IMPORTANT SCHOOL DATES

Important school dates to remember:

14/3 – Labour Day public holiday

24/3 – 9.30am – Assembly

28/3 – School curriculum Day

8/4 – 1.30pm – Assembly

8/4 – Last day of term 1 – School concludes at 2.30pm

The Preps have made it over the hump! And we’re ready to speed down the other side of the term with full weeks ahead.

Our first full week was filled with all sorts of learning….

In reading, we have began selecting our own good fit books. We know that a book is a good fit when we can have a go at reading most of the words by sounding out each part, we enjoy the pictures and we can talk about what we’ve read. We’re so excited to be able to take charge of our own learning in this space!

In writing, we have been practising letter formation and sentence writing with less support than we’re used to (no more tracing over the dotted words). But because we’re such experts with our sound charts, we’ve proven to  be more than ready for this next step in building our writing skills.

Across SMART spelling and phonics we’ve focused on the word tap in the sentence This tap is on and that tap is off. We explored the sounds that /o/ /c/ and /k/ most commonly make. As well as the digraph ‘ck’ at the end of 1 syllable words.

We made orange biscuits, clever colourful cats and kind kites.

In maths, we’ve been subitising! Which, we’ve come to realise is basically a superpower…How else can you explain us knowing how many objects there are in a collection, without counting. Must be magic! But also our fabulous ability to perceptually recognise and combine small groups of numbers. Well done preppies!

In inquiry, a wondering we’ve had is why people litter. We pride ourselves on constantly picking up rubbish around the school. Which is why we are naturally big advocates for Clean Up Australia Day, coming up on Sunday the 6^th of March. To help us get this important clean up message across the community, we created a poster to remind people to keep Australia beautiful by picking up rubbish!

We were sad to say goodbye to Miss V for a little while. We have been so privileged to have had her with us since day 1, as she learns to craft her own teacher practice. We look forward to welcoming her back into our classroom in term 2!

A couple of reminders from us:

-Please remember to pack your child’s blue communication folder on Monday. We love looking at all the amazing reading and word practice you’re supporting from your end.

-Please check that your child’s jumper and hat are labelled. We are having many of these items pop up unlabelled, leaving us unable to return them to their rightful owners.

Have a fabulous weekend, Team Prep!

This week in the Grade 1/2 area, there has been lots of learning happening. We have been exploring Patterns and 2D Shapes in Maths, Making Connections in Reading and exploring different sentences in Writing. Students had the opportunity to develop their very own Text to self connections during Reading this week and then share their connection with a buddy. Here are some examples from the 1/2 area.

Amelia  – The part of the text where Mia falls off her bike, reminds me of a time when I fell off my bike and scratched my arm.

Charlotte – The part of the text with the pictures of the wedding, reminds me of a time when my parents got married.

Abbey – The part of the text where the cat just sleeps, reminds me of a time when my cat named Ivy sleeps in the sun.

It has been wonderful to hear that students are continuing their Take Home Reading every night. Attached is a list of prompting questions that parents/carers can use to assist their child with their reading. You might like to pick one or two questions to ask your child; this will help support their comprehension and understanding of the text.

• What do you think will happen in the story?
• Do you like the main character? Why? Why not?
• Why did the character just say that?
• What has happened so far in your story?
• Which is your favourite page? Why?
• If you could rate this book out of ten, what would you give it and why.

We hope you have a wonderful next few weeks and remember if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to speak to the classroom teacher before or after school or a quick email through.

Thank you,

Grade 1/2 Team.

It’s been yet another busy week of learning for 3/4 students.

We’ve been exploring Maree Coote’s incredible book Azaria: A True History in reading sessions, a picture story text telling the tale of baby Azaria Chamberlain being taken from her family’s tent by a dingo. Children have examined the text through a summarising lens, by classifying the information presented as either important or unimportant for developing an understanding the story.

Our passionate 3/4 writers have been developing editing processes during writing sessions, with a particular focus on all things punctuation. We’ve had some rich discussions around the punctuation we encounter whilst reading and why these conventions are essential for a reader. With this in mind, students have set themselves a goal when editing their writing. Throughout the three classrooms, students have set punctuation goals ranging from the use of full stops and commas right through to quotation marks and apostrophes.

Maths sessions have centred around addition, particularly the mental strategies we use when adding numbers in our head. Children have practised the jump and split strategies this week with the added step of writing their thinking processes on paper. Later in the year we will attempt to apply these strategies without using paper. Perhaps you would like to ask your child to explain these strategies to you and who knows, they may prefer the same strategy that you do!

What a fabulous week we’ve had, 3/4s – we’re now half way through the term!

This week in the 5/6 cohort we continued to challenge ourselves in our learning and build community connections through the use of our proactive charts. It was wonderful to see the 5/6 students embrace the #speakkindcampaign and set standards within the school community.

For Literacy, we linked our RAFTS profiles with story maps to help give our writing more direction and detail. In Reading, we built our vocabulary and comprehension by exploring the use of the different Tier Words and how they are important to our reading.

In Numeracy, we are discovering the importance of understanding place value and round, and how it impacts our everyday lives, with a focus on decimal places, e.g. money.

For Auslan, Michelle showed us how to describe our family members and did a revision of our colours. We are very lucky to have such a wonderful and engaging program.

The 5/6 students were understanding intense emotions and their triggers to develop their emotional literacy.

It was so exciting to see our Grade 6 peers receive their leadership badges at assembly and doing the school proud. Well done to all on a fantastic week of learning!

5/6 Team

What’s geocaching, you ask?

Geocaching is a global outdoor treasure hunt which takes its players to new and interesting places around the world. Geocachers create an account and use GPS to track their location to find caches hidden by other members. They participate in secrecy so as to not give their motives away to muggles (non-geocaching folk) while they find the cache, sign the log, swap treasures (known as SWAG), and replace the cache exactly as it was found for the next geocacher. The game started in 2000 in USA and has since grown exponentially worldwide with over 3 million caches hidden across all seven continents. They quite often take you to new and interesting places, and are always on public property, urban or wild. They range in size and difficulty, and can be quite a challenge to find!

What does it take to be a geocacher?

First, you need to sign up for an account. It’s best to take some time and read the rules to get familiar with what’s involved. It is a lot of fun but requires everyone to play safely, respectfully and responsibly. Caches need to be found with stealth as to not alert the muggles, and rehidden exactly where and how you found them ready for the next player. It’s a bit like being in a secret society! If I’m making a day of it, I make sure I’m wearing my hat, sunscreen and good shoes. I pack my bag with water and snacks, my GPS/phone, first aid kit, a pen to sign the logbook, and my swag case for swaps. I bring a bag and gloves ready to pick up any rubbish I may find along the way. When I’m heading out I tell someone where I’m going and when I’m due back – safety first!

Why are we talking about geocaching?

Because Badger Creek PS just signed up for our own account! And to make things more exciting, we are releasing our first travel bugs this year! A travel bug is a small object (in our case, a keyring – thanks, Healesville Sanctuary!) with a unique tag attached to it. Geocachers pick them up from a cache, log their unique code, and ‘drop’ them off in another. That way they get moved along on their mission. You only pick up a travel bug if you can move it along quickly.

Our first travel bug is called Bunjil Red 2022 – it’s a wedge-tailed eagle who has the mission to travel eastward around the entire world, visiting as many countries as it can along the way, hopefully returning by the end of the year! December 5^th to be exact! We chose to release Bunjil Red 2022 first in recognition of our First Nations people, the Wurundjeri, as we pay our respects to them and the Country Badger Creek PS calls home. Bunjil Red 2022 has been collected by the Larkin Flood family and will travel with them to New Zealand for the first leg of it’s journey. Where to next? We’ll have to wait and see! We will be tracking it’s progress as it travels around the world by logging onto our geocaching account. We have another heading to Northern Australia with Toby A and his family later in the year, and possibly another two heading overseas!

Would you like to geocache?

If you or your family would like to take up the challenge and become fully-fledged geocachers (and we know some of you already are!), then head to www.geocaching.com to find our more information. Our account name is TeamBadgerCreekPS, if you would like to join us. It’s a great way to get outdoors and have some fun!

Find out more 

https://www.geocaching.com/help/index.php?pg=kb.chapter&id=141

We will keep you up to date with our travel bugs’ journeys!

Grade 5/6

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! 

Bon Voyage

A Special Bon Voyage to Isla and Flynn.

Safe travels.

We can’t wait to hear all about them.