Weetangera Primary School eNewsletter

From Julie

Dear Families

I thought, for something different, to take you on an adventure through Canberra. For those summer days coming up where kids are looking for something to do and that doesn’t include helping with the garden, tidying their bedroom, looking after their siblings, playing on i-pads or other devices or going to visit Nana, here is a list of mainly/almost free activities that remind us all that we do live in a pretty amazing place; Canberra.

Get climbing

The National Arboretum’s Pod Playground looks like a work of art but features giant acorn cubbies, nest swings, net tunnels and a spiral slide for kids to explore. Grown ups can admire the spectacular scenery from the safety of firm land.

Chase waterfalls

They’re a little off the beaten track but Gibraltar Falls, Canberra’s only waterfall, makes for a gentle, picturesque bushwalk older kids will enjoy. The site has picnic tables, so take a thermos and lunch to dine al fresco.

Time travel

History comes to life at the Australian War Memorial where youngsters can dodge sniper fire in a First World War trench, take control of an Iroquois helicopter and peer through the periscope of a Cold War submarine in the Discovery Zone. This Discovery Zone is open to the public 12.30pm to 1.30pm on weekdays and all day on weekends and public holidays.

Make some coin

Teach kids that money doesn’t grow on trees and see real robots live in action on a trip to the Royal Australian Mint. The tour is free but you’ll need to front $3 if you want to print your own coin at the end.

Blast to the past

The National Museum of Australia’s KSpace is a game-ified interactive experience geared towards five to 12 year-olds. They’ll love working together to build a time-travel pod before being sent back in time to a significant period of Australia’s past. They’ll have fun, learn some history and collaborate with a team of other kids.

Explore outer space

See a real piece of the moon that’s billions of years old, check out what’s happening in the solar system and discover what astronauts eat on space shuttles. There’s something for every age at Canberra Deep Space Communication Network.

Take the bikes out

Take advantage of good weather by exploring the capital on two wheels. Lake Burley Griffin offers a stack of picturesque routes to choose from and little ones will love feeding the ducks.

Get arty

Kids might not like the classical collections at The National Gallery of Australia, but the sculpture garden and intriguing “outside rooms” provide plenty to look at as well as space to run around.

Pack a picnic

The Australian National Botanical Gardens are a great spot to have a picnic before getting acquainted with some native flora and fauna. See how many different birds you can spot.

Go bus hopping

Canberra’s free City Loop bus means you can see many of the major sights without anyone needing a nap or getting tired feet.

Lay down the law

Join an expert guide on a tour of both chambers of Parliament House, the Marble Foyer, Great Hall, Members’ Hall and the Parliament art collection. At the very least, youngsters will enjoy doing cartwheels on the lawn.

Go for a dip

Just 25 minutes out of the CBD, Cotter Avenue Reserve has everything you need for a day out. Cook lunch on the barbeque facilities, go for a swim in the Murrumbidgee River and check out the Cotter Dam wall before taking one of the reserve’s many walking trails.

Reports are delivered, electronically next Friday, 8 December. Please let your child’s teacher know, on Monday 11 December if you do not receive the report.

Congratulations to our Book Fair prize winners:

Ivy Fleeton – 3JY
Jack James – 3JL
Marley Spoors – 2LVSW

My thought for the week, shared with the staff in cartoon form was this:

Have an excellent week.

Regards

Julie

Julie.cooper@ed.act.edu.au

What's Happening in the Koalas

Kindergarten have had a spectacularly exciting day visiting the CSIRO on Wednesday. Our excursion brings our students towards the end of their unit ‘Scientists at Work’. The CSIRO Discovery centre was set up with tools, insect specimen, videos, interactive displays and STEM resources for us to engage with. There were lots of materials such as shells, snake skin, bugs and fur to observe under a microscope, which many of our little scientists enjoyed.

Here are a few of our favourite takeaways:

“My favourite part was when we got to play with the Bee-Bots” – Lilly
“It was really interesting when we got to use the microscopes because it made everything really big.” – Amali
“I liked looking at the bugs because they were interesting.” – Caylene
“My favourite part was playing with the Lego. I built a machine that can turn wheels.” – Zeke
“I liked looking at the gemstones because there were lots of different kinds.” – Evelina
“My favourite part was when we went on the bus.” – Archie
“I liked it when I saw the lizards at the Botanic Gardens.” - Arthur

Kindergarten is continuing to learn more about the different types of scientists, how to pose questions, make predictions, observations and share their findings with one another. As we have been reading mentor texts and learning about famous scientists, the Koalas have been collecting words to include in their writing on our vocabulary walls.

Rosie Kingelty

This term we have been super engaged with our learning!! In Maths we have been revising our learning of number and place value. We made structures using manipulatives and then added up how many blocks we used and identified the place value of each number.

We created our own narratives based on ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. Once we completed our draft, we created a published book and drew illustrations to match each page of writing.

In our afternoons, we really enjoy creating and experimenting with different materials. Some challenges we have completed are:

build a LEGO bridge
create a zip line
craft a watertight container
construct a boat that floats and can hold items

These STEM (Science, Technology, Engineer, Mathematics) challenges have really promoted our trial-and-error skills and allowed us to develop and extend on our problem solving and critical thinking skills. It’s also just great fun!

Kate Buckmaster

What's Happening in the Dragonflies

During term 4 the Year 2 Dragonflies have been learning how to complete information reports. The students have selected a place of interest and have begun utilising their new-found freedom on the Chromebooks to compile research about their place. This process has a few components including:

Learning what is required to complete an information report. They looked at the structure of the text type and the types of information they would need to find while using the Chromebook. This part has been conducted during writing sessions.
Learning how to use the Chromebook as a resource to find the required information. Where to look, how to search for specific information and how to collate that information into a document.

The students are working hard to complete this task and would like to share some of their work so far. Please remember these are still drafts of their final work.

Louis writes:
Mount Everest is not the biggest mountain but people want to climb it. The helicopters drop food in a box so people are able to eat at the top.
Did you know that Mount Everest is the tallest land mountain in the world it is about 29, 033 feet tall. Mount Everest is also called Chomolungma in the local Tibetan language.
Harry writes:
Australia is a country, continent and an island. Australia has many animals that are only found there such as Emus, Koalas and Kangaroos. Kangaroos live in fields and they can eat grass.
There are many types of food eaten in Australia. Some of them are Fairybread and Tim Tams.
Sophie writes:
The population of Sydney is 5,121,000. In Sydney there are many languages spoken but the main language is English.
Sydney is home to many people and there are many interesting facts to learn about them. Sydney’s heart is the harbour, which many people go to.
Sydney is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. It is a very popular place for people to visit, it has many fun places like Luna Park and Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Ashley writes:
Canberra is in Australia. Australia is an island country and a continent. In Canberra you can find unique animals like a grey headed flying fox.
In Canberra you can find some interesting animals, some you can’t find anywhere else in the world like a koala. Some other animals are Wallabies, Echidnas, Dingoes and Emus.
In Australia there are many different foods eaten like Pavlova. Some other foods that you can in in Canberra, Australia are Anzac Biscuits, Angus Beef and Lamingtons. Pavlova is a tasty trat to eat but it is not that healthy.

The students still have more information to add and editing to do but we hope you have enjoyed reading what we have completed so far.

Kate de Mey

What's Happening in the Groundbreakers

The Year 6 students have been working for months, when Market Day finally arrived on the Thursday of Week 5. They came up with names and concepts. They designed logos, and slogans and advertised their stalls with fun videos! They made plans… and when the plans changed they were flexible and adaptable. They readied prize packs and made more plans… and then when it rained on the day they once again changed their plan- and all this with a big smile!

We had games where you could play a cool game, like Dipping Ducks, Lolly Land, Insane Mini Games, Knock and Go, or Lift the Cup. We had games that encouraged big movements and teamwork, such as Time 4 Golf, Spin a Sport, Long Shot, and Dark Shot. At Cookie Creations you could create your own cookie, at Chocolate Toss you could throw a coin onto a trailer to try and win a prize, and Terrific Tattoos covered most of the children (and teachers!) at the school in fun glittery tattoos!

Thank you so much to all the parents who helped our Year 6 students to have such a great day, and to all the amazing customers that visited! We had a fabulous day and we hope you did too. Can’t wait to see what sort of stalls we might have next year!

Emma Cottam

What's Happening in the Storms

newsletter_term_4_Google_Docs.pdf

Emily Dziubinski

What's Happening in French

Kindergarten

This term in French, kindergarten students were exploring simple fruits and expressing their interest in these fruits through our “the very hungry caterpillar” unit. They were able to demonstrate their understanding of the different fruits in the story through many activities in the classroom. Students were also looking at revisiting their knowledge of counting to 12 in French. They played some number games as well as other activities to revisit this topic. It has been a delight teaching them this year and I am very excited to see how next year goes!

Here are some activities that were completed in class:

Year 1/2

This term in French, the year 1 and 2 students continued their work on expressing more complex feelings stating exactly how they are feeling with the sentence starter of “je suis” (I am). They were able to role play with this topic and continue to build their knowledge of feelings in French. They also started their unit of “parts of our school” in celebration of our school turning 50! It's been great to see the students being able to identify the different parts of their school in French. Students had a chance to draft and design their own schools and label them in French. It has been a delight teaching them this year and I am very excited to see how next year goes!

Here are examples of their amazing work:

Year 3/4

This term in French the year 3 and 4 students continued their work on building complex sentences using the phrases of “je fais” (I do) and “je joue” (I play) when talking about the sports they play or do. They also began a unit on the different school subjects and how to say the subjects we do at Weetangera in French. They were able to successfully use their prior knowledge that they gained from making sentences about liking/disliking sports and apply that knowledge to the school subjects. They are now able to express their most liked/disliked subjects in French. It has been a delight teaching them this year and I am very excited to see how next year goes!

Year 5/6

This term in French, Year 5 and 6 students were focusing on the concept of “the city”. They explored the names of different places in a city or a town and are able to identify them. Students became familiar with street signs and directions in French and compared them with non-French speaking countries. They used all their gained knowledge to create designs of their own cities and were able to label them in French. It has been a delight teaching them this year!

Here are some of their city designs:

Shamim Sabetraftar

Jump Rope for Heart

Dear Weetangera!

I would like to say a massive thank you to our amazing school community. Our Jump rope for heart jump off day was a success! It was great being able to see all the amazing skipping happening and a very big thank you to everyone who raised money as well! As a school we raised a total of $4,191 and logged a total of 56 hours of skipping which is amazing! Go Weetangera!

Thanks everyone 😊

Book Club

Orders are due by Friday 1 December

Book Club | Scholastic Australia (link to issue 8)

Writer's Spotlight

Goldilocks and the Three Bears House

Goldilocks' perspective

It was surprising what I saw at that house and I must learn from my mistake however I think you will be interested in this story, Goldilocks and the three bears

I was just simply playing with my kite outside when I smelled something yummy and hot. It was that good I couldn't resist the urge to head in.

Not even a being was there so I continued to follow the smell. In there I found 3 bowls: a big one, a medium sized one and a small tiny bowl of porridge.

I tried the biggest bowl obviously but it felt like I had an iceberg in my mouth! Then I tried the medium sized one but it burned my tongue!

The tiny one was just perfect so I chugged it until there was nothing left.

I went to rest in the living room. I saw 3 chairs, the first one was taller than my kite! The second one was squishier than my teddy bear! The last one was perfect! But then it broke! So I thought “maybe It’s better to go lay down”.

I went upstairs to find three beds. The first was too hard. How does anyone sleep on it?! The second one was too soft! The last one was just perfect again so I slept in that wonderful comfy bed.

Little did I know they came back while I was dreaming.

When I woke up I saw three bears! I was terrified so I sprinted out of the window as fast as I could, never to return there again.

Mohammad Asfahan - The Storms

Journal Entry - Boy Overboard

Along with the rest of her class, Lottie (The Barbecues) had been reading Boy Overboard by Morris Gleitzman, and learning about the journey of Jamal and Bibi, refugees that end up in an Australian dentention centre. One of the activities completed by the class was a journal entry from the perspective of Jamal.

As she wrote, she reflected that Jamal would not have written in his journal in English, so she decided to write it in Arabic. While it might not be exact, it is certainly recognisable, and Google Translate was able to translate most of it back to English. Lottie learned a lot about different languages and different ways to communicate. And she has done some very impressive work.

Library Volunteers

If you have an hour or so to spare and would like to assist in our library please contact Stephen James via the front office.

Any assistance provided is greatly appreciated. Contact: 6142 2600.

Please note this does not include covering books.

2024 Student-free Days

Get planning for 2024 with upcoming student-free days
From 2024, there will be 4 student-free days for ACT public schools. These are the first day of each
school term:
• Term 1, Monday 29 January 2024
• Term 2, Monday 29 April 2024
• Term 3, Monday 22 July 2024
• Term 4, Monday 14 October 2024.

We use student-free days for staff development, enabling us to plan in a student-free environment.
Student-free planning days have been expanded from 1 to 4 days from 2024 as part of our new
Teaching Staff Enterprise Agreement which prioritises better teacher workloads for educational
leadership, teaching and learning.

For all school term dates, visit the Term Dates page: https://www.education.act.gov.au/public-school-life/term_dates_and_public_holidays

PBL News

Newsletter_Communication_PBL_1_.pdf

Communication at Weetangera

Communications_at_WPS.pdf

P & C Update

The final P&C meeting for the year is on Tuesday 5 December at 6pm in the school staff room. We’ll take a moment to celebrate a massive 2023 and start to plan our calendar of events for 2024.

We’d love to hear your thoughts either at the meeting or via email or message. We’re especially eager to hear from you if you are interested to help organise any of the events next year, especially our 2024 fete.