Book Club orders: - Due Monday 23 March 2020

Last week the students took home their Issue 2 Scholastic Book Club brochures. Please be reminded that Good Samaritan accepts online Book Club orders ONLY through Scholastic's LOOP site (ie. no cash orders through the school office).

Thank you to our parents who have already placed their online orders.

Ordering through LOOP is easy - register at scholastic.com.au/LOOP and follow the prompts. 

The deadline for all LOOP orders is Monday 23 March 2020.

There is no need to return any paper forms to the school. Your child's books will be sent to their classroom when the orders arrive.

Premier’s Reading Challenge

Most students in Years 4-6 have been given their log in details to access their personal reading log on the Premier’s Reading Challenge Site.  Next week’s lessons will see the remainder of the students being given theirs. We are having some technical difficulties with some Year 5 students and are working with the organisers of the Premier’s Reading Challenge to fix them.  This should be no barrier for students to put their best reading efforts together though as they can record any books read and add them when we have solved the problem.

Some classroom teachers have made the decision to make this reading challenge compulsory and not extra reading but the students home reading of 20 - 30 minutes each evening can be to support them with this challenge.

Digital Citizenship

Mike Ribble is a well known author and advocate of digital citizenship practices globally.  He established that there are 9 elements of digital citizenship that individuals need to be aware of and understand so that they can be effective, respectful, responsible and safe on the Internet.  

It is really important that students begin to be responsible and commit this information to memory.  It is easy to use fingerprint ID, or save password on their devices but if they are without their device and need to access certain apps / websites for learning at school they are unable to. It then takes time to track down the information required and some students are losing valuable learning time. The offline analogy could be that if you go to the bank and you forget your PIN at the ATM, you can’t have people waiting in the line behind you while you try to find where you stored it.  There are also benefits to brain development when we train our brain to remember things.

Year 1 and 2 have made some great learning about the need for balance between screentime (being online) and being offline.  They have also come to realise that balance does not mean the same amount of time but rather listening to your body and knowing some of the signs your body gives you to say, “ Hey, let’s go offline now.”

Year 3  have been learning about the difference between being online and offline and the importance of having an adult aware of where they are on the Internet.  Expectations of being safe, responsible and respectful are the same online and offline but the consequences of inappropriate choices or behaviours are longer lasting online.

Years 4 - 6 are now at the point of applying their learning by connecting with students from Illinois through an app called Flipgrid.  If you would like to know more about this, there was information in the newsletter two weeks ago with links. Students who are not permitted to have photographs taken will not be able to participate in this activity and alternative activities will be set for them.

Thank you and Good News Stories

Thank you to our parent helpers who have started the book covering process for the year.  We have a few more boxes ready to go out and are very grateful for your assistance in getting this job done.

Thank you to Chloe Olima who has joined her friends in making sure our library bins are emptied each day. Thank you to Riley Bowyer who assisted me this week by picking up books that had been left on the floor and chairs during borrowing time and began putting them away without being asked. Also, another stand out moment of gratitude for me was last Thursday when it was raining and I didn’t have my umbrella at school, Taylah Foster and Emme-Grace Burke came to my rescue and told me I shouldn’t be walking in the rain and held their umbrellas over me so I could get to the Canteen and back to the library.These students are great examples of the values of kindness and generosity to me.