THIS WEEK AT M.P.S.

Wednesday 14th October

Sport meeting, 9.40am

Preparation for

Puberty Gr 5 and 6

Friday 16th October

Friday Fundraiser

Assembly - Star class

is 5/6B

Sunday 18th October

Maldon Show - go along and view the

M.P.S. artwork

Monday 19th October

T20 Cricket Gr 5 and 6

Newsletter No 30

October 12th, 2015

UPCOMING EVENTS

Wednesday 21st October

Market Day meeting 9.40am

Wednesday 21st October

Wellbeing Committee meeting

1.30pm

Wednesday 21st October

School Council 6.30pm

Sunday 25th October

Working Bee

Saturday 31st October

Market and Fair fundraiser

Thursday 12th November

Prep late night stay and Grade 1

sleepover

Thursday 26th November

Shopping Spree fundraiser

Friday 4th December

Whole school Circus performance

Principal’s Chat

On Saturday our school was the official school for the Old Castlemaine

School Boys 100th Year Reunion in their 103 year history. At the

celebrations, our student representatives, Holly and Nicholas, accepted

a very generous donation of $2,100 in cash and $200 worth of

books for our library.

The celebrations began when 160 people came in on the steam train

from Castlemaine. We served up afternoon tea and had some

interesting conversations. Many thanks to staff, Danica and Debbie,

and parents, Trish and Kylie, who came along and helped out on the

day. Also thank you to Nicole for organising the food for afternoon tea.

The Old Castlemaine School Boys also gave us a book that outlines the

history of the association. It is available to borrow from the office if you

are interested.

Some information that I found interesting was:

In 1923 it was moved that a scholarship be endowed annually to each of the districts primary schools within a 7 mile radius of Castlemaine.

In 1973 the Faraday school was closed after the kidnapping of the head mistress and pupils.

In 1974, it was decided that the nominated school for that year would receive a sum of money and books on the day of the reunion and the other schools would receive books in December. The nominated school would receive 150 pounds and books to the value of 100 pounds. The other schools would receive books to the value of 100 pounds.

We also received an additional letter and $100 donation from Vera

Stewart (nee Kinross) on behalf of the Kinross Family for our school

library.

A letter from Vera stated that the cheque was from the Kinross family

as all the children of John James Kinross and Beatrice May Jessie went

to Maldon Primary school. They commenced at our school in 1920 and

continued through to the middle of the 1940’s, then another generation

came through from 1960 to 1980. Vera wanted the money to be spent

wisely on books for our library and she said ‘thank you for being such a

good school’.

We look forward to adding books to our school and class libraries with

the donated funds.

Excellence, Integrity, Resilience, Respect

Just a reminder that our Market Day and biggest fundraiser for the

year is coming up in 3 weeks. A big thank you to the families who

have volunteered their time. We still desperately need families to return

their form and volunteer their time. We have 74 families in the school

and at this stage only 23 have put their name down to help. If you

haven’t returned your form, then please do so this week. We really

appreciate and value your support and it is important to remember that

all the money raised goes to supporting your child’s education.

Our committee is working very hard to ensure that everything is

organised for the day to run smoothly and we rely heavily on your

support on the day. We are only asking for 1 or 2 hours of your time.

Our classroom teachers have provided an overview for this term –

it is certainly going to be very action packed in the lead up to Christmas!!

The overviews can be found under “What’s happening in the

classroom?” below.

Warm regards Jodie

What’s happening this week?

Jodie is attending a Principals Forum all day next Monday.

What’s happening in the classroom?

Positive behaviour awards:

L to R: Liam W, Tarkyn, Cheyenne, Grace and Sophie

Birthdays

L to R: Xavior, Claire, Fin, Liam G

Creativity award - Henry

Henry has drawn a pigeon and

carefully painted it. Well done!

Healthy Hero award-Erem

Chook award - 2/3H

Come along cup - P/1B

Paper work for new enrolments for 2016 should be completed and submitted to the office as soon as possible to enable planning for 2016 classes to commence. Enrolment packs are available from the office. Any families who are not continuing at the school in 2016 are also asked to contact the office immediately so that student numbers for 2016 can be finalised.

Maldon Show artwork: All students have had a piece of artwork entered in the Maldon Show which is on this

Sunday. Take the family along and have a look at all the amazing artistic talent we have at the school! Family

tickets are just $20 and include rides and loads of free activities for the kids! Show hours are 9am to 4pm.

Danica’s class overview: This term we are very excited to be holding our own market day stall. We are doing lots

of real life learning by working out costs, prices and profits, and advertising. We have been designing plans,

making prototypes and we are looking forward to launching our production line this week. If you can help with

donations of scrapbooking items, wooden pegs, balloons or flour please pop in to our room or leave donations at

the office.

Our writing focus for this term is instructions and explanations which fits in nicely with our market day learning. We

will be writing instructions about how to make stress balls and decorative, magnetic pegs! We are also making use

of our email accounts to communicate within our teams. We have been thinking and learning about how to stay

cyber safe and how to use our email accounts appropriately. We are also learning how to send and receive files,

organise our files into folders and develop our publishing skills.

We are continuing to enjoy the Blitz Masters challenge and will be working hard on times tables this term. This

term we will also cover four topics in numeracy including:

Fractions and decimals

Time and temperature

Length, area and capacity

Data, graphs and probability.

Our inquiry will focus on The First Fleet, convicts and early explorers and will involve an independent research

task. This will certainly be another very busy term!

Brett’s class overview: Term 4 sees us investigating Earth’s place in space and exploring questions such as

‘How is Earth a part of a system of planets?’ Later in the term we’ll also be focusing on how electricity works. We

will be focusing on electrical circuits where students will explore actual circuits, design their own and write

instructions to build them.

Remembrance Day is just around the corner and we will continue our learning about Australia’s fight for freedom,

particularly in the First World War which sees 2015 being 100 years since the landing at ANZAC Cove in Gallipoli.

In the lead up to Remembrance Day students will interact with the local community and be involved in a writing

competition run by the Maldon RSL.

Students will also be involved in the Preparation for Puberty program this term where they will gain a greater

understanding of the biology of their bodies.

We’ll continue to enhance our reading skills through our CAFÉ reading program, focus on procedures, recounts

and narratives in writing, cover location & transformation, patterns & algebra, time & data & graphing as part of our

numeracy curriculum and continue with our emphasis on automatic response through the Blitz Masters program.

Term 4 also sees Grade 5/6 designing and publishing the school magazine for all students to enjoy. Once again

sporting opportunities will be available including a district T20 cricket carnival and if that isn’t enough…we will be

saying farewell to our Grade 6 students at their Graduation Dinner in the last week of term where movies

showcasing the highlights of their time at Maldon P.S. will be shown! Bring on a jam packed but exciting term 4!

John’s class overview: This term grade 1/2 John will be spending time with Helen’s class exploring the topic

‘Healthy Lifestyles’. This will involve learning how to be healthy through the food we eat, through exercise and

through controlling our own emotions. In the second half of the term we will head outside and search for

mini-beasts around the school to study and learn about.

Throughout our literacy learning we will have a daily focus from the CAFÉ Reading Program, covering

Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency and Extending Vocabulary.

Our writing focus will be writing explanations to tell our audience how something works or why it happens. We will

also work hard to continue improving our spelling and handwriting.

Maths will involve multiplication, graphs & chance, numbers and place value to 1000 and using money. We are

also spending two days a week beginning to learn our times tables.

It would be great to hear about the kids practicing their maths at home and having fun applying what they have

learnt.

I’m looking forward to a fun and super busy term 4 in our class.

Helen’s class overview: This term grade 2/3H will be working with John’s class to learn about how to stay

healthy and safe at school, at home and in the wider community. We will also be having lots of fun learning about

different minibeasts we find in the school yard by investigating how they move, feed and protect themselves.

In literacy, we will be focusing on writing explanations which tells the audience how or why something happens,

as well as writing some creative stories. We will be continuing to focus on the four main areas of comprehension,

accuracy, fluency and expanding vocabulary in our daily reading block. Spelling will continue to be part of our

every day timetable.

In maths, our class will be learning about multiplication, division, measurement, making graphs, chance and

probability as well as learning about money. Phew! We will be having lots of fun continuing to learn our times

tables and number facts so that we know them off by heart. It would be great if you could encourage your child to

learn these at home.

It’s going to be yet another busy term by the looks of it!

Bernadette’s class overview: This term in Prep our inquiry is investigating family celebrations, and how

different cultures around the world celebrate. We will have people from lots of cultures come and share some

information about the special things they celebrate. If you would like to come and visit us to share some of your

cultural celebrations we would love to listen to you. If you have a neighbour or a friend who is Indigenous, has

come from another country, or whose parents have come from another country please come and see Bernadette

to arrange a time to visit.

Later in the term we will be investigating what materials everyday things we see and use are made of.

In reading we are continuing our work with the CAFÉ menu. Please come and see our notice board to check

what strategies we are working on each week.

In writing we are focusing on narrative, instructions and poetry. We are trying to hear all the sounds in words

when we write, use high frequency words, full stops and capital letters.

In maths we are collecting data and making graphs, investigating number patterns ie. skip counting by 2s, 5s and

10s, and making subtraction stories.

Mary’s Performing Arts class overview: This term all students will continue to develop their skills in Music,

Dance, Drama and Circus.

The junior kids will continue to learn enjoyable play-based songs along the lines of the developmental repertoire,

whilst Grade 3-4 will continue to develop their notation reading and instrumental skills on tuned percussion and

recorder as well. We will have exciting performance outcomes this term as follows:

CIRCUS

Later in the term the kids will have a Circus performance where they dress up as clowns and perform some

outstanding circus tricks for a parent audience. The date will be December 4th.

MUSIC COUNT US IN

All Maldon Primary students will participate in Music Count Us In. Music Count Us In involves students from

participating schools across the nation, uniting to sing the same song at the same time - Thursday, October

29th

at 12:30pm.

Music Count Us In is Australia’s biggest school initiative, with more than 500,000 participating students from over

2100 schools nationwide. Music Count Us In highlights the value of music education in primary schools. It brings

together music industry professionals with students who are selected for their song writing talents, to write a new

song each year. This year the students worked with mentors, Marcia Hines and Tom Diesel.

This year’s song is called ‘Gold’ and it is an inspirational song about coming together to enjoy life and

music. Maldon Primary students will enjoy watching the live telecast of the nationwide event from school. Parents

are welcome to come along and enjoy the event. Our students are currently combining their ideas to choreograph

a dance to accompany the song. Music Count Us In also provides a good opportunity to explore the song writing

and recording process.

If you are interested in finding out more about MCUI 2015, then check out the website: https://

musicaustralia.org.au/program/countusin/ You can sing along to ‘Gold' at home: https://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZtG9wUdyVk

Parents are always welcome in the music room! Come anytime and check out what we are up to.

Young Leaders Friday FUNdraiser

Please leave orders with your classroom teacher.

Available each Friday are: Homemade Sausage rolls $2.50, Juice

Box $1.50, Popcorn $1.00

Young leaders:

We are the Animal Rangers. We award the “Golden Chook” award every two weeks. We

have tickets for the class who wins. We also make sure that the chooks are being looked

after, promote native animals, build native habitats to attract native animals to our school and

so much more. We asked some children what they enjoyed about their visit to the chook shed

and they said:

I liked the rooster because he had a big fluffy tail -Essie

I liked the black chook because she was very fast- Ed

Office Info

Term 4 Netbook instalment due: Families of students in Grades 4-6 who have elected to pay their netbook

fee in instalments are reminded that the term 4 payment is now overdue. Please make this payment to the office

a.s.a.p.

Permission notes to be returned:

Grade 5/6 T20 Cricket permission slip and payment to be returned by this Thursday 15th October.

Grade 3/4 T20 Cricket permission slip and payment to be returned by this Thursday 15th October.

School Community

Market Day: The big day is drawing closer and closer - Saturday 31st October - if it isn’t in your diary mark

it in now!

Cake Stall

Bake please - We need as many cakes, biscuits, muffins and sweet or savoury items as we can get to sell on the day. If you have a spare moment remember nearly everything can be frozen and the freezer at school is waiting to be filled. We will also be running a devonshire tea through out the day so please bake and donate scones, scones, scones!!!

Fresh Orange Juice Stall

Donate please - Bryan - Hugh’s dad- is kindly running a drinks stall for us and will contribute profits back to the school. To help him make the best juices he can, and more profits, if anyone has a citrus tree and can donate excess fruit please deliver oranges, lemons, limes and mandarins to the school before Market day. Donations can be left at the office Any fruit not sold at Market day will be sold at future markets that Bryan attends and the profits will keep coming in for our school.

Volunteers

Come and have fun please - more volunteers are needed for the day - helping on the food stall, at the cake stall, at the gate and selling raffle tickets. The more help we have the easier and more fun it is for everyone and remember volunteers receive a free lunch.

Raffle tickets

If you are yet to sell your book/s of raffle tickets please do so a.s.a.p. and return the tickets and money to the

office. All books, including unsold books, must be returned to the office.

Donations of items for 4D’s stall

4D are holding a stall to raise funds on Market Day. They are looking for donations of balloons, flour, wooden

pegs and scrapbooking embellishments to create the articles they will be selling. Donations can be left at the

office.

Fresh Fruit Friday:

This week’s volunteers are: Millie Ousley and Matt McEachran

Next week’s volunteers are: Rebecca Hamilton and Anita Mason

What’s happening in the school yard? Remember to mark our working bee on Sunday October 25th in your diary. The working bee will run from

10am to 12pm and will be targeted at preparing the school grounds for Market Day.

Sport News

Extra curricula catch up Music lessons:

Community

Community continued