Week 9...just in time ;)

Good morning,

So here it is... the final blog post of the year with all the important information about the upcoming events this week.

I have absolutely loved this year, your children have been an absolute pleasure to teach and I feel so privileged to be able to call them 'my children'. 

Just a few reminders for the rest of the week...

End of Year Christmas Concert - is on tomorrow night Tuesday beginning at 5.30pm. If you can please have your child at school by 5.15pm dressed in Christmas colours/ Christmas outfits...seats will be at a premium so factor that in to your plans!

Colour Run - this will take place on Friday 13th December at 2pm. This a free dress and we ask that you send in a white t-shirt for your child to change in to with their name marked clearly somewhere on the collar or at the back. Please send the shirt in ASAP and we will keep them in the classroom for your child.e Please also pack a towel as they will get a spray down at the end. 

Reports - these will be sent home with your child on Friday. These will be placed in their top zipped pocket for safe keeping.  If your child is not at school on Friday it will be posted to you.

Books - these will be sent home with your child in the coming days. Please pack a cloth or recyclable bag for your child to carry their books home in. I will try to stagger the books throughout the coming days. 

This does not mean that all school work has stopped...it hasn't. It just means that we are keen to avoid a massive load being sent home on the last day!

Prayer Assembly - there will be a farewell prayer assembly for the Year 6 students on Friday morning beginning at 9 am. You are warmly invited to attend if you are able.

Cleaning day - As there are a few items to be cleaned in the classroom, we would love a few extra sets of hands to get it all done for the end of the term. If you can help with some cleaning on Wednesday morning from 9-10 am, we would be most appreciative. This would include cleaning our chairs, construction materials and tubs from our rooms. 

Big breath in...now out! Four glorious days to go...that also means four more days with Jingles :) 

Have a lovely day and I will see you all tomorrow for the Christmas Concert 

Miss Prowse 

Week 8 Information

Good afternoon parents,

Welcome to Week 8. Only two more weeks with your beautiful children before the wonderful Christmas holidays and then...moving onto Year Two (something I'm still not ready to admit!)

Just a few things for this week and next week:

Reading Folders
After conversing with Mrs. Kemp from the library last week, she has asked for all readers to be returned to her. The lovely Mrs. Hughes has taken the readers out of your child's folder today (if they brought it) and we are asking for any other readers to be returned if they have not done already.

Sight Words
Mrs. Hughes tested all of the children's sight words last week so your child would have received their final note home today of where they have finished in the sight word program. We have collected up the sight word sets and I will pop on here the 1-100 and 101-200 list of sight words if you would like to review them over the holidays. If you have any loose sight word sets at home, could you please return them to school this week.

Mental Maths
These were meant to go home today (so sorry, my fault!) This will be the last week for Mental Maths (unit 25 - due this Friday) and then the children may complete the book at their leisure over the holidays.

Christmas Concert  and Awards Night
Please keep next Tuesday the 10th of December in your diaries for the annual OLC Christmas concert that is sure to be a hit! The children are required to be at school at 5.15 pm for a 5.30 pm start. We ask that the children come dressed in their best Christmas clothes ready for the concert.

Colour Run - Last day of school
On Friday the 15th of December, the children will participate in the first OLC Colour fun run. Information went home with the eldest child about what the day will include. If you need another sheet, please go and see Mrs. Marrell in the office.

We are asking that you child:

- Wear a white t-shirt to school with dark/old shorts and shoes that can be taken off easily, ready for the run
- Bring a towel as they will be sprayed with water at the end of the day
- Bring their best dancing moves in between stations and obstacles

Phew! I think that is it!

If you have any questions or concerns, please email me.


Miss Prowse

Week 6 information

Good evening Parents,

Wow...I cannot believe it is week 6! Only 4 more weeks left with your gorgeous children. I know for certain I will not cope with not teaching them next year!  They have been such a delight!

Just a few pieces of information for this week...

A big OLC welcome to Pippa Mader who joins our class this week. She has come into the class with a beautiful confidence about her and all of the children have been so excited for her arrival. We are so lucky to have you Pippa!

SHARED LUNCH FOR MRS. RADISICH 

This Friday 22nd of November we would love it if all the children could bring a small plate to share to farewell Mrs. Radisich and congratulate her for a wonderful 5 week practicum. 

We are asking that the boys bring a small plate of savoury food and the girls bring a small plate of sweets to share. 

This will be the children's lunch for Friday so just recess and sip and crunch will be required. We are so please for Mrs. Radisich, but also sad that she is leaving us :( 

MENTAL MATHS 
We are currently on unit 23 of our Mental Math books. As we still have quite a few units to complete in the book, I would suggest using this great resource over the holidays to keep those little minds active!

VINNIES CHRISTMAS HAMPER APPEALPLEASE HELP! Each year at OLC we take time to be thankful for our blessings and to assist those local people in need by contributing to Christmas Hampers distributed by the St. Vincent De Paul Society. There are boxes in our classroom for your donations. Each year level is to donate particular things. PP, Yrs 1& 2: Tinned food, pasta, rice, biscuits, crackers, sauces, jams, condiments, (basically any non-perishable good food, which can be used beyond Christmas).

FIRE DRILL 26TH NOVEMBER 2:30PMThis drill is for all students, parents and staff at OLCWe ask that all parents collect, or organise to have their children collected by another parent/adult/guardian, from their child's classroom, once you receive a Bush Fire Emergency SMS from the school at approximately 2:20pm. Please do not collect your children prior to receiving the SMS from the school. 

If your child goes home with one of the school buses please make other arrangements for your child to be collected. 

If you use an organised Day Care pick up service on this day, please contact your day care service prior to the day and discuss your options for the drill as well as in the case of a real life emergency evacuation. 

If your child is being collected by another parent/adult/guardian, please advise the school office by phone, after you receive the Evacuation SMS, as to who will be collecting your child. This information will be passed on to the classroom teacher. 

Congratulations to our Star Citizen for Excellence Jarrah! You are a true Star Citizen!

Miss Prowse

We are data detectives

This week’s focus for Mathematics has been Data.

We have formulated questions, gathered data and created tally, picture and bar graphs. The children answered questions using the data from their graphs and even wrote their own questions for others to answer.

Our learning links to the Curriculum Standard of Statistics and Probability: Data Representation and Interpretation. It has been great to see such enthusiastic mathematicians!

The highlight of our activities was the m&m graph. Each child had a mini packet of m&m’s and before opening they estimated how many would be in their packet. Next, they represented the colours of their m&m’s as a tally and then a bar graph. After adding a title, labels and numbers to their graphs they analysed their data to answer questions such as which colour did you have the most of?
Each graph was different, and the children were able to compare their results with others in the group.
Of course, there was enjoyment after lunch when they were able to eat their data (m&m’s).

Mrs. Radisich

Week 5 update

Good evening parents,
What an excited bunch we had today when they saw the additions to our playground. The children were so excited to see the two new boats and the amazing car right in our playground! The children got to have a little play this afternoon and it was an absolute hit! 

Just a few pieces of information for this week...

Sight words
The children were tested on their review words last week by the outstanding Mrs. Hughes and they were sent home with a review page of how they went. If your child got more than 5 wrong, they still require some consolidation and we encourage you to practise these words at home - along with their current sight word set.

Please have a look below at the example page.

As you can see, Miss Prowse was tested on 13 words (that have been highlighted), but she got 7 wrong, so she still has to consolidate these words at home.

Mental Maths
We are currently on unit 22 of our Mental Math books. As we still have quite a few units to complete in the book, I would suggest using this great resource over the holidays to keep those little minds active! 

Christmas Hamper donations
ST. VINCENT DE PAUL CHRISTMAS HAMPER APPEAL PLEASE HELP! Each year at OLC we take time to be thankful for our blessings and to assist those local people in need by contributing to Christmas Hampers distributed by the St. Vincent De Paul Society. There are boxes in the ECC wet area or in our classroom for your donations. Each year level is to donate particular things.
PP, Yrs 1& 2: Tinned food, pasta, rice, biscuits, crackers, sauces, jams, condiments, (basically any non-perishable good food, which can be used beyond Christmas).

Wheelie, Walkie, Waste free Wednesday
This is the last week for the WWW day. So far we have done very well with our waste free lunches and our human powered journeys to school. Word has it that we are very close to winning the excursion! Please park at a friends house or at Cape Rise and get those point us for our class!

Tornado in a bottle
Next week for our Science lesson, we will be creating some tornados in a bottle. If you have any 1L or 1.25L water or soda bottles you can part with, we would love them for our experiment next Thursday. 

A very big Happy Birthday to Mrs. Radisich for this Wednesday! Keep an eye out for her blog about data coming up!

Thank you for your ongoing support

Miss Prowse 

Week 4 Information

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to week 4.

I can’t believe that it is week 4 already!! Time truly does fly when you are having fun. Just a few messages for this week :)

Water bottles:

As the weather gets warmer it is even more important to stay hydrated. Could you please make sure that your child has a water bottle and that it is bought into school. This is to help curve the disruption caused by people constantly wanting to leave the classroom during explicit learning time.

Mental Maths and Sight words:

We are currently on unit 21 of out Mental Maths unit. Thank you to all the parents who are giving their children instant feedback and writing in their books if their child finds a particular area difficult. This allows me to make this a focus when we do our Wednesday Mental Maths. 

The children will be tested on their sight words from their 1-100 review that they completed last term. The children will be tested on no more than 15-20 and if they got less than 5 incorrect, they will be tested on their current sight word set. If you have any questions or concerns, please email me. 

Mr John Hogan Healing Mass:

You may have read in the newsletter that John Hogan our groundsman has recently been diagnosed with cancer. We will be holding a whole school mass on Friday morning at Our Lady of the Southern Cross beginning at 9.30am. All parents are warmly invited to attend if you are able. Award cards and MJR awards will be given at Mass as well.

WWWFW:

It is looking to be better weather wise this week! Thank you for your support in sending in waste free lunches and coordinating bike rides and buddies! I have it on good authority that we are doing very well against all the other classes. With some great weather this week, please feel free to park in Cape Rise or the church and walk to school, every little bit helps! 

Merit Award Winners for Week 3:

Congratulations to Summer and Beau who were the week 3 merit award winners. 

You are both Year One super stars! 

If you have any questions or concerns, please email me. 

Thank you for your ongoing support

Miss Prowse 

Putting numbers in their place AND walking around in circles...or are we?

During our Mathematics dedicated time last week, the Year One children explored the concept of Place Value.

This relates to the Year One curriculum outcome of :

Recognise, model, read, write and order numbers to at least 100. Locate these numbers on a number line. (ACMNA013)

The children found out that place value means the value of a digit within a number, for example we found out that the number 64 was made up of 6 tens and 4 ones. We even had some very clever people who made some numbers over 1000!

We explored this concept using online games, songs, manipulative materials and then attempted to consolidate our learning with some Mathletics activities.

Below are some photos of the children exploring numbers using flash cards and white boards. The children could move and manipulate the cards and had to look really closely as some of the numbers were trying to be a bit tricky! Luca wasn't fooled when he found some numbers with the same numerals but with different values. They were 226, 262, 266, 662...what a clever cookie! Below are some pictures of the children working on this great skill! 

Walking in circles...or are they? 

We also were introduced to the concept of unplugged coding featuring directional language. You might have seen the funny looking grids appear on Friday morning. These were the basis for our unplugged coding. In small groups, the children had to pick a secret picture on the grid and then guide one of the children through the grid using directional language to get to their secret picture. 

The children had such fun sending children though their maze and even had a go at writing down their directional language on a white board. Below are some pictures of the children working through their grids 

Miss Prowse 

Week 3 Updates

Good evening parents, 

Week three is well under way and we kicked off this week with a wonderful OLC tradition - Grandparents day!

Grandparents Day was a huge success for Year 1P we had so many wonderful grandparents come in to celebrate this wonderful OLC tradition. The day started with a beautiful prayer service dedicated to our beautiful Grandparents. Thank you to Mrs. Meyer and the year 3M class for a beautiful service.  The Grandparents then enjoyed a delicious morning tea and came into the classroom to participate in some activities.

The children loved showing their work to their Grandparents, painting a picture with them, playing some Maths games and creating a pic collage of photos of themselves.  The smiles from both children and grandparents alike were a wonderful sight to see!

A great morning was had by all, below are some pictures from the day.

A few pieces of information for this week:

Assembly Week 3 - Assembly will begin at 2.10pm this week, as we have merit certificates, 2M presenting an item and the presentation of confirmation certificates. All are welcome!

Wheelie, Walkie, Waste Free Wednesday's - Thank you so much for the strong support of this initiative last week. It was amazing to see that so many students in our class were able to gain two points each to go towards our fight to win the free excursion at the end of term! I must say the students were so happy and focused on Wednesday, what a difference I little bit of exercise can do in the morning!

It is back on again this week. Please don't worry if you can't walk or ride to school, you can help out with your waste free lunch (no packaging).

Socktober - This Friday we will be holding a ‘Rock your socks off’ dance party during the lunch break for Socktober to mark World Mission Month with the theme "Do not Fear I am with You". Children and staff are invited to wear crazy socks and make a gold coin contribution on the day to raise money for Catholic Mission Australia.

Sight words - We will commence sight word testing next week. The children are still completing a few more online assessments this week and we will be back to normal next week. If you are not sure what sight word set you child is on, please come and see me. 

Science - This term for Science we are looking at how the day and night sky changes and how weather can change within the sky. I will be sending a Science activity home this week. I would love it if you could spend some time with your child drawing some things you notice from day to night and return it by next Monday. 

Mental Maths - We are currently on unit 20 of our Maths books this week. The children are doing so well with all the maths concepts learnt in class and I love seeing them apply it in their Mental Maths books. 

If you have any questions or queries, please email me

Have a great week!

Miss Prowse 

Week 2 Information

Dear Parents,

We have had a fantastic start to the term...the weather has been glorious and the students have come back focused and ready to work hard for our last term together.

Just a few notices for this week. 

Homework
Targeting Mental Maths: We are currently working on unit 19. We will continue to complete one unit per week next term, however if your child is a keen Mathematician they are able to pop onto Mathletics using their login in their Reading file. 

Reading: We will continue to send readers home every two days (on Monday and Wednesday) for nightly reading this term.

Change to Assembly Time for Term 4 

Just a reminder that we are trialing a new time for Assembly this term, beginning at 2.20pm. 

Grandparents Day 
One of our favourite days of the year! All grandparents are warmly invited to come and visit on Monday 28th October, please let them know if you haven't already! Further details will follow in the newsletter.

There is no assembly this week as the Bishop will be here to open and bless our new Year 5 and 6 building. You are most welcome to join us at 1.30pm for the ceremony. 

Wheelie, Walkie, Waste Free Wednesday's 

This wonderful initiative begins this Wednesday and will run for Week's 2 through to 5. There is a class challenge and I would love for our class to be the best in the school and see how many students we can get wheeling or walking. If we are the winners, we get to go for a class excursion anywhere in the Busselton region, a great prize indeed! If you are unable to wheel or walk, please make sure your child is coming with as much nude food (no packaging) as possible.

Have a lovely rest of your week! 

Miss Prowse 

Welcome back to Term 4!

Welcome back to another busy term in Year 1P...I absolutely can't believe it is our last term together...I am devastated! I have loved watching our little loves develop and mature as the year has progressed and I am so very proud of all of their hard work. I will be sad to say goodbye to them at the end of the year for sure!

Just a few things for this term...

Next week we welcome Mrs. Susan Radisich, a third year prac student from ECU who will be joining us for 5 weeks. She will be gradually increasing her teaching load through small group work and whole class teaching as the weeks progress under my supervision and this is a great opportunity for her to work with students and develop her teaching skills. Please come in and say hi! 

Year 1 Prayer Assembly 
Our assembly WAS scheduled for Week 2, but due to the new Year 5 and 6 buildings being open by Bishop Hollahan that afternoon, we will have to postpone to another date, please keep an eye on the blog for more information. 

Homework

Targeting Mental Maths: We will continue to complete one unit per week next term, however if your child is a keen Mathematician they are able to pop onto Mathletics using their login in their Reading file. 

Reading: We will continue to send readers home every two days for nightly reading this term.

Sight Words: The children will be tested early on in the term and we will continue to send home personal sight word lists throughout Term 4. Please watch the blog later this week for some important info about sight words when your child reaches past stage three words.

News

A copy of the News roster/groups will be given out this week. Another copy will be outside the classroom just in case :)

Change to Assembly Time for Term 4 

Just a reminder that we are trialing a new time for Assembly this term, beginning at 2.20pm. 

Grandparents Day 
One of our favourite days of the year! All grandparents are warmly invited to come and visit on Monday 28th October, please let them know if you haven't already! Further details will follow in the newsletter.

There is no assembly this week as the Year 6 students will have just returned from their Camp and many students will be making an early start off to Family Camp for the weekend!

Wheelie, Walkie, Waste Free Wednesday's 

These kick off next week and will run for Week's 2 through to 5. There is a class challenge and I would love for our class to be the best in the school and see how many students we can get wheeling or walking. If you are unable to wheel or walk, please make sure your child is coming with as much nude food (no packaging) as possible

A bit about our learning this term...

This term we will begin by focusing on the concept of Fairytales which will be mainly integrated into our English block in the morning. We will be looking at a variety of texts and using an array of comprehension strategies to show our understanding of the text.

Our writing focus will be  Persuasive letter writing and finishing off with a review of Narratives. 

 

Grammar and punctuation will be an important part of our writing program this term. We are learning how to edit and punctuation sentences with a focus on selecting vocabulary that will 'bump up our sentences'. We will revise capital letters, full stops and learning more about exclamation marks, apostrophes, question marks and quotation marks.

Our Math focus will be a revision of Addition and Subtraction strategies with a focus on using these to solve word problems. We will also be looking at data, place value, location and transformation, odd and even numbers, skip counting and patterning.

In HASS we will be looking at how we can change spaces within places and how they can be rearranged to suit different purposes and how we can care for these places. We will also be looking at the seasons of Australia and how they are connected to our Noognar seasons created by the Aboriginal People. 

In our Science unit we will be looking at the outcome of changes that occur in the sky and landscape and how these features help us with weather patterns and how things can change within our environment.

Phew...I think that's it! 

See you all soon! 
Miss Prowse

Our Spiny Leaf bugs need a home for the holidays!

If there is anyone in the class who will be based in Dunsborough over the holidays and would like a few visitors, we are looking for someone to care for Leaf girl and Stick girl (and friends).

They are very low maintenance and just require some new gum leaves every few days and a spray with the water spray bottle in the class. If you're feeling up to it, please email me and you can take them home in their tank after school tomorrow :)

Thank you

Miss Prowse

Practicum Teacher - Ms. Susan Radisich

Tomorrow we will have a visit from Ms. Susan Radisich who will be conducting her third year teaching practicum in our class from next term.

We are very lucky to have Susan in our class for 5 weeks beginning Monday 21st of October to Friday 21st of November and we are looking forward to sharing our classroom environment with her.

If you see her tomorrow, please give her a big OLC welcome.

Miss Prowse

More photos from Wonnerup House

Thank you Shannon Peterson for the delightful photographs taken at our Year One excursion to Wonnerup House. 

Thanks again to all the wonderful mums and dads that came along to help out on the day. 

2019 Sports Carnival

On Tuesday 24th of September, OLC held their annual faction carnival.  It was an absolutely beautiful spring day and the children came to school extremely excited to start the carnival!

The children looked outstanding in their coloured zinc, face paint and  coloured hairspray! The excitement continued as the children went into their faction bays and loved joining in with the older children cheering for the team.

I'm not sure, but I think the motivation of lollies from the faction captains might have made the children cheer extra hard. The running races were a great indication of just how fast our year ones are! They would definitely leave me behind in the 50m sprint!

The team games were a hit and I think one of the favourites of the day had to be 'stone, bridge, tree' and the flag relay!

Congratulations to our runner up champion boy Keenan and our champion boy Jobe and our runner up champion girls Kate and Zoe H and champion girl Ayva.

A big thank you to all the parents who helped with the event coordination, the set up and pack up and a HUGE thank you to Mrs. Sinclair for the wonderful day she put together.


Miss Prowse

Wonnerup house Excursion 2019

On Friday the 20th of September, the Year One children went on an excursion to Wonnerup house. The children were very excited to be in their 'Olden Day' clothes and loved comparing the clothing from the Olden Days to today. We hopped on the bus and although there were a lot of 'are we there yet?' questions, the children were excited to be going to visit 'the old place where you had to go work on the farm instead of go to school' - as quoted by one of the children.

We started the excursion with a 15 minute video about the history of Wonnerup House to which we found out that the whole community burnt down and had to be rebuilt! We also learnt about the Layman Family who lived at Wonnerup House amongst the beautiful Tuart Forest that surrounds the property.

We then set off in our groups with our wonderful parent helpers and started to explore the amazing grounds. We visited The Main House, The Black Smith shop, The Stables and The Dairy Kitchen . The children loved learning about all the olden day items like the wash board, the chamber pot, the Grandfather clock and many more!

One of the favourite places of the day was the old school house. I must say, I didn't mind getting into character! The children explored the old classroom and also the house where the teacher used to live. She must have had a LOT of hobbies to fill in her time!

We would like to thank our parent helpers from both Year One classes who made the day possible by meeting us at Wonnerup House and showing the children around the property. This excursion would not have been possible without you!

Miss Prowse