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:

22/2 – Grade 5/6 Kayaking

24/2 – District swimming

27/2 – School assembly – 2.45-3.30pm

1/3 – 3-Way interviews

13/3 – Labour Day public holiday

17/3 – School curriculum Day

27/3 – School assembly – 2.45-3.30pm

29/3 – School Celebration Night – 4.30-6.30pm

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

We have had a wonderful time in Science this week!

A special shout out to the bright, sunny weather and our beautiful school grounds for allowing us to embrace our outside learning space in multiple ways.

The 1/2 Scientists loved going on a living/nonliving scavenger hunt. Our focus was on classifying living and nonliving things. So, we had the job of spotting specimen outside and recording relevant information within our Science Journals. We were able to produce descriptions, drawings and informal measurements for each thing.

The 3/4 Scientists were set a challenge to create a bird bath using only natural resources. We headed out to the bird bank and the children were able to find nooks in the ground, hollow logs, and bark to use as their bath base. They built up their structures using other materials such as sticks, rocks, leaves etc. When put to the test, many had success with holding water! We had some wonderings after around whether their baths could have been stronger or kept the contained water cleaner.

The 5/6 Scientists have been finding out about animal adaptations within extreme environments.

The students have started to pull together research on a chosen animal to find out about their individual adaptations and how they help them to survive. Our research is going to be collaboratively presented on a colourful and informative poster.

Wishing everyone a weekend full of discoveries!

Mrs. C 😊

Greetings to our wonderful community,

Music is really humming at Badger Creek, our kids are playing and singing up a storm. School band have got a good handle on the National Anthem, and we are currently planning our next piece. The school choir is starting to take off, and our instrumental teachers are busier than ever.

Instrumental Music Lessons.

We are so fortunate to have an excellent instrumental music staff at Badger Creek. Your child has the opportunity to learn the piano, guitar, bass, ukukele, drums, flute, clarinet, saxophone or violin.

Drums:

Jamie Thompson has been a professional drummer and teacher for over a decade. Jamie works hard to tailor make his lessons to each child and cater to their particular learning styles. He teacher the children to read drum music and also play by ear. He is often found teaching the students the drum parts for their favourite songs.

Guitar, Ukulele, Saxophone, clarinet and flute.

Alan Gibson has been a long-time teacher at Badger Creek and also a notable Healesville local. Alan is a talented and highly experienced multi-instrumentalist. He has completed an advanced diploma in instrumental music teaching. Alan has a brilliant, gentle manner with his students and gets the best out of them with a relaxed and consistent approach. He is also very adaptable, meeting the particular needs of his students where they are.

Piano

Mima McDonell studied music at Melbourne University, specialising in teaching the piano. She is a highly motivated teacher, who provides many opportunities for her students to play in concerts. Her students look forward to their lessons each week, where Mima plays duets and also sings with them. She is so popular with our children.

Violin

We are so lucky to welcome Sally Banks to our teaching team at Badger Creek. Sally has been a professional violinist, playing in the Australian Pops Orchestra among other professional ensembles. She also ahs a love to Celtic fiddle music and folk music, which she uses in her teaching of children. I am so impressed by the way she duets with her students, getting them playing good music right from the get go.

Our students really enjoy their music lessons and all students who learn can bring their instruments to music classes and play them in class. I adapt my classroom music lessons to include any instruments the children are learning. There is also an opportunity to join our school band in the senior years.

Rhyme Time Music and Book Time.

Rhyme Time is again up and running and we have had a great turn out with pre-school children from babies to 4 years old. The group runs every Thursday during term time, from 10.15 to 11.00. All are welcome to tis free music and book time.

Have a great week,

Jenny Legg

Music Teacher

We have had a wonderful Week 3 in Foundation!

Students have enjoyed learning our first six sounds S, A, T, P, I and N. We especially enjoyed learning the T sound because we went on a Teddy Bear Picnic! Everyone loved having their teddy bear at school and taking them outside for our picnic where we had special teddy bear biscuit treats and played fun games including ‘duck, duck, teddy’ and musical teddy statues.

Our word of the week this week has been ‘ant’ and we have been working very hard to learn these letters and sounds. Preps also made an ant artwork where they practised their cutting, gluing and drawing skills.

This week in Maths, the preps have been showing us different ways of representing numbers including writing them, making them, saying them and working with collections.

We also had our very first Buddies session this week where our Grade 5 Buddies came down and joined us for our first Inquiry lesson. The buddies gave the preps a tour of the school, focusing on elements of the school environment. Preps were very excited to see and spend time with their lovely Grade 5 Buddies.

Foundation students are getting the hang of Thursday Specialist days, being in the red group or the blue group and working in each of the specialist classes – Art, Music, Physical Education and Auslan. There have been a lot of ‘firsts’ for the preps, and we are so proud of the resilience they show each day and how they are learning the daily routines of school.

Reminders:

– If you haven’t already, please return your nurse form ASAP.

– Nurse Jody is vising on the 2^nd, 3^rd and 6^th of March.

– No preps at school on Wednesday 22^nd of February.

– Preps are at school on Wednesdays starting Wednesday 1^st of March.

-Please come and check out our Prep lost property tub, we have a few unnamed items that are missing their home!

Thanks from the Foundation Team,
– Miss H, Miss R and Lis.

Dear Families,

What a fun week we’ve had in Year 1/2, this week! We have recovered from our swimming carnival last week however we are still missing some belongings, including a size 2 pair of black school shoes and a red school polo top. All remaining ‘lost and found’ items have now been taken to the office. If you are missing something, you’ll hopefully find it there. J

This week in Literacy, we have focused on the reading strategies of ‘Cross-Checking ‘and ‘Check for Understanding’. You can see our photos for ways in which you can help with these strategies, at home. We encourage those students who have not yet brought their blue school satchel to school, to please do so by the end of the week. That way, our Take Home texts and Reading Diaries can stay safe.

In Writing, we’ve begun using our Writing Cycle to attempt writing about an artefact. Thank you to those families who assisted their child/ren to bring an artefact to school.

In Maths, we’ve been working on understanding place value. Place value is the ‘place’ a digit holds in a number. For example, 45 has 4 tens (40) and 5 ones (5). We’ve used write-boards, dice and cards to help us with our place value understanding.

Next week in Literacy, we are focusing on the reading strategies, ‘Back up and Reread’ and ‘Tuning into Interesting Words’, and using correct sentence structure when we write. In Maths, we are moving onto number patterns and skip counting. We can’t wait!

Have a wonderful weekend,

The Year 1/2 Team