Throughout the year we have some amazing opportunities for parents/carers to help out both in the classroom and to excursions.

If you would like to and can help please bring your working with childrens check up to the office.

IMPORTANT SCHOOL DATES

Important school dates to remember:

13/2 – School assembly – 2.45-3.30pm

16/2 – Grade 5/6 surf life saving event

22/2 – Grade 5/6 Kayaking

24/2 – District swimming

27/2 – School assembly – 2.45-3.30pm

29/2 – 3-Way interviews

13/3 – Labour Day public holiday

17/3 – School curriculum Day

27/3 – School assembly – 2.45-3.30pm

31/3 – School curriculum Day

7/4 – Last day of term 1 – assembly 1.30-2.30pm – 2.30pm school finish

Breakfast club.

Breakfast club is back.

Each Friday morning between 8.30-8.50am toast and Fruit cups will be available from the canteen area.

We are always looking for help with breakfast club as many hands make light work.

If you would be interested in helping please contact Nicole on 0413 910 918

Swimming Carnival

What a fun day was had by all who attended our Badger Creek Whole School Swimming Carnival.

The weather improved for what was a lovely fun filled day.

A big thank you to all the teachers (especially Mr. Pitts who organises these amazing events) staff and helpers. You helped make the day the amazing event it was.

We hope you all had as much fun as we did!

There has been such an overwhelming level of excitement and eagerness from the kiddos around starting Science as a specialty. When I asked each cohort what they hope to learn this term, looking through a biological Science lens, the most common response was: “I want to learn how to make things blow up!”

So what will this term look like in Science?

This term’s Science Understanding is around Biological Science.

For the Juniors, this looks like the exploration of living versus nonliving things and how to meet basic survival needs.

For 3-4, we are classifying living things on the basis of their observable features, and digging a little deeper into life cycles and environmental factors.

For the 5-6, we explore structural features and adaptations that help living things survive in their environment.

The students can absolutely expect the hands-on, experimental experiences they’re asking for! I predict that most of our explorations will be taken outside into our beautiful schoolgrounds.

We can’t wait to keep you updated with what we discover together in Science!

Mrs. C

Dear Badger Creek Families and Friends,

After a lovely summer break, we are now getting into full swing in music at Badger Creek. Our music classes have resumed, and most classes have had a chance to get back into the music room again.

Our School Band have been busy learning to play the National Anthem for our first assembly, which is coming up on Monday the 13^th Feb at 2.45.

School Choir

School Choir will be beginning on Tuesday next week during the first break. All students from grade 1 to 6 are welcome to come along and join in the music. During the year, the choir will be performing at assemblies and at some community events. The rehearsal will be 30 minutes long and there will still be 15 minutes to have a play outside.

Instrumental Music Lessons

Please contact the office or Ms. Legg if you would like to discuss your child having music lessons at Badger Creek.

What a wonderful week in the world of prep…

Building friendships, establishing routines, and familiarising ourselves with the school environment has been a continued focus this week. We even got to venture over to the big playground at play times, which was “so cool” according to the preps.

Conversations around the ‘Zones of Regulation’ have been a focus this week. We have continued to use this terminology within the classroom, building on the children’s social and emotional wellbeing. These conversations have allowed us to normalise those sometimes-big emotions as we navigate the feelings that come with starting school.

In Math’s, we have been working on counting to 20, our number recognition and being able to order numbers in correct sequence. Hopscotch, teddy counters and mini whiteboards were just some of the materials we used to support our learning.

In Writing, we have been focusing on our writing moving from left to right across our page while using our sound charts as support to identify the starting sounds of words.

‘The cat sat on the mat’ was our SMART Spelling sentence this week. We practised putting the sounds on our fingers and then blending the sounds together to form the word, ‘cat’.

And finally… our first whole school swimming carnival, what a success it was! Miss H and Miss R were blown away with how amazing the preps were. 5 days at school and we have already ticked off our first excursion, what superstars!

We are sure that there will be lots of tired preps this weekend. We are looking forward to another wonderful week full of learning and fun!

Love Miss H. and Miss R.

Friendly reminders:

-Please return blue communications folders on Monday.

– Could you please ensure that you have returned your child’s School Nursing forms. The Nurse will be visiting us on Monday 27th February and Tuesday 28th February.

Dear Families,

It has been yet another fabulous and positive week in the 1/2 area. The swimming carnival was definitely the highlight of our week! At school, we have really established some great routines already and continue to work towards collaborative, productive learning across the space. We are building strong relationships with all students and have enjoyed the process of getting to know each and every one of them.

This week we have continued to focus on classroom routines, establishing the Readers Workshop and what is expected of students and teachers during this time. Students have begun to use their Readers Notebooks to write about what they are reading. We loved writing about the Swimming Carnival, recounting the events and free time play in the water. We also enjoyed working with each other and supporting our peers during Respectful Relationships activities last Monday. In Maths, we have continued to practise our counting, reading and making models of numbers.

Next week in reading, we will be continuing to establish the Reader’s Workshop and begin to teach effective reading comprehension reading strategies including ‘Check For Understanding’ and ‘Cross Checking’. We will be writing about personal artefacts, stepping through the writing process and delving into Place Value for maths to understand the value of digits in numbers. We are excited to see how we can stretch our learners.

Please note… 

Thank you so all families who have returned their home reading satchels. If they have been lost (it does happen) notify your teachers and we can arrange an alternative bag. Thank you for supporting your child’s reading at home. We will be checking reading diaries and changing readers every Monday.

As the week draws to a close we can safely say that the 3/4 classes have settled into their routines and are digging into learning. Our classroom libraries are in full swing, with each class choosing how they would like to organise the books. It’s been a great process as the children have to use clues, such as the blurb, front cover, illustrations and prior knowledge, to categorise each book. Book boxes have been filled with some good fit books and our students are now working on their reading stamina. You can assist with this at home by encouraging your child to read for 20 minutes each night. Speak to your classroom teacher if you would like some books for home – we’re more than happy to help.

Writer’s Notebooks have been personalised and the children have now made several entries as they learn to collect writing “artefacts”. We also use the analogy of planting writing “seeds” in their Writer’s Notebook, that they can “sprout” into extended writing pieces at a later date. In the coming weeks we will be asking students to bring an “artefact” from home, so stay tuned for further info. One of the prompts for idea generation that we used this week was – An ibis at the swimming sports swoops down and steals your hat. How do you retrieve it? There were some creative solutions, some of which may have involved chainsaws, axes, climbing spurs and stealing another child’s lunch to try and facilitate a trade of sorts. How would you go about getting your hat back from one of those pesky ibis?

Maths sessions have seen the introduction of some maths games, including the whole-class counting strategy game 11ers and a long time 3/4 favourite, Salute! Ask your child to teach you these at home. There’s plenty of maths fun for all the family! Next week we look forward to investigating odd and even numbers.

What a week, 3/4s. You were you all amazing at swimming on Tuesday, but equally as outstanding in the classroom for the remainder of the week. I wonder where our learning will take us next week?