The beanies are one size fits all and will keep your head toasty and warm even during the cold winter weather.

If you would like to buy a beanie, please finalise your purchase by Friday 20th of May. Beanies will take 3 -4 weeks to arrive at school.

If you would like to see a sample of the beanie or try one on before you buy, please see Shelby in the office.

National Reconciliation Week.

National Reconciliation Week, held annually between May 27th and June 3rd, is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how everyone can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia. The 2022 theme for this Week “Be Brave. Make Change” is a challenge to all Australians to Be Brave and tackle the unfinished business of reconciliation so we can Make Change for the benefit of all Australians.

To mark the beginning of Reconciliation Week, a special whole school assembly will be held around the fire pit at the back of the school grounds on Friday, May 27th at 9:30 am. During this assembly, a Bunurong Elder will perform a Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony and the school will recognise our second year of having a Reconciliation Action Plan through Narragunnawali.

We invite all families to attend this special assembly on Friday, May 27th at 9:30 am. Please come along and help our school celebrate the beginning of Reconciliation Week and our continued commitment to reconciliation.

Thank you for your participation.

Be You Action Team.

Term 2 is going very quickly and for the Prep children in Unit A, our Nursery Rhyme topic is well underway. The Nursery Rhymes are providing a stimulus for a wide range of literacy activities, and we are also having lots of fun, singing and role-playing.

As part of our Social and Emotional Learning, we have focused on kindness and bravery. We have been using some carefully selected literature to explore the ways we can show bravery, even though we feel anxious or afraid. The children have been eager to share their experiences about times when they have demonstrated courage in challenging situations.

In Maths we are working hard to consolidate our knowledge of 2D and 3D shapes and measurement. The children were eager to investigate the length of their names and enjoyed comparing them with others.

The Grade Ones have been learning about heat and how heat changes things, and in the coming weeks, we will be learning about light.

We will continue to develop our skip counting skills and have been comparing the volume of different cube models that we have made.

We continue to learn about “left” and “right” and the language of position and direction.

All the Unit A students have now been matched with a Buddy and our weekly sessions are very successful. The getting to know you activities are helping the children to find out the similarities and differences they share. We have been very impressed by the way the older students have taken on the responsibility of guiding and supporting their younger Buddies.

Over the next few weeks, we will be doing lots of testing and assessment. We kindly ask for your support in making sure the children are having adequate sleep and rest, as this plays a significant role in their ability to focus and complete set tasks.

…..and that’s a wrap! Naplan test has now finished and what an amazing job our Year 3 students did. We are all so proud of the way they approached this task; demonstrating resilience and endeavour. Well done Grade 3s.

Last Friday we had a very successful House Cross Country event. Congratulations to those students who will now go on to the Districts to showcase their skills in running.

The Grade one students had a lot of fun creating their handprint flower lilies for Mother’s Day. A learning focus in our literacy last week was adjectives and word collections, what better way to learn this than by describing our mums. The students thoroughly enjoy our weekly Guided Writing and Guided Reading sessions which have taken place successfully over the past few weeks. During our Think Plus lessons, we have been learning about the neurons in our brain and how they strengthen the learning process by firing and wiring. We used different lollies to make a model of a neuron and the students enjoyed taking the lollies home and eating them!

This week, the Grade Two students have been focusing on the structure of a narrative. We have been exploring the different settings of stories and how we can describe them to ensure our reader can imagine themselves in the environment of our story.

During maths, we have begun to look at vertical addition and subtraction along with telling the time using the language of quarter past and quarter to.

The Green Team started Term 2 with a Composting Awareness Day where they held multiple clinics to inform students about vermicomposting. It was great to see lots of students get involved in learning more about worms and how to compost. Amongst the activities on offer, the students were invited to hold worms using gloves, learn how to compost, and find worms in a DIY wormery. But the most popular workshops with the younger students were making worms out of playdough and beads craft! The older students were more interested in looking at worms using Mr G’s microscope which he kindly lent to the Green Team on that day. There will be more events coming up shortly, and we’ll make sure to keep you all posted!

The Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge is now open and Rosewood Downs Primary School is excited to be participating. The PRC application offers a range of exciting features including:

• access to a library catalogue (including book images and blurbs)
• a modern user-friendly interface
• rewarding students with badges as challenge milestones are achieved
• the option for students to mark books as a favourite, give them a star rating or complete a book review

The Challenge is open to all Victorian children from birth to Year 10 in recognition of the importance of reading for literacy development. It is not a competition; but a personal challenge for children to read a set number of books by 2 September 2022.

Children from Prep to Year 2 are encouraged to read or ‘experience’ 30 books with their parents and teachers. Children from Year 3 to Year 10 are challenged to read 15 books.

All children who meet the Challenge will receive a certificate of achievement signed by the Victorian Premier and former Premiers.

Each student has been given their login details to register, so please encourage your children to get involved! If you haven’t yet received the login details or have misplaced them, please ask your child’s teacher.

To read the Premier’s letter to parents, view the booklist and for more information about the Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge, visit: https://www.vic.gov.au/premiers-reading-challenge

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Thank you and happy reading!

Miss Semercioglu