St. Emilie’s Feast Day

St. Emilie’s Feast Day falls on the 17th of June each year. On this day we reflect on the life and legacy of our school’s patron saint, Saint Emilie de Vialar.

St. Emilie devoted her life to helping others. During her time, she opened hospitals and schools and went on to establish the congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition. The sisters continue sharing her devotion to helping others through missionary work, education of the youth and care of the sick.

On Wednesday, we reflected on the Prayer to St. Emilie. In the prayer, it tells us how we can love others and help those in need as Jesus taught us. We wrote about how we can be more like St. Emilie and created art pieces. Some of us drew pictures of our parents and grandparents, as they, just like St. Emilie, guide us and teach us to be caring and charitable. Some of us drew pictures of us helping our friends when they are in need.

Have a look at our creations below!

Green Thumbs

This week in Year One, we learned all about Procedural writing.

Procedural writing is any writing that instructs the reader on how to do something, such as recipes, safety procedures and science experiments.

We decided to enjoy the sunny weather and did some gardening. This was the perfect topic for our procedural writing!

We had to find a suitable home for our vegetables and decided to use planter boxes. We discussed which plants would grow well and voted on which to use.

The winners were Carrots, Spinach, Beetroot, tomatoes and a herb – mint! Before we planted our plants, we used our senses of smell and touch to investigate the different plants we would be using. When it came to the mint, we rubbed the leaves together to release the scent and took a big SNIFF! Some of us thought it smelt amazing – others thought it smelt horrible!

In small groups, we each took turns in planting, raking and watering each of the planter boxes. After we were done, we wrote a procedure of how to plant and take care of vegetables. Now, we’re all experts on gardening!

We can’t wait to see our plants grow. Stay tuned – we might even whip up a delicious soup!

Chicken Divas

On Wednesday, our school took part in the National Simultaneous Storytime opportunity.

To help us celebrate, we read the story Whitney and Britney Chicken Divas written by Lucinda Gifford. The Year One students enjoyed listening to this amusing story and loved the colourful illustrations.

We wrote a blurb about the story, without giving too much away.

Look at us creating ‘Chicken Divas’ of our own using paper plates, feathers, glitter and textas. We had so much fun!

Lots of Fun in Year One

Happy Mother’s Day! We hope all of our wonderful mums have a very special day on Sunday! We have been very busy bees this week. Take a look at what we have been learning about …

Let’s Get a Pup!

Our book focus was “Let’s Get a Pup”. by Bob Graham. We enjoyed listening and reading along with the text. We discussed our predictions and wrote about what happened at the beginning, middle and end of the story. We focused on three new vocabulary words in our story (immediately, briefly and glance) and discussed the meaning of each word. We learnt about adjectives and used adjectives to write about an imaginary pet we would like to have. Then we designed our own imaginary animals using different materials around the house and classroom. We produced some amazing writing pieces and animal creations!

Mother’s Day

Students listened to three stories about Mothers. To show our mums how much we appreciate all that they do for us and to show how much we love them we made cards and drew portraits of our amazing mums! Take a look at our spectacular paintings…you might be able to spot yourself!

New Life Art

We know that Easter is a celebration of new life! A wonderful example of this is when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly! We created our own butterflies by experimenting with straight lines, short lines, squiggle lines and curvy lines to decorate the butterfly wings. We concentrated for a very long time!

3D Shapes

We are really enjoying learning about shapes…especially 3D shapes!! Some shapes have very tricky names like a ‘sphere’…not a spear! We are learning to describe these shapes using the words faces, edges and vertices. Our remote home learners have been busy too! Look at all the shapes they have found!

Stay safe and we hope to see you all soon!

Mrs McKenzie, Miss de Gooijer, Mrs Roberto and Mrs Andrews

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Term 3 Newsletter!

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Lots To Do In Term 2!

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What fun in Term One!

This term we investigated an integrated Humanities and Social Science unit called ‘Places and Spaces’.

Throughout the term the students learnt about the services in our community and considered sustainable practices. They worked together with Year 1B to design and construct a model building that belongs to our community. The students had great fun designing and using their creative flair to bring their designs to life!

The Year 1 and 2 classes celebrated learning about this unit by having a ‘Community Expo’. Thank you to all of our wonderful volunteers who shared their skills and knowledge with the children. The students had such fun learning all about the many different services in our community.

Mini Vinnies

This year, St Emilie’s Catholic Primary School formed their first Mini Vinnies group. The response was fantastic, and over 80 students from Years 4-6 participated in Social Justice activities throughout the year.

Every Thursday during lunch, the students volunteered their own time to meet and discuss ways in which they could help others in need. They chose social justice issues that are important to them and reflected their personal values, and they engaged in initiatives to help others. Participating in the Mini Vinnies program has allowed students to learn how their actions, no matter how big or small, can make a difference in the wider community.

A big thank you to all the families who generously donated to the Winter Appeal. The clothes you donated made a huge difference in people’s lives, as the winter months are always a difficult time for those less fortunate.

This term, children worked hard sorting the donated food into Christmas hampers that will go to families in need this Christmas time. During the Christmas season, we reflect on what it means to follow Jesus’ teachings and help those in need.

Our students and parents can be very proud of children’s efforts – it is wonderful seeing our school community come together for such an important cause.

All the best

Miss Simone Hilton

Georgia Curulli from Young Vinnies (High School Program) addresses our students

Dreamtime Stories!

This week we read two wonderful Dreamtime stories. The first was called ‘How the Birds got their Colours’ and the second was ‘When the Snake bites the Sun’. The students enjoyed the story and the art work so much that we placed the books on the craft table. We then began to create paintings related to the Dreamtime stories and wrote about them. Come and have a look at our paintings hanging in the Pre-Primary Blue Art Gallery!

We then learnt about the indigenous flag and what each colour means. We loved learning about and painting the flag.