School started back again with the daily meetings run by the children.
One child is the chairperson and another keeps the minutes as the children move through their daily agenda which includes starting with a mindfulness meditation using the singing bowl, then an acknowledgement of country before “issues” and “general business” take place.
In these meetings, the teacher remains very respectful of the children and needs to raise her hand like anyone else if she wishes to speak.
The children also use this meeting time to practice tables, dates and other games to enhance skills.
Community theme
All of the groups will be studying the same theme and each home group will look at it through a different lens, the preps having visits from community organisations such as the Fire Brigade etc all the way through to the older students who will eventually look at our parliamentary system and elections.
Each group will do this theme based on curriculum expectations for this topic although not necessarily restricted by outcomes for the different grade levels.
The important thing is to introduce these concepts in ways that the children can participate and see real-life learning, which the following topic certainly does.
Our preps got right into our whole school community theme this term and quickly donned costumes for some of our community workers eg. police, firefighters and a paramedic.
Their room has been set up with different community organizations for them to explore and the teacher has integrated this with the Letterland phonics program so that they have Dippy Duck’s Doctor’s, Peter Puppy’s Police Station, Oscar Orange’s Op Shop, Annie Apple’s Australia Post and Bouncy Ben’s Bistro.
Using dress ups, setting up shops and offices as well as lots of visuals through signs means that the program is catering to the Multiple Intelligences, allowing children to choose the way that they learn best.
ANZAC Day ceremony
As usual, our oldest children will run the ANZAC Day ceremony for the whole school at 2:30 pm next Monday 26th April.
We invite you to attend if at all possible to support the children and see how we address this aspect of community involvement.
Spare clothes plus boots and proper raincoats
Please be aware that this is not just for the preps.
All ages need to bring some spare clothes to school (including socks!)
Our wetlands site gets very slippery and muddy as the weather changes and falling over during poo pick up can definitely happen!
We also encourage the children to don their boots and raincoats for outside activities when it rains. Puddle play has always been popular.
Please note: A hoodie is NOT a raincoat. Please send a proper water-resistant raincoat to school for your child.
See you all very soon!
Tanya