….. Charlotte Grace!

Charlotte was born on Tuesday, 19 January 2009 at 4.48pm. She weighed 3.968kg (8’11), was 52cm long and has a good sized brain in that 37cm head! Mum, Dad and Charlotte are settling in well at home. Everyone is healthy and happy and enjoying the roller coaster ride of life!

Good luck for school tomorrow everyone!

Love from Mrs G xxx

Lots of people have asked for the recipe for the fudge I sent home this week. It’s a nice easy recipe and great for making with kids, as long as you have good supervision as the mixture gets very hot. Give it a try this holidays – it’s definitely a sometimes food, a holiday treat!

Creamy Caramel Fudge

Children have taken home their PYP Portfolio folder tonight to share with family. These folders are the beginning of an ongoing record of your child’s progress in the PYP program. It is important that these folders are returned to the school to be passed on to each child’s classroom for 2010.

**Please return the folders by Friday, 11 December 2009. **

Thank you very much for helping the end of year finish smoothly, and I hope you enjoy looking at the wonderful work and learning that your child has done this year.

The children did an awesome job of singing at the carols night last night, and looked gorgeous in their Christmas clothes. Thank you to all the families who came along, I hope you enjoyed the night too.

Please take a look at the slideshow to relive the magic!

This week the children wrote their own verses for the twelve days of Christmas, and here are their interesting, creative and sometimes hilarious efforts!

01st

02nd

03rd

04th

05th

06th

07th

08th

09th

10th

11th

12th

Mrs O’s and Mrs G’s class will be celebrating the end of year with a class party on Thursday, 10 December. Lunch will be provided, so please pack only fruit and recess on this day. Children are welcome to bring board games, music or other activities to share.  Please do not bring electronic games (eg. Nintendo DS) and remember that any items brought from home are the individual students responsibility.

Please note that the junior primary classes are not going to the  Swimming Fun  Dayon Friday, 11 December. In place of the swimming day we will be enjoying games and activities on Friday to celebrate our last day together at school, as well as having our class party on Thursday.

6.15pm, Tuesday 8 December

We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday, 8 December 2009 for the Carols Night. Please come to the amphitheatre at 6.15pm for a 6.30pm start. As in previous years parents bring along a chair to sit on while children sit on the amphitheatre steps for the performance.  Children are welcome to bring a battery powered lantern or glo-stick to hold during the performance. Please do not bring any flammable lanterns.

The Year 6/7 classrooms will be open from 5.30m – 6.15pm to share the Student Initiated Project Showcase. All parents are welcome to come and have a look at the fantastic projects  that the students have been working on.

This year we will have a Christmas tree on display. You are welcome to put a donation under the tree to be passed on to the Lions Club, who will make hampers for needy families. Donations may include non-perishable food or Christmas items, eg. boxed mince pies, bon bons, crackers, chips, chocolate, drinks etc. Please do not bring alcohol or children’s gifts.

 Happy holidays and see you there!

We had a busy day yesterday making reindeer ornaments, a paper chain for the Carols Night decorations and Christmas cards for family and friends. Have a look!

Today we started our Christmas activities, including writing letters to Santa and checking out some fun Christmas games on the blog. You can visit the ‘Cool Websites’ link to play these games at home – the Christmas games are at the bottom of the page.

There are a few bits and pieces that need to be organised before the end of the year:

• All library books are now overdue and need to be returned to the library as soon as possible.
• This will be the last week for take home reading books as we need to ensure they are all accounted for and in correct boxes. It is a great idea for children to continue to read over the holidays so if you are looking for books to read your local library has many fabulous ones to enjoy.
• Carol’s Night will be held this year on Tuesday 8th December on the Amphitheatre. Keep the date free to join us in some Christmas cheer with songs and music to enjoy. Look forward to seeing you all there!

Merry Christmas!

We will be holding a casual day for the whole school on Friday 4th December. Please could all children bring a small non-perishable gift as a donation, which we will use to make up large raffle prizes for the Carols Night. Examples of things which parents have donated in the past are tins of food, packets of biscuits, bottles of wine, boxes of chocolates, bath products etc. Donations should be given to the child’s class teacher, and will be collected by members of Parents and Friends that morning. Raffle tickets will be sent home with your child, so please sell as many as you can and return stubs and unsold tickets to the Office. Further supplies will be available from the Front Office.

Make yourselves a cuppa and get comfy – there are a LOT of photos!

We had a fantastic time at camp this week!

On Tuesday we had a yummy sausage sizzle before walking about 1km to the beach. When we got to the beach we had to hunt for all kids of treasure, including shells, evidence of living things (crab shells, cuttlefish bones, etc), flotsam (ocean debris), different types of seaweed and rocks. The children cooperated in small groups to find everything that they needed, then used their treasures to make awesome sandcastles. The imagination and team work used by all the different groups was excellent!

We got to see two of our emergency services at work. We saw the shark watch plane circling overhead while at the beach, and then while walking through the suburbs and scrub we saw CFS workers preparing for a burn off. It’s good to know that there are people out there working hard to make sure that we are safe!

When we got back to camp we played on the playground and had a swim in the pool, which was so lovely and refreshing. Before we knew it it was dinner time. We had a big communal dinner before watching a movie and going to bed.

In the morning we had a delicious breakfast before we got together and played some cooperative games. The children LOVED the parachute games and really worked well together to make a mexican wave and a mushroom.

We made our own healthy sandwiches for lunch before making sure that we had all of our belongings and getting on the bus to go home. It was all over too soon!

Thank you to all the wonderful parents who came along and helped to make it a safe and happy camp experience for everyone. Well done to all the children for their excellent behaviour while on camp.

Photos coming soon…..

I recently found these great blogs which share some fantastic resources for parents and children. Check them for some great tips, links and ideas.

Squiggle Mum

Childhood 101

Planning with Kids

Christmas is sneaking up on us! We will be making lots of fun Christmas craft in the last two weeks of school. To help your child to keep their Christmas craft organised can you please send a clearly labelled, tinsel covered coat hanger. The craft that your child makes will be hung from their coat hanger in the classroom, and then sent home in the last week of school.

Thank you.

Only one more sleep until camp! The children (and teachers!) are very excited about going to camp tomorrow. It looks like the weather will be perfect – nice and sunny, but not too hot. Please remember to check the note that was sent home with all the camp forms. As an additional reminder, here is what you need to pack:

Everything must be clearly labelled

• Sleeping bag                               
• Pillow                                   
• PJ’s           
• Spare pair of shoes                   
• A water proof jacket      
• Towel
• Bathers                                        
• Thongs                                
• Torch
• Tea towel Toothbrush/paste
• Hairbrush
• Sun safe weather appropriate clothing
• Drink bottle
• Hat (sun safe hat – bucket, wide brimmed etc)

Please Note: This is a bush setting and we require all children to be wearing enclosed shoes at all times. Please no sandals. All clothing must be sun safe—no strappy tops.

We return to school on Wednesday at 2.30pm – we will see you at then with some tired and happy children.

On Wednesday the eldest child in each family in our school was sent home with a one page letter (on blue paper) from the Chairperson of Governing Council. The wording of the letter is a legal requirement, and can be ……. wordy! So here’s what it means:

What is it about?

School fees (materials and services charges)

What’s new?

School fees are being increased by $4 (four dollars) in 2010, from $272 to $276 per student, per year.

What happens if I vote ‘yes’?

You are supporting the $4 increase in school fees in 2010. You are also supporting the school’s student learning programs, which are funded by the school fees. All parents, excluding school card holders, then must pay the $276 per student.

What happens if I vote ‘no’?

You are not supporting the $4 increase in school fees. A ‘no’ vote also means that you support the school only being able to legally recover $197 per student, if school fees remain unpaid by parents. This would have a negative impact on the school’s ability to provide the quality student learning programs currently on offer.

What if I don’t vote at all?

The vote is majority rules.

If three votes are recieved, and two of them are ‘yes’, then the majority vote is ‘yes’.

If three votes are recieved, and two of them are ‘no’, then the majority vote is ‘no’.

Every vote counts!

Guten tag!

Hooray, German Day is nearly here! Please remember to wear your hippy style clothes ready for the performance at 9.30am. This will be followed by the much anticipated Teachers v Students soccer match at 10.30am. It’s probably going to be quite warm in the sun while watching the game – slip, slop, slap, especially with SPF30+ before you come to school.

The canteen will not be serving regular lunch orders tomorrow, so if you haven’t ordered a German Day lunch order please remember to pack your lunch. Guten Appetit!

Mrs B will be here to enjoy the festivities while I am away to work on reports, and a looooooooooooong list of other Term 4 jobs.  Have a great day!

Auf weidersehen.

On Friday we had a special surprise. Lewis’ Dad visited us with the Squash SA team and set up lots of fun fitness activities for us to do. There were two inflatable squash courts, relay games, target practice, mini hand racquets and more. The children took turns to play at each fitness station while supported by the professional Squash SA staff, including the no.1 and no. 2 ranked female players in SA, Almas Kushartanti and Kirsty Geue. Check out the Squash SA website to find out how you can get fit and have fun with squash.

Thank you very much to Squash SA, and a very special thanks to Lewis and his family for an awesome morning.

Today our school participated in Music: Count Us In. All around Australia, hundreds of thousands of students, parents and families performed the song ‘The Music is Everything’ at the same time.

You can listen to the song, watch a video of the lyrics with Auslan sign language, and read the lyrics at Music: Count Us In.