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THE FEAST OF THE ASCENSION
This coming Sunday we will celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord (the day when Jesus went to heaven). Not that many years ago we traditionally celebrated the Ascension of the Lord on a Thursday, exactly forty days after Easter Sunday. It has since been moved in Australia and elsewhere to the 7th Sunday of Easter.
In marking the Ascension on the fortieth day of the Easter season, the church took literally Luke’s account of events in Acts 1:3. Liturgical history indicates that the Lord’s ascension and the giving of the Holy Spirit were originally celebrated together on the solemnity of Pentecost. It was not until the end of the fourth century that the Ascension became a separate feast from Pentecost. Celebrating the Ascension on a Sunday of Eastertime helps give this solemnity its rightful position. The Ascension is not a farewell nor a time of sadness at Jesus’ departure from this world. Like every Christian festival, the Ascension celebrates the on-going presence of the risen Christ in our midst.
Enjoy your week and the moments of grace that may come your way as you strive to make Christ your way and life.
Mrs Tina Murray
Principal
NATIONAL FAMILIES WEEK WEBINAR SERIES
To celebrate National Families Week CatholicCare is running a five-part webinar series to celebrate family and make the most out of family life. Each webinar will have a different focus.
Family Resilience - Understand what a resilient person and family looks like, and how you can build resilience within yourself and your family.
Family Values - Understand what values are and why they are important. By identifying our family values, we can better understand and connect.
Family Connection - With our lives so busy we can struggle to keep connections within our family, learn why connection is important and how to sustain or build family connections
Family Self-Care - Learn why self-care is so important and how looking after ourselves, has a flow-on effect on the whole family.
Family Mindfulness - Learn what mindfulness is and the benefits it provides, not just for ourselves, but also the benefit it has on our family.
See the link here to register:
WINTER UNIFORM - Just a reminder that all students have now officially changed over to wearing the Full Winter Uniform. I have been extremely impressed with the wonderful way students have been wearing their uniform. This is a reflection of the pride they have for our school.
We understand that in some instances students may not be able to wear part of their uniform (e.g., they have outgrown shoes or misplaced their hat). If this occurs we ask parents to please send a note to the class teacher explaining the circumstances so that students have permission to be ‘out of uniform’ for a short period of time as the issue is rectified.
BUILDING PROJECT - At this week’s P & F Meeting I had great pleasure in sharing the proposed plans for our next building project. Although we are still awaiting confirmation regarding the additional proposed building project, we were excited about the announcements by the Government in the press regarding the likely progression of important construction projects at our school. The exact scope and timing of any development however is still subject to formal offers from the Government via the Catholic Block Grant Authority and of course final tenders. We are currently awaiting further information regarding the specific grant amounts for components of our planned projects and look forward to sharing the detail with the whole school community once the detail has been finalised with the support of CEDoW. In the meantime, we are proceeding with the planning process and the latest version of the draft plans are available for parent viewing in the noticeboard near the Admin entry.
Happy Birthday to the following children who will be celebrating their birthday this week:SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING
Last week, I included information for parents about the importance of Social and Emotional Learning. Developing skills in self-awareness is the key area that we will be focusing on as a school this term.
SELF-AWARENESS
How we feel about a situation will depend on what we think about the situation, and these feelings will affect what actions we take. Even as adults we can struggle with emotions and responses in difficult situations.
Learning to recognise, name and describe emotions is the first step to managing them. Children need our support to learn about their emotions and how to manage them.
Tips for talking about emotions with your child
- Talk to your children about how they feel about every day things going on around them and encourage them to use descriptive words to describe how they feel.
- Talk about how you feel and demonstrate the use of different language to describe how you feel to demonstrate how feelings can change throughout the day.
Emotions and Literature
A great way for children to explore emotions is through literature, no matter what their age. Stories that describe people expressing their emotions can help your child to relate the characters and how they are feeling. This can also help your child to develop empathy for others and experience, with a range of different feelings.
Watching television or movies together and identifying the responses and emotions of the characters or discussing your own emotional responses to the stories is another good way to explore emotions.
Strengths and capabilities
You can help your child develop their sense of identity and self-awareness through discussion and support.
The following tips may help:
- Help your children think about their abilities and what they are capable of in a realistic way, eg you throw really well for someone your age.
- Encourage your children to try new activities.
- Help them to find ways to deal with problems rather than telling them what to do. Ask questions like, “What could you so?” and “What do you think?”
- Listen to your children and show them that you value what they have to say.
- Foster their growing need for independence. Begin with basics like caring for their own belongings, making their own bed and feeding their pets.
MRS LILLIAN DEL GUDICE
ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL
VALUES AWARDS
3 GREEN
Isaiah V – Stewardship – For ensuring that our environment is respected and cared for
Louis P – Stewardship – For caring for our environment by ensuring rubbish is placed in the correct bin
3 GOLD
Marcus B - Stewardship - For his willingness to care for our environment
Millie S - Compassion - For showing love and kindness in all her interactions
4 GOLD
Sebastian W – Compassion – For always showing kindness and compassion to others by looking out for his friends in need
Noah V - Celebration – For celebrating the goodness in others by acknowledging their kindness and friendship
4 GREEN
Ella C – Doing Your Best – For persevering when working through Challenging Maths tasks
Akansha C – Leadership – For displaying organisation skills when working in a team situation
4 BLUE
Kristo K – Justice – For trying hard to ensure that fairness happens within our classroom
Koby P – Doing your Best – For persistence and challenging himself in Mathematics
5 BLUE
Therese G – Doing Your Best – For her dedication and effort in SPLICED
Ivy K – Faith – For always displaying reverence during Christian Meditation
5 GOLD
Patrick F – Compassion - For the way he respects and interacts with others in the classroom
Emily F – Doing Your Best – For consistently trying her best in all Key Learning Areas and applying feedback to improve
5 GREEN
Caleb L – Doing your Best – For always seeking and using feedback to improve his learning
Adelle B – Celebration – For her enthusiastic support of others and their learning
6 GOLD
Ayvah H – Celebration – For celebrating peer success and achievements in Sport
6 GREEN
Miyah M – Leadership – For displaying qualities of sportsmanship and teamwork during PE
Congratulations to 4 Blue who earned their second Gold Star last week, well done! Some other classes came close, let’s hope we can get some more this week! Just a reminder again about our Library days:
THIS WEEK:
Thursday 13 May– Year 1
Friday 14 May– Year 4
NEXT WEEK:
Tuesday 18 May – Year 3
Wednesday 19 May – Year 5
Thursday 20 May – Year 2
Please remind your children to bring their Library bags on the day of their lesson – encourage them to have it in their bags the night before! The Library bags are essential for protecting the books as they are carried to and from school. Thank you.
This term in Library lessons we are looking at how we can use non-fiction texts and the internet to find the information we want. Each grade is studying different topics, related to their class units. Kinder students are learning that non-fiction books give us information, and we are learning about animals and where they live.
Premiers' Reading Challenge - We have a number of students who have already completed their PRC, and some students who have nearly finished, great effort!. Remember to register the books once you have read them, and the students are welcome to come to the Library at Lunch 2 to register the books they have completed. Check the lists at
https://products.schools.nsw.edu.au/prc/booklist/home.html
Many of the books on the lists which are in our Library are marked with the sticker to indicate which level – Red for K - Year 2, Green for Year 3 - Year 4, and Purple for Year 5 - Year 6.
Scholastic Book Club - The current catalogue closes on Friday 14 May, so please have your orders in by then. Thank you.
National Simultaneous Storytime is held annually by the Australian Library and Information Association. Every year a picture book, written and illustrated by an Australian Author and Illustrator, is read simultaneously in libraries, schools, pre-schools, childcare centres, family homes, bookshops and many other places around the country. This year it will be at 11:00 am on Wednesday 19 May. Many of the classes will share Give me some space written by Philip Bunting
Daily Reading - Don’t forget to try to take at least ten minutes out of your busy day to read with or to your children.
“I beg you all to read superb books aloud to your children! Begin on the day they are born. I am very serious about this: at least three stories and five nursery rhymes a day, if not more, and not only at bedtime, either!.”
Mem Fox
Happy reading!
Mrs Susan Bryant - Teacher Librarian
In Australia, only 18% of plastic packaging is recycled.
That's why Goodman Fielder have created the Wonder Bread Bag Recycling Program!
Mary Immaculate is participating in this great initiative to not only look after our environment but to also earn FREE SPORTING EQUIPMENT for our school! Simply send your bread bags and wrap bags to school to deposit into our Wonder Bread Bag box and help us to achieve our goal of 25 kgs of bread bags being recycled! For every 5 kgs of bread bags (14-16 bread bags filled with bread bags) we will earn points to spend on sporting equipment for our school. Plus by registering for this program, our school has been entered into the draw to WIN one of five exercise circuits made from recycled plastic we collect!
You can send ANY brand of Bread Bags and Wrap Bags in - they don’t have to be Wonder brand!
Collect your bread bags and wrap bags and send them in to school.
Bags will be deposited into our collection box. Once it is full (5kg) we will send it to be recycled.
For every 5kg recycled, earn 500 points towards sporting equipment.
