, 4th March at 6pm. This will involve some philosophical discussion and, hopefully, opportunities to hear from some of our ex-students. More details to come!

I hope you’re all having wonderful weeks!

Love,
Wendy

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School Meeting Minutes 12th February 2021

Posted on February 18, 2021 by leesaj

School Meeting Minutes 12/2/21

Chair: Cooper and Zariah

  1. Swords by Phoebe

Phoebe asked the meeting permission to make swords in their craft time for their medieval topic. The meeting voted that making swords for a topic was fine.

  1. Chromebooks by Sarah

Sarah reminded the meeting about putting Chromebooks on charge once you’ve finished with them.

  1. Climbing Equipment by Katrina (Spoken by the chair)

Please don’t move the preschool equipment, which includes the walking plank.

  1. Tags by Wendy

Reminder to put away tags from the capture the flag.

  1. Tai Chi by Xavier

On the basketball court today we have Tai Chi starting at 11:30am, if you would like to come.

  1. Mural by Crafty Chris

Chris reminded the meeting about paint week in week 6. It will start on Tuesday and end on Thursday.

  1. Capture the flag by Zariah and Amy

Zariah reminded the meeting to make sure you pack away all of the capture the flag equipment and not leave it around the school.

  1. Toilet seat by Zariah

Reminder to clean the toilet seat if you pee on the seat.

  1. Bunnings by Crafty Chris

Chris told the meeting he would be making a trip to Bunnings. The meeting offered some suggestions of things needed around the school.

Meeting adjourned.

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Photo of the Week Term 1 Week 2

Posted on February 11, 2021 by Newsletter Editor

IMG_20210211_125658

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