Dear Parents & Carers,

The Principal’s Message comes in video form for you this week.

As we journey through the week together, with Jesus,

Toni Sillis

Principal

TERM 3 DATES:

 AUGUST:

• Monday 16 - Friday 20 August Science Week 

• Monday 23- Friday 27 August Book Week

 SEPTEMBER:

• Friday 3 september - Father’s Day Breakfast/Prayer & Stall TBC

• Monday 6 September Students return to wearing Summer Uniforms

• Friday 17 September  Jump Rope for Heart Day

• Friday 17 September  Term 3 Concludes

October:

• Friday 15 October Grandparents Day

Over the next 3 weeks students and families can look forward to being involved in:

Week 7: 

Book Week

Each week will have its own fun challenges & learning experiences to keep our students and community connected. We are looking forward to each of these themes over the coming weeks.

Brain Breaks are an important part of the learning day for students. Brain Breaks help to ease the cognitive load for children as they engage in learning tasks. Brain Breaks essentially aid a student’s cognitive wellbeing.

Brain breaks are simple physical and mental exercises. They have a positive effect on learning by:

• increasing engagement and cognitive functioning
• supporting the brain maturation process
• enhancing focus, mood and learning
• increasing students’ perceived competence
• improving classroom behaviour
• strengthening teacher-student relationships.

Furthermore, if the brain breaks are physical, they have the additional benefits of:

• increasing circulation
• increasing the oxygen in the bloodstream which leads to improved concentration
• allowing the students to get out of their chairs!

Wink Snap

1. Stand up.
2. Wink your left eye and snap your right-hand index finger and thumb at the same time.
3. Wink your right eye and snap your left-hand index finger and thumb at the same time.
4. Switch from left to right as fast as you can

Pen Flipping Brain Break

1. Take a pen and flip it one revolution. ​
2. Now do the same thing with your other hand.
3. Now get a pen for both hands and try to do both pens at the same time.
4. If you really are good at that, then try to throw the pens up into the air and catch them in opposite hands.  This is tough

Pressure Point Massage

1. Stand up straight.
2. Gently massage the pressure point between your thumb and pointer finger.
3. Switch hands after 30 seconds

Book Balance

1. Balance a book on your head.
2. Try to stand up, walk to the front door, walk back and sit down without dropping the book.

Pencil Jumps

1. Place a pencil on the floor and jump over forwards and backwards, 10 times.
2. Then jump 10 more times side to side

Thumb Pointing Challenge

1. Clench your left fist and give a 'thumbs up' sign.
2. With your right hand, keep your thumb tucked in and point your pointer finger directly at the raised thumb on the left hand.
3. Then switch positions, with the left pointer finger pointing at the right hand’s raised thumb.
4. Swap between these two positions and try to improve your speed and coordination

3 Hands, 7 Fingers

1. Find two other people to play this with (can be your family members or over video conferencing).
2. One of the players says, 'One. two, three, show!'
3. On 'show', each person holds out 0-5 fingers.
4. The aim is to have 7 fingers in total.
5. How many times do you have to do it to have exactly 7 fingers?
6. Once you do, play with both hands and try to get to 11!

My Day Mimes

You have 30 seconds to act out what you have done so far today – starting with waking. You must do this silently and see if anyone can guess what you did.

(Adpated from: https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/learning-from-home/wellbeing/wellbeing-at-home/general-information/brain-breaks)

Parental Pause:

Author & parenting specialist, Maggie Dent, shares this important message for parents - take a pause to ground yourself so you can give more back to your children.

We put the challenge out there and our Good Samaritan families accepted it! Thank you for supporting Family Week at Good Samaritan.

Family Challenge Day 1

Family Challenge Day 2

Family Challenge Day 3

Family Challenge Day 4

Family Challenge Day 5

There are 3 Challenges to do this week to recognise Science Week. The Learning Plans also have lots of investigations for the children to explore. Our School Captains and Vice Captains have also been motivating the exploration of all things Science this week. 

We are seeing some terrific experiments taking place at home - so much learning is happening! We are preparing a special segment in this week’s online assembly for Science Week.

First of all, congratulations to everyone who entered our Book Week poster competition before we entered this time of looking after each other and staying safe.

Highly commended - Alessia

Highly commended - Marcos   

Winner - Calli & Vienna

Next week is Book Week, a much loved and much celebrated part of our school community each year.  Even though life is a little different this year, it really fits the theme - “Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds.”   

Put those smiles on too,  we will still be completing various Book Week tasks and challenges throughout the week. 

Instead of doing a Book Parade we would like all students to create a mask ready for Thursday’s book character Zoom sessions in lieu of a Book Parade. A full face mask of your favourite book character, not to be confused with the masks we need to wear to stay safe.  Let’s call it a Zoom Book Parade. Mrs Cook will be creating Zoom sessions for each grade to join. We will still be having lucky Zoom prizes for each person who participates in this activity.

We will be doing Stage based Book Trivia for Stages 2 & 3 on Wednesday via Zoom.

There will be some family challenges via social media.

The Premier has been a little busy of late and has extended the due date for the Premier’s Reading Challenge.  It is so pleasing to see the students who have been reading at home and Kinder - Year 2 had finished the challenge before this term started.  The new date for the close of Premier’s Reading Challenge is 3rd September, so there is still time to get those reading logs updated and to have as many students as possible complete this challenge.