19 September 2017

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

Principal Report

Well done to all our students on a great Term 3. The school has been a buzz of activity and students have demonstrated their enthusiasm for learning and determination to succeed. They have challenged themselves with new learning and have worked hard to use the Zones of Regulation to help them regulate emotions, make better decisions and contribute to our calm and orderly learning environment. Thank you to all our families who have supported us in this. It is a pleasure to walk around our classrooms and see such focused and self-directed learning.

As we head quickly towards the end of the term, there are some important reminders for Term 4. If your child is in Prep, Grade 1 or Grade 2, they will have the opportunity to participate in our Optional Swimming Program. Please ensure that you have completed the necessary forms and returned them to school so that your child can participate. For Students in Grades 3 to 6 our School Swimming Carnival will take place on November 9. We also have our annual Halloween social on Thursday November 2.

School Satisfaction Survey

This week we will be sending home the 2017 School Satisfaction Survey to a random selection of families. Parent feedback is important to us and will help inform school planning and decision making. I encourage you to complete the survey if you receive it and thank you in advance for your support and feedback.

Tree planting

On Tuesday Prep Upson and 5/6 Wivell joined with some helpful Exeter High students and NRM North to plant trees in the land running behind our school. This was a great opportunity, especially for our Prep students who will be able to to watch the progress of these trees over time.

Class Placements 2018

It is that time of year when we begin planning for the next school year and part of this process is to consider student class placements. If you would like to have input into this process by providing me with information that may help in your child’s class placement for 2018, please contact me via email: alison.brooks@education.tas.gov.au or in writing via the school office. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you wish to discuss any aspect of this process.

To further assist us with planning for 2018 could you please let us know if you are not planning to be with us next year. Also if you have a child, or know of any children in the area, who were born in 2013 please be aware that they are eligible for Kinder in 2018. If you have not already done so, please collect an enrolment form from the school office and register your little one for Kinder 2018.

Working Together for 3 Year Olds

In recognition of the importance of early learning in improving life outcomes for our children, the Tasmanian Government will fund a Working Together for 3 Year Olds. This is a targeted pre-school initiative, commencing in 2020. If you would like to know more about this initiative follow the link below.

Online Canteen Ordering - Qkr

Just a reminder that we are now offering on-line canteen ordering via Qkr. This will provide you with a convenient way to order your child’s lunch from the canteen. We have already had a number of families ordering this way.

We are all looking forward to ending the term with our annual Footy/Sports Colours Day on Thursday September 28.

Wishing you all a great holiday.

Our Learning Community - Mathematics

Problem Solving at Exeter

We hope you enjoyed our segment on Problem Solving in our previous newsletter. This edition we are looking at the Problem Solving Strategy of Looking for a Pattern. Here is an example of how making a pattern and using one of our previous strategies of drawing a table can be used together to help you structure your thinking in order to solve a problem.

In this video they use a four step process to help solve the problem. At Exeter Primary we have a similar process to work through a problem. We use our Problem Solving Pencils. Here are our three levels of Problem Solving Pencils. Can you use the pencils to help you work through your Problem Solving?

Your Turn: here are some problem solving questions that could be solved using this strategy. Why not have a go with your child. Look out for the answers in the next newsletter.

1. During the holidays, Karen picked apples at the Granny Smith Orchard. She was paid 10c for the first bucket of apples, 20c for the second, 40c for the third and 80c for the fourth. How much was she paid for the eighth bucket?
2. The dog started out with two fleas. By the next week the dog had six fleas, and by the third week there were fourteen. The following week the dog was really scratching, because there were 26 fleas. If the fleas continue multiplying at the same rate, how many fleas will there be in the ninth week?
3. A class has made some wooden cubes. They have decided to paint the faces of the cubes. They are going to group their cubes starting with one cube in one group, two cubes stuck together in the next group, three struck together in the next and so on. The cubes are always stuck together to form a line. How many faces will they have to paint when four cubes are stuck together? How many when eight are stuck together?

Answers: For Creating an Organised List

1. David, Brett, Jemma and Carmel are lining up to go to the cinema. How many different ways can they line up?

ANSWER:

2. A group of diners go to a restaurant where there is a flat rate of $45 for lunch. One menu item for each course can be selected.
Entrée: Soup or green salad
Main Course: Fish, chicken or lamb
Dessert: Fruit platter or sticky date pudding
Show all the different dinner possibilities.

ANSWER:

3. If three darts are thrown at this dartboard, and all of them hit the board, what are the possible totals?

ANSWER:

Sport

3/4 Gala Day Roster
Thursday 28th September

The Grade 3/4 classes have been divided into teams of basketball, soccer and netball this term and with the guidance of Grade 5/6 students have been developing their skills and understanding of rules and teamwork to prepare them for the Gala Day. Each class will match up and put their skills to the test. This is great way to prepare students for Grade 5/6 sport. Parents and friends are welcome to come and watch the games. Games are 15 minute halves.

Peter Habel

S.L.T and Canteen

What’s Happening in Our Classrooms?

Operation Christmas Child

This year 5/6 Wivell Habel will again be packing boxes for Operation Christmas Child. Each class will be allocated a box and children are encouraged to bring along an item to help fill their class box. We will be packing boxes during the last week of term three, so we only have a short time to collect items.

Gift suggestions:

• Something to wear – t-shirt, thongs, cap, beanie, sandals etc
• Something to love – teddy bear, doll, soft toy etc
• Something special – carry bag, sunglasses, stickers, craft kit, wind up torch etc
• Something for school – exercise book, pencil case, pens, pencils, sharpener, eraser, chalk etc
• Something to play with – tennis ball, cars, skipping rope, marbles, musical instrument, yo-yo, puppets etc
• Something for personal hygiene – soap and face washer, toothbrush, hairbrush, comb, scrunchies etc

A reminder that all items should be new and not second hand.

As each box needs to be accompanied by $10 to cover postage, cash donations are also most welcome.

Jill Wivell

3-4 Doyle

Fox by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks. We have been introduced to some quality literature this term.

We read the story first, then we learnt about the language used. Authors use special language to make us interested and satisfied with their storyline. We focussed on doing a retelling in our own words, plus we looked closely at the words in the text. We discovered that words in sentences all have important jobs to do. They have names such as nouns, verbs, prepositions, determiners (articles), adverbs, pronouns, adjectives and conjunctions.

“We found out that Ron Brooks (the illustrator) wrote the text using his left hand to make people take more time to read the story. It took him a very long time.” By Ciara Williams.

“We were learning about how words are important and which types of words they are. For example ‘fill’ is a verb or an action word in the sentence we studied. We also looked at lots of nouns like night and rage.” By Alex Turner.

Here are some pictures of Fox and also of us working on breaking down the parts in a sentence.

RoboMice.

We have also started investigating how to use simple coding to program a Robotic mouse to follow a path that leads it to a “piece of cheese.”

From 3-4 DC