News

In Religious Education this term, the Kindy students have been learning about God’s Creation and Easter. They have observed natural objects on Wonder Walks around our playground and have created creepy crawlies out of various collage materials. They even had a go at designing their very own creatures!
 
For Easter, the students learned about Ash Wednesday and the events of Holy Week. They discovered that Easter isn’t just about chocolate eggs and bunnies, but about Jesus dying on the cross and coming back to life for us. They participated in many Easter craft activities, such as making palm leaves and symmetry butterflies.
 
In the next two weeks, the Kindy students will be learning about their bodies and how special we are because we are all unique. Did you know God made us to be like him?

This term in Year Four we have been doing a Civics project where we have had to design a community where citizens can both survive and live together peacefully.  We have learnt that laws are for everyone to follow and that they are decided on by the government.  We also know that breaking them usually results in more serious consequences.  We have represented our communities on Minecraft and are going to present them in our classes next week.

On Wednesday 28^th March 2018, the Year 5 students participated in a project called Whadjuk Gift at Mater Dei College. Both students and parents were invited to come and celebrate a day honouring our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. The project is based on the 250 different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations within Australia. The students took part in researching and designing symbols to represent four different Noongar nations. These designs and symbols were printed onto t-shirts for students to wear, representing their nations on the day. The students participated in a round robin of Aboriginal games, followed by a relay race against the other schools involved. They thoroughly enjoyed competing against and joining in with other schools. A wonderful day was had by all.

"The students' eyes lit up as all their grandparents entered the classroom.  They filled the room and all that could be heard was the sounds of laughter as the grandparents told the children what they did when they were at school and what happened when they were in trouble."  

Above is an example of a Sizzling Starter.  We have been learning to write these sentences, so as to make our writing more interesting.   As a class, we wrote this Sizzling Starter to describe Grandparents Day in our classroom.  We took a few photos from the day.  Many thanks to everyone who was able to attend.

Last week the Year 2's went on an excursion to Buckingham House. We got a taste of what life was like for the Buckingham family; early settlers of Wanneroo over 130 years ago. Participating in a range of activities helped us to see what life was like in the olden days. Making and eating damper was one of our favourites. We completed a sewing task in the sitting room, attended a lesson in the 1898 Old Wanneroo School House, learnt how to milk a cow, heard what life was like for pioneer families and did some pioneer style washing and butter churning.

We have been focusing on prayer in Year 5. Father John visited us and shared his special Rosary beads and the stories behind them. He spoke about the order of the Rosary and the meaning of the mysteries. We made our own Rosary beads which Father John will bless for us.

After our visit from the Monster Truck last week, in 6B we wrote some exciting sentence starters to begin our explanations on Dream Machines.

• Homework, keeps my skills sharp.
• I praise the Lord by saying a prayer before I go to bed.
• I feel like Mass is something I want to go to since I live in a very religious family.
• Mass, is being there with God and being part of the community.
• I learn best by listening to the instructions at the start of the lesson.
• I learn best by looking at various pictures to understand what is happening.
• I learn best when the teacher represents the task in a way where I would be more inclined and interested to do the task.

The Pre Primary students have had a busy start to the school year and have adjusted well to the five day program.

As part of our History and Religious Education programs we have been learning about families and the diverse cultural heritage of our students. Our cooking program has included making some delicious Indian curry puffs and we will be attempting English bread and butter puddings and Filipino apple buko salad.

Well done to all students for a successful Term 1.

In Religious Education, the Year Two's have been learning about our differences. We drew self-portraits and wrote about the specials gifts that each of us have.

We have also been learning about prayer. We looked at different ways that Jesus prayed and discussed different ways that we can pray for others.

Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. In our classroom we had a liturgy and talked about the meaning of Lent. We had ashes put on our foreheads.

In Year 3 we have been learning about the history of Australia Day.  We created posters of Australia Day facts to display around the room.
 

Australia Day:  Did You Know?

• Australia Day commemorates the day the First Fleet arrived from England in 1788.
• There were seven babies born on the voyage to Australia.
•  Australia did not start celebrating the day as a nation with fireworks until 1994.
• This year we celebrated 230 years since the arrival of the First Fleet.

We have also been revising three digit numbers, how to read them, write them, round them to the nearest ten/hundred and placing them on a number line.