Term 1 Week 10 Newsletter

From the Principal

Dear Families,

Happy Easter!

We hope our community enjoyed a relaxing 4 day Easter weekend. It was great to enjoy the warmer weather this year over Easter. A reminder to our community that this term is 11 weeks and ends on Friday 12^th April. The first day of Term 2 for students is Tuesday 30^th April.

Jack Beattie (Year 1/2 teacher) is running in the Canberra Half Marathon this coming Saturday. Jack is running to raise money for a local charity called Rise Above. Rise Above help families of those affected by cancer. He has already raised over $1500 for the charity. We are all very proud of Jack and wish him well for Saturday. Jack picked Rise Above as the charity to support as they are helping one of our families in the community at the moment. Tomorrow some of our teachers will be shaving their heads for Shave For A Cure as well. We are looking forward to celebrating Crazy Hair Day tomorrow as well. If parent's wish to donate in the morning there will be QR codes up around the school or donation buckets at the front office.

Please find the link to Jack’s fundraising page here. Rise Above - Capital Region Cancer Relief - Running for Zach (riseabovecbr.org.au)

School Arrival

I would like to remind parents and students that the time for arriving to school is 8.30am and supervision starts at 8:45am. We have noticed an increasing number of students arriving earlier than this. Teachers are not on duty before this time so students are unsupervised. Some of these students are having problems at this time which has affects for their learning throughout the rest of the day.  Please access before school care if you need care for your child/children before 8.30am.  https://campaustralia.com.au/schools/3903 

Kindergarten Learning

Last Wednesday our Kindergarten teachers presented their reading and literacy program to parents.  It was great to see some of our parents link in to this meeting online to learn about how InitiaLit is being implemented in the classroom. The presentation was also recorded and sent home via Seesaw. Thanks so much to Alyssa, Emma and Carmel for putting this valuable presentation together. Please contact Alyssa or myself if you have any questions about this literacy program or if you would like to see the presentation.

3/4 Day Camp

Today our 3/4 students headed off to Birrigai for their day camp. They will be participating in team building activities run by the amazing staff at Birrigai. Students will have the opportunity to complete low ropes courses and do team initiative games. They will also complete a scavenger hunt and learn how to safely participate in a camp fire. Thanks very much to Emma Vince for organising the day for our students along with their classroom teachers and support staff who are attending today. We expect the students to return at around 5pm. This is another example of the amazing learning opportunities our students at Calwell Primary School participate in.

Kind Regards

Ben Roberts                    
Principal

CARES

Notes Home/Due & Dates to Remember

A reminder for parent's to please download the SZapp to view our Newsletters and upcoming events. If you access the calendar and click on the date on an excursion/incursion permission notes are attached to re-print if needed. 

- Stay n Play Wednesday 3rd April 8:45am-10:00am

- Crazy Hair Day Wednesday 3rd April

- Principals Afternoon Tea (selected students only) Thursday 4th April

- Years 1/2 Assembly Friday 5th April 9:15am

- Years 5/6 Parliament House excursion Friday 5th April

- Athletics Carnival Permission notes due back Monday 8th April

- K-6 Athletics Carnival Thursday 11th April

- Last Day of Term 1 Friday 12th April

- Pupil free day Monday 29th April

- First Day of Term 2 Tuesday 30th April

- Cross Country notes due back Tuesday 30th April

- Cross Country Carnival Thursday 2nd May

- Mothers Day notes due back Friday 3rd May

Preschool

The preschoolers have been very productive this term making new friends, exploring the play space and learning about how plants grow. Using our investigative and inquiring minds, as the seasons have changed, we have observed changes in our playground environment including the insects we find and the leaves falling from the trees.

The Bandalugs and Garawang classes have been nurturing seeds and watching the changes that have occurred daily. Some of the children have been that intrigued, they have recorded their observations through art.

Our big project this term has been the creation of our shared garden. The children are developing green thumbs as they care for their plants, helping with the weeding and watering of the seedlings. Next week, Tuesday 9^th of April, we will be celebrating our shared garden and a successful term with a Teddy Bear’s picnic, commencing at 2:15 at preschool. We would like to extend an invitation to our preschool families to join us for afternoon tea. You may like to bring a picnic rug and of course your favourite teddy.

Thank you to our families for all your support this term and guiding your child/ren in their introduction to the preschool environment.

The Preschool Team

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Kindergarten

Kindergarten has been off to a great start this year!

We have introduced InitiaLit and the students have been engaging with all of the activities that go along with the program. Students began by learning about rhyme and syllables in words. The students have been practising thinking of their own rhyming words, and clapping, stomping and jumping syllables. We have now started learning our first two sounds, /m/ and /s/. As part of the program, we did picture sorts to practise identifying what starts with /m/ and what starts with /s/, before learning about the letter name and formation. We focus on forming the letters correctly.

Within InitiaLit there are Storybook lessons. As part of this, the students engage with quality literature and have in-depth discussions about each book that we use. We explore new words that support our vocabulary and even act out the meaning of these words. Each book requires the students to participate in high level thinking and create reflect art pieces.

In Maths we have started learning the numbers to 10. So far we have done the numbers from 0 to 8. Each week we explore the different representations of numbers, such as how we can show a number through a numeral, word, ten frame, and with tally marks and through a picture. Students enjoy practising different ways to show the number such as creating and counting the quantity with unifex cubes, counters and through a variety of games. In Strand we copied, finished and created shape, movement and material patterns. Student even got to use the arrows on Beebots to make their own movement patterns.

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Technologies

This year I am teaching library and digital literacy across the school. Digital literacy is one of the general capabilities in the Australian curriculum. It encompasses the knowledge and skills students need to communicate and solve problems, as well as work collaboratively. It involves students critically identifying and appropriately selecting digital devices or systems and learning to make the most of technologies available to them. Students learn to protect the safety of themselves and others in digital environments.

In Kinder students have been learning how to use the library and about the parts of a book. They are also starting to identify how they can stay safe online. I look forward to seeing you are around the school. Mrs Lockett 

Calwell Primary Community Association

The Calwell Primary Community Association (CPCA) is pleased to announce our 2024 Committee, elected at the AGM on Wednesday 20 March.

President: Daniel Hoffman

Secretary: Rheannon Jasprizza-Quinn

Treasurer: Megan Fox

Committee Members: Tanya Goodman and Brenton Myers

We are looking forward to working with you and the school team during 2024 to ensure school activities are well supported. Our first activity will be supporting the Mothers' Day Stall with pre-wrapping of gifts this month and helping on the stall in early May. Keep an eye out for a link to our online volunteer sign up sheet later this week.

If you have any suggestions or questions about CPCA, please email CalwellPCA@gmail.com.

Camp Australia

Outstanding ACT State Little Athletics results by Calwell Primary Athletes

Calwell Little Athletics Club season was wrapped up last weekend with the Under 9’s- U13’s ACT state Championships, held at Woden Athletics Track. The State championships gives athletes the opportunity to participate at the Territory’s highest level. Medals are awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd placings for each event. The weather was extremely variable being hot one moment and raining the next, but all 19 of the Calwell athletes had a rewarding day with most recording personal best performances and some even winning medals. Some amazing  performances were achieved in trying conditions especially on Sunday in the rain, by Calwell primary school students. We would like to give a big congratulations to Grace Gardner (Shot put, Discus) and Ashleen Khehra  (70m (Pb), 100m (Pb) 60mH (Pb) Discus & Shot Put) who really displayed the core values of the school while they were representing the club. All athletes showed outstanding levels of resilience over the weekend while competing in 30 degree heat one day, and rain the next.  We would also like to extend a big thankyou to Miss Lizzie (Front Office) who was also at the carnival and was there demonstrating true sportsmanship and cheering on the Calwell athletes all weekend.

The club would like to extend a very deserving congratulations to all the Calwell Athletes who represented the club not only at the State Championship, but throughout the season. Reminder to all athletes that our presentation day is being held Saturday 6^th April, at Calwell playing fields, 9am with BBQ, disco dome and games. 

Monster Raffle - Mt Taylor Scout Group

Southside Initiative

Cool Kids Program

Tuggeranong Vikings Water Polo