Wow! What a great first week for Term 3.

The first week back and the children were all very settled. It was great to see that everyone came back refreshed and ready for learning, remembering morning jobs from day one. I was super impressed.

After a week of school, we are all hopefully back into our routine of early mornings and early nights. This Term will consist of lots of new learning and of course plenty of revision of our previous learning. This is the term where we can showcase our skills learned so far, putting all of our skills to good use.

It was also great to see everyone Organised and Independent on Friday morning, for our first Independence Day this term. Well done to all! Independence Day will now be every Friday in Doolette.

Dare I say it yet again, this is going to be a very busy term!

Please see my seesaw post for news of Nature Play.

Here is some important information to help us all be organised for the next couple of weeks;

Week 2- Thursday, 2-3:00 R/1 Disco. The cost is $3 and includes entry, chips and drink. Please give me your money on Thursday morning. Children can bring along a favourite piece of clothing to add to their uniform for the disco only. They must be able to put it on by themselves. Please put your child’s name in anything they bring to school. This is not a casual day.

We are continuing to collect formula/Milo tins. We have almost reached our target. Hope you can help us with a few more. Hats are back this term, please remind your child to pack his/her hat each day so they can participate in all outside activities fully. 

Hopefully, you have read the blurb that came home with the large sheet of paper for our Show and Tell topic in Week 3. There is no Show and Tell in Week 2.

So that we can appreciate the hard work that everyone does in readiness for this topic, please ensure that your child is organised and brings his/her poster on their allocated day. 

Sharing days have not changed and your child should know his/her day by now. I am really excited to see what your child creates and to learn more about him/her and I hope that you have fun together designing their poster.


 

Thank you to the people who have sent along some soap on tap, however, we are in desperate need of more soap. Thanks in advance.

Important events coming up.

Book week is Week 5. There will be an incursion and a Dress Up Parade during this week.  All welcome. We will be presenting the Assembly in Week 6, Friday 11:10.  We will be supported on stage by our friends in 01. All welcome. Stay tuned for more details about both of these events.

 

I am in need of 6 parents who are available to help us on Friday mornings with our Social Skills Program. Helpers will be required from 9-9:30 on Friday in Weeks 5, 7, and 9.  You will be working with a set group of children and for continuity, we ask that you commit to attending all sessions. As this is part of our learning program, no toddlers or babies please. If you are interested, please email me.

Hope you enjoy the sunshine over weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

Already for a brand new term?

I hope that everyone is well rested after our very busy end to term two.

I don’t think I will surprise anyone when I tell you that term three is going to be just as busy.

Here are a few important bits and pieces to kick the term off:

Just a quick reminder that term three begins on Tuesday for CLG students. The staff will be working on our Whole School Literacy Agreement on Monday.

I hope that families have been able to collect their photographs in readiness for our learning in Geography and History this term. Please refer to my Seesaw post if you are not sure what we want. History and Geography will form a major part of our learning this term, so please get your photographs to school by Friday of week one at the latest. Be sure to put your child’s’ name on the back of all photographs and send them in an envelope that also has your child’s name on it.

You have a few days to locate your school hat. Hats must be worn again this term and next term, until the end of the year.

Here is a heads up about a few of this terms upcoming events;

We are rostered to use the Nature Garden at school twice this term and we will be running our first assembly. There is a disco on the 2nd of August and we will be celebrating Bookweek with fun activities and a parade in week five. Stay tuned for further details about all of these things and more!

Show and Tell days will remain the same this term, however, it will no longer take place each week.  Our Show and Tell program will now run in weeks 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9. You will be notified of topics throughout the term. Please help your child to remember to be prepared on his/her day to avoid missing out. Our topic for week one is holiday news. If your child is rostered to share on Monday, they will have their turn on Tuesday of the coming week.

I will check sight words on Tuesday morning of this week due to the Pupil Free Day on Monday.

Our specialist subjects will remain the same for the term unless otherwise notified.

A reminder that our Library day is Thursday. Please do not return books before the day.

 

Can you help?

We are in desperate need of donations of soap on tap pump bottles or refills. We have food breaks three times a day and practice safe food hygiene, washing our hands before each break. That is a lot of hand washing and a lot of soap!

 

 

 

 

What a great week!!

 

What a great week of swimming we have just had. I imagine that there were some very tired children on Friday night after our busy week. Congratulations to my beautiful class who were extremely well behaved on the bus and at the pool, all did a great job dressing and undressing before and after lessons.

All parents will be pleased to know that their child did it by themselves…of course, some were quicker than others. With the holidays coming up, dressing yourself is a great skill that you can ask your child to get better at if they don’t already do this for him/herself at home on a regular basis.

This is it, folks! We have reached the last week of school. We are all in need of some R and R after such a big term. The final week promises to be a busy one too.

On Friday I sent home a note about the upcoming excursion, what to bring and an outline of our day. Please find it in your child’s blue reader bag. If you have any questions for me please do not hesitate to ask.

I will check sight words on Monday morning and again on Friday (for holiday words).

Mrs. Hedger will be in class for me on Tuesday.

Thursday is excursion day 9-3pm.

No library on Thursday as a result, please return your books as soon as possible.

There will be no borrowing for the holidays.

Friday will be our final Independence Day for the term.

I will collect readers on Friday, sight words will come home for practice during the holidays.

Early dismissal on Friday, we go home at 2:10 on Friday.

 

 

Week 7 comes to an end! (with a correction)

Here we go folks, we are on the home stretch!

Only three weeks to go and they sure are going to be busy ones!

This week we had some new furniture delivered to our classroom. I had a little army of removalists who all pulled together to help organise our delivery.

 

How lovely that we could release a couple of butterflies from our enclosure back to nature this week.

We did some special butterfly art and made and wrote special wishes for the butterflies to take with them. Here’s hoping that they come true.

On Monday, Mrs Hedger will again be in the class as I complete the Australian Development Census Survey along with the other Reception teachers. This is a DECD requirement for all Reception teachers this year.

Have you returned your swimming forms? If not, please do so as soon as possible.

It might be a good idea to help your child be organised for swimming in week 9 by:

Asking them to dry and dress him/ herself, or at least have a try.

Teach your child how to dry his/her hair.

If you purchase new goggles for swimming week, let your child wear them in the bath before swimming week so that they can get used to them.

Do you drink instant coffee or Milo? We are looking to collect large metal coffee or Milo tins with lids if you or your workplace have any.

Perhaps you have a baby who uses formula if so we will take your tins with the plastic lids.

Both 01 and 02 will be collecting tins, hope you can help us out. It is a big task as we will need 46 tins altogether!

Another week comes to an end! Week 6 News.

What a busy week we’ve had, yet again in 02.

It was great to have Mrs Sloan in the class for the first five weeks. In her last week, she took over the majority of the teaching role. My job during this time was to observe her teaching, give feedback and ultimately write her final report.

The past week we have been revisiting our classroom rules and routines, writing about our beautiful Nature Gardens and revising the sh and ch sounds as well as partitioning numbers to ten.

Swimming notes came home on Thursday. Hope you found them. I have been advised by a parent via email that the dates at the top of the form are incorrect. Please refer to the dates further down the form. Swimming is in Week 9..

Independence Day in Doolette went well on Thursday morning. It is great to see our little people organising themselves for the day, doing their morning jobs and coming into class independently.  Independence Day will be held at the end of every fortnight from now on, usually on a Friday unless there is a short week.

I will not be in class on Tuesday after the long weekend, as I am writing reports. Whenever I have a planned absence/meeting day I will endeavour to have Mrs Hedger in the classroom for consistency. As a result sight words will not be checked until Wednesday of this week.

 

 

 

 

Another week ends!

It’s been another great week in 02.

 

⭐️ We had a lovely week of Nature Play. Unfortunately we didn’t really get any rain, other than a few drops on one of the days. It was great to see that the children were organised for rain by bringing along a change of clothes just in case.

⭐️ As we have a week of Swimming coming up in week 9, I am hoping that your child knows how to dress him/herself. If not, you have a few weeks up your sleeve to help them develop this skill in readiness for swimming week.

⭐️ Thank you to everyone who sent along flowers on Friday morning. We put them all together and were able to make two very large bunches of flowers for our student teachers. We presented one bunch to Miss Ester in 01 and the other to Mrs Sloan at the end of the day as a way of saying thank you and goodbye. Needless to say they were both very surprised and pleased with the flowers and cards that our classes made for each of them. Mrs Sloan said that there were so many flowers, her bunch was heavy. The children will miss both Miss Ester and Mrs Sloan and are excited that they will both be joining us on our Wild Imaginations Nature Play Excursion in week ten.

There will be plenty happening in the coming week.

⭐️ Mrs Hedger will be taking the class and following our program on Monday as I will be report writing.

⭐️ There will be no school on Friday for students, as we have a Pupil Free Day and staff will be be undergoing training and development off site.

⭐️ There will be no fruit sharing again this week, due to the four day week.

⭐️ If your child has show and tell on Friday, refer to seesaw for the topic, please send it along on Thursday.

⭐️ As I will not be in class on Monday, I will check sight words on Tuesday morning, please remind your child to put their blue book in the basket on Tuesday of this week.

 

 

 

Stuff from the week that was..

⭐️ We’ve had yet another busy week of fun and learning in 02.

⭐️ We celebrated The National Simultaneous Storytime. Children all over Australia stopped at 10:35 on Wednesday morning to enjoy the same story.

⭐️ We have been looking closely at our plants and seedlings, talking about and recording their growth.

⭐️ We are continuing with our Science Inquiry into Weather and Nature.

⭐️ Nature Play returns in the coming week, so there will be no show and tell. Please refer to my seesaw post for details.

⭐️ We are waiting patiently for our chrysalises to hatch and reveal some more beautiful butterflies.

⭐️ We’ve looked at simple graphs and continued our work in partitioning in Maths.

⭐️ We are enjoying Dance lessons with our little buddies in Karen’s year one class. We are working on a few dances as well as learning to skip.

⭐️ We also visited the Book fair. Hope you found your child’s wish list. Purchases can be made between 8-6pm Monday and Tuesday of this week. You are under no obligation to make a purchase.

⭐️ Thanks to those parents who have volunteered to help with supervision on our week ten excursion. We need to finalise numbers soon, so please let me know if you are interested and have the appropriate paperwork.

⭐️ On Friday we experienced some problems with the internet and could not access show and tell photos that were sent to me via email. We will try again on Monday.

 

 

 

The Latest Gossip!

We had a lovely week of Nature Play this week. We prayed for rain all week so that we could splash in the puddles and were rewarded on Friday morning. We all, teachers included had a great time splashing in the mud, puddles and the creek in our wonderful Nature Garden. As the amount of rain increased, we decided to come back to class early. We are rostered for another week of Nature Play in our Garden soon, watch this spot for details.

I hope that you found our excursion notice that came home on Friday. We are very excited about our first upcoming Reception excursion in week ten. Please be aware that this will take place no matter what the weather and we suggest waterproof clothing for any child or adult attending.

“There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing”

This week we have been very busy, here are a few of the things we have been working on

  • We continued to look at quantity in Maths.
  • We partitioned numbers.
  • We cared for our plants/seedling.
  • We used labels in diagrams.
  • We blended three letter words.
  • We began an Inquiry into Nature and The Weather.
  • We went to our first disco and had a ball!
  • We enjoyed Nature Play and some Nature Art.
  • We began our work on digraphs, sh!

Here are a few reminders, for the coming week.

  • If you have not returned your Entertainment Book, could you please do so asap.
  • Please let me know if you’d like to attend our excursion and have the necessary paperwork (DCSI and RAN) as soon as possible so that we can coordinate numbers.

 

 

 

 

The Latest Gossip in 02

To all of our wonderful mums who do so much for us.

 

 

 

 

This week we will be participating in our first Nature Play session for the year.

 

On Monday morning we ask that your child wear long pants, his/her gumboots and rain jacket to school ready to join in the fun and explore the Nature Garden behind the Grange building. We will have Nature Play if the weather is fine or if there is light drizzle. We will not go in heavy rain.

Nature Play will run Monday to Friday of the coming week. Due to Naplan testing in nearby buildings, we will have to vary the times that we can play in the Nature Garden so that the older children are able to be successful and are not distracted by our noise during Naplan.

Why Nature Play?

The obvious answer is that it is fun and kids love it. There has been a lot of research into children playing in nature over the last ten years and the results are very promising. Here are some of the findings;

Children who play regularly in natural settings are sick less often. Mud, sand, water, leaves, sticks, pine cones and gum nuts can help to stimulate children’s immune system as well as their imagination.

  • Children who spend more time outside tend to be more physically active and less likely to be overweight.
  • Children who play in natural settings are more resistant to stress; have lower incidence of behavioural disorders, anxiety and depression; and have a higher measure of self-worth.
  • Children who play in natural settings play in more diverse, imaginative and creative ways and show improved language and collaboration skills.
  • Natural, irregular and challenging spaces help kids learn to recognise, assess and negotiate risk and build confidence and competence.
  • Children who play in nature have more positive feelings about each other.
  • Bullying behaviour is greatly reduced where children have access to diverse nature-based play environments.
  • Symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder are reduced after contact with nature.

All of these findings from The University of WA are very positive indeed. So, please help us all to be organised on Monday morning by arriving dressed for Nature Play. Please make sure that you send along school shoes for afterwards to change into. We start at 9am, so don’t be late!

 

Back to school gossip.

Welcome Back!

What a great first week we’ve had in 02!

The children all settled back into our classroom routines with ease.

This post will be a long one, so I hope you can sit back and enjoy a cuppa while you read it.

This week we have been lucky enough to have Mrs Sloan in our class helping us with our learning, she will be with us for four more weeks.

We have been working in our Animal Groups with our friends in Room 01 and have done some fabulous work around partitioning in Maths.

What is Partitioning? 

Partitioning is knowing that a given number can be made in many ways ie. 4 and 1 make 5, 3 and 2 make 5, and that 1 and 1 and 1 and 2 make 5 and so on. Partitioning numbers will be part of our learning in Maths throughout the term.

Here is some important information to get the term underway and to help us all be organised.  

😊 Sound Books did not come home on Friday.

😊 This week families were given an Entertainment Book. If you’d like to purchase this book, payment can be made at the office, to me or online. If you do not wish to purchase it, please return to the classroom in its envelope and I will mark you off my list.

 

😊 Now that the children have been at school for a term, we would like to plan some excursions for our Receptions, so far we are attending the swimming pool for water safety lessons later this term.

We will need helpers to accompany us on such events. If you think you would like to help us out with supervision, you will need a current DCSI screening and RAN Training. As the screening can take some time (weeks) to complete, it would be a good idea to begin the process now. Both the RAN and DCSI are valid for a couple of years, so once you have them you won’t need to reapply for a while. Please make inquiries at the office if interested. We cannot take parents who have not undergone this process on excursions with us.

I hope you enjoy planting a seed or cutting with your child over the weekend. Please remind your child to return their pot and plant on their sharing day this week. Hopefully, everyone will be able to share some information about their plant. We have lots of learning activities planned around these plants and are looking forward to observing and recording their growth.

The Mother’s Day stall will be held on Thursday and Friday of this week. Children will be able to purchase a gift on these days. The stall will visit classes and gifts are usually around the $5 mark. More information to come.

The show and Tell topics for the term will be posted on See-Saw throughout the term as needed to avoid confusion.

Some very important news!

😊 Our Library Day has changed. This term Library day will be on Thursday. Please remind your child to return their book every Thursday so that he/she can get a new one.

😊 This Friday we will be holding our first Independence Day for the term. Kiss and drop at the double doors.

😊 It is great to see that everyone is getting back into the routine of doing their reader every night.  I also hope that children are revising their sounds on the days that sound books are sent home. It is really important that your child follows the arrow when tracing their sounds with their writing hand.

You may be wondering why we ask that your child continues saying and tracing these sounds. Well, we need to commit the sound and letter formation to long-term memory, this will enable your child to be a better writer as he/she will not need to stop and think about the sounds they’ll just reproduce them automatically resulting in more fluent writing. Reading too will be easier and more fluent if sound recognition is automatic. Please remind your child to bring their sound book and sight words to school daily for learning.

When I listen to your child read during a reading assessment I look for the following:

  • Knowledge and understanding that print contains a message.
  • Left to right reading.
  • Finger pointing.
  • Phonological awareness; alphabet knowledge.
  • An understanding of what a letter, word, sentence is.
  • Blending of 3 letter words.
  • Sight word knowledge should be automatically (within 3 seconds) transferred to the text.
  • Use of taught reading strategies. Look at the picture and first sound.
  • Comprehension; understanding what has been read and answering questions about the text.

Have a great weekend,

See you Monday.