St John’s Lutheran Community Kindergarten Adventures

We have had a very busy time at Kindy this month.  We welcomed Ms Linderberg (Music / Japanese), Mr Higgins (P.E) and Miss Alicia and Miss Gay (Church Representatives) to the Kindergarten who have been sharing their time with us.

Ms Linderberg joins us on a Thursday and Friday and has been teaching us Japanese and Music.  Ms Linderberg makes this fun for us and we can now count to 5 in Japanese and we are learning some animal names in Japanese also.  In music we have been having fun with nursery rhymes and puppets.

Thursday is lots of fun when Mr Higgins takes us into the school for P.E.  We were able to explore the obstacle course and school playground and extend on developing and challenging our gross motor skills.  We got to balance, jump and crawl and I our favourite experiences were the mini trampoline and being able to explore the school playground.

Miss Alicia and Miss Gay from the Church join us every Friday morning.  They have been teaching us about the seven days of Creation in the lead up to the Lent and Easter.  We will continue to follow this each week and this will lead into our Easter program that we provide here at Kindy.

We have been developing our friendships with all of our new friends and educators, building relationships that will continue to form and grow throughout the year.  We have been offering a variety of experiences that assist us in developing our fine motor skills such as playdough, pegs and tweezers. These types of activities help to strengthen our small muscles and build the skills required to hold a pencil.  Without these skills the children will not have the ability to hold a pencil which will affect their ability to draw and write.

Year 4 Mon Repos Environmental Camp

Did you know that hatchlings have tiny, round belly buttons on their under bellies where they used to be connected to their egg yolks?! Also, did you know that they move towards light and that they clamber over each other to get out of their tight little nest. Well, this is what we discovered last Wednesday evening as we visited the world-famous Mon Repos Turtle Centre on our beautiful coastline close to Bundaberg.

After a 20 minute trip from school, we arrived at the Elouera Guide Campsite.  We unpacked our things quickly. The girls glamped in the bunkhouse while the boys camped in real tents. After settling in, we played handball, had lunch and played some group games with Mr Bakker. Next we broke up into groups for our fun and sandy but environmentally friendly beach activities. Our favourite activities were building turtles in the sand and doing some art. We tried to find micro plastics in the sand, but alas, Mon Repos did not have many. A few sharp eyes spotted one or two little pieces of plastic in the sand.

Scrumpdelijumptious (Caius’ word) Pizzas from Domino’s gave us energy for our long but rewarding walk to the Mon Repos Turtle Centre. On this walk, we spotted Bush Turkeys. We were ecstatic to discover that as soon as we reached the Mon Repos Turtle Centre there were some hatchlings on the beach just waiting to emerge.

This is where we discovered the belly buttons on the little hatchlings. We led these babies to the water with our bright torch lights. Some little hatchlings even walked over our feet as we stood quietly watching them crawl to the water. We also saw Ranger Sahara dig up an old nest to save hatchlings that might have got stuck. This experience was quite smelly as there were a few dead hatchlings in the old nest. At the Turtle Centre we learnt much more about turtles in the activity room and saw three short movies. The movie theatre had real sand and we spotted a huge ghost crab in the centre. This was less scary than the green frogs and toads in our showers back at camp. Before going to bed, which was long past our normal bedtime, we had some milo and lamingtons.

Sleeping was a bit challenging. Most people had quite a bit of sand in their beds and sleeping in the tents was very noisy, there was a flapping of tents and lots of snoring. The bunkhouse was not much better with all the snoring and bright exit light which was on all night.

After a short night of sleep and a huge breakfast we went to the beach for an exciting swim. We jumped over the waves, did some body surfing, piggy-back riding and some of us even got ourselves buried in the sand.

Back at camp, we had a sausage sizzle, we packed up our things and then played some games on the large logs under the shady eucalyptus trees. After some more snacks and packing up, we wearily hopped onto the bus and arrived back at school – we were exhausted. We had some free time when we got back before it was time to go home.

We learned that we need to keep our lights off or dimmed during the turtle season as turtles are very sensitive to lights. Trying to use less plastic will also help our special turtles. We also learned that we are much loved and have adults who enjoy seeing us have fun and learn new things.

Joint Construction Year 4

There was more excitement over the last 2 weeks in Year 2 as our 6 caterpillars turned into chrysalises.  We were lucky enough to be in the classroom to see this amazing process happen for 2 of the caterpillars.  8 days later we had 6 beautiful monarch butterflies.

We observed and studied the butterflies for 3 days before releasing them into the wild to begin their life cycle again.

Student Awards

THE POWER OF PRAYER

There are many books which seek to encourage Christians to pray by teaching the power of prayer. Recently I read the following: “If the lust for political power leads to corruption, the lust for spiritual power leads to damnation’. Pretty strong words aren’t they. But they do remind me of essence and indeed the power of prayer. Prayer is conversing with God. Speaking and listening to Him. To listen to God is to first and foremost read His word. There are many forms of prayer including PRAISE, INTERCESSION, CONFESSING and ASKING.

For me personally, the power of prayer comes as I consider God, His will for my life and that He loves me. Prayer reminds me of who I am and who God is and what God asks me to do. I pray to our Father in heaven through His Son Jesus Christ that you too are encouraged in your daily prayer life.

Cheers,

Pastor Greg

NAPLAN Online 2021

Federal, State and Territory Education Ministers agreed that all schools will gradually transition from the current paper-based NAPLAN to NAPLAN Online in order to provide a better and more precise assessment that is more engaging for students.

State and Territory education authorities will determine when their schools move online. The current plan is for all schools to transition to NAPLAN Online by 2022. St John’s will be participating in NAPLAN online this year.

One of the main benefits of NAPLAN Online is tailored (or adaptive) testing, in which the test presents questions of higher or lower complexity depending on a student’s performance.

Tailored (or adaptive) testing is designed to assess a wider range of student abilities and to measure student achievement more precisely.

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) assesses literacy and numeracy skills that are essential for every child to progress through school and life.

Students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 participate in the annual NAPLAN tests in reading, writing, conventions of language (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy.

The assessment provides parents and schools with an understanding of how individual students are performing at the time of the tests. NAPLAN is just one aspect of a school’s assessment and reporting process – it does not replace ongoing assessments made by teachers about student performance.

Parents with students in Years 3 and 5 will receive more information via email this week regarding this years NAPLAN tests. We respectfully ask that parents rearrange any appointments or events so that NAPLAN testing days are not interrupted for your child. These tests will take place between 11-13 May.

This information has been taken from the NAPLAN assessment program website. More information for parents can be found at: https://www.nap.edu.au/naplan/parent-carer-support

LOTS OF SOCKS DAY

What’s it all about?

The #LotsOfSocks campaign exists to raise awareness of Down syndrome.

#LotsOfSocks help us to get people talking on World Down Syndrome Day (WDSD), Sunday 21 March 2021.

At St John’s we will be raising money for the Down Syndrome Queensland association and raising awareness in our school community about Down Syndrome on Friday the 19^th of March. A letter will come out shortly with more information.

ACTING WITH PURPOSE AND CHARACTER

With the year now settling into something of a routine, I am re-visiting several school-specific documents which are due for review through the year. In each instance, one of the foremost guiding principles is to consider how each such document reflects our mission and associated goals and values. So, a certain amount of circumspection leads me to sharing the following ….

A young American Indian boy came to his grandfather full of anger at a friend whom he thought had done him an injustice. The old grandfather said to his grandson,

“Let me tell you a story, because hate wears you down, but does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die.”

He continued… “It is as if there are two wolves inside you. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him and does not take offence when no offence is intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way. But the other wolf! Ahhh! He is full of anger. The littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger will change nothing. Sometimes it is hard to live with these two wolves inside you, for both of them try to dominate your spirit.”

The boy looked intently into his grandfather’s eyes and asked… “Which one wins, grandfather?”

The grandfather smiled and quietly said… “The one you feed.”

What a powerful story! One that any parent could, and should, share with their children. It exemplifies the very essence of choices and consequences; it is about values and respect. These are not simply words that have been bandied around so often as to be devalued or of little significance; they are the foundation of what is good and desirable in our society. As one would expect, our family units and our schools, together, are the custodians of these traits, and this is factual regardless of whether society governs our home and school life or, alternatively, the combination of parents and teachers lead society.

Students must be allowed to recognise that a balanced and fulfilling life is based on making informed choices and moving forward with the consequences that become attached to the choices made. It is an imperative of anyone associated with the education of young people to teach them to make decisions and to ensure they are prepared to accept the fall-out from those decisions. This is easier said than done in a world that seems inexplicably focused on apportioning blame to someone else, anyone else but self, in fact, and resorting to negative actions if the end result is not one they had a personal preference for.

Values and respect are not instinctive or bestowed. These are qualities that are learned from imitating good role models and enacting behaviours that warrant endorsement. For students the good role models are their parents and teachers. One cannot ignore the pressure of peers; however, they also have parents and teachers as their sources of character building. What to value evolves from living in a culture that appreciates that certain things are essential to the continued existence and freedoms of that community. Whilst these may vary somewhat, there exist certain almost inalienable standards and social expectations for our students.

This is why I am a teacher. I embrace the professional and personal obligation with being a person capable of influencing value-laden choices taken by children. I rejoice in those who take extra steps to serve, to care and to connect with one another, to demonstrate the Christ-centredness that makes St John’s special. I am thankful every day for the times when patience is shown, trust is afforded, learning achieved, and optimism displayed.

Elements of this article cited with permission.

Grace and Peace,

Chris Mallett

PRINCIPAL