february 2014 - Dookie Primary School

DOOKIE PRIMARY SCHOOL
Baldock Street, Dookie VIC 3646
Ph 5828 6585
Bus 0407 054 389 (Kate)
[email protected]
www.dookieps.vic.edu.au
DID YOU KNOW??
Did you know that
Australia is the biggest
island and the smallest
continent in the world?
20/02/2014
Issue 03
Congratulations to our school
leaders for Semester 1 this year:
Paige Johnston &
Daniel Ludeman
Page 2
DOOKIE PRIMARY SCHOOL
FEBRUARY 2014
Mon
10
Music
Tue
Wed
11 Kitchen Lessons
Book CLub orders due
back today.
17
24
Music
Music
18 Kitchen Lessons
25 Kitchen Lessons
Victorian State
Orchestra visit to DPS
Thu
Fri
12
NO SCHOOL FOR
FOUNDATION
STUDENTS
6.30pm School Council
Meeting
13
14 Garden Lessons
Friday Lunches
19
NO SCHOOL FOR
FOUNDATION
STUDENTS
AASC - Hockey
20
21 Garden Lessons
Friday Lunches
26
NO SCHOOL FOR
FOUNDATION
STUDENTS
AASC - Hockey
27
AASC - Hockey
28 Garden Lessons
Friday Lunches
AASC - Hockey
Welcome Picnic at DPS
MARCH 2014
Mon
3
Music
Tue
4 Kitchen Lessons
PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEWS
10
LABOUR DAY HOLIDAY
NO SCHOOL FOR
11 Kitchen Lessons
STUDNETS OR STAFF
17
24
Music
Music
18 NO Kitchen Lessons
25 Kitchen Lessons
Wed
5
6
AASC - Hockey
AASC - Hockey
12
AASC - Hockey
6.30pm School Council
Meeting & AGM
13
19
20
AASC - Hockey
AASC - Hockey
26
27
11,30am Bravehearts
visit to DPS
AASC - Hockey
AASC - Hockey
31
Music
Thu
Fri
7 NO Garden Lessons
14
Cluster Day at
Aquamoves
AASC - Hockey
21 Garden Lessons
28 Garden Lessons
Page 3
DOOKIE PRIMARY SCHOOL
20/02/2014
STUDENT AWARDS
P/1 Group - Mrs Comer
2/3 Group - Mrs Fleming
Kaelen Hall
4/5/6 Group - Mr Minogue
Eliza Harmer
for excellent counting
Sophie Cave
for being a caring class member
who offers to help her peers
whenever they need support and
for being a responsible worker.
for fantastic work in all
areas and a great attitude
toward her learning.
KITCHEN - Ms Christophersen
GARDEN - Mr Ramsey
Isaac Hall
Zac Tobias
for great team work
and listening
for showing a lot of
initiative and working
independently during
garden lessons.
TEA TOWEL & APRON ROSTER
TERM 1, 2014
Tuesday 4th February
Tuesday 11th February
Tuesday 18th February
Tuesday 25th February
Tuesday 4th March
Tuesday 11th March
Tuesday 25th March
Tuesday 1st April
- Harmer Family
- Gabutan Family
- Guy Family
- Hall Family
- Hamilton Family
- Johnson Family
- Kellett Family
- Ladgrove Family
Tea towels & aprons are to be collected after school Tuesday, or they can be sent home
with your child. They need to be returned to school by Friday of the same week.
Thank for your help with our Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program.
Page 4
- From our Principal We are already into Week 4 of Term
1. Time does certainly fly when there
are plenty of learning and activities
happening at school.
Congratulations to our school leaders for
Semester 1 this year: Paige Johnston and Daniel
Ludeman. Well done to all students who wrote an
application explaining why they would make a
suitable school captain and for their responses
during a short interview. The students who applied
really embraced this process and wrote some
excellent letters with very good arguments. We wish
Paige and Daniel all the best in their role for the
next two terms.
Please take note of the parent teacher
interviews forms that are attached with
the newsletter this week. These
interviews will be held after school on
Monday 3rd and 4th March. Interviews in Term 1 are
a great opportunity to meet your child’s teacher if
you have not already done so, have a general chat
about how your child has settled in for the year and
find out what they have been learning so far. If you
cannot make the dates selected please let the
teacher know on the form and another time can be
scheduled. The interviews are with the teachers for
each of the three grades, junior, middle and senior.
Also attached with the newsletter
this week is a Kidsmatter parent
survey which we will use to help
plan the Kidsmatter and social and
emotional learning programs at school. I sent this
out last year but if you could have another go at it
and send it back to school by the 10th March that
would be much appreciated. This year the school
and students are focussing on social and emotional
learning with Kidsmatter. Social and emotional
learning is about giving children skills and strategies
to care for others, make responsible decisions,
establish positive relationships, and handle
challenging situations. Much of this we teach during
buddy bonding time but also throughout the school
day by reminding and reinforcing the school values
to students.
Trivia night preparations are continuing in earnest
and I hope families are putting together a table or
DOOKIE PRIMARY SCHOOL
two for the night to support the event. It will be on
Saturday 22nd March. Thanks again to the members
of the Parents Forum who are still busy collecting
sponsorships and donations for the night.
AASC has started this week and I’d like
to thank the school community again for
their support of the program. Hockey
will continue till the end of the term on Wednesday
and Thursday afternoons. We could not secure our
normal Monday afternoon time so please remember
the changed days for the program during this term.
Amanda Sutherland and Suzie Hall will continue as
the AASC supervisors this term.
Thank you to the community as well for
abiding by the new no dogs on school
grounds policy. Your co-operation is
appreciated.
Don’t forget the “Welcome Back Picnic” will be held
next Friday night (28th February) here at school
kicking off at 6pm. You are welcome to come along
with your family and please bring a picnic tea, drinks
and chairs. Cameron Shields will be running a disco
for the children in the multi-purpose
room during the evening. We hope to
see you all there.
Please take some time to read the Every Day
Counts flyer at the back of the newsletter this week.
As the flyer states, every day counts at school. A
day off here or there can quickly add up to a number
of weeks per year. If a pattern of absences like that
continues for a child throughout their schooling it
can add up to half a year absent by Year 6. That is
a lot of schooling missed!
FEBRUARY BIRTHDAYS
2nd - Isaac Hall
6th - Aydan Carey
8th - Madeleine Montgomery
9th - Robert Shields
11th - Zac Ezzey
15th - Ellee Pleming
26th - Jordan Sutherland
28th - Zac Pietsch
Page 5
DOOKIE PRIMARY SCHOOL
Junior Class with Mrs Comer
Blue Reader Bags: A new stock of the blue take home reader bags have arrived and are
now available for purchase at the office for $11.
Reading: The Foundation students have continued to focus on pointing to the words as
they read and looking at the pictures. The two reading strategies the Grade One students
have been focusing on are looking for little words in big words and sounding out words.
Writing: This week the major focus has been the presentation of our work – beginning at the left hand
side, writing within the lines and leaving a two finger space between words.
Spelling: The Foundation students are revising the s, a, t and p and are now learning the n and I letters
and sounds. Grade One students are learning to spell their red high frequency words as well as focusing
on the short vowel sounds.
Maths: This week the class has continued to focus on counting to 100 by 1s, 10s and 5s. The major
focus this week is place value. The Foundation students are learning to read all the numbers to 10 and
put them in order. The Grade One students are using MAB blocks to make larger numbers.
Investigations: The focus in Investigations this week has been ON what their hobbies and interests are
as well as their appearance.
Homework: It was great to have everyone complete and return their homework by Friday last week. The
Grade One and Two students completed their first spelling test with very pleasing results.
Middle Class with Mrs Fleming
This week in Literacy we have continued our focus on narratives and how they are
structured. In the book “Oliver’s Party,” we have looked at the characters, the setting of the
story, when the story happened, what unfolded in the middle and how any problems were
solved at the end. We have also compared different illustrators and discussed how
illustrations add to the mood of the story. We have compiled a class retell, as well as an
individual retell. The students have been encouraged to reread and edit their writing; checking their
spelling and punctuation, especially the use of capital letters and full stops.
The children have also been working on a collage of the above book.
In Reading, the children have been working on a variety of activities to help develop strategies for them to
gain meaning from the text they read.
In Writing we have been focussing on setting out our work neatly with ruled pages, titles and the date; as
well as writing each letter correctly on dotted thirds paper. We have particularly focussed on the
formation of “r”, “n”, and “m”.
In Numeracy our focus has been on Financial Maths [Money]. We have been counting and ordering coins
and notes according to value, discussing the characteristics of each [size, date minted, animal/person
depicted etc], representing money in multiple ways [eg. 50c = 20c + 20c + 10c] and doing simple change
transactions.
Another hardworking week in the Middle Class!!
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DOOKIE PRIMARY SCHOOL
Senior Class with Mr Minogue
Literacy: During Literacy this week the students have been working on the reading
strategy of inference. The class has also looked at verbs that describe speaking and
feelings. Students have constructed an advertisement selling a vehicle of their own
design.
Numeracy: This week in Numeracy the students have focused on adding using place value and ordering
decimals and fractions.
Homework: Students are encouraged to continue to complete homework tasks and hand them in on
Friday.
Investigations: During Investigations time the students have constructed an advertisement about a form
of transport they have improved. The creativity has been fantastic with items ranging from rocket powered
horseshoes to high powered carts for older people.
Kitchen Class with Janie
Last week the senior class made their own Chinese egg noodles.
I was so impressed by the students’ skill on the pasta machines as they stretched
the finest pasta dough across the room and worked so well in their groups to
produce delicious egg noodles.
We discussed food transport and food miles and the benefits of growing our own and buying
locally grown produce. A topical subject. We compared noodles imported from China with those
made by us from Australian grown wheat and our own eggs. The Chinese noodles had travelled
around 9000km to get to us!
I encourage the students to compare some local and imported products using the simple
calculator on the website foodmiles.com, it is very interesting.
From our abundant sweetcorn we have we made delicious fritters with sage and yoghurt.
The juniors made fried green tomatoes and a salade nicoise with tuna and lots of our yummy
eggs. We made crunchy salads with sweet cherry tomatoes and basil.
This week the chicken and sweetcorn soup was divine. The senior students’ excellent knife skills
really shone through. The passionfruit tart was scrumptious, zucchini slice delish and the crostata
and cherry tomato tarts were a work of art.
The senior group made a sweet and crunchy chicken and wombok salad and a junior group
showed great initiative when they designed the apple pancakes with passionfruit cream. Mmmm.
A special thanks to Norma Sutherland and Lynda Spencely for their generous donations of
kitchen equipment, and also a big thank you to Col Moylan for all the things she quietly does to
help out with the kitchen…and, of course, all our wonderful volunteers.
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DOOKIE PRIMARY SCHOOL