SAVE THE DATE

School Photo Day

Please save Tuesday 5th April in your calendar as this will be our school photo day.

A friendly reminder for all students to be neatly presented wearing a Badger Creek logo top

IMPORTANT SCHOOL DATES

Important school dates to remember:

24/3 – 9.30am – Assembly

28/3 – School curriculum Day

5/4 – School Photo Day

8/4 – 1.30pm – Assembly

8/4 – Last day of term 1 – School concludes at 2.30pm – School bus will be running one hour earlier

PE with Angela Swindle

Bunjil Bunjil Waa

We were on the basketball court and one of the students noticed that Bunjil was flying overhead. He pointed up to the sky excitedly and said ‘There’s an eagle!’ I responded and said ‘Oh yes I see. That’s Bunjil watching over us, how lucky are we?!’ During the lesson I had planned to play Duck Duck Goose with the students and was inspired by seeing Bunjil to change the words to Bunjil Bunjil Waa. The students were curious – what? Huh? What’s Waa? I explained that Waa is the crow and he is the protector. The students quickly and easily responded to the change of words and engaged in a fun game of Bunjil Bunjil Waa. A few minutes after we finished our game, Waa flew closely over our group on the basketball court and the students were very curious – what sort of bird is that? Some asked, and some guessed. I let them know that is Waa, a crow, who we were just singing about.

It was such a lovely experience that we all got to share, and I think I’ll be keeping Bunjil Bunjil Waa in rotation!

This week in the art room students have been busily working towards finishing their printmaking projects. Students’ finished artworks have begun to be displayed around the school, including the preps’ collaborative artwork inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. This can be found in the hallway outside the art room, if you’d like to take a look.

Our 1/2 cohort have just finished their Love monoprints inspired by artist Robert Indiana. They are now focussing on some colour theory, revisiting their primary and secondary colour knowledge and looking at warm and cool colours through a painting of spring flowers.

The 3/4 classes are working towards completing their Clare Youngs inspired collages. They used printmaking techniques to make their papers and then collaged them onto templates. I have included some of the finished pieces in the attached gallery. They are really spectacular!

We missed out on our Monday class with the 5/6’s and preps this week, but I look forward to showing you more of their work in the coming weeks.

We have reached the end of week 7 with full hearts!

Across Literacy, we have been learning about fiction and non-fiction books, exploring various texts to highlight the difference between the two. The fiction books we read were, ‘Lilly’s purple plastic purse’, and ‘Little Miss Princess’. In groups, the children used their imaginations to create the next page. We are now experts on Jelly fish and Volcanoes as we examined modes of non-fiction. The Preps enjoyed finding an example of a fiction and non-fiction text for their green book tubs. In Writing, we have been focussing on 1. Capital letters, 2. Do the words make sense? 3.Space it out and 4. Don’t forget to punctuate. Thanks to Pevan & Sarah for the catchy tune, you may like to ask your child to sing it to you, if they haven’t already!

J..J..Jarmie day was a hit to help us celebrate learning about the /j/ sound, we wish it was jarmie day every day!

Last week, in Smart Spelling, we stopped to revise our common words from previous weeks. This gave us a chance to see how far our smart spellers have come. This week, we have been learning the word, sun from the sentence, ‘The sun was up but it was not hot.’

In Maths, we have continued our focus on collecting data. We started collecting data with questions that involve a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, then moved onto ‘would you rather’ questions and then progressed to multiple choice. The Preps constructed their own questions to use when surveying their peers. ‘Do you like Spiderman?’, ‘Do you like singing in the rain?’, ‘Would you rather the sun or moon?” and “Would you rather a car or bike?” are just some of the wonderful questions that were thought of by the Preps. We then interpreted the data through tallying the results, using a graph to record the responses.

In Inquiry, as an introduction, we started conversations surrounding Australian History, looking into past and present events as well as looking at how things have evolved over time. What thoughtful and respectful conversations we had during this time, clarifying questions were asked as well as comments made to extend our current thinking of past events.

Last week, we introduced Kookie the Kookaburra (Gurrng-Gurng) and Phoenix the Possum (Walert), our classroom mascots. Every Friday, Kookie and Phoenix will be sent home with a new prep for the entire week! During their stay, we would love to see ways in which you further care and respect the environment at home. This could be through recycling, reducing waste, compost, worm farms etc. Please support your child in taking some photos and/or draw some pictures for them to share with their prep friends.

We hope everyone has a wonderful weekend,

Love the Prep team 🙂

What an exciting time it is to be in the Year 1/2 learning community! Our move into the gym refurbishment is edging closer and we couldn’t be more excited! The thought of new furniture and a brand-new learning space is something we are very much looking forward to! Our children have been watching the space being refurbished with keen interest and soon it will be theirs to explore!

We also have an exciting Inquiry open afternoon coming up in our final week of Term 1 (Week 10) where students will showcase their learning to their families and loved-ones. Our open afternoon will be on Thursday 6^th April from 3pm-4:30pm and will include some surprises outdoors once the home bell has gone. We eagerly invite all families to attend our open afternoon where we can share some laughs and food together. We will provide more details in next week’s newsletter. 🙂

We welcome Chris Roscoe to our wonderful 1/2 Team this week. What a fabulous addition you are! We love your calm and kind nature and welcome parents to come and say hi to our new member! 🙂

In Literacy this week, students have been practising retelling the main parts of a story including the characters, setting, beginning, middle and ending. You can check out our ‘High-Five Retell’ to use with your child when reading at home! In Writing, we’ve been learning about conjunctions (joining words such as and, so, but) and sentence structure including simple and compound sentences. Next week, we are working on Predicting when Reading, and working on inside and outside character traits in Writing (see our pics for a poster), as well as drafting engaging story beginnings that effectively describe the setting. We had a great crack at a first Narrative (story) last Friday – check out some of our photos! Can you tell what our Writing prompt was… (a haunted house!!).

In Numeracy, students have been learning about ‘Time’ including reading and making clock times to quarter-past and quarter-to on both digital and analogue clocks. Next week, students are beginning a hands-on unit of ‘Measurement’ that includes comparing lengths using informal units such as hand-span, feet (non-standard) or unifix (standard). We can’t wait to figure out how far our paper planes have travelled!! We’re also continuing weekly problem-solving lessons that encourage students to ‘climb out’ of The Learning Pit when they are challenged. Check out our photos for a picture of The Learning Pit.

We thank all parents and carers for returning the ICT Agreement sent home last week. This helps us to maintain a safe and healthy online learning environment for all students.

Just a quick reminder to all families, that we have a Curriculum Day on Monday 28^th March.

Have a wonderful weekend from The Year 1/2 Team!

This Week in 3/4

We have been establishing small Reciprocal Reading groups and have practised roles including Summariser, Questioner, Predictor and Clarifier.  In writing, we have begun the process of planning a persuasive text. Students have used graphic organisers to help structure their writing and organise their ideas. We have enjoyed investigating probability and variables with chance experiments throughout the week. Our next focus in maths will be Subtraction. We have thoroughly enjoyed our Inquiry mentor text ‘Young Dark Emu A True History by Bruce Pascoe’ which as promoted rich discussions in the classroom.

On Thursday our students participated in a short resilience session, in preparation for the upcoming camp. Students were taught some practical calm and grounding strategies to help redirect any Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTS). We will continue to practice these strategies over the next week.

Next Week: Swimming and Water Awareness program

Please ensure you send your child with a plastic bag with a towel, bathers and googles (optional). Students will be very hungry, so please pack an extra bit of food for sustenance.

Thank you in advance to Ian and Nerae for driving the buses to and from the pool.

Reminders:

• Camp Information Session will be help via WebEx on Monday 21^st at 5:00 – 5:30.

Please ensure all consent notices for camp have been returned to the office. Please contact the office for payment plans if needed.

What an exciting week our 5/6 group have had at BCPS!

It started last Friday where we had half of our group compete at the Schools Kayaking Championships. All competitors tried their best where we walked away with 2 Bronze Medals and crowned Champions! Fantastic effort by all and Mr. Pitts to create such an amazing day.

For Literacy, we have been “Determining Importance” in our reading where we seperate details that are essential and details that are interesting to know. This has helped our group with our Inquiry project by exploring significant events in Australia’s History.

In Numeracy, our focus has shifted from place value and now converting decimals to fractions and percentages. The students are understanding that decimals indicate part of a whole number.

For RRRR, we are continuing to focus on our emotional literacy and responding appropriately when emotions are challenged. We started stringing together sentences in Auslan and helped clean up the school to rid it of any rubbish.

Well done on a fantastic week of learning and we cannot wait to see what challenges we conquer next week!

Signed

5/6 Team

It’s hot cross bun time

I know everyone is looking forward to this time of year when hot cross buns come back to the shelves.

This year Badger Creek will be working with Bakers Delight to for all your Hot Cross Bun needs.

If you would like to order please come in to the office for an order form.

The Hot Cross Buns in a six pack to choose from will be:

Traditional

Choc Chip

Apple and Cinnamon

Fruitless

Mocha

Last day for all order forms to be returned will be by Friday 1st April, please bring back to the office.

All ordered Hot Cross Buns will be available for pick up Wednesday 6th April.

Needing a night out?

Want to try something different?

Come and support the Croydon Wind Symphony’s 50^th anniversary concert on the 9^th of April at 7:30pm at the Alan Ross Centre – Billanook College

Tickets

Adult: $25

Child: $15

Family $75 (2 x adult, 2 x child)

Visit the website:
www.trybooking.com/broqp

Use the code ‘Badger’ for a 15% discount!

If you’re lucky, you might even see Miss Drill playing the Saxophone! 

FREE BIKES

The Badger Creek Men’s Shed has been repairing some children’s bikes in a variety of sizes.  If you would like a free bike for your child please contact Edwina Whiteside on Mondays, Tuesdays or Thursdays at school or via email edwina.whiteside@education.vic.gov.au