Weetangera Primary School Newsletter | Week 3, Term 2 2024

From Mel

Dear Families

Well, term 2 is off to a flying start! Exciting things are happening every day. In the last 3 weeks we have had:

• an ANZAC, year 2 and year 4 assembly (all amazing)
• our captivating cross country carnival
• the mammoth Mother's Day stall
• persistent, powerful and productive learning about our PBL expectations
• an heroic Hockey gala day for years 3-6, and 
• lots and lots of lively, lasting and limitless learning!

There is such a wonderful feeling right across the school, and I hope you feel it too when you are here. 

Congratulations!

Please join me in congratulating year 6 student Ariana Patu. Ariana and her Canberra-based dance crew recently attended a national Hip Hop competition, where they advanced through the preliminary events and finals and qualified for the World Hip Hop Championships. Well done Ariana and team! They will be travelling to Phoenix, Arizona in the USA in August this year to compete. We wish them luck!

How you can get involved at our school

Each term usually around weeks 3 and 9, our P&C meets at the school. It has been fantastic seeing the numbers in our P&C continue to grow and it's alwasy great to hear about the fantastic events our P&C is organising. See below for information about some exciting events still to come in 2024. 

There are other ways you can help too. Our canteen is always looking for volunteers, and we love to have parent helpers in the library and helping the classroom. Keep an eye on our newsletter for more information.

Regards

Mel

Melanie.Bezear@ed.act.edu.au

Parent Portal at Weetangera

Parent Portal is now available. It is a secure online platform used to share student information between you and your child’s teachers.

Some reminders about Parent Portal:

• If you already have a Parent Portal account, use this Parent Portal access link to start using the great features.
• You can’t access Parent Portal directly through the ACT Digital Account website, you need to use the link above.
• When you are logged into Parent Portal, we recommend saving the browser as a favourite or to the homepage on your mobile phone for quick access in the future.
• The website can only be viewed using a web browser on your computer, mobile phone or tablet. An app is not available at this time.
• If you still need to register, you will need an access key and a Parent Portal registration link via email to link your existing account to your child’s records. If you haven’t received this, please contact the school’s front office team for assistance.

Head to our website for all the details:

https://www.weetangeraps.act.edu.au/For_Parents/parent_portal

What's Happening in the Bumble Bees

Over the last few weeks, the Bumble Bees have been developing a deeper understanding of what community means. We have looked at the roles communities play in society, how to stay safe in communities and how to look after our community. We have also been continuing with our draw/talk/write/edit/publish writing cycles, learning to make connections when reading, understanding the key elements of a good retelling and using questioning to gain a deeper understanding of what we are reading. Additionally, we have been learning about miming through the dramatic arts and continuing to develop our thinking skills using Bloom’s Zoonomy.

In the spirit of community, the Bumble Bees want to share some insights about what they have enjoyed doing in Year 1 over the last few weeks of school with their Weetangera Community. You might be able to pick up on some favourite times of the day!

Evelina: I like doing mindfulness because it is quiet and creative

Natasha: I like mindfulness in the afternoon as it reminds me to be calm

Caylene: I like colouring in during mindfulness

Fletcher: I like mindfulness as it lets me do my favourite creative things like drawing and origami

Indra: I like doing visual arts, colouring and activities where we can get creative

Luke: I like doing our morning walk and run

Zoe:  I like playing ‘Hoop hop Showdown’ in PE and our morning walks/runs

Olympia: I like going on our morning walks

Luca: I like playing ‘Cops and Robbers’ in PE

Ollie: I like doing Fast Phonics on the iPad during Word Work rotations

Chloe: I like playing ‘Hoop Hop Showdown’ in PE

Finn: I like it when we get to do crosswords to practice our spelling pattern- they are fun!

Juni: I like colouring in during mindfulness time

Otto: I like playing addition bingo during Math Workshops

Sanuka: I like playing ‘Red Rover’ in PE

Izzy: Izzy has been away, but we think she enjoys doing mindfulness activities after lunch with friends

Myles: I like all the things we do to learn

Mia:  I like learning about all the different things

Ermuun: I like playing ‘’Red Rover’ in PE

Anna: I like going on our morning walks

Tarnii: I enjoy our morning walks where I can chat and connect with lots of different Bumble Bees

A common enjoyment across all the Bumble Bees is mindfulness. The Bumble Bees do mindfulness activities every afternoon for 15 minutes, as a time to reset and get ready for learning after our busy lunch times. Some of the activities on offer are colouring,jigsaw puzzles, word puzzles such as crosswords, math puzzles such as sudoku, reading, felt boards, drawing and yoga.

Please enjoy some of the photos from our Mindfulness activities and a recent favourite PE game ‘Hoop Hop Showdown’.

Tarnii Boland 

What's Happening in the Fantastic Foxes

This term we hit the ground running looking at informative texts. We know that informative texts give us information and can be presented in various ways. To connect to our global concept ‘Community’, we learned about some animals that work together as a community such as Meerkats, African Elephants and Honey Bees. During this time we noticed a few things in informative texts, they usually had titles, sub headings, bold text, photographs, fun facts, maps, contents page and a glossary. We are getting ready to publish our writing on an informative poster demonstrating our understanding of visual and language features of this text type.

The Foxes have been sensational writers, experimenting with coordinating conjunctions (for, and, but, because, or, yet and so) to connect ideas in their writing. This week we learned the acronym FANBOYS to help us remember a handful of conjunctions to experiment with. Utilising our chrome books on Wednesday we worked on downloading images of our animals, their habitat and examples of their diet to add to the posters we will be constructing next week. Have a look at our efforts in reading and writing this week. What can’t the Foxes do?!

In maths we have been empowering ourselves as mathematicians and understanding what good mathematicians do. Using our reflection chart, the Foxes have placed their names on a level they feel they sit at. We do this regularly throughout the sequence of lessons and have discussions, answer wonderings and problem solve ways to improve our efficiency in maths. This semester we are focusing on our number facts and experimenting with a range of addition strategies. The most interesting realisation we had as a class is that we all love using the split strategy to solve maths problems and found tools such as hundreds charts, MABs and number lines valuable tools to improve our accuracy.

Community is our global concept we are exploring this term through the lens of various key learning areas. We identified some language in our learning intention, defining what goods and services are as well as interconnectedness. We recognised a range of goods and services in rural, urban and suburban communities and are beginning to explore the interconnectedness of these communities. Here are photos of our brainstorm. 

Rosie Kingelty 

What's Happening in the Kookaburras

Last term, Year 3 studied how to write a persuasive text.  One day, we noticed a skywriter writing ”PM Please Fund Our Schools” in the air above the playground.  3JL Kookaburras decided to work together to write a letter to the Prime Minister, using all our persuasive skills.  All the students in the class signed it.  Last week, we were very excited to receive a reply and wanted to share it with everyone.

Joanne Lawson

What's Happening in the Big Fishys

Hello and welcome back to the Big Fishys classroom.

This term we have had a busy start and would like to share some of the highlights:

Rostrum- In week two we started presenting our ROSTRUM speeches. Rostrum is a public speaking competition designed to develop student self esteem and confidence when speaking in front of crowds. All the students that did their speeches did an amazing job and we would like to congratulate Joe, Misghana, Willow, Rivennie and Steven for moving into the 5/6 unit final which was held on Thursday. I was blown away by the quality and content of all of the speeches. 

Golf Course- In maths we have been tying our learning together to create a putt putt golf course. We have been learning about angles, area, perimeter, 2D shapes, 3D objects, coordinates and the cartesian plane. We are in the process of putting all of our learning together to create one hole from our courses. We have nearly finished all of our planning. See the photos. Stay tuned for the final golf putt putt course.

Cross Country- Last Monday, we all participated in our annual school cross country carnival. The three kilometre course was tackled and conquered. The amount of great sportsmanship and leadership I saw throughout the morning was amazing. A BIG thank you to some extra special helpers that were pack leaders and pack followers for our younger students. Everyone that participated had a wonderful time.

Community- This semester we moved into our community global concept and we have been looking at how living organisms survive and thrive in certain environments. We have started this unit looking at the different biomes on earth and what are the characteristics of these places. We have also been looking at the plants and animals within that biome and how they adapt to their environment through structural, physiological or behavioural adaptations. Did you know that the camel’s nostrils can be closed to prevent sand from entering the nose? Or that the polar bear's fur is hollow, which traps air inside and assists buoyancy in water. These are a few examples of structural adaptations that living things make to survive.

Bec Spoors

Christian Education in Schools

Christian Education in Schools volunteers will provide a session at Weetangera PS on Monday 24 June, 1.45-2.45pm. This session will be provided only to students that have opted in via the permission note. Please visit the school front office to get a copy of the permission form.

Piano Needs a Home

Weetangera Primary School has an older piano that is surplus to requirements.  If you have a need or can find it a new home, please let the front office know.

The school is not able to offer delivery on this item.

PBL

Communication at Weetangera

P&C Update

Movie Night

The P&C Presents: Migration - coming to a screen near you!

On Friday 21 June we will be screening Migration!

Doors open at 5:30 for a 5:45pm start. Weetangera Primary School Hall.

SECURE YOUR TICKET before sales end on Saturday 14 June.

$10 per child via the Flexischools app. Ticket includes popcorn and a treat bag.

School Fete

It might be six months away but the planning has already begun for the world-famous Weetangera School Fete, to be held at the school on Sunday 17 November!

The first meeting of the fete committee will be at 7pm on Monday 3 June, at the Southern Cross Club in Jamison. We have several stall coordinator spots to fill and many other ways that our school community can help pull together our biggest event on the calendar and the team would love to have a chat at the meeting (or any time really) about how you might like to be involved.

Trivia Night

Planning is well underway for the Trivia Night which is scheduled for Friday 9 August @ Belconnen Labor Club. If you think you might be interested in helping out on the night or assisting in sourcing some great prizes for the night, please get in touch with Ben via weetangera.pc.secretary@gmail.com .

Next Meeting

Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday 25 June @ 6pm in the staff room. Be sure to clear the calendar and come along and share your ideas or just listen in to whats happening around the traps.

Key Dates

Movie Night – Friday 21 June

Trivia Night – Friday 9 August

Lap a thon – Thursday 26 September

Fete – Sunday 17 November

Stay Connected

Stay up to date with what is happening with the P&C and the canteen by following us at:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/WeetangeraPandC

Instagram: www.instagram.com/WeetangeraSchoolPandC

Community Notices