Term 3 Weeks 9 and 10

Term 3 Weeks 9 and 10

Fun in Year 1

Term 3 Weeks 9 and 10

Dear Year 1 Parents,

We have made it to the end of Term 3 and what a great term it has been. This term has gone by too quickly. We cannot believe three terms of schooling for the year have passed. Doesn’t time fly when you're having fun!  We do enjoy teaching our energetic and hardworking Year One Students.

We have attended a Drama incursion for Book Week and dressed up as Princesses for the Ball House charity for Anglicare, visited the beautiful Chinese Gardens and sampled delicious dumplings and jasmine tea. We have been learning about different types of Seasons in HSIE and natural and built environments in Science.

We farewelled our Year 12 Students at their Valedictory Service this morning. The Junior School students made a big ‘snake’ coming out of the PAC and the Year 12 students walked through it as they came out of their final assembly. It was a special occasion for the school and in these girls' lives.

We are most proud of your daughter's and their achievements.

Please remember when we return next term, the girls will commence swimming again for sport on Fridays. Please remind your daughters to pack their goggles, towels, underwear, plastic bag, swimming bag in their Danebank Sports Bag.

The official changeover to the Summer uniform is in week 3 Monday 23 October. Due to the unpredictable weather, students may wear either the complete winter or summer uniform for the first 2 weeks of Term 4.

We wish you a safe and restful holiday and look forward to seeing you when we return to school for Term 4 on Tuesday 10^th October. We will resume with a Beginning of Term Chapel service and you are welcome to join us at 9:10am in the PAC.

A reminder we have half day on Friday. School will conclude at 12:30pm. You are welcome to attend our End of term chapel service at 11:45am in the PAC. Please note there is no drive through on Friday. The council permits people to park on The Avenue during out of school hours. 

Thank you for your cooperation and support.

Mrs Lena Cooper and Mrs Alison Larkin

Red Hats and Art Smocks

The girls are bringing home their red hats and art smocks this week. Please give them a good wash and put straight back in your daughter's schoolbag ready for Term 4. We will be needing our art smocks and red hats on the first day back.

First Day Back for Term 4

All students return to school on Tuesday 10^th October in their Summer Uniform. (Monday is Staff Development Day).

Year 1 Nativity T-shirts

Our Infants Nativity play will be presented on Wednesday 22^nd November at 2pm in the Danebank Performing Arts Centre. Our Stage 1 students have been excitedly rehearsing for their performance.

Year 1 students will be wearing a plain WHITE t-shirt and their Danebank sports shorts with white socks and white sports shoes for the performance. Please label your child's white t-shirt. We encourage all students to return their white t-shirt to school by Friday 10^th November so that the children can rehearse in them.

A formal invitation to the Infants Nativity play will be sent home with your daughter prior to the performance date.

Samaritan’s Purse- Operation Christmas Child

Danebank is hoping to make a difference to a child’s life this Christmas. We are supporting Operation Christmas Child, which is a unique project of Samaritan’s Purse that brings joy and hope to children in desperate situations around the world through gift-filled shoe boxes

Please be generous by lovingly packing shoe boxes with gifts – simple, yet powerful messages of God’s unconditional love.

1.    Please fill a medium shoe-box no larger than 210mm x 297 mm x 110mm deep. Wrap the lid and box separately with colourful Christmas wrapping paper.

2.    Choose the age and gender of the child you want to give your box to, mark the age and gender on the label and stick the label on the box. Labels are available from the website or see your class teacher.

3.    Choose simple gifts that will bring delight to a child.

Boxes could include:-

Something to wear (e.g. t-shirt, thongs, shorts, beanie, hairclips, underwear)

Something to love (e.g. soft toy)

Something to play with (e.g. skipping rope, balls)

Something for school (pencils, notebook, stickers, pencil case)

Something for personal hygiene (e.g. bar of soap (not liquid), toothbrush)

Something special (e.g. Carry bag, sunglasses, bangles, necklaces, stickers)

We encourage students/families to include an encouraging message.

Students may donate items to a class box if they don’t want to put a whole box together.

Don’t forget to include $10.00 cash, cheque or credit card details to help cover the transport costs involved in getting the boxes to the children.

Please do not include food, fragile items, toy guns or knives, toothpaste, candles, playing cards or items that require batteries. For further details: http://operationchristmaschild.org.au/

       Please drop off shoe boxes to the Office area outside the Junior School staffroom.

       Operation Christmas Child Boxes due before Friday 27^th October (Term 4 Week 3). 

      Any further questions may be directed to Mrs Cooper, Miss O’Sullivan or Mrs Jamieson.

Weeks 9 and 10 in Year 1:

Mathematics- Number Patterns, Graphs and Data.

Writing- We continued work on our unit on Belonging. Students read ‘Tom Tom’ by Rosemary Sullivan and ‘You and Me: Our Place’ By Leonie Norrington.

Grammar- Question Types and Exclamations

PDHPE- Term 3 unit ‘Staying Safe’

Reading- We completed guided reading activities in class.

Topic Talks- Students spoke about different Seasons and the appropriate clothing worn during this season.

Visual Arts- Year 1 created their Spring journal.

Science- Students are learning about changes in weather.

HSIE- Term 1 topic ‘Seasons’ Students are discovering the different seasons.

Term 3 weeks 7 and 8

Term 3 weeks 7 and 8

Congratulations to our Year 1 Public Speaking Semi Finalists

Our Beautiful Princesses... Dress ups for Ball House charity for Anglicare 

Working Hard in Year 1

Working with Bee Boots in ICT

Communication Games in our Grammar lessons

Term 3 Weeks 7-8

Happy Fathers’ Day

 

Dad… You’re a Legend because… Loving Quotes from Year 1

He helps me a lot, and he plays with me.

He tickles me so much and we read stories together. I love my dad.

He loves me and he is kind and he helps other people.

He is clever and he helps me with everything.

He cares about me. He loves me.

He always takes me to fun places and we do fun things together.

My dad is the best dad in the world!

We wish all our Fathers a very Happy Fathers’ Day

Last week there was a certain buzz around the school as we celebrated Father’s Day. The tell tale signs have been the excitement of purchasing something from the Fathers’ Day stall, the pride from the cards that have been written and the drawings that have been created about fathers. We hope you had an enjoyable Fathers’ Day.

Thank you for your cooperation and support.

Mrs Lena Cooper and Mrs Alison Larkin

Father’s Day Stall

A huge thank you to all the mums who manned our Father’s Day Stall this week so that the girls could carefully choose that special gift for their dads. We want to wish all our dads a wonderful Father’s Day and we're sure you will love your presents!

Stage 1 Public Speaking Assembly

Students enjoyed listening to the presentations by our Stage 1 Public Speaking finalists. Congratulations to all finalists for their fine efforts. Stage 1 also performed a song they learned from chapel, 'Superchef'. Public Speaking has been a valuable experience in developing student's ability to articulate ideas clearly and consistently. We have enjoyed listening to all the speeches and seeing students develop their public speaking skills. 

Photos

Teachers are regularly posting photos of excursions and various activities the girls participate in. These photos are just snapshots and don’t always include a picture of each student. We request that you please don’t email the teachers asking for photos of your child, as they don’t always have one. Unfortunately time restraints do not always allow the opportunity to photograph every student.

Book Week & Book Fair

We celebrated Book Week last week with performances by Meerkat Productions. It was wonderful to see excited faces on the girls as they left the book fair with their new books under their arms. Thank you to all who purchased books. Over $7000 was spent which means we will be able to donate approx. $700 of books to the Anglicare Toys ‘n Tucker Christmas Appeal. Thank you to Mrs Jamieson for organising these events.

Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards

On Friday the Children’s Book Council of Australia announced the Book of the Year Awards. Margaret Hamilton, deputy chair of the awards said, “One of the greatest joys of life is sharing a book with a child. Sharing a tablet with a child just doesn’t have it.” I couldn’t agree more, as this is something I experience every day!

The Children’s Book Council of Australia has announced the awards for 2017

And the winners are…

The Book of the Year: Younger Readers 

“Rockhopping” (Trace Bella)

Honour Books: 

“Dragonfly Song” (Wendy Orr)

“Jimmy Cook Discovers Third Grade” (Kate and Jol Temple)

Book of the Year: Early Childhood

“Go Home, Cheeky Animals” (Johanna Bell)

Honour Books:

“Nannie Loves” (Kylie Dunstan)

“Gary” (Leila Rudge) (my personal choice).

Picture Book of the Year 

“Home in the Rain” (Bob Graham)….his seventh award in this category!

Honour Books:

“Mechanica” (Lance Bekchin)

“The Patchwork Bike” (Van T. Rudd)

Eve Pownall Award for Information Books:

“Amazing Animals of Australia’s National Parks” (Gina Newton)

Honour Books:

“A-Z of Endangered Animals” (Jennifer Cossins)

“The Gigantic Book of Genes” (Lorna Hendry)

Crichton Award for Debut Illustrator:

Van T. Rudd for “The Patchwork Bike”

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

       

We all know how difficult cohabitation can be…even when it involves our nearest and dearest. Gabrielle Tozer explores this subject in “Peas and Quiet”, where two friends (peas), Pip and Pop, share a peapod. Their problems include Pip’s singing and Pop’s snoring, sound familiar? Pip moves out, and at first Pop enjoys the extra space and peace, but soon loneliness takes over and she is so relieved when Pip returns. This is obviously one that adults as well as children, will be able to relate to. This is a terrific book for the littlies to explore friendship and to learn to allow for differences.

Ashley Spires has written another heart warming story about Lou, “The Thing Lou Couldn’t Do”. Although Lou has always been an intrepid adventurer, when her friend suggests building a pirate ship in a tree, Lou comes up with a million and one reasons for not joining in THIS adventure. She has never climbed a tree before! Lou, of course, faces her fears and all ends well. This is another great story where the characters demonstrate the dispositions we encourage at school.

Stop! Think! Do!

In the playground, students have been reminded to ‘Stop, Think, Do.’ They have been watching out for emotions and then using a traffic light system to remind them to: 1 – stop when something happens, 2 – think about the options, and then 3 – act on the best one; and then repeat as necessary. Parents, look out for times where your children might be stopping before reacting, especially if they feel mistreated or they see something unfair. You might notice something different, and be able to support them, in how they stop, think and do!

Student Health

Throughout this term many girls have come down with flu symptoms and gastro bugs. It is the season! If your daughter does become infected, we ask that you give her at least 24 hours at home after the symptoms have disappeared before she returns to school. Returning too early has meant that we have very weak and tired girls in the classroom and some are having ‘accidents’ before their tummies have returned to normal. We are keen to minimise the spread of these infections and it is also best to let your daughters return to full health first.

Healthy Snippets

Turn off the TV and get active How much time does your child spend in front of a screen? Whether it’s the TV, computer or hand-held games. Australian guidelines recommend that kids spend no more than 2 hours each day in front of the screen. Aim to prioritise being physically active first and save the screen time for later. Give it a go, you might be surprised to find that reducing the screen time also improves your communication with your child. For more information on reducing screen time and getting active visit www.healthykids.nsw.gov.au

Weeks 7 and 8 in Year 1:

Mathematics- 2D shapes, 3D objects, Position, Directions, Missing Numbers and Number Patterns.

Writing- We continued work on our unit on Belonging. Students read ‘Mutt Dog’ by Stephen Michael King and ‘Four Feet Two Sandals’ by Karen Lyn Williams.

Grammar- Questions, Commands and Correct Words

PDHPE- Term 3 unit ‘Staying Safe’

Reading- We completed guided reading activities in class.

Topic Talks- Students spoke about their ideal weather.

Visual Arts- Year 1 created Kandinsky artwork.

Science- Students are learning about the new unit ‘Up, Down and All Around.’ We are investigating the changes in Seasons and the Weather.

HSIE- Term 1 topic ‘Seasons.’