Welcome to winter! We have certainly had enough rain in the early days of winter to fill our rain water tanks. I would like to remind families that children are only to wear St John Bosco uniform pieces to school. If you are adding a skivvy or tights for warmth underneath uniform pieces please ensure they are the school’s bottle green colour. Our new St John Bosco School Soft Shell Jacket is available to purchase from Devon clothing online or in their new Henley Beach Road store. It may be a valuable addition for cold winter mornings.

I am pleased to welcome Matilda and her family to St John Bosco School, Matilda is in Rebecca Werner’s 1-2 class. Sara Hart our Assistant Principal Religious Identity and Mission (APRIM) is currently on four weeks Long Service Leave. In Sara’s absence we welcome Jhovana Fenu to our school as our Acting APRIM, Jhovana will be working on Monday’s and Thursday’s during the four weeks.

I would like to remind families that we have a Pupil Free Day on Tuesday 14th June. The teachers will be working with Lisa-Jane O’Connor a Mathematics Educational Consultant from Learning Journey’s. Our relationship with Lisa-Jane began at the beginning of 2020 with a focus on improving our teaching pedagogy within Mathematics.  If you require care for your child, please contact Mirella our OSHC Director mirella.tsimikilis@sjb.catholic.edu.au

We have been informed by Work Zone Traffic Control that Lipsett Terrace will be temporarily closed from 9:00am on Thursday 16th June 2022 to undertake work to the power lines. We thank you for your patience and cooperation during this time.

On Monday we celebrated World Environment with a Prayerful Gathering led by our Year 3-4 children. The children wrote a prayer that was one of the highlights of the gathering.

Creator God,

Thank you for this amazing world you have given us, please help us to look after it.

Thank you for the animals, our shelter, food, water and for the trees that help us breathe.

Thank you for our beautiful school and teachers, for those that care for and bless us.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to take care of our world and blessing us with this wonderful life.

Thank you for our beautiful school grounds that we learn and play on, please help us to care for it.

Please help us to be mindful of others and to care for those around us.

Thank you for all of our trees that provide us with oxygen, please help us to care for them so that future St John Bosco children can play on them and have clean air to breathe.

Help us to protect the sea and world by reducing, reusing and recycling our waste so that pollution in our world.

Thank you for our First Nations People who have and continue to care for nature and our environment, may we continue to work towards reconciliation.

Please help us in learning and respecting Indigenous stories, culture, history and spiritual beliefs, ensure that they continue to be shared and learned about for generations to come.

Thank you for the people who care for creation and clean up rubbish so that animals in the sky, land and sea don’t suffer from pollution.

Thank you for the land that we stand on today – lets care for this land, so that people can stand on it in the future.

Help us in spreading awareness of the importance of trees, help us to grow and nurture our trees that help us to breathe – let’s stop chopping trees down.

Let’s be mindful of all parts of God’s creation – let’s protect all living things, especially those that endangered – help us to save all of creation from extinction.

Help our world work together to have peace, harmony and a clean, beautiful world to live in.

Amen

Each class was asked by the Year 3-4 children to make a pledge on how they will as group of learners make a concerted effort to care for God’s creation. We invite you to check out our Facebook and Instagram page to check out our pledges.  

In 1-2R, the children have been investigating different kinds of ‘big’ and measurable attributes. Children eagerly experimented with balance scales to work out how heavy or light an object is. They worked out whether the mass of objects was more, less or about the same and how many gems were needed to balance an object, such as a pinecone or a pair of scissors. Finding what they thought was the lightest object in the room proved to be a fun challenge as the children worked collaboratively to reduce a rather large collection of ‘light’ objects to the lightest, by taking turns to select, heft and compare two items at a time.

I thought the paper would be the winner, but the butterfly was – Jordan

Jordan was surprised that the wooden butterfly was lighter than the paper.

Children also measured length using loose parts such as pop sticks, markers, string and plastic cubes. They found out how important it was to use units of the same size when comparing and ordering objects.

When you measure, you have to use the same one. You can’t use different ones
because they have to be the same – Zac

Zac compared a measurement made using a popstick and then a marker.

The use of our thumbs, hands and forearms as units of measure took us back in history as we replicated techniques used in ancient times. Experimentation with body parts to measure length also led to exciting discoveries, differences in findings, and theories about accuracy - all related to our own size… and length!

I have a small arm and yours is big. Mine can make more – Cooper

Cooper comparing his arm to Mrs. Werner’s.