Term 1 Week 6 2021

Student Leadership Ceremony

Congratulations to all our elected student leaders who received their leadership badges last Thursday. We were delighted to acknowledge our school captains, sports captains, performing arts captains, diversity and reconciliation leaders, student councilors and student leaders. Thanks to Mrs Walls (P & C President), Ms Smith (representing Steven Miles Deputy Premier & Member for Murrumba) and Cr Jodie Shipway (MBRC) for attending, presenting these badges and for their ongoing commitment and support of our school.

Congratulations to the student leaders and students councilors for 2021. We know they will do an awesome job!  Some of these sudents have already started in their role, attending the Cluster Student Leader Meeting and also the Halogen Conference. Thank you to all the parents and families who attended this important occasion.

We all Belong!

On Thursday 11 March, we will have our first free dress day. Students are asked to wear something that shows a group they belong to. This may be a cultural group, sport group, dance group, scouts, family group, interest group… The options are endless!

The purpose of the day is for all students to dress in clothes that show their group belonging.  If you or your child are stuck choosing a group, please remember that in our school community everyone belongs, so students can proudly wear their uniforms if they wish.  Students are asked to make a gold coin donation to our Student Council who will be fundraising for a good cause.

Parents are welcome to join our whole school parade commencing at 8:40 am in the Piazza on Thursday 11 March.  At the parade, one of our valued staff members Maria Toyne will be participating in the World’s Greatest Shave to raise money for Leukaemia Foundation. She is part of group on a mission to shave the world from blood cancer. You may like to sponsor Maria at the following link!

https://secure.leukaemiafoundation.org.au/registrant/FundraisingPage.aspx?fbclid=IwAR2eg0k9-TtRxFukjBEsMV-le47gRe8Rl1Kfs-tJ9aBQcuFy7CzJ4RXUbtc&RegistrationID=803794 

Please feel free to join in by wearing clothes that represent a group to which you belong.  Please remember to social distance, remember hand hygiene and stay home if you are ill.

We want your views!

On Thursday 11 March following the whole school parade, we would love to have a coffee with some parents at SOLE’s café and seek your input and ideas regarding the processes used for getting to know your child’s teacher and the school and class expectations. Currently at the start of the year we offer the following

• Transition visits and information sessions for students starting prep
• School Tours for new families
• Introduction to the teacher via class placement information sent home in December
• ‘Meet the Teacher’ informal meet and greet in January before school starts
• A class newsletter sent home on the first day outlining procedures and expectations
• An Information Session in the third week of school

We would like to hear from some parents about their satisfaction with these processes.  We want to consider whether these processes meet parent needs and consider ways we could improve.

Following the whole school parade at around 9.30-10am, we plan to have small groups meet informally with a member of the leadership team over a coffee to seek your views. If you can join us could you please RSVP to Courtney Wicks cwick83@eq.edu.au by next Wednesday. We look forward to hearing from you!

Have a wonderful week

Free Dress Day

Next Week we are having our first gold coin donation for free dress. 

Did you know that you can pay your Gold Coin donation via our QKR app? 

QKR is easy to download following is a guide to get you started.

 If you require any assistance with this please feel free to contact Kylie in the office on email kklip1@eq.edu.au.

Positions Vacant

There are two skill sets our Prep teachers are focusing on between now and the end of this term.  These focus areas are based on our observations of students in the initial weeks of the school year.

We are working together to improve our students’ letter name recognition and fine motor skills.

Parents, we’d love your help!  These skills are not the sorts of skills that can be attained in one lesson, on one day.  They need repetitive, consistent focus, across many contexts.

Letter Name Recognition

Here are some ways you can help your child to recognise letter names.  Remember:  we aren’t talking about the sounds letters can make, we are just focused on students being able to name the letters.

• Start with the letters in your child’s name.  These will be the most familiar.  Pop them up around your house!  In your garage, on the way to the car.  In the toilet, behind the door.  On the bathroom door, on the way to the shower.  In order and out of order.  Once your child has recognised the letters in their name, expand the group, bit by bit. 
• Use chalk and draw the letters on your driveway / concrete somewhere.  Ask your child to jump on the letter name, as you say the letter name.  Fun game + physical activity + learning letter names.  Win!
• For those very busy learners… you could find a wall and put letters on the wall.  Use a nerf gun.  Your child can hit the letter, as you say the letter name.

Fine Motor Skills

We use fine motor skills for everything.  Fine motor skills actually begin with gross motor skills!  We do big movements… and then smaller movements.  As babies, we learn to wave before we learn to pick up peas with a pincher grip. 

Students need to have well developed fine motor skills to complete life tasks and school tasks, without frustration and fatigue!

There are many different ways we can assist students to develop their fine motor skills.  The most fun activities, will engage your child and assist them to move past the frustration, to feel successful and to want to do more activities that require well developed fine motor skills.  If your child doesn’t have wonderful fine motor skills, you probably find they avoid things that require these… they don’t like buttons and zips – you possibly don’t buy clothes that need them, to avoid the frustration!  They might avoid drawing or anything using pencils and crayons.  They may prefer eating with their fingers, than using a fork and spoon. 

Here are some fun and easy ways to incorporate the development of fine motor skills, within the home environment:

• Serve platter meals for dinner and each person in the family gets their own pair of tongs!  You have to choose one thing at a time to put on your plate. 
• Draw pictures together.  Use thicker, wider pencils, pens and crayons to assist.  Do this activity together!  The time spent with you, modelling the drawing, is what your child values the most.  
• Play dough activities.  Play dough is fun for everyone!  Make your own to keep the cost low (there’s a million different recipes if you google).  You can add some scent via essential oils and some colour via food colouring.  Mix it up!

We’ve been working incredibly hard over the past week in Year 3 and 4. Students across both year levels have been finishing off their first Maths unit for the year and beginning their next one. I had the opportunity to visit 3H this week as they started their next Maths unit on addition and subtraction strategies. What a wonderful lesson it was to be a part of, as students learned about how to use the split strategy to solve addition problems with 2-digit numbers. There was so much excitement in the room as students experienced success with the learning. Students reflected at the end of the lesson that they were proud to have learned something new and that they found it so simple! Nice work 3H!

In Year 4, I was able to spend some time in 4S for a Maths lesson. They were learning about how to use place value to solve real-world problems. I really enjoyed seeing the students in 4S work together using place value charts and concrete materials to solve some really tricky problems. It was clear to me that the students in this class felt both empowered and extended as they supported each other to complete the learning.

Year 3 STEM

Throughout last week, our Year 3 students visited the ‘living museum’ as a part of their STEM unit on living things. The ‘living museum’ was held in our school Makerspace, with the freshly-hatched chicks a very popular exhibit. Our Year 3 students will be using the examples that they saw in the museum exhibits to demonstrate their understanding of living and non-living things. They will be coding a game to show their learning. I can’t wait to see what they come up with!

Care for Learning in Year 5 and 6

As the weeks roll on I am having the pleasure of getting into more and more classes to see the great work being achieved in Years 5 and 6 and the great example of "Care for learning". This week I had the pleasure of working with students in 5D and 5I. In 5D it was great observing students use their Bump-It-Up-Walls to reflect on their own learning and what they needed to focus on to improve. Students focussed on using a variety of sentence types to achieve an adventure narrative. Specifically students looked at examples of complex sentences that included verb and noun groups. It was great seeing students have clarity of their learning intention and collaborate with their peers to achieve success. By the end of the lesson myself and Ms Dixon were confident that each student could show us a complex sentence that included strong verbs and nouns. We look forward to reading their adventure narrative over the coming weeks. In 5I I had the pleasure of working with students as their commenced their work on area and perimeter. Students collaborated with their groups to measure out different shapes around the classroom and to discuss strategies they could employ to effectively measure in the future. It was great seeing students getting up and moving around the room, to talk, and really engage in learning new content. Well done Years 5 and 6!

Student Leadership – Student Leader Cluster Meetings

Last week our four school captains had the opportunity to attend their first Student Leader Cluster meeting. These meetings, held once a month, are an opportunity for our captains to connect with the School Captains of other schools. Each meeting has a different focus aimed at improving their ability to lead during the year. It was great hearing from our leaders who discussed the things they learnt and their observations of other schools. This week students focussed on setting individual leadership goals for the year. As we heard on assembly last week many of them aim to ensure strong connections are built between our students and our community.

Learning in STEM  

We were lucky enough to welcome the arrival of the Queensland Museum and chicken exhibit this week in STEM. Students across the school have been spending time in their STEM lessons visiting the exhibits to learn more about living, lon-living and once living things. Even our preps have had the opportunity to look at the needs of our chickens and design enclosures based on what they need to survive. We have also had many visitors during lunch time clubs and some students have even been fortunate enough to catch sight of some of our chickens hatching. It sure has been an amazing week in STEM!  

Hub Display

 This week in the Hub we have a special display from the Queensland Museum celebrating ‘The History of Schools’. There are some great examples of reading books from long ago and even a school bag just like the one Ms Holm used to have! Pop on down to see some of these great things and to consider… What has changed and what has stayed the same?

 The Hub is open before school from 8.15am and until 3pm every afternoon.

Volunteers

 We are always looking for volunteers to help us cover our new books. If you have some spare time we would love to provide you with a roll of contact and a small pile of books to cover at home. Pop on in to see Wendy or Suzette if you are interested.

Uniform Shop

Uniform shop hours during the term are:
Monday 8.00 am - 10.30 am
Wednesday 1.30 pm - 3.30 pm
Friday 8.00 am - 10.30 am
Online @ www.wearitto.com.au/schools/mango-hill-state-school.   

As it is starting to cool down in the mornings have you thought about our winter options?

We have Zip Jackets, knit jumpers, long sleeve polos and also track pants to keep your little ones warm. 

I have attached the link to our on-line store (above) which may help you also.   If your child is coming to school feeling a little cool in the mornings pop in to see me to grab them some winter items.   Otherwise you can order online and have your items ready for when term 2 starts.

If you are unable to catch me in the above hours please either email me at mangohill@wearitto.com.au

Have a great week,

Belinda Myers
Uniform Shop Convenor