Term 4 Week 5
Principal's Message
Scholarships
As part of the St Bernard's Church legacy, from the sale of the Church buldings, scholarships have been established. These scholarships can be awarded to Year 8 students who are moving on to Catholic colleges to pay for the first year of their attendance dues. This year's recipients are Natalie, who is off to St Mary's, and Vincent who is heading to St Patrick's. Congratulations to them both.
Brooklyn Festival
This coming Saturday we will be holding a stall at the Brooklyn Festival. The Festival runs from 2pm-9pm but the stall will run from 2pm-6pm. Our stall will sell baking, something that was very popular last year. Please can families donate baking for us to sell. I have some plastic bags that baking can be placed into, let me know if you would like me to send some home with your child. Baking can be dropped off at school on Friday or at the stall prior to the 2pm start on Saturday. If you are available to help man the stall for an hour or so on Saturday please let me know.
Our Room 4 students will also be performing on their guitars on the community stage.
Lisa
Faith News
Wednesday Mass
Please come and join Room 1, along with members of the parish, for Mass this Wednesday morning at 9am,
in Room 3.
Parish Newsletter
This week’s Parish newsletter is available here
Teacher Only Day - 15 November
Just a quick reminder this Friday 15 November, is a Teacher only day, so School will be closed. This day will be used to explore the new maths curriculum ready for 2025.
Brooklyn Library Visits
This term we will resume our termly visits to Brooklyn Library. If your child wishes to borrow a book during the visit they need to bring their personal library card with them. We will return books on the next visit if they are brought back in time. Books not brought on the day of the visit will need to be returned by yourselves. If you would like to leave your child's card in the classroom between visits then teachers will find a safe place to keep them.
Room 1: 13 November
Room 2: 20 November
Room 4: 27 November
Absences
If your child is sick or unable to attend school for all or part of the day, please either send a notification via the school app (skool loop), email the school office on office@stbernards.school.nz or phone 3899377 by 9.00 a.m. so that your child's absence can be accounted for.
Children who are late need to report to the office in case they have been marked absent by the teacher who takes the roll first thing in the morning.
If an absence is planned for a special reason, a note or telephone call to the school in advance is appreciated. In cases of prolonged absence, e.g. a family trip, a written note is required.
Room 1 Learning
Room 1 revisited the maori story ( pūrākau) of Ngake and Whataitai which tells of the two taniwha that lived in a lake in Wellington and how that lake became the harbour. We had drawn a story map and made stick puppets of the taniwha and as Ms Parsons read the story we acted it out using our puppets and the story map. After that the children worked in a group of 4 to take turns re-telling the sequence of the story. The story maps and puppets went home last week, so if you haven't heard the story from your child, ask them to tell you!
Room 2 Learning
Room 2 have been learning about pollinators as part of our science learning. We looked at the different parts of a flower, including the anther, filament, stigma, style, ovary, ovule, and pollen. We talked about different pollinators and their important roles in pollination. The class looked carefully at the difference between honey bees, wasps, and bumble bees. The danger of wasps towards honey bees and other insects was also discussed.
We then played a really fun interactive game to better understand the important role honey bees have in pollination. We used a yellow bouncy ball disguised as a honey bee as our pollinator and small sticky notes as pollen. The class sat in a circle and represented flowers. We each held a coloured sticky notes, which represented the different types of pollen from different types of flowers. The bee (bouncy ball) was passed around to different students and each time pollen (sticky notes) were exchanged. Afterwards we paired up the same coloured sticky notes we had (if we had any pairs) to represent our new seeds.
Room 4 Learning
Writing Prompts
This year in Room 4, the children have used writing prompts, as part of their independent writing. These prompts are a series of statements the children read and then write their responses to. The prompts are fictional situations and some are quite humorous. It is really intriguing to see what the children write in response to the prompts. Below are a selection of writing prompts and the children's responses. Some of the responses have been written recently, while others were completed earlier in the year.
Blake
Create your own supervillain. What are his/her powers? What are his/her weaknesses? What is his/her origin story?
Mr. Tax is the scariest supervillain in the world. His goal is to tax everybody in the universe. He is usually stopped by the government. He became a supervillain by falling into the big tub of taxes. His weakness is the U.S. government. Mr. Tax is taxing everybody, and certain people have to pay 99,000,000,000,000,000,000,
Clara
Do you think companies should be able to advertise on TV? Why?
I think it is good to advertise on television because people are most likely to see it and go to the store or company. I just wish that they had another good way to advertise. Whenever you're watching a movie or something on YouTube, you always get ads at the good or exciting parts, and it’s so annoying.
Erin
What would be the best day ever?
The best day would be when I am having a normal sleep and then my mum comes in and says, “We are going to the mall!” I love malls, literally any mall. No MATTER WHAT - “Queensgate or Porirua” - both are the best. I am obsessed with the mall when I can do some shopping. I LOVE eating the food there.
Inigo
10 facts I know to be true:
There are 60 seconds in a minute.
Food keeps you alive.
Sodas are fizzy because they are carbonated.
There are more than 8 billion people alive.
There were two world wars.
Nikola Jokic is from the Denver Nuggets.
Hong Kong has the biggest Disneyland castle.
Lebron James was born in Ohio.
The Philippines created banana ketchup.
MLB players made 5862 homeruns in 2023.
Riley
Describe your dream house.
My dream house is a nice, average sized house with two couches for guests, a bedroom with a TV on the wall and cool abstract paintings. The kitchen has marble walls and counters, a stainless steel fan extractor above the stove and a grey carpet. For the bathroom, it's marbled floors and the shower is one that can be handheld.
This term the Year 5 children from Room 2 are coming up to Room 4 on Tuesday afternoons while the senior children are at Technology. During this time, the Year 5 and 6 children have been exploring the Game of Awesome creative writing resource. Game of Awesome is a card game that encourages creative writing ideas to match different themes. It is all about encouraging children to be creative in their writing. One activity is when the children act out the ideas of the cards, using facial expressions, movements and props. Last Tuesday the children really enjoyed acting out story writing ideas. Below are pictures of Inigo and Joan in action!
Public Notices
Girls Smash is a fun cricket programme for girls only and is best suited to girls in school years 3-6.
Sessions involve activities and skills followed by a six a side game. The whole session takes about an hour and is held after school for six weeks. Our focus is learn-as-you-play, and every girl is supported to participate at their own level. All equipment is provided, no experience is necessary, and every participant receives a shirt!
Your local hub is at Wakefield Park next to the Turf. Sessions will be held on Tuesdays (5, 12, 19, 26, November and December 3 and 10) from 4.00-5.00pm.
Participants can register here
If you have any questions please contact sarah@cricketwellington.co.nz