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.”