Parkhill Primary School Newsletter
Issue 36, Thursday November 8 2018
Principal's Message
Dear Parents/Carers,
It’s Y3/4 Camp week!! What an exciting time the children and adults are having!
Our Y3/4 cohort headed off to Camp ADANAC yesterday and arrived safely to some beautiful sunshine. Throughout the afternoon we canoed, bounced on the water trampoline, ate damper from the campfire, played disc golf, and rode the water slide and flying fox and much more. As the evening closed in, we escaped the downpours with a movie indoors. The children woke early this morning ready for another day of fun packed activities.
Just a reminder that the children can be collected from school at the normal time tomorrow.
CAFÉ READING:
Chunk letters and sounds together
When teaching children to read, we are always looking for ways to help them decode words efficiently, rapidly and accurately. This allows them to focus their attention on understanding what they read rather than focusing on the fundamentals of each word. One way we accomplish this is through teaching children to watch for familiar word patterns called chunks. Chunks are groups of letters that when put together form a recognisable sound or word. Chunks can be found at the beginning, middle or end of a word. If your child is working on the accuracy strategy of chunking letters and sounds together you could use the following things at home to help them:
When reading with your child, have them look for well-known letter chunks in the words they are reading. These chunks could be pre-fixes, suffixes, endings, whole words, or base words.
When chunking a word, have your child first read each chunk separately. Then, have your child put the chunks together to make the word. This will train your child to quickly and easily spot chunks.
If your child is having difficulty finding chunks, guide them to look in words, decode those chunks first, and then move on to tackle the whole word.
Encourage your child to use their fingers to frame the chunks found in words, decode those chunks first, and then move on to tackle the whole word.
To help train your child to look for chunks in words, play a game of “I Spy” when reading. E.g. when looking at the word blend you would say “In this word I spy the word end”. Then take turns to spot chunks.
FINAL WORDS:
The processes we have in place at Parkhill for grouping children is very thorough and includes input from all staff across the school – we value the knowledge our Education Support staff, Specialist teachers and Classroom teachers have about the children and how they learn best. Social grouping often has a massive impact upon this. If you have any thoughts which you would like to share now is the time to do so.
Athletics Carnival: We have our Athletics Carnival coming up on November 20!! As always we are looking for helpers!! The day relies heavily on parent support for us to be able to manage all of the events – if you are available please drop me an email so I can add you to the list! Many, many thanks!
Elaine Brady
Principal
Calendar of Curriculum Events
Friday 9 November - Y3/4 return from Camp ADANAC at 3:30pm
Tuesday 13 November - Y5 Leadership Day
Wednesday 14 November - Foundation 2019 Transition Session 2
Tuesday 20 November - Athletics Carnival
Wednesday 21 November - Foundation 2019 Transition Session 3
Thursday 22 November - Y1 CERES Excursion
Wednesday 28 November - Foundation 2019 Transition Session 4
Thursday 29 November - Bring it Breaky
Friday 30 November - Y4 CERES Excursion
Thursday 6 December - Monday 10 December - Link Dental Van
Thursday 6 December - Fun, Food and Carols
Tuesday 11 December - Move Up Day
Wednesday 12 December - Awards Assembly at 9:15am
Tuesday 18 December - Winning House Lunch
Wednesday 19 December - Y6 Graduation
Thursday 20 December - Y6 Big Day Out
Friday 21 December - Term 4 ends at 1:30pm
Student of the Week
FS - Dylan R
FT - Eleni A
1B - Kara D
1H - Zoe P
2C - Jasper W
2N - Whole Class
4G - Viktoria K
4O - Ethan B
5D - Lenna S
5H - Lloyd V
6CM - Melika B
6L - Lachlan M
Foundation Inquiry Unit - The Senses
Taste
We used blindfolds to taste jelly beans. Some jelly beans tasted like mango, oranges, toothpaste and licorice. When we used our eyes and our taste buds, sometimes the jelly beans tasted different. We tasted lots of things. Some things tasted salty, sweet, bitter, sour and umami. Some things were delicious and some things were disgusting!
Smell
We thought all the jars had water in them because they were all clear. We smelt all the jars and they all smelt different. Some jars smelt like petrol, lemonade and eucalyptus. We found out that some jars had poisonous liquids in them and some didn’t, but they all looked the same!
On Wednesday November 7 we had our Senses incursion. We used a lens to make a picture. The picture was upside down. When we see something it is upside down like the lens. Our brain turns it up the right way. We looked through lots of different glasses. We saw a rainbow through one pair of glasses. We used a blindfold so we couldn’t see anything. We had to use our sense of touch to feel things.
Jan Tuck
Foundation Teacher
Y2 Sleepover
The Y2 students had a fantastic sleepover at school on October 26. They had fun setting up their beds, playing games, having supper and watching Paddington 2 before drifting off to sleep. The early risers were really good, playing quietly so as to not disturb their friends who were still sleeping. Then they had an early breakfast, and a huge “Happy Birthday” to Peter and Lucia, before heading home with a smile!
Thank you to the wonderful parent helpers who took time from their busy schedules to help prepare supper and breakfast! We could not have done it without your help!
Nalina Chandra
Y2 Teacher
Sandpit Investigations
The Y4 students' mathematics investigation required students to apply their knowledge and understanding of measuring time to a real-world situation. The objective was for the students to measure one minute of time using an informal unit (sand).
Liz O'Meara
Y4 Teacher
FISO Mathematics Challenge Day
Parkhill students were excited and nervous as they entered the bus. In less than an hour they would be in a different school working with unfamiliar students on maths questions they presumed would be extremely difficult! We were on our way to FISO, a meeting of students and teachers from Parkhill PS, Wattle Park PS and Doncaster PS. Despite these initial misgivings, spirits were high. This was confirmed by a morning and afternoon of 'maths and mingling' that brought smiles and laughter as well as problem-solving resilience and flexibility in all students.
"There was a real difference between all the questions. They challenged us in different ways." - James.
"It was challenging. We got to meet new people and make new friends. The volleyball game was really fun." - Lily.
From a teacher's perspective it was a valuable and rare opportunity to take some time out of our busy schedules to network with other teachers. Parkhill PS is currently reviewing its maths framework in Y5/6 and it was beneficial to share pedagogy. It sometimes feels as though schools float about on separate islands, but when opportunities such as FISO arise, it makes one wonder why this sort of thing isn't prioritised when we have so much to offer one another. It was also terrific to see that despite varying approaches to the teaching and learning of maths in our three schools, the range of all twelve groups of students was very comparable.
Hopefully this won't be the last FISO initiative. Thanks go to Dominic Monea, Numeracy Leader at Doncaster PS, for organising this event and all attending teachers and students.
Alex Davies
Y5 Teacher
PFA News
Committee Members:
President: Vanessa Cowley
Vice President: Katrina Battle
Treasurer: Sumi Sundram
Secretary: Kylie Touloupis
Communications: Eva Conley
General Members: Fiona Crellin, Jason Van Lint, Elle Delmee, Mark Havas, Lisa Jacobson, Anny Murray, Wendy Douglas, Janneke Storteboom, Leanne Knight
School Colour Fun Run – Prizes are ready to be ordered!!!
HOW TO ORDER YOUR PRIZE
STEP ONE: Please make sure you hand in any cash to the office before Thursday 8th November.
STEP TWO: ALL PRIZES ARE ORDERED ONLINE.
You must order your prizes between November 8th and November 15th. To do this, simply visit schoolfundraising.com.au and create/log in to your Profile Page.
You should see this image:
Click on the ‘ORDER PRIZES’ button and follow the prompts.
If you have any questions, please contact the School Fun-Run team on '1800 FUN RUN' and they will gladly assist!
Parkhill Primary School
Email: parkhill.ps@edumail.vic.gov.au
Website: www.parkhillps.vic.edu.au
Location: 4A Parkhill Drive, Ashwood VIC, Australia
Phone: 03 9807 2239