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.   

100 YEAR FETE

It's time to mark 1st November in your calendar, as this is the day that the Wattle Grove community (past and present) will celebrate 100 years at the school fete. The fete will open at 11 am and run through to 4 pm. The historical event will include many attractions such as a dunking machine, farm animals, a bouncy castle, circus tent, pony rides, rock climbing, face painters etc. The P&C have already done an enormous amount of the planning, organisation and preparation for this event, however, we are looking for help from all members of our school community in the form of donations. Year 3's have been asked to donate plants and Year 4's are asked to donate items for a second-hand stall. These could include games, clothing, household goods (no electronics please), books etc. Any donation would be greatly appreciated. You can bring the plants/second-hand items straight into Room 22 and we'll pass them onto the P&C. Thank you in advance for your support in this area and I look forward to seeing you at the fete.

WORM FARM

Room 22 will be learning all about the importance of worms in our gardens on Monday, 19th October (next week). We will be making a large worm farm for the school and every child will have the opportunity to make a small, take-home worm farm. All your child needs to bring in is a 1.25 or 2L clear, clean (washed and labels removed) plastic bottle. Plastic bottles are due on Friday because some slight adjustments will need to be made to them before Monday.  If you happen to have a few of these bottles at home, and are not needing them, then please donate any extras to the class. It should be a great day! 

These are the types of bottles we are after for the worm farms