Dear Families & Friends,  

As staff continue to implement routines in the Berry Street Education Model, we do ask that parents ensure students in all year groups are punctual to class in the morning. Classroom doors open at 8:30am, with welcome routines starting at 8:45am. These morning routines use greetings, positive primers and announcements to assist the children to start the day by feeling welcomed, safe and ready to learn, so it is important that students are in attendance and settled during this time. 

We hope everyone had a fabulous weekend celebrating with the wonderful women in their lives. It was lovely to see the Primary students, their mothers and families visit the classrooms to complete Mother’s Day activities and share in a picnic lunch last week. Many mums went home with newly painted nails and special crafts! 

On Wednesday, the Pre-primary classes visited the Perth Zoo to explore living things and what they need to survive. They came back filled with information and stories about the animals they saw. Over the past week, I have also been lucky enough to join in their classroom activities and hear the inquiry questions they are using to build their knowledge. I can’t wait to see how they showcase their learning. 

God moments: 

• Visiting the Little Joeys, playing with the glitter playdoh and watching the new artificial grass being installed. 
• Playing Numero with Year 3 and Year 4 students and seeing them improve their strategic thinking so quickly.
• Visiting Year 5 at the end of each week to sing along to their ‘Fun Friday’ music. 
• Celebrating many student successes with staff as we start to unpack our school data leading up to reports at the end of term. 
• Singing ‘My Lighthouse’ with the choir and trying to learn their actions to the words
• Meeting many wonderful mums and families at our Mother’s Day picnic. 

Linley Waters
Head of Primary

Class in Focus: Kindy Gold

During the first few weeks of Term 2, Kindy Gold has been exploring rain and the water cycle.

We learnt all about the story of Noah's ark and how it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and made beautiful murals to illustrate the story. We did an experiment that showed how it rains, by using shaving cream as the clouds and coloured dye for the rain, and then made a cool rain painting.

We also explored how a rainbow is formed with water and sunlight. We used a glass of water and a torch to make a rainbow and painted rainbows on our ark mural.

Lastly, we talked about storms and what you see and hear during a storm. We were very lucky to see and hear a storm at school and we drew pictures to show what a storm would look like and finger-painted muddy puddles for Peppa Pig.

For the rest of the term, we will be going 'under the sea' and learning all about the creatures that live there. We started by making an ocean in a bottle.

As always, we have been busy exploring our indoor and outdoor environments and learning through play. We also loved it when our mums visited, and we got to paint their fingernails!

What do we know about the Noahs Ark Story?

• Pippa - He sent out a dove.
• Isla – He sent a rainbow to say the flood is all gone.
• Darcy – They wanted to keep the animals safe.
• Cleo – There is a boat.
• Gus – There is a rainbow.
• Harrison – Every single animal went in the ark.
• Iris – It rained for 40 days and 40 nights and he sent out a bird.
• Madison – God told him to build a boat and he built it and he put all the animals in the boat because it was going to rain.
• Delta – When the flood comes, he saved the animals.

Rhonda Oliver
Kindy Gold Teacher

Year Five Kings Park Excursion

The Year Five students, teachers and education assistants are buzzing with excitement after our visit to Kings Park on Friday of Week 3 this term. The sights seen and discussions that we engaged in connected our school curriculum to the real world in a myriad of ways, leading to curiosity about plants and their features, land ownership and dispossession and even different ways to measure time! 

In small groups, we enjoyed solidifying our understanding of adaptations of plants from our focus of biological science last term. We sketched a variety of flora and discussed their structural features and how these help each plant to survive in its environment. We also enjoyed learning about Gija Jumulu - a giant boab tree which is estimated to be 750 years old and was transported 3200km from Warmun in the Kimberley region of our state down to Kings Park in 2008.

Additionally, our excursion provided us with an opportunity to reflect on the impact of war and the service of the ANZAC soldiers past, present and future. We discussed how war impacts the soldiers, families and the economy, making links to Religious Education and Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) as we went.  

We took a break for lunch and admired the busy city and the beautiful scenery while sharing how the place that we were in - Perth city, may have changed since it was first established. This discussion linked with our current focus in HASS - Colonial Australia.

After a chat and full bellies, Miss Armarego, Mrs Sullivan, a couple of parent helpers and many Year Five students walked the Kokoda Track Memorial Walk - a walk which pays tribute to the to the bravery of Australian troops who fought in Papua New Guinea in WWII. The walk consists of 300 steps (return) and has a vertical rise of 62m. Many students commented on how fit the soldiers must have been to climb similar terrain during WWII. With tired legs and reflective hearts, we boarded the bus back to school to end Week 3 of the term.

We would like to thank all the parent helpers who volunteered their time and enthusiasm for our excursion and contributed to a memorable day.

Krystal Armarego
5 Blue Teacher

Primary Cross-Country Carnival

The St Joseph’s Cross-Country Carnival for students in Years 1-6 will take place on Friday 24 May at the Primary Campus. All students from Years 1-6 will need to wear their Sports Uniform on the day.

The race times below are approximations only and the distances will not be exact.

Cameron Watson
Primary Physical Education Coordinator