Weetangera Primary School eNewsletter

From Julie

Dear Families

We are in the home run to the end of 2022.

A very fulfilling year of learning and progress for your children with a wider variety of internal and external activities that have kept them engaged, connected and hankering for success.

I’d love to say that school is not without its’ challenges, but then you would know I was fibbing! But the challenging aspects of life at school are the ones that are often the most rewarding. When we all work together to build our students’ capacity and to enable them to broaden and deepen their skill sets and to overcome the concerns and dilemmas of life at school these are some of our rewarding moments.

With purpose, positivity and a good plan across the school from preschool to year 6 our students have grown and been successful.

Did you attend the fete? What a truly marvellous way to let COVID know we are done with interruptions to the usual business of schools and the community that surrounds them. Kate and Kelli, chief organisers – marvellous job, we could not have had the success we did without you and your merry band of helpers. And to each and every other P&C helper, teacher and family member who attended to spend money, to help out, to enjoy the day in the sunshine… welcome back it was so good to have you back where you belong.

And next week our Year 6 students will celebrate, along with their families and with their teachers, the long road of learning that has been PRIMARY SCHOOL! Woo hoo!!!! How fabulous!

Beginning the week with a more formal dinner at the Belconnen Raider’s Club followed by a day of movies and laser tag on Tuesday, Wednesday is a cake and the yearbook and Thursday is the day where we acknowledge the students themselves in their final assembly of primary school and look backwards to their early years and forwards to the what is next.

Please join me in wishing all of Year 6 students an exciting end to their primary school years. Ahead of them lies the challenge of high school, being introduced to their teenage years, a few years at college and then time spent wondering what to do next. Taking things one step at a time, the reality is: finish Year 6, have an excellent break in the holidays and then begin Year 7 with positivity and a plan to be the most engaged learner in high school that they can be. Make friends, expand your learning skills, ask questions and don’t be afraid to make mistakes and have another go at the task.

The reports have been completed, those families who requested parent meetings have had conversations with their child’s teacher (Noting that there is no provision for meetings in Week 10), student work has been sent home, small scale celebrations have been organised in most year levels, there is much excitement in the administration area as we are packing up (this was not exciting) and preparing for the refurbishment and updating of the admin area (this is exciting) and our final charitable fundraiser will be completed on Thursday next week.

A reminder: the Weetangera Primary School Giving Tree in 2022 is a request for BRAND NEW CLOTHING, in children’s sizes, to be donated, one piece per child will give us more than 500 pieces of new clothing.

Our final charitable collection for 2022 is for ROUNDABOUT Canberra.

We are requesting that our Weetangera Primary School Giving Tree for 2022 supports this wonderful charity.

Imagine if you have never had a new outfit! A new set of clothes! Something that has never been worn by anybody else.

Even in this the 21^st Century there are children in Canberra who have the lived experience of only wearing other people’s clothes. Or having to leave their homes and all their belongings and start again, or everything they have is washed away or has gone up in smoke.

If you could please donate items of new clothes, one per child is all we ask, of BRAND NEW CLOTHING and leave in the box in the foyer by Thursday, 15 December, no later, we will ensure that they are delivered to ROUNDABOUT on our behalf.

There will be a final newsletter update next Friday with details about the start of the year.

As I sit in my office and listen to the FOOTSTEPS dance program I am reminder of the thought for the week shared with staff on Monday:

The staff at WPS continue to create and nurture an environment in which our students can continue to flourish.

Have a great weekend.

Enjoy the sunshine.

Get out in the garden or walk the lake and see you for the final countdown of 2022.

Regards

Julie

Julie.cooper@ed.act.edu.au

The Coffee Van Returns!

We are happy to let our community know that the coffee van will be returning to the school each Thursday morning until the end of term: Thursday 1st, 8th and 15th December from 8-9.15am. Why not stick around for a coffee and let's convince Jess to keep coming back to make us coffee in 2023.

What's Happening in Possum Magic

In Maths, the KAN Possum Magic class have been learning about number patterns! Earlier in the year we learnt about non-number patterns such as colours and sizes. This time we investigated how number patterns are similar to traditional patterns but have a ‘rule’ they follow.

Number patterns are sequences that either increase or decrease by the same amount each time. It can be difficult for students to identify what the ‘rule’ or difference is between the numbers and then generate the next number in the sequence. We created a class poster to help us remember and record our thinking.

We started with number lines and students marked the given numbers on their individual lines. As a class, we practised counting the jumps between the numbers and identifying the rule or the difference between the two numbers. We then worked out what the next number in the sequence would be. The next step was to move away from the number lines, allowing students to visualise the missing numbers without needing the physical tool. Some students found it easier to still draw the hops between numbers, to help work out what the ‘rule’ is. When able, students left blank spaces between the numbers to visualise the number line needed in their head.

On our last day of number patterns, we celebrated by making a kite with a number pattern string. Students were given a choice of what number pattern they wanted to create. They then ordered the numbers in that pattern and decorated their own kite.

Here are some pictures of our learning.

Alex Nicholls

Wow! What a year it has been in the Koalas’ class. This week we have been wrapping up our year; sharing our favourite recess activities, favourite memories, and favourite subject areas.

Before the year is out, we are going to put together a collaborative art project using quilt square templates.

We’d like to share some of our quilt squares with you.

Izzy Dunn

What's Happening in the Pugs

What a fantastic year of learning we have had in Year 3! We have all learnt many new things and continued to build upon things we already know. We have developed our ability to become inquirers and ask questions about our learning. We have also enjoyed the opportunities to share our knowledge and understanding with each other.

This week Year 3 had the opportunity to go on an excursion to the National Museum Australia and make connections with their learning. We went on two guided tours, Story of Country and Meet the People. We heard some great stories and explanations about Australia and its history, and we looked at some really interesting artefacts that explore Australia’s past. We watched an intriguing film about how Australia’s First Nations people and the people of today are connected to each other and the land. Here are some of our favourite parts from the day:

Ariam
My favourite part was when they told interesting stories because they have inspired me to learn more about them.
Logan
My favourite part of the day was looking at the telephone box melted from a bushfire. It teaches us how hot bushfires can be.
Rivennie
I enjoyed learning about Antarctica and carbon dioxide, how it affects the oxygen across the world. I enjoyed it because of the science and I love science!
Nash
I really liked the Great Barrier Reef section when we learnt about ghost nets. They call them ghost nets because the animal's spirit still lives on in the nets.
Senudi
My favourite part of the day was the melted phone box because the story was so interesting and I loved learning about natural disasters like floods, cyclones and bushfires.
Phoebe
My favourite part of the day was when they talked about Tom the killer whale and how he helped the family hunt whales.

During literacy we have been looking at different forms of poetry, how they are written and messages they might convey. One type of poetry we learnt about was cinquains, which follow a set syllable pattern. There are always five lines. Each line of the poem develops the subject of the first word.

1st line - 2 syllables - subject

2nd line - 4 syllables - description

3rd line - 6 syllables - action

4th line - 8 syllables - feeling

5th line - 2 syllables - conclusion

Soccer

Fun and sunny

Running, drinking water

Exciting scoring lots of goals.

Winning!

By Zayden

Summer

Hot and sunny

Tired, eating ice cream

Excited about the beach trip.

Yipee!

By Senudi

Christmas

Joyful and fun

Over eating yum foods.

Getting presents from family.

Happy

By Dora

Last week we started learning about capacity and utilised our garden space to explore the capacity of different sized containers using millilitres and litres. We had a lot of fun estimating and measuring the various containers. As we practised measuring, we recognised we were able to improve the accuracy of our estimations. There were some great discussions and discoveries while we were developing our knowledge of capacity.

Thank you all for a great year! We appreciate all the support you have given to your child to help them on their learning journey.

Megan Ferdinand

It has been a very busy term for Year 4 as we are heading towards the end of the year.

During Visual Art lessons, we have continued our investigation of different types of lines and the ways they have been used to express feelings. We experimented with creating facial features using wires and looked at Van Gogh’s artwork to inspire us to create abstract landscapes using watercolours. We learnt how lines can create high-lighted and low-lighted areas. This was done by shading a picture of our own hands and seeing where the light hits.

In Maths, we looked at different angles such as an acute angle, right angle, obtuse angle, reflex angle, and a revolution angle. Finding different objects that have different angles and writing our names on a grid paper to find and measure the different angles that are in our names was so much fun!

Year 4 has participated in the Footsteps Dance program over the course of 4 weeks. Our dance teacher taught us a variety of moves to different songs while incorporating the dance techniques of soft and strong movements and understanding our space. We even got to individually choreograph some moves to a song! We enjoy using our creativity while having a fun time learning and dancing together.

We have also been spending some time in class doing Genius Hour. We had a chance to investigate the topics and things we have always wondered about and sharing them with our peers made it more meaningful.

We’re very excited about the end of 2022 and finishing the year on a positive and energetic note!

Youn You