SUMMING UP 2015

Lachlan - I have loved working outdoors in the vegetable patch this year. It is great to go out there and water it, but also just to have a look at what is growing and how the plants are going. I am super proud of how far I have come with my reading this year. I have done lots in class and now I am really good at reading and I enjoy it. I also really like Mathematics.

Ryan - I have really enjoyed gardening this year as it has inspired me to start a vegetable patch at home. Edu-Dance has been heaps of fun too. I’m hoping to be in Mr Petch’s class next year so that I can do more gardening.

 Jasmine - This year, I have loved doing all of the Art lessons especially drawing, painting and making a range of art works. Next year, I am looking forward to making even more things in Art. I have loved working with Ms Randall.

 Isabella - This year I have enjoyed Mental Mathematics. I have found a love for angles and fractions (and now I think that fractions are pretty easy). I also really enjoyed swimming and I was ecstatic that I passed the level.

Cathy - My favourite thing this year has been working in the garden and learning a lot about the plants. I have also loved swimming as I feel that I have really improved on my skills. 2015 has been an awesome year with a great teacher. I’m looking forward to (hopefully) being in Mr Petch’s class to learn loads about poetry.

Gabby - I have to say that some of my favourite things that we have done this year include visiting the Duyfkin in Fremantle, gardening and the school fetes. I like how we have started running a market stall at the assemblies as this is real life learning and heaps of fun too.

Kallaghn - Some of the most important things that I have enjoyed this year include the Carter and Carter incursion, where we composed our centenary song. Additionally, I have learnt many things this year from Mr Petch. He’s the only teacher that I have had that has never left throughout the school year.

Samuel - Interestingly, I have thoroughly enjoyed working with my friends during Mathematics sessions. Furthermore, I have enjoyed completing Science projects, such as the Rainforest and Desert investigations. Next year, I can’t wait to be challenged with hard maths and learn about robotics.

Chloe - In truth, the things that I have liked best are gardening (because it was really fun and we always worked as a team) and Edu-dance. Oh, I also loved the swimming lessons because I learnt heaps.

Tamika - My favourite thing has been swimming because it was fun to learn how to swim. At the end of the two weeks of lessons, we played some cool games like racing on a board and my team won. Next year I am hoping to be in the same class and working in the garden and getting some new plants in there.

Jacob - I personally have enjoyed Prime Mathematics this year because it has been quite challenging. I have loved helping Mr Petch in the garden as well. I am looking forward to learning more maths next year, as well as learning all about robotics.

Aaryan - This year, I have learnt so much in Mathematics and have loved every minute of it. Swimming has also been a blast because it was quite refreshing going there in the middle of the day. Most of all, however, I have really loved working outdoors in the garden and helping the school with looking after the plants and working in our market stalls.

Roshini - This year has been extraordinary as I have had loads of fun learning a range of different things. I have loved working out in the garden and dancing. The science tabloid day was heaps of fun too!

Roshan - Who can forget the ‘Water-bomb the Teacher’ stall? That would have to be my favourite part of the year. It was good to learn how to tie a water-bomb quickly. It was heaps of fun watching the teachers getting wet and being used as a target by the kids.

Liam - I have loved Big Writing and VCOP this year because I now understand what I need to do to be an awesome writer. Gardening has also been a lot of fun as I have a garden at my Nanna’s place and working in the garden at school has helped me out when I work in Nanna’s garden.

Cameron - Learning about worms was super interesting. It was great to be part of the incursion and I really liked making up the worm farms for the school (as well as feeding and looking after the worms). Growing the bulbs, fruit trees and vegetables has been great this year. I have been inspired to make a garden at home.

Aena - Clearly, the best thing I have done this year is VCOP and Big Writing. I have learnt so much during our Round Robin activities and love using similes, metaphors, personification and other forms of figurative language in my work. For next year, I wish that I could be with Mr Petch again as I have really enjoyed being in his class.

Aidan - I have loved learning all about Mathematics. I have learned so much this year (more than what I thought was possible) and I'm tremendous at my times tables now. Swimming was great too. I learnt heaps and I'm happy that I passed and am now in stage 7.

Nikola - I have loved learning all about Mathematics, like times tables, subtracting and adding decimal numbers, parallel lines, measurements (and estimating how much things weigh or how long they are). Gardening has been fantastic too. The worm farm incursion led to me helping out my Grandma in making one at her house. I would love to learn more about the garden next year too.

Paare - Since arriving at Wattle Grove this term, my most amazing experience was attending  the centenary fete because I loved singing in the choir and visiting all the different stalls. During the past few weeks I have been here, I have really enjoyed it and I am very proud to be a student at Wattle Grove.

Tyriq - My favourite thing this year has been working out in the garden. It was great to be outdoors and learning loads. I have worked hard on my times tables. Last year, I didn’t know my times tables and now I know my 2’s, 3’s, 5’s, 6’s, 9’s, 10’s, 11’s and 12’s!!! But my most favourite thing this year has been getting to work with Mr Petch.

Jack - This year I have loved working out in the garden and watching it grow into a thriving vegetable patch. It is great to go out there and eat the produce when it is ripe for the picking. My favourite thing to eat has been the strawberries as they are super sweet and juicy.

Milan - It is clear that my favourite thing this year has been the swimming lessons down at Belmont Oasis and doing mathematics like decimals and angles. I am looking forward to hopefully being in the same class for next year to learn more mathematics but I am also looking forward to making some more new friends.

Eva - In my opinion, my favourite things this year has to be gardening, swimming and learning a range of new things. I have to say that next year, I am looking forward to making new friends and learning heaps more.

ART SNOW GLOBES

The children will be making a snow globe in Art over the next few weeks. Each child will need to bring a glass jar to school so that they are able to complete this activity. Miss Randall has asked for the labels to be removed and to ensure the jars are nice and clean. Thank you

EDU DANCE

Room 22 have been doing a great job in the rehearsals for our end of year dance: Wipe Out. The dress requirements for the presentation night on 15th December are: board shorts, a colourful t-shirt or rashie, sneakers (can be colourful), long hair to be tied back and big smiles! They are also asked to have a thin layer of zinc over their nose, however, this must be applied at home and we ask for it to be washed off for school the next morning.

SHARING A HILLS CHRISTMAS

Room 22 have been asked to donate gifts for teenagers (cosmetics, books, music etc) as part of the Hills Christmas Appeal, however, any donation would be kindly appreciated. So far this term, some children have donated body wash, soaps, biscuits, canned food, cosmetic bags and books. Thank you to everyone who has generously donated an item or two. If you would like to donate, please send an item along with your child. Thank you.

A CALL FOR ALL LIBRARY BOOKS

We have had a very successful year of reading in Room 22. Our online reading program, Literacy Pro, has been a wonderful success. Many children have become proficient  readers and have set fantastic comprehension goals. We have so far read over 8 million words! That is such a tremendous effort. Everyone in Room 22 should be immensely proud of their hard work. 


Furthermore, the children have completed nearly 1,800 quizzes. Although I would like this reading effort to continue, we have to return all of our books to the library. Currently, we have over 50 home readers unaccounted for and close to 20 library books that have not been returned by the children. With this in mind, I would really appreciate it if everyone searched high and low at home (and in the car) for any school books. If you do happen to find a book (or two), then please return it to the classroom so that we can tick it off our 'missing' list. Our goal at the beginning of the year was to read as many books as we could this year. To end the year, the goal is to return every book to the library in record time. 

WEEK 6

This week students continued their exploration of the subject of forces in Science through games that demonstrated the effect of gravity. Gravity is a force that we all experience on a daily basis, however, many children hold a common misconception that gravity pulls objects down rather than towards the earth. Lessons such as this one allow students to explore the effects of gravity in fun ways whilst also addressing these misconceptions. The class was also able to carry out its own scientific investigations into the effect that different sized forces have on how far a matchbox will move. Students used elastic bands to investigate whether pulling the band back further caused the matchbox to travel farther. Our band of budding scientists was excited to discover that pulling the elastic back a distance of 30 cm caused the matchbox to travel the entire length of the classroom and storeroom combined – a staggering 12 metres!

- Ms Ellison 

SCIENCE & DESERTS

In recent weeks, the students of Room 22 have commenced a unit of work focusing on Physical Sciences. Over the next few lessons students will be delving into the concept of forces, focusing in particular on push, pull, gravity, friction, and forces that act through indirect contact such as wind. This unit builds on knowledge gained in previous years, and lets students explore forces in fun ways through hands on activities and games. Last week, the class had a great time playing with push and pull forces in games of marbles, dominoes and blow soccer, while this week students explored the friction produced by contact between surfaces.  Investigations involved dragging a shoe across lino flooring and carpet, picking up jelly with chopsticks, and exploring the friction produced between the pages of a book.  

Students have also started studying deserts in History and Geography. We have so far explored the major deserts of Australia, and the amazing skills that Aboriginal people used to enable them to live in the deserts for tens of thousands of years. Students began work on their poster project, which involves working with their team members to carry out research on a desert animal species, and will culminate in a poster they will present to the class. It’s great to see the children so excited to learn about desert animals, and the incredible adaptations they possess for the desert environment. Mr Petch and I cannot wait to see the final presentations.       

- Ms Ellison

CENTENARY FETE

On November 1^st, the Wattle Grove community (past and present) came together to celebrate an important milestone in our school’s history, its centenary. The fete was an incredibly successful product of lots of hard work, commitment and dedication from many members of the school. No one can deny, however, that it was certainly worth it. Thank you to the parents who helped out in the lead up, or on the day, and thank you for the donations of plants and second-hand goods for the stalls. It was wonderful to see many of the children at the fete as well as catching up with past students and their families.

Chloe “My favourite activity at the fete was sliding down the bumpy castle because, most of the time you could speed down really fast. Within 10 seconds, you were finished!”

Cameron “I really enjoyed watching Mr Petch get dunked. It was really funny when the children missed the target and the kids went behind the machine to pull the lever so Mr Petch would fall in the water.”

Paare: “I think the fete was really fun and an amazing experience for the kids, their parents and the elderly.” 

Jack: “I really enjoyed walking around the learning blocks. It was very interesting to learn about the history of our school. I taught my Mum something that she didn’t previously know and that was that Amy Fitzgerald was the first teacher to teach at Wattle Grove. Walking through the blocks was like walking back in time. I got to see what it would have been like to be a kid back in 1915 and through to the recent times.”

SQUIRMY WORMS

This week, our class was lucky enough to have a visit from the folks at The Worm Shed. Kevin (the worm guru) put on a great presentation about the diet, habitat and reproduction of worms, before leading the class in a lesson on do-it-yourself worm farms. The students each got to build their own worm farm in a recycled plastic bottle, adding layers of newspaper, soil, grass and of course…WORMS! A few lucky students also helped to build two large worm farms that will stay at the school, and will provide us with worm wiz for the garden whilst recycling our food scraps. The children had a great time building their mini worm farms, and learnt some mind-boggling facts about worms:

“I learnt that worms can live more than 15 years.” – Aaryan

“I learnt that there are more than 3000 different species of worm in the world.” – Cathy

“I learnt that a worm is both a boy and a girl.” – Jacob

Ms Ellison

PRINCIPAL'S CHALLENGE

Congratulations to all of the super hard workers in Room 22 who excelled at the most recent Principal's Challenge. You all should be very proud of the progress you have made, in addition to the knowledge you have gained throughout the year. Keep being the best you can be! Well done.

We had three Most Improved students: Liam, Aidan and Eva. You all have worked extremely hard to make huge progress. Keep up the excellent effort and work hard to achieve your term 4 goals.

As you can see, there were many students in the Top 5 category. The students pictured below ranked in the top percentile ~94 -100% You are all pursuing excellence and working very hard indeed. Keep it up!

We also had one student who achieved a whopping 100% Congratulations to Cathy! Cathy is a very motivated and engaged student who never gives up. What a star!

INTRODUCING Ms ELLISON                                          

 (Guest post by Ms Ellison)

My name is Ms Ellison and I’m a student teacher from Edith Cowan University. I’m super excited to be spending the next six weeks working with the amazing Mr Petch and the lovely students of Room 22! Prior to studying teaching, I completed my undergraduate degree in Science at the University of Western Australia majoring in Conservation Biology and Botany. I love animals and spent a number of years volunteering in a wildlife shelter caring for sick and injured wildlife. I chose to pursue a career in teaching after discovering a love for working with children as a volunteer tutor. My first week working in this class has been amazing, and the students are already blowing my mind with their magnificent vocabulary range and enthusiasm for learning. I hope to share my passion for environmental conservation with the class, and provide students with a fun and exciting six weeks of learning. I’ve already met a few parents/carers and I look forward to meeting more, so please feel free to drop in before or after school to say hello. 

GREEN THUMBS AND GOAL SETTING 

(Guest post by Ms Ellison)

This week, each student set to work writing their academic and social goals for the term. Setting goals at the beginning of each term gives students a clear long-term focus and helps them to recognise the short-term improvements that will allow them to achieve their goals. This term we had some excellent goals set, including this academic goal from Samuel “My academic goal is to achieve 80% or more on every test I do this term. I understand that I will need to practise the skills we learn in class and complete my motivational work every week to achieve this”. It’s great to see students pushing themselves to accomplish great things through perseverance.

Our ever enthusiastic green thumbs started preparing the garden beds for a new Spring/Summer crop on Wednesday. This involved pulling out weeds and preparing the soil for the new tomato and lettuce seedlings that were planted on Thursday. After the smashing success of the first market stall in Term 3 we hope to again provide a bumper crop at the next stall, scheduled to happen before the assembly in week 9. Make sure you get in early to buy some incredibly fresh and tasty produce such as kale, basil, silverbeet, thyme, rosemary, tomatoes and lettuce – all grown with love by the students of Room 22. This spectacular garden wouldn’t exist without the care provided by students who generously give up their time during lunch and recess to work in the garden, so a big THANK YOU to all those who pitch in and help.