Important school dates to remember:

27/3 – School assembly – 2.45-3.30pm

29/3 – Respectful Relationships Open Night – 4.30-6.30pm

30/3 – Breakfast club running

31/3 – School curriculum Day

Thursday 6/4 – Last day of term 1 – assembly 1.30-2.30pm – 2.30pm school finish

Help needed…

We are looking for anyone who is able to help serve food on Wednesday 29th March between 5-6pm for our RRRR Celebration night.

If you are able to help please contact Nicole on – 0413 910 918

It’s been a busy fortnight in Science!

We are beginning to wrap up, connect and reflect on what we’ve learnt about living things.

In Foundation, we created our little greenhouses with our three seeds. We witnessed the process of seed germination firsthand as they began to sprout after just a week. Some have even grown roots and leaves. Super exciting stuff! We will keep observing their growth over the last couple of weeks of term.

Alongside this, we delved into some wonderful worm work, where we compared earth worms with gummy worms. We discovered that they have a lot more in common than we originally thought… They both are a similar size and shape, they’re both squishy and stretchy. One was definitely more delicious than the other! Although we are grateful for the way our hardworking earth worms keep us healthy by supporting our growing plants.

In 1/2, we also went on a wonderful wiggly worm adventure. We looked slightly closely at their features and survival needs and transferred this knowledge into a Venn diagram. We loved been able to organise our thoughts in this way. Then we moved onto our next mini beast, the amazing ant! We went out on an ant hunt. We spotted many colonies in local nests around our basketball courts and followed these little creatures with curiosity- wondering about where they were going and why. Food seemed to be the main driver! We also discovered just how incredible these little superorganisms are after watching an informative text. Did you know that there are an estimated 20 quadrillion ants in our world? Which outweighs the mass amount of all humans!

In 3/4, we have picked up from where we left off with our lifecycle project. The students have been working hard on their informative booklets. We have navigated our way through google to find information on our lifecycles and carried this over into our books. We’ve progressed our research to interesting facts to try and entice our reader while educating them about our animal’s needs. One fascinating thing we found out is that clown fish are all born male, while only some will turn female depending on circumstances. For example, if the group is lacking females. Stay tuned for more interesting facts from your little scientist!

In 5/6, unfortunately we have missed out on Science this week due to our curriculum day. However, I hear there’s lots of chemical science happening within the classroom inquiry program. A kind little FYI, the teachers will be requesting some household items soon to accommodate some planned experiments.

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend of discoveries!

Mrs. C 😊

Greetings to our wonderful school community,

As we come to the end of the term, we are preparing to present some performances in the following two assemblies. Next Monday, we will have a performance from the grade 1/2 C and D students who will be playing and singing Ngaya Naba, a song written by in the Dharug Aboriginal language. It is a song about family and being together. We will also have some piano performances from Henrietta Moore, Paige Chapman and Tegan O’Brien.

The following week, we will have a huge music assembly with performances from the School Band, Grade 5/6 C, and a ukulele performance from grade 3/4. Our School Choir will also sing Beauty in World. Get there early and enjoy the music.

Have a great week,

Jenny Legg

Music Teacher.

Well, that would have to be the most fun Monday we have ever had in Foundation because it was PYJAMA DAY!! Teachers were so proud of the Foundation students because they worked hard to achieve a whole class reward of ‘Popcorn and Movie’!  On Monday, preps to came to school wearing their pyjamas for our celebration. We learnt the /j/ sound (with the help of our jarmies), ate some delicious popcorn and watched Finding Nemo!!  It was such a great day.

Aside from all of that fun, we have also done a lot of learning this week too. Our ‘Smart Spelling’ word this week has been ‘net’ and our sentence has been ‘I went to get a net’. Preps have done a fabulous job reading and sounding out the letters. They also had a go at writing their own ‘net’ sentences! Students had lots of funny ideas about things they could catch in their nets and have been doing a great job writing their sentences this week.

On Tuesday, we celebrated Harmony Day. Harmony Day is a celebration of our cultural diversity – a day of cultural respect for everyone who calls Australia home. Held every year in March, Harmony Day coincides with the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Our preps discussed culture and inclusivity after reading the book ‘I’m Australian Too’ by Mem Fox. We also worked together to create a collaborative Harmony Day artwork.

This week in Reading, we have continued to focus on retelling the beginning, middle and end of a story using the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. Preps have been practicing retelling stories using the same terminology. You can help your child at home with their learning by asking them “what happened in the story?” after finishing a book or film. Preps have been practicing drawing what happened in the beginning, middle and end.

In Numeracy, we have continued learning all about been teen numbers. Preps worked in pairs to create the own teen number rain cloud that shows how many tens and how many ones are in their teen number. These clouds are on display in the classrooms and look amazing! The preps are doing such a great job learning to work collaboratively with others.

In the classroom, we have been exploring ways that we can build our independence. Collaboratively, we decided that carrying in our own school bag and taking anything out of our bags that we need (blue communication folders, library books, drink bottles etc) is a good way to start. We would love your support in encouraging your child with these jobs in the morning 😊

Next week, we are very excited to welcome Cassie into our classroom. Cassie is a third year Deakin student who is coming to complete some of her placement with us. Below is a little introduction from Cassie.

“My name is Cassie and I am a pre-service teacher at Deakin University, currently in my third year of study. 

I am overjoyed to be able to attend Badger Creek Primary to connect with the staff, parents, and most importantly the students! As a Healesville local, this school feels right at home!

While I’m away from uni, I enjoy working and catching up with my friends, as well as looking after my 3 beautiful cats! I enjoy listening to stories and I can’t wait to hear some from the school community!”

 Friendly Reminders:
– Monday 27th of March – whole school assembly
– Friday 31st of March – curriculum day – no students at school on this day.

– Thursday 6th April – last day of Term One

– Friday 7th April – Good Friday Public Holiday

Many thanks from the Foundation Team,
– Miss H, Miss R and Lis

Dear Families,

We have had another fantastic week in 1/2, this week!

Students have enjoyed creating their own characters and setting in writing and have started to describe their characters inside and outside traits using adjectives. In reading, students have been summarising different texts using the somebody, wanted, but, so, then strategy. The spelling focus of the week has been ai as in snail. The students have had lots of fun using segmenting and sound circles for their spelling words this week. Students have been focusing on place value in maths, looking at how to expand numbers to show their place value (62 = 6 tens and 2 ones).

Looking ahead to next week.

In reading, we will be focusing on making predictions and questioning. When you read with your child, have them predict what will happen throughout the story to help build this skill.

In writing, we continue to unpack narrative structure with a focus on effective problems and solutions/story endings.

In maths, we begin looking at time with a focus on duration and calendars. Students will have the opportunity to explore the purpose of a calendar and will understand how to read a calendar.

Our SMART spelling focus next week is er as in teacher.

We hope you all have a wonderful and safe weekend.

Best wishes,

The 1/2 team.

Writing: This week in Three Four we began our Unit on Poetry, and we are exploring ways we can say what we need to say with a few extra words. So instead of your child saying that dinner was nice, they might tell you that their dinner was a tantalising sensation for their taste buds. Seriously though, we are learning to look at the world as a poet and to help with this, we went to the Sanctuary and observed a few key animals. Students noted what they were able to experience through their senses. They also noted if their experience reminded them of anything. 

Next week Mathematics we will begin our Unit on fractions. Fractions is one of those topics that can be tricky for some students.  Please engage your child in conversations and observations about fractions. They might be surprised at how often we use fractions, especially when it comes to dividing up food and sharing.

The term is certainly flying by! Students are still working towards the achievement of their own learning goals.

We want to say thank you to Mr Pitts for his organisation of kayaking on the river two weeks ago. What a great day it was! Badger Creek came a very close 2nd and nearly won the overall best average sprint time. We were very proud of our students and we made very respectful to others across the day and were very well behaved.

NAPLAN is now complete! Congratulations to our wonderful Grade 5 students for putting in their absolute best efforts during these sessions.

In the Grade 5/6 Classrooms:

Reading: We are still continuing to build our knowledge and application of comprehension strategies. We will be prioritising these throughout the year with a range of texts. Students have been engaging with our current mentor text ’Ziba Came on a Boat’ by Liz Lofthouse, learning how to link their responses to evidence from the text to support a deeper understanding.

Writing: Students have been experimenting with ways to enhance their writing, considering the effect of word choice and how to engage the reader. We have been using prompts and tuning into our senses in order to describe an object or a moment in time. Students have been writing for enjoyment and working on their learning goals as well.

Maths: In week 8 were learning about decimal numbers, up to thousandths and beyond. Students were ordering and comparing decimal numbers, locating them on a number line, and are now exploring the use of the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) involving decimal numbers. In week 9, students have been building on their multiplication knowledge, applying vertical and area model strategies to solve multiplication of 2 – 5 digit numbers.

Grade 6 families

With 2 more weeks of term 1, we are asking for some final donations of Icy Poles towards the Grade 6 fundraiser for Graduation. If you can, we are seeking donations of the Berri Quelch Apple Berry or Tropical fruit juice icy poles.
Thank you for your support!

Upcoming dates

24 March: Footy Free Dress & Special Lunch

27 March: school assembly (from 2:45pm)

29 March: school celebration night (from 4:30pm)

30 March: school curriculum day