June 9th

The children bounced into school today, well rested after a long weekend with lots of stories to tell. The teaching staff spent Friday looking at Maths. This week we commence a 2 week focus on Problem Solving in the Year 4 Maths rotations.
It is Nicole's last day of teaching in this placement. She does return in October. The children are busily trying to finish off their Dreamtime Stories.

I had the pleasure of dining at Charcoal Lane on Saturday and the food was AMAZING! Strongly recommend it for adults. I sampled a tasting plate that had: Kangaroo salami, Possum sausage, emu, smoked trout, goat's cheese ravioli and dukkah. I had gnocchi and my friend had emu. We shared 2 desserts! The Dessert lime and coconut Panna Cotta was an absolute taste sensation.

The children will be busy putting together their portfolios to come home with their reports during the last week of this Term.

This week ~ June 1st

Congratulations to Arsenal on winning the FA Cup! I know Oli and his family and a friend or 2 of mine were very excited and weary after watching the game in the wee hours of Sunday morning!!! We have had our second session on Cybersafety this morning. There is a parent session tomorrow evening, it would be great if you could attend especially as we are part of a 1:1 program.
Swimming is going swimmingly! The children certainly are working hard during the lessons. Thank you for your support with this valuable part of our PE program.
We are exploring Indigenous Food and I stumbled upon the most amazing restaurant on Saturday in Getrude Street Fitzroy called Charcoal Lane. The menu looks sensational and Im hoping to dine there over the weekend. I have sourced some food items from outbackchef and look forward to sampling these.
Friday is a Curriculum Day at OOPS. The teaching staff are focusing on Numeracy on this day. Lunch is being provided by Miss Peppercorn. I'm looking forward to sampling a variety of food! Enjoy your 4 day weekend!

Swimming

The children have completed a fabulous first week of Swimming are incredibly tired! Thanks to all parents for ensuring the children are organised each day. Thanks also for coming along and helping out! It is great to see how much they have progressed in one week.
Back at school we have been looking at the 'ch' for chicken sound, reading to ourselves and others and looking at Dreamtime stories. We wrote a class one and each illustrated a page. In Maths we have been doing division tables and looking at the relationship between multiplication and division.
As part of our study about Indigenous Australians, we have been researching bush food.
Unfortunately there is no time for cooking during Swimming.
On Monday 3 students went along to District Cross Country and represented the school extremely well. Congratulations to Jordan, Jack and Oli for completing the 2km course. Oli finished 3rd and goes onto Regionals on Thursday. Good luck!

Happy Mothers' Day!

To All the Lovely Mums of my class i hope you had a lovely Mothers' Day and you enjoyed the gifts your child purchased for you at the Mothers'Day stall. I hope your child shared their work with you. My boys were too kind to me and I now have a jumper to wear to Hawthorn games! Amy decided I needed a new dressing gown.

This ties in well with our Integrated Studies Topic about Indigenous Australians. Thank you for those who have started working on the Homework Talk. This week whilst the Year 3s and 5s are undertaking NAPLAN testing, we will also be doing some for they purpose of practice for future years and also because we need to be very quiet at this time!

Swimming is vastly approaching. It was quite concerning to note the huge number of weak swimmers as identified by parents on the Camp Form. Through participating in this 10 day program, the children develop swimming skills. The school strongly recommends all children attend, especially those who cannot swim.

We will be cooking this Friday. We have yet to select our culinary delight. Thanks to the parents who have come along to help with Literacy Groups. Miss Kelly and I are so grateful. We are also enjoying Maths Groups and have spent the past fortnight looking at angles.  The children are impressing themselves and me with their Mental Maths, specifically Times Tables. Thanks for your assistance with this. They are also trying to improve their Handwriting and so far 1 student has qualified for her Pen Licence. This will be presented at the next Assembly in Drayton Hall. Cross Country Trials were on Friday. It was awesome to see all children participate. It would be great if you could send along some tissues please, as we are heading into Runny Nose season!

Hawks in Schools!

Today we had our second visit from the Hawks in Schools program. Cyril Rioli and Shem Tatupu along with 4 SEDA students held a Footy Clinic on our oval this morning. It was a fantastic experience for us all, especially Wendy!

Phillip Island Camp

The Year 3 and 4 students had a fantastic time on Camp. The children thoroughly enjoyed all activities and were well fed! Some students challenged themselves and went out of their comfort zone, particularly on the Giant Swing.

18 meters

The teamwork, support and encouragement the students gave to each other during the Boulder Wall, Low Ropes Course and Initiatives Course was a pleasure to observe. The children displayed courtesy and manners to each other and the adults. They enjoyed doing Duty and most should be able to set the table for dinner! The night time activities tired all out and most returned from Camp very weary, adults included.

Welcome to Term 2!

I hope you had an enjoyable break! I enjoyed the slower pace :-) I thoroughly enjoyed my road trip to Lorne and catching up with friends and family.
The children are excited about next week's camp at Phillip Island, as are the teachers. Thank you to the parents who were able to attend last night's Camp Information meeting. I hope your questions and concerns were answered!
This morning the children have completed their first Maths Test online. They were very excited and quiet as they worked through the 20 questions on angles. I have asked them to complete the Angles section of Mathletics for homework this week, as well as practising packing up their sleeping bag.
We will be cooking the next 2 Fridays so please let me know if you are available to help out.

Last Week of Term 1!

These lovely children have thoroughly enjoyed cooking. Last Friday we made San Chow Bow. All the children grated carrot, chopped celery, garlic and onion. They stored the meat and made lettuce cups after an amazing lesson in coring a lettuce by Jennifer. Thanks to Jennifer, Kelly, Anita and Trish for coming along to help. Looking forward to more delights next Term.

Monday was an extremely busy day! We had Hawks in Schools come to talk to us about being active and staying healthy. We had School Photo day and looked gorgeous except for the crazy photo! I'm sure you'll love it. :-) We welcome Saheb and his family to 4WS and OOPS.

Today we had a session with Little Athletics. Jenny and Angela were impressed with how well the children listened to directions. The children were shown how to run effectively, starting position and how to hurdle properly.

We are looking at the o for orange sound this week and listed some impressive words. We are learning more about fractions and are working on creating a game about safety. The children are impressing themselves, each other and me with their improvements in handwriting and mental maths. Their smiles are contagious!

Speaking of which, quite a few children are unwell with high temperatures and coughs. They are also really tired and many are having a rest in the classroom as a result.

It was great to chat with you all last week. There is talk of the group arranging a Nerf session during the holidays in a park. I suggested that Louise might want to distribute details via the class contact list. I hope you all enjoy the last week of Term 1 and the slower pace of the holidays! Thanks so much for all your support and encouragement this Term.

Wednesday March 11th

The Term is going so fast!!! Last week we made Tacos and they were delicious. The children enjoyed choosing their own toppings. We have decided to compile a Cook Book. Yesterday the children created their own front cover on a Word Document.
Today we are off to Life Education after recess. Hope you hear lots about it tonight. :-)
We are learning more about Time this week and looked at 24 hour time yesterday. Our focus in spelling this week is the 'oo' sound as in 'boot'. We discovered there are 9 different ways to make this sound! The children are reading to a buddy and listing new words as well as discussing their thinking. This has also been sent home as part of this week's homework grid. I am impressed with the children's handwriting! We are learning to join all letters correctly, focussing on horizontal joins.
The children are thoroughly enjoying caring for the chickens and are great at rounding them up when the escape! We might have eggs next week.
Preparation for Camp is well under way and Camp Cabins and Activity groups have been collated. The children had input as to who they would like to be with in their cabins. Activity groups were arranged randomly in order to give all students the opportunity to socialise with a range of students. Looking forward to Parent Chats next week. Have a great week. :-)

Friday ~ 20/2

WOW!!! We had fantastic fun cooking on Friday. 7 lovely Mums came along to help us and Sam's Mum sent along some bowls and forks. Nicole, our 4th year Pre-service teacher, was impressed with our chopping skills. Jessica's Mum gave us all a lesson in making dumplings. The aromas coming from the staff room made other classes hungry!! The fried rice tasted delicious. The children learned how to grate ginger and cut corn off the cob. They also grated carrot, diced bacon, capsicum, spring onion, celery, snow peas, garlic and egg. Most children were able to eat their dumplings and rice using chopsticks. Special mention goes to Harry, who managed to cut not just capsicum but also his finger! Thanks to nurse Jayne for administering first aid. He also ate his Vegemite roll using chopsticks!! Thanks so much to Kelly, Kelly, Jayne, Alice, Alice, Anita and Trish

Welcome to 4WS 2015!

We have had an awesome start to this year and have been getting to know each other well over the past few weeks. We were very excited to meet the new chickens on Monday. We all had a say in naming them and are pleased to announce their names: Snowflake, Pineapple and Midnight.
Yesterday we made pancakes and enjoyed eating them with our choice of topping. We are learning more about money throughout this week and also Chinese New Year.