Fire - A force for life?

On Wednesday 10th December, the Year 11 ATAR Geography students attended the Perth Hills Discovery Centre to carry out fieldwork and practical studies as part of their course. Several year 10 students were also given the opportunity to attend.

While there, we visited the site of a prescribed burn and the site of a wild fire. The differences between the two sites were startling. At the prescribed burn site there was still some leaf litter on the ground, but within two months most plants had started to regenerate. At the wild fire site, due to a higher intensity fire, the ground was very barren with lots of ash. Due to the high temperatures some of the plants had been completely killed off, although lots of the native Australian flora had started to re-grow on the site.

We also toured Parkerville to understand the importance of being bush fire ready.

Many Thanks to all the students who attended, for all your hard work. The staff at the centre were very impressed by your knowledge!

A Final Hoorah from the Junior School!

Kindergarten

It has been a fortnight of Christmas cheer in the Kindergarten room as we prepare for the birth of Jesus. We listened to the Nativity story to learn about the Angels, Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus and the shepherds.  We then created our own Nativity scene from pop sticks. We have created many beautiful pieces of artwork to celebrate the season’s festivities. Mrs Bayliss was very thorough in ensuring that every piece of artwork (and the children) were covered in glitter!

We were so excited to get dressed in our red and green clothes for the end of year Christmas concert. There were many delightful costumes ranging from Christmas pixies and fairies, Angels, elves and Santa’s helpers. We sang and danced our way through two songs, “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” and “Unto us this Holy Night.” It was a wonderful sight!

It has been an absolute pleasure teaching such a vibrant group of student this year. I have loved watching their enthusiasm for learning grow more and more each day. I will certainly miss seeing their smiling faces over the holiday break, but I look forward to seeing them back next year as big Pre-Primary children. 

Wishing everyone a safe, happy and Holy Christmas with your loved ones. 

Mrs Tucker

Class Teacher

12 December 2014

Year One

Well well well, it’s the end of the year and Year One have had a blast! This fortnight we have been busy completing our Big Ideas tasks. Our big question has been ‘What’s Christmas Worth?’. After researching different questions and illustrating our ideas the children have used material, paper, wool and generally anything they have found to create a magical weaving piece which illustrates their answer. 

Some of the children have verbalised the following responses to the question:

Monika: I think Christmas is all about having fun and believing in God. My weaving has purple for singing and pink is for the Advent candle. The blue material is for Mary and gold is for the jewels from the gifts from the Wise Men. 

Oscar: I think Christmas is all about having fun with my family. My weaving has red for Santa’s clothes, purple for the Advent candles and yellow for the angels. I have put green for the leaves from the wreaths, blue is for Mary and the maroon is for Christmas songs. 

Lucas: I think Christmas is all about Jesus because he was born. I’ve used red to symbolise Jesus’ blood and white is for the angels. I have woven blue for Mary the mother of Jesus and yellow for the shining star!

Jayce: I think Christmas is all about when you open your toys and you get to play with them. My weaving has red for the blood of Jesus and the green means life. I’ve used blue for Mary the mother of Jesus and gold represents the church being Jesus’ house. 

Sienna: I think Christmas is all about getting new things. My weaving has blue for Mary the mother of Jesus and white for the wise men’s hats. I have used yellow for the angel and red for the blood of Jesus. Green represents the tree which is for life. 

Also this week we have had the pleasure of Bunnings coming into the classroom. The friendly Tegan, has helped us construct a Christmas tree for our table decorations. We used wood and glue to build the tree. Following, we spray painted and placed glitter to give them a Christmas feel. The children loved having Tegan in again and we thank Bunnings for providing us with fantastic gifts. 

The year has sadly come to an end! Miss Behiels has had a fabulous time teaching such a vibrant and enthusiastic bunch of children. She would like to wish all families a safe and happy holiday and looks forward to seeing you all in the coming year!

Miss Behiels

Class Teacher

Pre-Primary

This week, Monday 8 December, the Pre-Primary students shared their Christmas Nativity with the Junior school students and families. It was a day of great excitement! We would like to thank all of the parents for their support with the students costumes and being involved throughout the year.

It’s time to say “Goodbye”. The last day of school is the closing of one door and opening of another.

We want to thank you for all the warmth, the memories and the learning that we have shared this school year.

God Bless

Miss Emma Pritchard and Mrs Emer Doherty

11 December 2014

One Week To Go!

The Junior School has been busy preparing for the Christmas Concert being held on Monday, 8 December. Families are invited to attend the concert in San Salvador (the Learning Resource Centre) at 9.30am. 

Foundation Junior School Families will also have the opportunity to plant a commemorative rose in the front of the College to add to the 2010 Foundation Family roses. Each family will plant a rose associated with the House their child has been assigned:

Frayne House: Catherine McAuley Rose

Ozanam House: Good Samaritan Rose

McCormack House: Mary MacKillop Rose

Salvado House: Peace Rose

The Pre-Primary, Year One and Year Two students will be participating in House Activities on Wednesday, 10 December. Students are asked to wear their House Shirt for the day.

Melissa Croswell

Head of Junior School

Year Two

How fast has the time flown this year? The end of the year is here and the students are busy preparing for our end of year concert. They are very excited to present their play, song and dance to all of their families.

In the classroom this fortnight, we have been discovering the properties of different materials through cooking, eating muesli and paper making. Our experiment with making paper was very successful and looks amazing! We even got to make other items with the left over paper!

Our nature weaving projects are hanging on the walls and look fantastic. The students explored the bushland to find objects to weave into the frame, creating some awesome pieces of art. Our Big  Ideas project is finishing and we are preparing our final piece to represent our research.

We are looking forward to a fantastic final week in Year Two.

Mrs Ryan

Class Teacher

Pre-Primary

First of all, I would like to congratulate Emily and Susan for hosting the Pre-Primary Assembly. The students proudly showed off their skills and talents in front of the Junior school and families. In the photo you will see the students sitting on the couch next to our College Principal, Ms Mandy Connor.

With the count down to Christmas, the students have been involved in many purposeful writing experiences, such as applications to be an Elf, literature recounts and letters. The students were very excited to put up their class Christmas tree. They decided to write the procedure for putting up a Christmas tree. They also created their own hand-print tree. 

Some of the boys have been extremely busy displaying their architectural and building skills as they used the blocks to create a huge shopping centre. The Kindergarten students were very impressed. They have also investigated how objects can move. In the picture you can see Sebastian rolling a toy log down a slope, which was later reflected on during a sharing circle.

Most importantly, it is the season of Advent and the students have been practising a Nativity Play for the Christmas Concert on Monday. They have been very interested to learn the story of Jesus and be involved in conversations about God. Through their actions they have been seen to be living like Jesus. Every one of the students has shown a desire to make a difference.

Miss Pritchard

Class Teacher

7 December 2014

Inter-House Swimming Carnival

It was a perfect day for an Inter-House Swimming Carnival, which was held at Bayswater Waves on Thursday 4 December 2014. Those who took part on the day participated to the best of their abilities and involve themselves in many events for their House.

Salvado took the lead early in the day and were well ahead at one stage of the carnival. A mid way surge from Ozanam saw their lead narrow before the relays commenced. Congratulations to Ozanam House, who won the Senior School Carnival by 6.5 points from Salvado. What a close finish to the carnival!

SENIOR SCHOOL OVERALL HOUSE POINTS 2014

HOUSE	POINTS
OZANAM	1018
SALVADO	1011.5
FRAYNE	857
MCCORMACK	760.5

 SWIMMING CHAMPIONS YEARS 7 – 12

		CHAMPION	RUNNER UP
MIDDLE SCHOOL
YEAR 7	BOYS	ALEX RANKIN (MCCORMACK)	TIM LEE (OZANAM)
	GIRLS	MICHAELA MAYNARD (FRAYNE)	MEGAN GORTON (MCCORMACK)
YEAR 8	BOYS	BRENTON HILTON (OZANAM)	ALFIE TURRELL (SALVADO)
	GIRLS	DANNIELLE PERRY (OZANAM)	HANNAH SCHNELL (MCCORMACK)
SENIOR SCHOOL
YEAR 10	BOYS	TOM STEWART (OZANAM)	RYAN LEE (SALVADO)
	GIRLS	TALIA CATLIN (SALVADO)	SHANNON LEE (OZANAM)
YEAR 11	BOYS	VINCINT RIGOLI (FRAYNE)	SEAN SMITH (SALVADO)
	GIRLS	CASEY VAN DER MERWE (SALVADO)	RACHEL JOUBERT (FRAYNE)
YEAR 12	BOYS	JAMES EVANS (OZANAM)	CONNOR FRANCOIS (OZANAM)
	GIRLS	BAYLEE STEWART (SALVADO)	DANIELLA JACOBS (OZANAM)

We would like to thank the many students, parents and teachers who acted in a variety of capacities as officials or helpers. We also thank the many parents that turned out to watch the carnival.

I sincerely thank and acknowledge the efforts of the Physical Education staff – Mrs Fiona de Courcier, Mr Gareth Elliott and Mr Brendan Buckley, along with Mrs Cathie Lewis and Mrs Sam Vagg, who prepared staff and student lunches.

Mrs Christina Davini
Frayne House Coordinator
Health & Physical Education Teacher

Christmas in the Parish

Fr Bona and the St Helena Parish invite you to attend the Christmas Liturgical celebrations held over the next couple of weeks. Children are invited to come dressed as Shepherds and Angels to help celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

Christmas Mass Celebration Timetable

Reconcilitation/Confession before Christmas
Friday, 5 December at 7.00pm

Christmas Eve

Wednesday, 24 December

6.30pm Mass

Carols start at 6.00pm

10.00pm Vigil Mass

Carols start at 9.30pm

Christmas Day

Thursday, 25 December

8.00am Mass

Carols start at 7.30am

9.30am Mass

Carols start at 9.00am

St Vincent de Paul Christmas Appeal

 Each year, the Holy Cross College community takes part in the St Vincent De Paul Christmas appeal. This year like every other year, each HTG has been given a family and were asked to bring in items which would aid a family. Just from looking at some of the baskets around the school, they are filling up fast. As a Faith team, we would like to thank all of the parents in guiding their children in selecting items to bring for their basket. We appreciate your generosity in thinking about others at Christmas time as we come closer to that very special day. 

Monday of this week, the first week day of Advent, the faith leaders put up the christmas tree in the office, which has made the entry look very festive. On the Christmas tree, there are now some stars with the age and gender of a child written on the star for you to take home. They range from boys and girls between the ages of a baby to 12 years of age. Please consider giving a present that will help to make a child feel special this Christmas. We also ask you NOT to wrap the gift in special paper as St Vincent de Paul has to check every gift first before they allocate them to a needy family.

Thank you for helping us to make 2014 an extra special year for so many families.

From the Faith Team

Week Seven Spring Term

Kindergarten

This week, the Kindergarten children got a taste of what it is like to be a Pre-Primary student during our inaugural Junior School orientation session. Miss Pritchard organised a range of challenging and exciting activities for the boys and girls where they also got to meet some new smiling faces.

Finishing off this week with the letter “Y”, we created our own yellow paint by mixing some shaving cream, yellow dye and water together. We had so much fun squishing, mixing and squelching the foam in our hands. We used the mixture to paint yellow objects on our easel. It was then discovered that we could make white paper change colour by soaking it in the “paint”, however we needed to dry the paper first before we could write on it.

We have been working very hard on our writing skills and looking at how there are lots of different sounds we can hear in words. Our recent Police visit recounts are on display in the DaVinci space, if you would like to see how clever the children are becoming at writing. These amazing boys and girls are certainly ready for lots of fun and learning in Pre-Primary next year! 

Mrs Tucker

Class Teacher

Year One

It’s all about groovy dance moves, brushing our teeth, creative writing and captivating reading this fortnight. 

During dance this fortnight we have completed our routine and have been busily practising and polishing our moves. Each week we have become stronger dances. We begin each class with a warm up where skills include jumping, hopping, skipping and running. We then move into some cardio to build our heart rate and get our muscles warm. A short dance move is then taught to introduce some new moves. We complete the warm up with some stretching. Once our body is warmed up we are ready to boogie! Our dance is to the song ‘Everything is Awesome’ from the recent LEGO movie. We hope to perform the dance at an upcoming event. A big THANK YOU needs to be given to Mrs Davini for giving up her time to teach the students this brilliant dance! 

Dental care has been captivating our attention! During Health we have learned about the importance of brushing our teeth. Did you know your first teeth are called your milk teeth? Children discovered how sugar can affect your teeth and the steps to take when brushing your teeth.

During English this week, students have been writing creatively. Poems were the focus and students wrote a repetitive poem about all the things they liked. Ideas ranged from liking watermelon, the beach, swimming, family, friends, chocolate and animals. Miss Behiels was blown away by how much effort the students put into their piece and how neat their handwriting was. 

Our book focus this fortnight was the Very Itchy Bear by Nick Bland and A Bus Called Heaven by Bob Graham. Adjectives were our grammar focus and students recreated people they knew and described them using adjectives. The Year Ones also chose another noun to describe and they presented their adjectives around a flower. We are busily working on trying to apply our adjectives to our writing to make our pieces more detailed. A Bus Called Heaven lead the students to wonder what their community would do if an abandoned bus was on their street. Students hoped it could be turned into play equipment in their local park. The story also discussed the importance of community and being friendly and caring to people around them. 

This week the students had the opportunity to spend time with their Year Two teacher Mrs Ryan. Although initially there were nerves the students came back bouncing and very excited for what 2015 holds! 

Miss Behiels

Class Teacher

Other News 

Thank you to the families who joined us for the 2015 Orientation Day on Thursday, 27 November. The children all had a marvellous time getting to know their class mates and teacher for next year. The Year Three class were treated to a video message from their teacher who is currently in the Northern Territory.

Parents are reminder of the next Junior School Assembly is on Monday, 1 December at 2.15pm in the Early Learning Centre. The Pre-Primary class will be our hosts.

The College Gratitude Mass will be held on Wednesday, 3 December in the St Helena of the Holy Cross Church. Fr Bona will be leading our liturgical celebration where the students will have the opportunity to express their gratitude for things close to them, within the College and Community, as well as internationally. The Christmas hampers will be presented to the St Vincent de Paul Society for families in the local area to assist with the Christmas time demands.

Staff will be involved in professional learning on Friday, 5 December. Families are reminded to keep their children home from school on this day.

The Junior School will be hosting a Christmas Concert on Monday, 8 December at 9.30am in the Learning Resource Centre. Families are invited to attend and join in the festivities.

Melissa Croswell
Head of Junior School
30 November 2014

A Journey Through Time: Year 12 History Artefact Excursion

                    

On Friday, 28 November, the Year 12 History students took a journey back in time as they explored the cities of Perth and Fremantle in search of artefacts from the pre-Federation decades of the 1880s and 1890s. Fuelled by the discovery of gold in Coolgardie in 1892 and Kalgoorlie in 1893, the 1890s in particular were a boom time in Western Australia, setting the colony apart from those in the east who fell into a crushing depression in the same decade. 

Along our travels, the students discovered that a wide range of the iconic buildings and infrastructure in both Perth and Fremantle had their beginnings in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, including the railway between Perth and Fremantle, the Fremantle Harbour, town hall and markets, the Palace Hotel in the city and the Anglican St. Georges Cathedral. The students also caught a glimpse of the significant amount of colonial history that lies buried beneath the urban environment of East Perth, where an astounding 10 000 people were buried at the East Perth Cementeries between 1829 and 1899. The students were taken on a tour of the existing marked grave sites and were intrigued at the stories they represented.

  

                           

                         

Students have been set the challenge to select one artefact from our travels on which to base their first inquiry task. They are endeavouring to conduct research and 'unlock' the stories of cohesion or division, social, political or economic change that lie within the stories of their artefacts. They made an excellent start to their research process at the end of our day in Perth City through accessing the range of resources available at the Battye Library.

Upon the completion of their research, the students will create a multi-modal text in which to share the stories of their artefacts and what they represent with the College community and their creations will be displayed in the new school year.

Ms Karen Taylor

Learning Area Coordinator - Humanities

30 November 2014

Year 7 & 8 Reporting

Staff are currently in reporting season for our Middle School. Reports will be published via coneqt on the last day of school. It's a timely reminder for students to be working hard right up until the end of the school year. There will still be assessments being handed in, so it's very important that students are working well and consistently at home to ensure they have the best possible report.

Anita Walmsley

Assistant Deputy Learning 

Senior School Ball

Once again we find ourselves moving into ball season and all the exciting preparation that this entails. 

Our ball in 2015 will be at Caversham House on Feburary 6. Students recieved letters last week and should be now bringing in permission slips and payment. The ticket price is $110 and tickets must be purchased by December 8. 

The ball is a fantastic evening and we look forward to another great night with our Senior School.

Anita Walmsley

Assistant Deputy Learning 

Learning Conversations

A big thank you to all parents who attended Senior School learning conversations and the parent information night held recently. These conversations and evenings are a vital part of our work in helping your child succeed at the College. At the learning conversations, students were asked to reflect on their report and also, to set goals for 2015. We hope that as they settle into Senior School, they are currently keeping these goals in mind and striving for success. 

Anita Walmsley

Assistant Deputy Learning 

College Swimming Carnival

The College 7-12 swimming carnival is taking place next week on Thursday 4 December. Parents are encouraged to come and watch and watch their children swim in what will surely be a close competition between houses!

The carnival is taking place at Bayswater Waves and will be an all day event. Students have received detailed letter for their parents which contain further details.

May the best House win!

Mr Paul Murphy
Assistant Deputy Principal
24/11/2014

College Drama Production 2015

The College is pleased to announce that the 2015 Drama production will be:

Auditions for cast and crew are currently taking place. The students and the Staff production team are working hard to present a musical version of the prduction in Autumn term of 2015.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Mr Paul Murphy

Assistant Deputy Principal

24/11/2014

Dante Alighieri Italian Speech Awards

Congratulations to the following students for their success in the Dante Alighieri Speech awards:

Jonathan Tartaglia (2nd place)
Emily Sorgiovanni (3rd Place)

A special thanks to Mrs Amatulli for her preparation of the students.

 Mr Paul Murphy
Assistant Deputy Principal
24/11/2014

Week Six Junior School Wrap-Up

Year Two

Year Two have been working hard creating their fairy tales. The students are planning, drafting, editing and producing their stories. They have written the stories in small sections and are really proud of what they are writing. There are some fantastic stories developing about candy princesses, dogs and ducks! The class is looking forward to reading the final products.  

Mathematics has involved lots of manipulation of two digit and three digit numbers. The students have ordered, written and represented the numbers using materials. Everyone is excited about learning how to use this understanding to solve two digit addition and subtraction problems. The children have shown a growth in their confidence and understanding of how numbers work. It is amazing to see!  

Mrs Ryan

Class Teacher

Pre-Primary

Have you ever wondered how Santa could know if you’re naughty or nice each year as you grow?

 

“At Christmas time, Santa sends an elf to watch and report all that you do.”

The Elf on the Shelf Written by Carol V. Aebersold and Chanda A.Bell

An elf has come to visit the Pre-Primary children. When we first spotted the Elf, she was on top of the light. We were all so surprised! We had to choose a name for her and the majority voted on calling her Twinkle. So everyday Twinkle watches the little children making good choices and then when everyone leaves school of an afternoon, she reports back to Santa. Before the children return to school, Twinkle will find a different place to hide. Aislinn said today to her friends, “I wonder where Twinkle will be tomorrow?”

In the spirit of Christmas the students have written an application to be an Elf and are initiating writing to Santa so they can post the letters in our Letter Box. The children have also started creating Christmas Baubles, which will very soon hang from the ceiling.

Our Cave is being transformed into a Barn, for a Nativity Play space. Ryan’s helpful parents have donated the hay and we will be creating a Mary and Joseph to go in the Barn. We already have a baby Jesus and Crib.

This week the children learnt how to tally data in Mathematics. It took a few practises to get it right. We tallied the preference between bananas and strawberries and basic shapes. The children are confident in sharing the data but are learning new ways of recording it.

We have started planning for our upcoming events. On the Monday, 1 December we have our Pre Primary Assembly at 2.15pm in the Early Learning Centre and our Nativity Performance at 9.30am on Monday, 8 December.

Please pop into the classroom to see Christmas come alive!

Miss Pritchard

Class Teacher

Monday 24 November

THE GREAT BOOK SALE!!

The Pre-Primary students have been busy collecting, cleaning and sorting the donated books for the GREAT BOOK SALE!

The students are selling books for bargain prices on Wednesday, 26 November in the Pre-Primary room between 8.45am - 9.30am. 

Book sales will be donated to St Vincent de Paul. 

 

Ways of Telling: Dom Salvado Bicentennial Symposium

Over Thursday and Friday of Week 5, representatives of Salvado House attended the “Ways of Telling” Bicentennial Symposium on the life and contributions of our House Patron, Dom Rosendo Salvado. The symposium was held at the State Library of Western Australia. Students attended a range of presentations by historians and other academics from different Australian universities who presented insights into the history of Dom Salvado’s life as well as the rich history of New Norcia as a mission, a school and a monastic community. 

Students and staff learnt about the life of New Norcia from a range of perspectives, including the cricket team, brass band and the instalment of the telegraph.  They were introduced to the evolution of transportation to and from the isolated New Norcia site during Salvado’s own lifetime, including the methods of transport Salvado himself experienced, including walking from New Norcia to Perth. 

The symposium was attended by Abbott John and the monks of New Norcia and the students had the rare opportunity to meet the monks informally over morning tea and lunch.  Holy Cross students and staff who attended the Camino de Santiago shared the experiences of their journey as part of the symposium and it was with pride that the students were able to discuss the College’s connections to Dom Salvado and New Norcia with interested symposium delegates.

Ms Karen Taylor

Learning Area Coordinator – Humanities

19 November 2014

The WA Police Force, Boat Design and Weaving visit the Junior School

Kindergarten

We are getting closer to the end of term, but there is still so much fun and learning happening in the Kindergarten classroom. This week we have been perfecting our fishing skills. We have been using fishing rods to catch different magnetic letters. We are getting very clever at knowing all of the names and sounds of the letters of the alphabet. During the last fortnight we have also read the story of the “Rainbow Fish” and learned the importance of sharing with our friends. We had a go at creating our own rainbow fish and then wrote the word “fish” underneath our masterpieces all by ourselves!

In Big Ideas, we have created a Harmony Tree, which is on display in the DaVinci space for everyone to see. Each day the students nominate their friends for the things they have done to make a difference. It is so wonderful to hear that there are lots of kind and caring Kindergarten and Pre-Primary children.

This week in Big Ideas, Constable Bayliss, from the Western Australian Police force came to visit us. He showed us the different tools he uses and explained how he helps to make a difference in our community. He then invited us to go and have a look at his real police car. We were super excited when we got to sit in the back seat and wave to Mrs D’Andrea on the car roof camera. The highlight of the visit, however, was seeing the flashing lights and hearing the siren!

Thank you Constable Bayliss for visiting us.

Mrs Tucker

Class Teacher

YEAR ONE

WOW half way through the term already! 

We have been designing, testing and evaluating our boats for Mr McGee this fortnight. We have investigated objects which sink and float. We then designed a boat and chose from materials like plasticine, cardboard, feathers, pop-sticks, matchsticks, paper and tape. We then tested our boats and nearly all of them SANK! We discussed what made our boats sink and then made changes to our designs. We discussed that the amount of plasticine will impact the weight and that our hulls might need to be taller. On the second round we were so pleased because more floated. We had three students take out the prizes. Patrick’s boat held 15 stones, Brody’s boat held 16 and Emilia’s held a whopping 20 stones! After we tested our boats again we evaluated our designs. We looked at our favourite part in the activity and where we would change our designs. It was such a fun activity! 

During Mathematics this fortnight we have been looking at patterns. We looked at patterns around our classroom and realised we have a mixture of number and coloured patterns. We then looked closer at our number patterns and made an assortment of different patterns and explanations about our sequences.

Art this term has been all about weaving! Last week we finished our Mexican God’s Eye that looked fabulous. The Mexican Indians made them for good luck pieces. We chose five colours of wool and carefully wove around the four sticks. It was a little tricky but we all helped each other. 

We are looking forward to sharing our class work with you all at our assembly this Monday.

Miss Behiels
Class Teacher

OTHER NEWS

Fr Bona will be celebrating the Junior School Liturgy on Tuesday, 18 November at 9.00am in the St Helena of the Holy Cross Church. Families are most welcome to join us.

An Orientation Day for classes in 2015 will be held on Thursday, 27 November. New students will join existing students to spend a morning getting to know each other and their new class teacher.

Melissa Croswell

Head of Junior School

Junior School Activities in Week 4

Pre-Primary are Ready to Learn – “Possum Magic” Mem Fox

“This week we read the Possum Magic book. In the story of Possum Magic, Grandma Possum turned Hush invisible. Hush had to eat vegemite sandwiches and other foods to make her visible again.” Ashni

The students wrote their own stories about being invisible.

They had some very interesting ideas:

Eve: “I would like to be invisible because you can sneak into your Mummy’s bedroom and play on her phone.”

Susan: “I would like to be invisible so I can sneak into my brother's room and play on the iPad.” 

Ella: “I am not allowed to wear lip gloss to school, but I could if I was invisible.”

Ruby: “I could scare my family if I was invisible.”

The students learnt about different foods from States around Australia. The students made Pavlova from Perth with Mrs Doherty as well as craft pictures to represent all of the foods. Later the students got to taste all of the foods. For some of the students, it was their first time trying Vegemite sandwiches, Minties and Pavlova.

Ava: "I liked eating the Vegemite sandwiches from Darwin."

Ruby: "I liked the Pavlova from Perth and Vegemite sandwiches from Darwin."

Jaxon and Susan: "I liked the Minties from Melbourne."

Eve: "I liked the Pavlova from Perth and Minties from Melbourne."

Ryan: "I liked the Anzac biscuits from Adelaide."

The students have also been collecting data and displaying it in a graph. They have been finding out what is the most popular Pizza topping and hair colour in Pre-Primary.

The Pre Primary’s have been learning so much!

Miss Pritchard

Class Teacher

Year Two

On Thursday we began our digital project on the creation of a fairytale. We have brainstormed all of the elements of fairytales and are now planning our own. Our project started with lots of fairytales on the floor and we got to explore them as we brainstormed discoveries. Did you know that most fairytales have the numbers Three or Seven in them as a part of their formula? When we looked at Snow White we found that her mother pricked her finger and bled three drops of blood on to her sewing! There are also three Fairy Godmothers in Sleeping Beauty!  

Our Mathematics focus has been revising what we know about number lines and place value and how this can help us with our operations. We have partitioned the numbers and made them using concrete materials, taking photos and explaining our learning for others. 

During the last two weeks we have been observing the growth of our seedlings and waiting for our silkworms to hatch. It was very exciting when one egg hatched, but then it was sad as the larvae died and we have had no others. We are experiencing the full circle of life and learning lots about creation. We have been discovering that when plants or seedlings die, they are absorbed back into the soil to become food for a new plant.

Mrs Ryan

Class Teacher

Other News

Our new Kindergarten and Pre-Kindergarten families were welcomed on Friday last week. The children experienced a morning of fun and learning at Holy Cross. The nature playground and painting were definitely the favourites. Parents are reminded to make a booking via PTO or administration for fitting and uniform purchases. 

New students in Pre-Primary to Year Three in 2015 will soon receive information regarding a transition morning being offered during Week Seven. 

The next Junior School Assembly is being held on Monday 17 November, hosted by Year One. We look forward to seeing you all in the ELC.

Parents are invited to attend the second Coffee and Conversation on Friday 21 November in the College Cafe. Please RSVP with administration. 

BOOK DONATIONS for the Pre-Primary Book Swap are still be collected. Books will be on sale on WEDNESDAY 26 NOVEMBER in the Pre-Primary room. All sales will be donated to the St Vincent de Paul Society. 

Melissa Croswell

Head of Junior School

10 November 2014