Braidwood Central School Primary Newsletter Term 1, 2019

BRAIDWOOD CENTRAL SCHOOL

PRIMARY

NEWSLETTER 2 August 2019

Welcome back to another exciting new term for K-6

students!

Crunch & Sip

Students need to bring a small piece of fruit or vegetable and a

drink of water that can be consumed in approximately 5

minutes. This happens every day.

Braidwood Central School Uniform Shop

School Uniforms are now available from the school office

Monday to Friday between 8:30am and 3:00pm.

Payments can now be accepted via EFT, cash or you are also

able to use the parent porthole to pay for your uniforms and

they will be delivered to you child’s class. Please make sure that

you include your child’s name and class when making the online

payment.

Upcoming Events

Term 3

Week 3 – Education Week

6 August K-12 Assembly, 9:30am

7 August P&C Meeting, 4pm Library

8 August MAD Night, 6:30pm

9 August International Day of the

World’s Indigenous Peoples

Week 4 – Science Week

Week 5

23 August Better Buddies Program

Week 6 – Book Week

27 August Year 7 Taster Day 2

28 August Author Visit, 9:30am

29 August Book Week Parade, 11:15am

Book Fair, 12:30pm

Week 7

5 September Indigenous Literacy Day

Week 8

12 September Kindergarten Transition 1

13 September Anniversary of the UN

Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People

Week 9

18-20 September 5/6 Camp

20 September Better Buddies Program

Week 10

26 September Kindergarten Transition 2

27 September Year 12 Graduation

Seniors Induction

Last Day Term 3

Please note that dates and events

may be subject to change.

Please see our website

braidwood-c.schools.nsw.gov.au or

the calendar on our SkoolBag App for

more details and the most up-to-date

information.

Braidwood Central School Primary Newsletter Term 3, 2019

Page 1

In the Classroom

KN with Mrs Norris

KN is now half way through their first year of big

school. The students had a great time exploring the

number 100 during our 100th day of school

activities. The students wrote

about what they would look

like when they were 100 and

we had a laugh at photos that

Mrs Norris took to make us

look 100.

Students have been working hard on their sight

words and it is a delight to see the progress

achieved so far. Please remember to continue

completing home reading and sight words on a

daily basis. KN’s goal is to be able to read and write

their sight words. When your child is ready to be

tested, please let Mrs Norris know.

This term in reading, students are continuing to

develop their reading strategies to help them to

become successful readers. Students are focusing

on making their reading smooth and not having a

robot voice. We are doing a lot of work on building

words and stretching out words to listen to the

sounds to help us read and write them. Writing

sessions have moved from guided writing into

independent writing with students learning to

create story maps to help them independently

write sentences. Students participate in discussion

circles to help generate ideas and develop their oral

language skills.

The focus in mathematics

for this term is friends of

ten and turnaround facts.

Students are participating

in a range of activities to

help develop their skills in

these areas. We are

continuing to work on

addition and subtraction

strategies, sharing

objects into equal groups,

volume and capacity and

length. Students are also continuing to develop

their ability to hold a big number and count on with

our dice and card games.

Students are currently investigating ‘What’s It

Made Of’ in Science. During this unit, the students

will be exploring different types of materials and

looking at different objects to determine what they

are made of. The unit provides opportunities for

students to explore, through hands-on activities,

what things are made of in the school environment

and the properties of the materials used to make

them.

This term in CAPA, KN will be exploring dance.

Students will learn the elements of action,

dynamics, time, space, relationships and structure.

They will participate in movement phrases in

response to a range of stimuli, including everyday

experiences. Students will learn to respond in

movement to a range of accompaniments (sounds,

voice, music and percussion). Throughout the unit,

they will have the opportunity to learn a variety of

dances.

I am extremely proud of all the students in how far

they have come in their learning journey so far this

year. They should be proud of all their hard work

with their reading and writing. I am excited for the

second half of this year and look forward to seeing

your children continue to develop a love of learning

and being successful learners.

Braidwood Central School Primary Newsletter Term 3, 2019

Page 2

1/2M with Miss Mutch

Welcome back to another fun filled term of learning

in 1/2M! Our class enjoyed an exciting end to term

two with our puppet show performances for KN and

our excursion to Canberra to see Roald Dahl’s

‘Revolting Rhymes and Dirty Beasts’. We warmly

welcome our new students joining us this term and

hope that they love learning as much as 1/2M do.

Our English focus in term three is ‘stories from

other times, places and cultures’. Students will be

exploring the textual concepts of context, point of

view and theme that authors adopt within their

texts. Our Village in the Sky by Janeen Brian will

be our main text this term. We

will support the ideas in this

text with other texts including

Nyuntu Ninti (What You Should

Know) by Bob Randall and

Melanie Hogan, My Village:

Rhymes From Around The

World collected by Danielle Wright, My Two

Blankets by Irena Kobald and

Silly Birds by Gregg Dreise. 1/2M

will also be continuing with the

spelling program ‘Words Their

Way’, and guided reading during

literacy group time, which are

both small group lessons

targeted at students’ current needs. During explicit

phonics instruction time, students will be further

developing their understanding of consonant blend

and vowel digraphs.

Our class has begun our

learning in mathematics this

term with a focus on counting

by 10s off the decade. We will

then be looking at

multiplication and division,

where year one will focus on

making

equal

groups and year two will focus on

repeated addition and arrays.

1/2M will also be learning about

fractions including halves and

quarters. Later in the term our

class will learn about position,

2D and 3D space and chance.

Students have access to a wonderful program

called Mathseeds, both at school and at home.

Access Mathseeds via the app on a phone or tablet,

or by visiting mathseeds.com.au Students can use

their Reading Eggs logins to access lessons

targeted at their learning needs. If your child does

not know their login, please let me know.

1/2M will continue to learn

about music with Mrs Arroyo,

three times a fortnight. We

will also begin a dance unit

called ‘Splish, Splash’.

Students will learn about the

elements of dance using the

stimulus of water.

During health this term, our class will be learning

about medicines and the safe use and

administration of them. Health will be taught to

1/2M by Mrs Mumberson. Our fundamental

movement skills we will be exploring this term are

leaping, kicking, two-handed striking and dodging.

This semester 1/2M are commencing a new science

unit called ‘All Mixed Up’. This chemical sciences

unit teaches students about mixtures and their

purposes.

In history, we are continuing to learn about aspects

of the past that remain the same today. Students

have identified places in Braidwood they are

interested in and are developing questions that

they can ask our high school HSIE teacher, Mrs

Clarke, when she visits our classroom soon.

Braidwood Central School Primary Newsletter Term 3, 2019

Page 3

2/3B with Ms Breust

Welcome back to term 3! I would like to thank

everyone’s understanding for the disruptive start

to the term. Unfortunately I have broken a bone in

my wrist and have had to take leave to attend

medical appointments and adjust to living with a

cast!

In English, students will be reading a variety of

texts that present a context of a different place and

culture. They will be learning about context and

how the factors acting upon composers and

responders can impinge on meaning. They will look

closely at stories that are narrated through a

character’s point of view. Students will discuss and

discover how the purpose of a text can be to

convey a message and the main idea of a text can

be a moral. I would like to encourage parents and

students to continue to use the home reading

scheme. As students move into more independent

reading levels it can often seem like they may not

need to access the home readers anymore. The

benchmark for students reading level by the end of

year 2 is a level 22 and at this level students are

able to independently read, respond to, and think

critically about texts with greater independence.

There is a lot of research that tells us that the more

students read outside school the more success they

will have. Phil Pollard, a Student Learning Support

Officer, continues to work with students to improve

their accuracy and speed of their sight words. Many

students have already completed all 300 of the

most commonly used words, the goal for students

is to be able to read and write them independently

by the middle of year 3.

In Mathematics this semester students will

continue to work in small groups to develop their

early arithmetic skills in adding and subtracting.

During term 3 the whole class teaching will focus

on developing student’s ability to recognise and

represent multiplication as

repeated addition, groups and

arrays, represent division as

grouping into equal sets and

solve simple problems using these representations.

We will also continue to develop their

understanding of two-dimensional shapes, position

of objections and recognise and interpret common

uses of halves, quarters and eighths of shapes and

collections. To support your child’s development in

maths I encourage all parents to allow their child

some time every week to access the Mathseeds

program, to help them consolidate the skills

explored in class.

The Mathseeds app can be downloaded to a phone

or tablet via the Google and Apple app stores.

Alternatively, students can log in to the website at

mathseeds.com.au via a computer browser, using

their Reading Eggs login details.

Students completed

mathematics activities

last term creating,

representing and

continuing a variety of patterns with numbers and

objects. Students working in small groups to plan

and deliever a series of events to entain their

audience through a puppet show.

Braidwood Central School Primary Newsletter Term 3, 2019

Page 4

3/4B with Ms Clarke

It was a blast experimenting with the STEM.T4L robots in

Term 2. The students had so much fun building robotic

masterpieces with the Lego WeDo 2.0 kits and

programming their Dash robots using the iPad Apps.

Term 3 will be just as exciting with Secret Messages as

the focus for our digital

technologies unit. Students

will enjoy opportunities to

encode and decode using

secret messages, including

QR code, Morse code, Braille

and hopefully the Micro:bits

and more.

In technology and STEM sessions, all students will be

involved in centres that will focus on various topics,

including but not limited to: The Science of Suction,

Design Solutions - Chairs, Assembly Instructions -

Monsters, Uses for Pulleys - Zip Lines, Developing

Prototypes - Pom Pom Launcher, and Simple Machines.

Our science focus is ’Beneath Our Feet’ providing

opportunities for students to explore how natural

processes and human activity shape their surroundings.

Students will investigate the effect of erosion of soils and

how rocks, soils and landscapes change over time.

The theme for literacy this term

includes the understanding that ideas

in texts may be made into thematic

statements that tell us about human

experiences. We will be reading and

responding to the text You and Me:

Our Place by Leonie Norrington. In

writing we will continue to focus on ‘The Seven Steps to

Writing Success’ which include:

1. Plan for Success

2. Sizzling Starts

3. Tightening Tension

4. Dynamic Dialogue

5. Show Don’t Tell

6. Ban the Boring, and

7. Exciting Endings.

A focus for our reading will include using the ‘Super 6’

reading strategies of:

1. Making Connections

2. Inferring

3. Predicting

4. Questioning

5. Summarising, and

6. Visualising.

Look out for bookmarks to

practice these strategies and reading journals to keep a

record of your reading.

In PDHPE, we will be working on the

fundamental skills of leaping, kicking and

dodging.

Students in 3/4C will work with Mrs

Langdon on the unit ‘Australia’s

Neighbours’ answering the geographic questions:

How and why are places similar and different?

What would it be like to live in a neighbouring

country?

How do people’s perceptions about places

influence their views about the protection of

places?

In numeracy, we will focus on the following strands and

key ideas with many hands-on opportunities, mathematic

investigations and open-ended tasks for students to apply

and show their learning.

Patterns

and

Algebra

Investigate, explore and describe number

sequences and patterns.

Solve word problems using multiplication and

division

Length Used scaled instruments to measure and

compare lengths and temperature.

2D Shapes Identify symmetry in the environment.

Compare and describe two-dimensional shapes

that result from splitting common shapes.

Angles Identify angles as measures of turn and

compare angle sizes in everyday situations.

Addition

and

Subtraction

Use mental and written strategies for addition

and subtraction involving two, three and four

digit numbers.

Volume

and

Division

Measure, compare, order and estimate using

metric units.

Area Recognise and use formal units to measure and

estimate areas of rectangles.

Compare areas of regular and irregular shapes.

We are looking forward to a fantastic term ahead!

Braidwood Central School Primary Newsletter Term 3, 2019

Page 5

4/5S with Miss Shepherd

Welcome back! 4/5S are already into the swing of Term 3! This term includes a whole range of exciting things, including camp for the Year 5 students. A reminder that students are required to read for 20 minutes daily and record their reading in their reading log.

In English this term, 4/5S will be studying You & Me: Our Place by Leoni Norrington.

During this unit, student learning will be focused around the impact of language choices and themes which tell us about different

human experiences. We will also be comparing texts to enhance our

understanding of our chosen text.

Our spelling continues to be an important part of

our daily literacy block. Students have a focus within their word sorts each week and have different activities to complete each day to assist their understanding and growing knowledge of these words. Our groups focus on topics including short and long vowel sounds, understanding sounds and rules within two syllable words,

understanding different types of endings within two syllable words and learning about Latin and Greek roots within words.

This term in

mathematics, 4/5S will continue with MathsBURST, a program designed to develop spatial reasoning which is the ability to move objects around in your mind. This program involves

hands on activities and online revision questions. This term we will focus on nets of 3D shapes, hidden blocks and cross sections.

Throughout the week, students are involved in mathematics rotations which include activities such as hands-on activities, revising concepts, maths games and technology. This term we will cover a range of topics including fractions and decimals, time, length and area, data, addition and

subtraction, as well as multiplication and division.

Encourage your child to practise their multiplication tables throughout the week. The more they practise

them, the more they will remember them!

In Science, we will be studying the unit ‘Light Shows’. This unit provides opportunities for

students to explore the properties of light and how it enables us to see. Students’ thinking about light

and its role in our lives and our community will be

developed using hands-on activities. Through investigations students explain how objects reflect, absorb and refract light, and how we can use light to meet our needs.

This term, students will move into another rotation of music, drama or art as part of our high school

transition program where they learn from our high school creative arts staff. As part of this program, 4/5S will also be undertaking geography with Mr Pink.

In sport this term, there will be a focus on developing skills in tennis. During health lessons, 4/5S will be learning about safe practices within a range of personal lifestyle choices, such as alcohol and tobacco.

Braidwood Central School Primary Newsletter Term 3, 2019

Page 6

5/6L with Mr Lenon

In literacy this term, we are studying 2 main texts, Lenny

the Legend, a true story about a young man who rode his pony from Victoria to Sydney for the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge,

and The

Man From Snowy

River by Banjo Patterson. Our work in spelling continues with the ‘Words Their Way’ Program.

Patterns and Algebra will be a focus in the opening weeks of term, with the class finding missing values and exercising their problem solving capabilities. Students will also continue to study mathematics using

the Maths Pathway and MathsBurst programs.

Students will continue to

engage in the high school transition program, studying geography on Wednesday afternoons, and also studying visual art, music and drama with our high school staff.

This term in PE, we look forward to learning skills to play tennis, which is supported by funding from the Sporting Schools program.

Term 3 is also a very exciting time this year as our Stage 3 camp takes place on 18-20 September. We

will head to Narrabeen Sport and Recreation Camp. Parents and Carers will receive further info as we get closer to camp, but are reminded to make

regular payments this term.

A reminder that our homework focus for 5/6L is

ensuring that students read every night and record this in their reading log.

Students can also access the Maths Pathway program, and Reading Eggspress programs to

complete activities at home to support the work we are doing in class.

These can be accessed online at:

mathspathway.com.au and readingeggspress.com.au

Braidwood Central School Primary Newsletter Term 3, 2019

Page 7

RFF

Melinda Mumberson

1/2M

Throughout this term students will be participating in a health unit ‘Medicines and Me’. Students will identify what happens when they are unwell, who helps them when they

are sick, how do we use medicines safely, what is safe and unsafe around the home, and discuss storing medicine safely.

During PE lessons, students will be participating in games and activities to improve non-locomotor and locomotor skills such as balance, leaping, climbing/hanging and rhythmic gymnastics. Students will practise these skills and incorporate them into a variety of games.

2/3B

This term, 2/3B will be involved in a history unit called ‘Technology Past in the Present’. Students will be participating in a variety of activities to discover how technology has changed from the past to now and how that has effected the lives of people.

We will also be studying a science unit ‘All Mixed Up’. Throughout this unit, students will be involved

in investigations about how different materials can be combined for a particular purpose. Some

materials don’t mix well, others are difficult to separate and some are combined to make tasty combinations and interesting textures.

3/4C

During PE lessons, students will be involved in tennis program. Learning tennis skills such as

serving, hitting the ball backhand and forehand, swing, game tactics and playing the game of tennis. This will be a fun and exciting experience for all students.

Braidwood Central School Primary Newsletter Term 3, 2019

Page 8

Library with Ms Langdon

This term we are celebrating Children’s Book Week

in Week 6 at BCS.

The theme this year is ‘Reading Is My Super

Power’. This is so true! If you read, you can

explore, learn, create and understand so many

things real and imagined.

In our library lessons, we will be reading,

discussing and responding to some of the great

books by Australian authors and illustrators on the

shortlist for the 2019 Australian Children’s Book

Council awards. We will look forward to finding out

the Book of The Year in each category.

Please encourage your child to read,

borrow and return library books regularly.

Author Visit

Sandra Bennett, a children’s

author, will visit the students

from Years 3-6 to talk about her

books and writing process on

Wednesday 28 August.

Book Character Parade

Our annual K-6 Book Character Parade will take

place in our school gymnasium on Thursday August

29, from 11.30-12.30. Start planning your costume

now! There is no need to go to great expense - look

for inspiration in your dress up box, wardrobe or

even at the local op shop. Parents, carers, family

and community members are welcome to a!

I wonder what the teachers will dress up as this

year?

Carnival Book Fair $$$

We are holding a ‘Carnival Book Fair’ in our school

library during Book Week. Lots of terrific books will

be on sale for our K-6 students. They will have a

chance to take a sneak peek prior to the fair

opening for sales.

Opening times are as follows:

8.30 - 9.00 am on 28, 29, 30 August and 2

September

1.00pm -3.30 pm on Wednesday 28 August

12.30 -1.30pm (after our Book Character

Parade) on Thursday 29 August.

A flyer will go home to remind you of these times.

Purchasing books helps us build even more library

resources for our students.

Braidwood Central School Primary Newsletter Term 3, 2019

Page 9

Debating

Last term, our two primary debating teams

competed against teams from Bungendore and

Marulan. Our senior team — Layla Suart, Rylei

Braddick, Annebel Clarke and Chelsea Pharoah —

spoke very effectively and won both their debates.

While our younger

team — Lilly

Peters, Noah

Wilson, Morgan

Wimborne, Finbar

O'Brien and Molly

Dixon lost both

their debates, they

did well against

older competitors.

We also had four of our primary students debating

successfully at the zone finals of the Multicultural

Perspective Public Speaking competition in term 2.

The younger ones,

Eden Wimborne

and Taylor Dixon,

were very brave

speaking for the

first time at such a

competition.

Of the older

students, Annebel

Clarke spoke very well, while Layla Stuart excelled,

coming second in the competition and runner up to

an able Year 6 boy from Cooma.

Ongoing Communication

Our Primary newsletter comes out early each term,

informing parents and carers about what students

should expect to learn over the coming weeks.

Several times a term, a whole-school newsletter is

also issued, reporting on recent events and student

achievements. These newsletters will be issued

electronically. Please ensure that our front office

has current email addresses for all parents and

family members who wish to receive these

newsletters. Please phone the school on 4842 2249

to request a paper copy.

The SkoolBag App is available for your phone

from the App store. Installing this App and adding

our school allows you to receive important and

targeted communication about upcoming events.

It also has a calendar feature, and allows you to

quickly and easily return permission slips and to

notify us of student absences. When you sign in,

please ensure you join the groups that relate to

your children, to ensure you don’t miss important

messages.

Our Facebook page is updated

regularly with short updates

about what our students have

been up to in class and on

excursions. Find it at

fb.com/BraidwoodCentralSchool –

and remember to Like, Share and Comment to

continue seeing our content.