Newsletter Term 1 Week 6

Principal's Report

Dear Community,

Welcome to the second edition of our online school newsletter! We certainly have had an interesting week here at St Joseph’s with the recent rains and flooding. A massive thank you for your understanding and flexibility with staff changes throughout the week with staff not being able to attend school.

Although this time has been frustrating for our community, being cut off etc, we spare a moment to send our thoughts and prayers to those who are going through extreme hardships at this time. A prayer for those affected by recent flooding:

“Gracious God, We pray for the victims of this disaster, Lord, that you would comfort the lives that were spared Lord, and that you would take care of those who perished.

Lord, please bless those who are doing everything they can to help these people and also make sure that things run smoothly in repairing this great community/State/Nation.

Please help the victims to have patience and also help family members to be reunited. Lord, I pray that you will ensure that the victims do not come under any illnesses from this disaster, and I also pray that they get enough food and clean water and proper shelter for everyone.

Lord, please touch the hearts of the world to continue to pray for these people and also to donate whatever they can to help rebuild this wonderful State.

Lord , only you can make miracles happen and we are asking for one now. Amen.

COVID Update- 

As was previously announced by the QLD Premier, as of Friday 6pm many restrictions across the state will be easing. This will include many restrictions affecting St Joseph’s.

As of next week-

• Masks will no longer be mandatory, but it is recommended they be worn when people cannot socially distance.
• QR Code sign in is no longer required.
• Restrictions on excursions, gatherings, assemblies etc will be removed.
• School will be able to attend church.
• Parents welcome to formal assemblies

To date, St Joseph’s has been relatively unaffected by COVID, unlike most schools. To help maintain this, we ask that parents please remain vigilant in monitoring students and keeping students with any symptoms home.

We also ask that parents continue to minimise unnecessary on-site visits to assist in keeping St Joseph’s COVID free.

Until next time,

God Bless,

Mr Lawson Short.

From the APRE

Hello Everyone,

We were very much looking forward to our Education Officer, Mrs Lee ann Weekes coming out this week to do some planning and modelling in our classrooms.  Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas and she was unable to make it.  We look forward to working with her in the coming weeks on Religion in the classrooms and making this more enganging for the students.

Our Mary MacKillop Award for the month of February will be presented at assembly this Friday.  As you are aware, we have been focussing on the value of 'Being Welcoming'.  I think we could almost give an award to everyone in the school, as all the students are so welcoming to each other, the staff and visitors to our school.

Our Opening school mass and induction of school leaders will be held next Friday 11^th March at 9:00am and will be followed by a shared morning tea. All are welcome to attend and we ask everyone to bring along something to share for moring tea afterwards.

Yesterday we celebrated Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.  During Lent, the students will learn all about the work of Caritas Australia, through the work of Project Compassion. Our Mini Vinnies club will be running some weekly events this term to raise money for Project Compassion.  Dates for all of these activities were sent home last week and are also outlined below in the 'Upcoming Events' section.  There has been a slight change to the Crazy Hair Day, as it was planned for Friday 25th March, which is the Toowoomba Show Holiday.

Pancake Toss, which was supposed to run on Tuesday, will now run next Wednesday 9th March. Parents are most welcome to attend, as Covid restrictions will be no longer!

It is with deep concern and heartbreak that we witness the military incursion of Russian forces into the sovereign nation of Ukraine. Violent conflict is never the answer to tensions between nations; reconciliation will not come by way of unjustified military imposition.

Despite Australia being such a long way away, nonetheless the prospect of war in Europe will impact not only on the innocent civilians of Ukraine, but on all who seek harmony between peoples.

May our own attention to the worrying development of conflict in Europe turn our hearts to prayer.

God Bless,

Michele

Parish News

Students of the Week

Upcoming Events

Prep/1

Wow! What an awesome two weeks we have had learning and making new friends. It is beautiful to see all these new friendships flourishing in Prep/One.

In English, we have been learning all about rhyming and retelling nursery rhymes. We have been having so much fun listening and learning nursery rhymes that some of us have never heard before. My nursery rhyme knowledge has definitely grown!

In Maths, the preps have been learning how to read, write and count numbers to 5. I have included some pictures of them learning how to write and identify the number 1. Year Ones are working on numbers to 100. We started learning about the hundreds board this week and the different patterns we can see. It’s been so interesting to see what patterns we can make with it and the strategies that are being used to help solve one with missing numbers.

In Health, we have been learning all about friendly and unfriendly behaviour. Two weeks ago, we painted a picture of what makes us happy. We had some awesome pictures that were painted! Last week we got to make our very own puppets and show good choices and bad choices with our puppets. It was very entertaining watching our puppet shows!

In Science, we learnt all about our teeth and what teeth we use to eat things. We got to eat an apple and watch ourselves as we bit and chewed it. It was definitely interesting to see what teeth they said they chewed with.

Prep/One have shown so much growth and dedication to their learning already! I can’t wait to see where this year takes us.

I hope everyone is staying safe and dry during this unpredictable weather and flooding!

Lauren Grant and Catherine Folker

Learning is Fun in Prep/One

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Year 2/3

Hi parents, friends, and St Joey’s community.

We’re only into our fourth week back in the classroom and the term keeps throwing further challenges our way!

I hope everyone was staying dry over the past week throughout all the flooding across the state. If anyone has friends or family affected by floods, we hope they are safe and dry.

I know in our class we have had discussions about flooding and how to stay safe and the students know how fortunate we are to be comfortable and dry in this difficult period.

While we have had multiple disruptions this term, we have still managed to maintain a high level of work. The students have enjoyed exploring creation stories in religion and how different religions might view them. We have been investigating numbers to 10,000 looking at place value and how we can represent these numbers in various ways. We have continued our book studies into a range of fiction texts and used this knowledge to inform a narrative writing tasks. The students also begun their mealworm investigations in science this week which they are super excited for!

It's safe to say we have been very busy so far this term. While we haven’t been able to participate in a range of extra-curricular activities and experiences this year, we did manage to celebrate Ash Wednesday yesterday with a liturgy in the afternoon. The students enjoyed celebrating the beginning of our Lenten period.

I hope everyone has a good couple of weeks and remains safe and dry.

Mitchell Albury

Meal Worm Fun

Year 4/5/6

Well it certainly has been an eventful few weeks! How wonderful to have some rain last week and over the weekend.  Unfortunately, it was a little over the top and we said goodbye to quite a few students early on Friday due to flooding.  Nevertheless, life and school goes on and so we did!

The students have really been enjoying 'The Malamander', the novel we have been studying in class over the last four weeks.  We are really starting to get a grasp on the characters and how they are growing and changing as the book goes on.  It is very exciting and intriguing and we can't wait to see what happens next!

In writing we have been learning all about how to use the five senses in our work to make the reader feel like they are actually in our stories.  There have been some fantastic stories about worlds of candy and some scary stories about zombie apocolypses!

In Maths, we are still focussing on place value and how this applies to everything we do in Maths.  The students enjoyed a number of games this week as we learnt about the properties of numbers.

Health has seen us focussing our attention on heros and role models and who these might be in our community and in our own lives.  In Art, we have enjoyed some indigenous art as well as trying our hand at blending colours together to create an appealing and eye catching bird.

Michele Sanders

Visual Art

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