Nativity Play

Last Monday the Preps were given the privilege of retelling the story of the nativity. Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas

Last week we held our school Christmas Carols evening. It had been a very hot day (high 30's) and it was still about 33 degrees when we performed! Even though it was so hot we still had a great time singing 'Christmas Star'. Thank you Mrs Riddiford for helping us learn the words and actions to this song. We hope that you have a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Star from Learning Together on Vimeo.

Preps Taking Action

This term we have been finding out about recycling, reducing and reusing rubbish. As part of our action to reduce rubbish we went on a walk around our local streets and discovered that there is quite a bit of litter on the streets. We decided as part of our action to create a flyer to deliver to the houses in our street to encourage them to pick up the rubbish that they see. We are hoping that this will reduce the rubbish around our school. Today we went for a walk to deliver our flyers. Preps Taking Action on PhotoPeach

Rudolph

As part of our Inquiry Action this term we reused jam jars to create Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. We have been finding out how we can reuse things around the house to make something new. We used the jars, brown paper, goggle eyes and pom poms to bring our reindeers to life! They look fantastic! Rudolph on PhotoPeach

Pancakes

Thank you Mrs Klein for bringing Pancakes in to visit us. She is very cute!

Speed Stacking at St. Luke's

Today we had another opportunity to revisit our 'speed stacking' skills. We realised that it is important to make sure both hands move at the same time and that you watch what the cups are doing. We had heaps of fun! Thank you Mrs Bellesini

Rubbish at St. Lukes!

A couple of weeks ago the Preps went for a walk around their local neighborhood to discover where rubbish is left in our streets. They were able to locate on a map where most of the rubbish was found.
Today the Preps decided to carry out an audit of rubbish found in their school grounds. The Preps chose to carry out the audit after lunch on a Monday because this is the day our school has lunch orders. They were amazed at how much rubbish the students of St. Lukes dropped on the ground!

They were left to ponder a couple of questions ~
Should our school be wrapper free?
How can the Preps encourage the students to put their rubbish in the appropritae bins?
Should we still have lunch orders?
Who should collect the rubbish left on our school ground?

We would love to hear what you think about rubbish at St. Lukes.

Here is a slideshow of the rubbish the Preps found in the school grounds.

Rubbish Around Our School on PhotoPeach

Get It Right On Bin Night

This website gives some great ideas on how we can recycle our waste. Please click on the link below and share this with your family.
http://www.getitrightbinnight.vic.gov.au/
Thank you Mrs Coffa for finding this and supporting our inquiry action!

Presenting Information In Another Way

Earlier this week we worked with a partner to collect data (we went outside and looked for animals and insects - see here) and recorded our information using tallies. When we had collected our data and counted our tallies then we organised our information into a graph.

We noticed:
(Hannah and Raph) Peoples graphs were very different.
(Eli and Sophia) There were different amounts of animals on the graphs.
(Zachary and Nyandit) There were a lot of some animals and not so much of other animals.  
(Mrs David) Some people started their graph from the top of the page and not at the bottom. We noticed that the information was the still the same.

Here are some of our tally sheets and graphs: Organising Data on PhotoPeach

Pictographs

In Maths this week we are learning how to collect and collate data. We have discovered how to keep a tally and we will use this information and present it in a pictograph. We had heaps of fun today going out and collecting data on the animals found in our school ground.

Collaborative Circle Time at St. Luke's

Every couple of weeks our school gets in to collaborative groups for Circle Time. Each group has children from all classes, Prep to Year 6, in them. During this time we have the opportunity to listen to each other and share how we feel about certain issues. Our focus for this week's Circle Time was 'Rules'. We had the opportunity to share how we felt about rules and why we think we need them. We worked with our collaborative group to investigate our school rules and draw or write what we thought they meant. This is one way our school is trying to improve respect amongst our students and providing them with an opportunity to see their school friends in a different setting. Collaborative Circle Time at St. Luke's on PhotoPeach

Dancing Preps

Over the next couple of weeks, the Preps will be learning how to dance during our Friday sport sessions. Dancing is wonderful exercise for our body, and our brain, as we need to remember all the cool moves! We had so much fun dancing last Friday. We learnt the Mexican Hat Dance and the Heel Toe Polka. We bowed to our dancing partner at the start and end of each dance to thank them for dancing with us. Which dance should we learn next?

Dancing from Learning Together on Vimeo.

Having Fun With Our Buddies

Today our buddies came in to our classrooms to be part of our Developmental Learning activities. We had heaps of fun making puppet shows, dressing up, playing trains, colouring in and learning on the computer with them! This was a great time to get to know our buddies even better. We discovered that our buddies love to dress up! Having Fun With Our Buddies on PhotoPeach

Measuring Length

We have been using different units to measure the length of objects in our room. We have discovered that when we measure an object the length of the unit has to be the same to get a 'true' measure. We have also found out that our units have to touch each other and we leave no gaps in between. We had fun measuring the length of our snakes. Having Fun Measuring Length on PhotoPeach

Litter Detectives!

For our Inquiry this term we are looking at how we can make a difference to the environment by reducing landfill through reusing and recycling.

Today we were Litter Detectives and went for a walk around our neighbourhood to see if we would find any rubbish. Luke, Hannah and Aly had a map of our streets and when we saw some rubbish they marked it on the map. We took photos of the kinds of rubbish that we saw.

This is what we discovered:

There was no rubbish around the shops at the end of our street. We think that might be because there were two rubbish bins for people to put their rubbish in.

The other streets around our school looked very clean and rubbish free.

In the street that our school is on, we saw quite a bit of rubbish and we were surprised. We think the rubbish was there because

• there are no rubbish bins in the street
• people have dropped their wrappers and containers
• the wind may have blown it out of rubbish bins
• the rubbish has fallen out of bins when the garabage collector has picked up the bins

We looked at the rubbish and we thought that some of the rubbish had been on the street for a long time. Some of the bottles and plastic containers should have been put in the recycling bin.

We have a problem!

What can we do to help clean up our street?

Please let us know your ideas!

Preps, talk to your families and friends and see if you can find an answer to our problem.
 

Here are some photos of our discoveries:



 

UNICEF Day for Children

On Friday we came to school dressed in blue to raise over $300 for UNICEF's Day for Children.  We know how lucky we are to have the opportunity to go to school and learn with our friends.  We hope that every child all over the world will have this same opportunity.

Finding Out About Recycling

On Wednesday our class went to CERES and Nick showed us how we could recycle food scraps, rubbish and paper to make new things. We discovered which types of rubbish could go in to the recycle bin and compost bin. Did you know that not all plastic can be recycled? We had fun holding worms and finding out that the baby worms are in a sac which is under the worm's saddle. Nick also told us that worms keep our soil healthy. Have you ever gone on a minibeast hunt in your garden? What did you find? Just before lunch we went for a walk along Merri Creek and Nick showed us the spot where the rubbish from the streets and gutters gets caught beore it goes in to the creek. This rubbish is collected every month. At the end of our day we had fun creating our own paper! I wonder what we could use this for? Here are some of our recounts about our excursion.

Creating Shapes

In Maths this week we have been revisiting 2D and 3D shapes. Creating Shapes on PhotoPeach

My Mum Came To My School

Yesterday we were lucky to have Aly's mum come to our classroom and speak to us about what St. Luke's was like when she came here as a student. Rachael came to St. Luke's in 1986 and she was here for Years 4,5 and 6. These are some of the interesting facts that she shared with us -

• the Discovery Centre used to be the toilets
• they had Tuck Shop everyday
• the Senior Rooms were the Staffroom and Library
• there were no whiteboards just blackboards
• there were no computers in the classrooms
• the Hall used to be the Church
• the Hall hasn't changed
• the children wore woollen jumpers with no emblem
• they didn't have Letterland
• the children got awards
• children could wear a school badge
• the playground equipment was made out of wood so the children used to get splinters
• Mrs Luzza taught her
• Mrs Davey drove Rachael home from school

Thank you Rachael for sharing your memories with us.

One of Rachael's School Awards



Aly and her mum, Rachael


 

Revisiting History

As part of our celebrations for St. Luke's 50th Anniversary we planted fruit trees with the help of our local Bunnings store. We discovered that the site that our school is built on used to be an orchard so we thought it would be a wonderful idea to plant some fruit trees as part of our celebrations. Thank you Ms Scott for organising this - we have now seen history in the making! Do you know what the land that your school is built on used to be used for?

Our Celebrations Continue!

Today we celebrated St. Luke's Feast Day with our Grandparents! We had heaps of fun sharing stories, our work and games with them. We enjoyed a yummy lunch of sausages and icy-poles! Mrs David's mum even came. What is your favourite thing to do with your grandparents? Our Celebrations Continue! on PhotoPeach

Making Groups

In Maths today we discovered how to create groups of objects and find their total. We were able to show the relationship between addition and multiplication - we are so clever!


 

4 groups of 6 is 24

 

 

 

 

Our Inquiry Action

Mary from RED (Recycling+Education=the Difference) came to speak to our class at the end of last term.
She spoke to us about recycling plastic to make something new and useful.

Here is her presentation -

RED from juldav1

Our goal over the next few weeks is to collect heaps of flexible plastic bags so that we can use these to make something useful for our school community.

You can help us by getting your family and friends to collect flexible plastic and drop it in to our RED bin in our classroom.

50th Anniversary Celebrations!

Showcasing the Past and Present on PhotoPeach

Hello from Penang

Hi Prep D. I hope that you all had a great last day at school. I am having heaps of fun in Penang. We are swimming, shopping, eating, reading and sightseeing. Enjoy the rest of your holidays. Mrs David

Italian Day 2012

We had the best day today! We celebrated everything Italian! Our day started with making bread which was warm and yummy. Then we went to a very funny Italian play and Mrs Gridley had to marry one of the actors - Congratulations Mrs Gridley! After the play we had some soccer coaching and ran a marathon. We were very tired by the end of the day but pizza and gelati helped us keep going. Thank you to everyone that helped make this day so amazing! We can't wiat until next year. Italian Day 2012 on PhotoPeach

Subtraction Puppets

In Maths today we made our own stick puppets and created number stories using them. This was a fun way to explore the concept of subtraction! Take -Away Puppets on PhotoPeach

Recycling Plastic

Today we were fortunate to have Mary from the 'RED' group come to speak to us about how we can recycle plastic to make something new and useful. She told us that plastic is something you can make a shape or mould out of and that there are different types of plastic. She spoke to us about 'rigid' and 'flexible' plastic. We discovered some amazing facts - 1. It takes 660 years for one plastic bag to breakdown in landfill! 2. Every minute 7,150 plastic bags go to landfill! Part of our action for our Term 4 inquiry is to collect flexible bags that can be taken away and made in to something useful for our school. We want to collect 250kg of 'flexible' plastic so we need your help. There are 250 plastic bags in one kilogram so begin collecting! Thank you Mary for supporting our action.

Learning More About Puppetpals

We are continuing to have fun exploring the 'puppetpals' app during reading activities. This week we have discovered how to change the backgrounds for a play.
We hope that you enjoy this show.

Hosting Prayer

This morning we hosted prayer at our school assembly. We sang 'In the Beginning' by Andrew Chin because we have been exploring creation in our Religious Education classes. Thank you to Mrs Klein for organising our cool costumes! Please remember to care for our environment and all God's creatures.

More Subtraction Stories

We used the 'showme' app to record more subtraction stories today. Here are some of them.

Having fun with Puppetpals

This is our first go at using 'puppetpals'. We had heaps of fun so we hope you enjoy our little movie. We are using this app to improve our conversation skills.

Letterland Day

We had a fabulous day today dressing up as our favourite Letterland characters. We had a parade in front of our classes and parents and played heaps of Letterland games. After lunch we had lolly snakes and watched a movie about the adventures of characters in Letterland.

Collaborative Scarecrows

Today we worked with our Sustainability Captains to create scarecrows for our vegetable patches. We had to work with different people to find out how to put our scarecrows together. We had heaps of fun and we loved playing in the dirt! We think that our scarecrows are pretty cool! Creating Our Scarecrow on PhotoPeach

Subtraction Stories

Today we made subtraction stories starting with 10 unifix cubes. Here are some of our stories.

God's Creations at School

We walked around our school and saw some of God's wonderful creations. Some of us had to decide which things were made by God and which things were made by people.
What is your favourite creation?

Doubles Bingo

In class this week we have been exploring the concept of 'doubles'. We had a lot of fun playing 'Doubles Bingo' and  now we are fabulous at working out doubles!

Footy Day

We had so much fun on Footy Day! First, all the dads came to school for breakfast to celebrate Father's Day. Then, the Sports Captains taught us footy skills such as how to kick, mark and handball. Collingwood and Essendon are the most popular footy teams in Prep D.

Crazy Hair Day

Today our whole school had 'Crazy Hair Styles'! We bought a gold coin donation because we were raising money to help children in Sudan. Our money will assist those children in orphanages and school in Sudan. We raised $300 - well done!

Doubles

In Maths today we had fun finding out about the concept of doubles. We discovered that doubles are two of the same thing or two of the same number.

Wild Action Zoo

Today Chris from Wild Action Zoo came to our school and introduced some Australian Animals to us. Simba the Dingo was our favourite Australian Animal. What is your favourite Australian Animal? Wild Action Zoo on PhotoPeach

Champions Read - Book Week

This week we came to school dressed as champions in stories. We made a voicethread about our champions. Do you have a champion in literature?

Learning From Experts

Last week we had the chance to use our skills to teach our peers. We discovered that everyone in Prep is an expert at something. Some of us are great at footy, running and soccer while others are fantastic at gardening, dancing, playing board games, colouring in and making things with wool. We enjoyed sharing our skills but most of all we loved learning new things from our Prep friends.

And the winner is...

We took a poll today to find out which of the 2012 Book Week finalists was our favourite book. We have really enjoyed reading the books this week. Liam said, "We need to vote." We each voted once for our favourite book. It was a difficult choice because they were all so great. 'The Runaway Hug' by Nick Bland was the most popular book in Prep D, followed by 'Rudie Nudie', 'The Last Viking' and 'No Bears'. After we made our picture graph we visited Prep K to look at their graph. 'Rudie Nudie' was the most popular book in Prep K.

Just a minute

Today we discovered what we could achieve in a minute. We counted how many letters we could write in a minute, how many beads we could thread and how many blocks we could build in a tower. We also found out that it is very tiring to do star jumps for one minute! What can you do in one minute?

Book Week

One of our favourite books from Book Week is 'A Bus Called Heaven' by Bob Graham. Over the last couple of days we have been making our own buses. We have had so much fun making them. We hope that you like them.

Creating 3D Houses

In Maths on Friday we looked at different houses on the interactive whiteboard and discussed the shapes in these houses. We then had a go at making our own houses using different materials.

Finding the Difference

Today we discovered what 'difference' means in Maths when we used unifix blocks. We found out that you can find the diffrence by subtracting one number from another number and the answer is the difference.

Mini Olympics at St. Lukes

Today we had our Mini Olympics.
We had great fun going around to 9 different activities in our collaborative learning groups.
We loved doing the high jump and jumping the hurdles!
Our Olympics started and finished with a torch relay - it was amazing to see the seniors run around the running track with their torches.
At the completion of our activities we were all awarded a gold medal because we are all winners!
Thank you Mr Crowe and the Sports Captains for organising such a fun day!

And the winner is ...

Yesterday we went to a performance based on some of the books from this year's Book Week.The musical was about discovering what you are good at and realising that we all have different talents. The performers final message to us was that even if we are not good readers we can all still enjoy books. Next week we are going to dress up as 'Champions' to celebrate Book Week.
Which champion would you dress up as?

Cubes

Mrs David gave us the challenge to create a cube with 6 cardboard squares and sticky tape. We worked with a partner and successfully made our cubes! We discovered that a cube has 6 faces, 8 corners and 12 edges. We also discovered the difference between 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional shapes. What 3 dimensional shapes do you know?

Learning from Experts

Our class was lucky to have a guest speaker in our room today. We have been finding out about healthy eating and today we found out about how exercise helps us to stay healthy.Louisa explained that we don't have to play sports to get exercise but we can just make sure that we are active. She told us that exercise helps us to be strong, active and happy!
We had a wonderful time learning how to do different resistance exercises and our favourite exercise was the 'commando crawl'.
When we were doing the exercises Louisa was asking us which parts of our body hurt and she explained that that part of our body was getting stronger through the exercise we were doing.
Louisa has left us with a challenge to come up with our own exercises and she is going to come back to find out what we have created.
How do you keep your body fit and strong?

W is for Witches

This week we are finding out about the 'w' sound. We hope that you enjoy watching our witches. We had a great time making them! W is for Witch on PhotoPeach

Can you draw a clock?

Today we had to draw what we thought a clock looked like. This was used as a pre-assessment so now we can add to what we already know about clocks. Do you know how to draw a clock? Can you draw a clock? on PhotoPeach

Learning From Others

Today we worked with our 'Buddies' to get our activities ready for next week. We have all decided on a skill that we think that we are experts at. Next week we would like to teach others our special skills. Some of our skills are - soccer, football, playing board games, ballet, gardening and running. Our 'Buddies' helped us to work out how we would teach this skill and become the experts. Thank you 'Buddies'. We can't wait to show you how we go!

Our Nesting Boxes!

Last term our Inquiry Action was to make and present possum boxes to a local wildlife shelter. We made two nesting boxes and gave them to Adriana Simmonds to use at her wildlife shelter. On the weekend she emailed us photos of the possums using our boxes. The possums look so cute and we were very excited that they could actually use our boxes! We made something to help the animals. Have you ever made anything to help someone else? Our Nesting Boxes! on PhotoPeach

PJ Day

On Friday we celebrated PJ Day. We all wore our PJs to school and brought along our favourite soft toy. We talked about how lucky we are to have a warm house to sleep in each night. St Luke's raised $280 to help families who are not as lucky as us.

Go Aussies!

Who Am I?

Today we had heaps of fun writing our own 'Who Am I's?' Here are some of them.

Our Olympic Torches

We made our own Olympic torches yesterday. We made them from our own handprints, cellophane and cover paper. We are very proud of our torches! Have you made your own torches to celebrate the Olympic Games? We would love to hear about how you made them. Our Olympic Torches on PhotoPeach

Treasure Maps

Ahoy, me hearties!  On Friday we made our own Treasure Maps.  First, we collected items from outside such as leaves and rocks, and also used items from our classroom such as playdoh and blocks.  We then hid 'treasure' in our design.  Finally, we drew and labelled a map for our friends, marking an 'x' for the hidden treasure. 

Collaborating at the Car Wash

During Friday's Circle Time we had a lot of fun making a car wash with our friends.  We wanted everyone to feel welcome in our team.  We stood in two rows to make a tunnel.  As our friends (the cars) came through the car wash we gently 'washed' them.  We laughed a lot and all pretended to be different types of cars. 

Working out our muscles!

On Friday we gave our handwriting muscles a workout!  We talked about the hand muscles we use to hold a pencil correctly and form letters.  To strengthen these muscles we squished playdoh between our thumb and index finger, we squeezed tongs to pick up marbles and we peeled stickers to make stars for our queens.  We also sprayed shaving cream to make letters - gooey fun!

Where is Buddy Bear?

Today we used our Buddy Bears to explore the language of location. We put our Buddy Bears in many positions around the classroom.

Healthy Eating

This is what Jacqui spoke to our class about yesterday. Do you eat a rainbow of food?

Healthy Diet and Lifestyle from marieck

A Rainbow of Food

Yesterday we were lucky to have Jacqui come to our classroom and speak to us about healthy eating. She told us that we should eat all different colours of fruits and vegetables to be as healthy as we can be. She explained this by talking about a 'rainbow of food'. We drew our own 'rainbows of food'.

Marble Containers

Today we had to design and create containers using cover paper, scissors and sticky tape. Our containers had to hold 30 marbles. We discovered that some of our containers were too small and some were too big.