Premiers Reading Challenge and Book Fair - 6 March

It Here! The NSW Premiers Reading Challenge (PRC) starts on Monday 5 March and to launch the reading initiative the school is holding a Book Fair.

The Scholastic Book Fair will be open in the Learning Hub Tuesday - Thursday 6-8^th March from 8.00-830 and 2.30-3.00.

Your children will be enrolled on the PRC website and your child will be able to log in and start recording books read from 6 March.

K-2 students – you can read the books on your own, read them with someone, or someone can read them to you. If your child is reading simple chapter books they can attempt the 3-4 challenge – please let Mrs Duffy know if this is your child.

3-6 students – you must read the books on your own, but someone can help you choose them.

Book lists are found here: https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/booklist/home.html 

Complete rules are found here: https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/rules.html

The Learning Hub team is gathering all the PRC books we hold so you will easily find some titles with us but a visit to your local library will be required to access the vast majority of books – there are over 1500 book titles for each age group!

     

Logging-on is easy from the 6 March at:                                           https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/home.html 

Students will receive a Certificate for each year they complete the Challenge:

                                             

The online Student Reading Record must be completed by 31 August 2018 (11.59) to complete the Challenge.

If your child meets the challenge target, their certificate will have their name and school printed on it and the Honour Roll has names listed by alphabetical order but does not mention your school name. 

If you do not want your child to receive a certificate or be on the Honour Roll, you must not enter any books in your online Student Reading Record.

By entering this challenge, your child is declaring that they have read the books entered in accordance with their school year rules.

I look forward to encouraging your children to take up the challenge and 

share new books with them.

Learning@STLUKE'S Focus Disposition

Our focus L@SL disposition for the next fortnight is COLLABORATION.

At this morning's assembly Year 1 helped everyone consider how to make the most of our 'Collaboration learning muscles'.  Mr Potato Head helped us remember the important elements of working collaboratively with others

Spelling List Term 1 Week 4

Home Learning Grid Week 4

Ice Cream Day!

MakerSpace 3-6 = Monday 2nd half lunch

Year 3-6 Makerspace 

Week 3 saw the start of the Bayview Clubs and these delightful students challenged their listening and verbal skills. 

Students had to engineer an 'item' that they couldn't see and had to rely on the expert description provided by their buddy.

Well done these students!

Year 3, 4 , 5 & 6 - Come and join us!

Where: in the Flexi Room

When: Monday's 2nd half lunch 

What for? fun, creation, designing, challenging!

The Benefits of Music

Music enriches a child’s life. Research has found that music enhances other areas by facilitating learning. It’s more than the voice singing or the fingers playing an instrument. Music taps into multiple skills sets, often simultaneously eg. using eyes and ears as well as large and small muscles. Musical training physically develops the part of the left side of the brain involved with processing language. Linking familiar songs to new information can also help imprint information on young minds. As teachers we often sing times tables, or the Thrass rap, to enhance learning. Research indicates the brain of music students works differently to that of non-music students. Apparently children involved in music have larger growth of neural activity because more of the brain is used when playing an instrument or singing. Research has also found a causal link between music and spatial intelligence. This means understanding music can help children visualise various elements which should go together, like they would do when solving a maths problem. These skills are used when solving multistep problems in engineering, maths, art, gaming, IT and architecture. It doesn’t end there: along with better performance results on concentration-based tasks, music training can help with basic memory recall. Music is also associated with other cognitive strengths such as verbal recall proficiency. People who have had formal musical training tend to be better at remembering verbal information stored in memory. So, get very excited when your child tells you they enjoy music! The benefits are greater than you imagine!

Parenting Workshop

ABC Spelling Activities

Spelling Lists Term 1 Week 3

Home Learning Term 1 Week 3

Measuring a Metre in Maths

We spent some time this morning thinking about how long a metre is. We finished by trying to measure out height accurately.

The Learning Hub needs Library Leaders!

Do you love books?

Would you be willing to review books?

Do you love libraries?

Are you happy to give up some time to assist and be a leader?

Do you like to be neat and tidy?

Are you willing to assist the return of books?

Do you display the Restoration dispositions of Justice, Compassion, Grace and Humility?

Are you kind and patient?

Do you have ICT skills?

Are you able to search for books, and develop Learning Hub communication with the school community?

Do you have suggestions for improving the Learning Hub as a quality learning environment?



If you answered 'yes' to most of these questions then please write a short note to Mrs Duffy explaining why you think you'd make a good Learning Hub Leader. Drop it into the Hub by Friday 16 February.

Thanks, Mrs D 

Premiers Reading Challenge coming soon!

Welcome back to Term 1 from the Learning Hub!

There are lots of exciting events and initiatives planned for 2018 and we can't wait to share them!

Starting with a Scholastic Book Fair to coincide with the launch of the Premiers Reading Challenge the week beginning 5 March.

The Challenge aims to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure in students, and to enable them to experience quality literature. 

It is not a competition but a challenge to each student to read, to read more and to read more widely.

Reading logs data entry, book suggestions and details of listed books coming soon.

Science

Thursday Science

Last week we began our Science unit for the term by discussing what we knew about "desert survival." From here, we brainstormed all the things we thought were interesting and would like to know more about. 

This week we began by trying to answer one of our questions: "How have plants adapted to live in desert environments?"

The children knew that where there is heat, water will evaporate however weren't quite sure HOW plants lose their water.

Today we began an experiment to find out - tomorrow we will observe what has happened!

Thinking hard during Maths

Lunch with our Cottage Buddies