Over these past 2 weeks we have had reason to consider our school and the great people who work here for the benefit of all the students at Karonga School.

Firstly: we have had parent representatives and cultural representatives join us in recruiting for 2 staff vacancies: a teacher position – vacated at the end of Term 1 (Liza West moved to Epping West), and an Assistant Principal position vacated when Samantha Butlin took a position at another school in Term 2. Both positions are currently at the interview stage and we hope to announce both appointments in the next newsletter!

Secondly: week 6 has been ‘SAS Appreciation Week’ where we acknowledge the great work that our School Learning Support Officers, office and support staff give to us all throughout the year. Teaching staff all brought in food this morning and put on a splendid breakfast to show their appreciation- bacon, sausages, eggs, tomatoes, yoghurt, fruit and muffins. It was a lovely opportunity to acknowledge their continued hard work. I know I speak on behalf of the whole Karonga community when I thank them for everything they do to keep Karonga delivering great programs.

Term 3 has been exceptionally busy for Room 2 so far.

We celebrated Education Week in Week 3 and it was lovely to have some parents visit our classroom. We have also marked NAIDOC week with activities to celebrate the history and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

During National Science Week we performed science experiments in the classroom. The students were engaged and showed interest in the visual presentation of our experiments. Investigating science activities, and recording our results will remain our focus in Science for this semester.

Most of Room 2 students have participated in the Premier’s Reading Challenge and have successfully completed it. Students are also excited about the upcoming book parade that will take place at school to mark Book Week. We have been reading books and doing activities to support our reading.

Room 2 students are also successfully participating in Premier’s Sporting Challenge. We have been consistent with our swimming and gym routines and have been consciously trying to keep active.

Our focus on Positive Behaviour for Learning continues and students have been displaying Kind, Safe and Learning behaviours throughout their school day. Students have been working towards waiting for their turn, staying with group during transitioning and making good choices.

Room 2 staff wish all the families a very Happy Father’s day weekend, celebrating dads or the special male person in their life.

Room 4 students have had a very productive term and we can’t believe that we are half way through! We are currently working on our Personalised Learning Plan goals. Jayden C. adores his hydrotherapy session in the school pool and also he is working towards improving his mobility skills using his walking frame. Brendan enjoys his community access program and loves looking and listening to his favourite books. Jayden F.  likes to use the Big Mac communicator for making choices and reading parts of stories. We are all quite excited to have Alkira, Matilda and Kaspar back at school with us in Room 4. Our students get very excited with Jann’s music therapy and have had excellent responses in the sessions. Our vision therapist has also been pleased with student responses.

In addition to our regular programs we made special cards, a canvas and a pen holder, for our dads and father-figures for Fathers’ Day and we have been learning about Indigenous culture to celebrate our upcoming NAIDOC week. Also, we are looking forward for our book week parade. The book we have chosen is titled “Pancakes Pancakes” by Eric Carle.

Both Kerrie and I are really proud of the progress our students have made so far this term. I am sure that Room 4 will continue to have a busy term 3.

Until next time,

Kamaldeep and Kerrie.

Room 14 have been engaged in constructing and painting bee hotels with Jennifer in the Science Lab. We have learned about the vital importance of bees in pollinating our beautiful native flowers and plants. In addition, we learnt that the bee hotels will function to help encourage the native, solitary bees into the garden.  During class, students have been extending their learning on bees through life cycle and labelling tasks. The students are also continuing to learn more about Australia’s diverse natural environments. We are working on a class powerpoint presentation on ‘Nudibranches’ or sea slugs found on the Great Barrier Reef. Some students have been involved in selecting images while others have helped to read and select content. We are looking forward to our upcoming art project - tie-dying shirts with rainforest and ocean colours!

It is an exciting time in the garden at the moment, students have been preparing garden beds and planting seedlings for the summer harvest. Room 11 students have planted lettuce and flowering annuals, Room 13 have planted a variety of tomatoes and zucchini, Room 12 have planted hanging baskets and Room 8 have planted chick peas.

Many students have been cooking with produce harvested from the winter garden. Rooms 7, 3 and 6 have cooked parsley pesto pasta and san choy bow using parsley, garlic, spring onions, silver beet and spinach grown in the garden.

Jennifer harvested about 2 kilograms of olives from the grove in March. This was our first harvest. Students preserved the olives in brine. Green cherry tomatoes were harvested in June. Students from Rooms 4, 5 and 14 prepared the vegetables for making a green tomato relish. The relish has been preserved in jars for the kitchen pantry. We have also made jars of lemon butter using eggs and lemons from school chickens and lemon trees.

Rooms 1 and 2 have enjoyed using garlic and rosemary from the kitchen garden to make margarita pizzas.

We had an amazing crop of pumpkins earlier in the year. Students made pumpkin pizza, pumpkin scones, pumpkin chutney, pumpkin pies…..Students are now preparing the seeds from those pumpkins for planting next term.

We look forward to harvesting a bumper crop of vegetables, herbs and cut flowers in coming months.

Happy gardening, Megan and Jennifer

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