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Dear Parents and Carers,
I know from the many conversations I have had with parents recently that so many of you have been putting a great deal of thought into how to help your children cope during the pandemic and going to great lengths to support your child with their remote learning.
We are so grateful for your support!
I also know from talking to our staff who are also juggling work and parenting responsibilities the heavy toll this current reality is taking on personal well being.
As parents, we all must acknowledge how enormously important it is that we take some time to consider how to maintain our own well being.
Parents / carers may experience a range of different emotional reactions, including feeling overwhelmed, apathetic, worried or irritable. Despite being tempted to go into overdrive to minimise the impact on your children, you are not immune to the stress either.
Remember that taking care of your own well being is essential.
Below are four things you can do for your own well being:
- Be gentle with yourself: In the world of parenting, there is a drive to be the best you can be, and to be everything to everyone. Your kids don’t need you to be the perfect parent / carer. They need you to be good enough and to help them feel safe and supported. For this to happen, they need you to be OK. Try to create more realistic and achievable expectations to reduce the pressure.
- Take breaks for self-care: Make sure you take some breaks to do the things that will help you feel less stressed. If you have someone to watch the kids, take a walk by yourself and enjoy the break. Try to find some time each day to take care of yourself, even if it’s just five minutes.
- Stay connected: While it’s important to make time to have fun and connect as a family, make sure you create time for your own social connections. Vent. Laugh. Share ideas about coping and compromising. Be there to support each other.
- Be mindful of how you are thinking about the situation – take it seriously but keep your response in perspective: Stay informed from reliable sources but remember that this will end. It might not feel like it some days, but it won’t be like this forever.
In the video link below, Dr Carly Johnco from the Centre for Emotional Health and Department of Psychology at Macquarie University talks to parents and carers about how to look after their own mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UgnTfxykrc
I hope the resources shared below will provide our wonderful community of parents some wisdom and comfort in the days ahead.
How Parents can Keep Calm and Manage Stress
Way to reduce Stress- Beyond Blue
Tips for keeping calm and managing stress- download the PDF below
https://media.naavi.com/macaroni/im-022e9f52-3fe3-4f42-bae2-1b082f84cb4c.pdf?deg=auto
Ideas for Positively Managing your Children's Behaviour
Getting Children to listen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMjMfCqulP4&feature=emb_logo
Approaches to Guiding Children's Behaviour – Parent Downloads
Positive Approaches to Guiding Children’s Behaviour – Guide 2
Children's mental health during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic podcast
How might children’s social and emotional well being be affected by the changes brought about in response to the COVID-19 pandemic? In this bonus episode, Brad Morgan, Director of Emerging Minds, discusses some challenges that might be coming up for families at this time as they navigate spending more time at home together. Tune in to this discussion to hear about what infants, toddlers, and children are needing from their parents right now and some suggestions on how parents can have child-centred conversations about Coronavirus.
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/emerging-minds-podcast/id1457528361?i=1000530353858
BOOK WEEK
Our wonderful teachers have organised some great learning and fun activities, including our very own Mary Immaculate edition of the Mem Fox favourite “Where is the Green Sheep?” This can be viewed via the following link
https://www.loom.com/share/91750205005d409ba71d32edfaea3571
Your child/ren’s remote learning schedule will have details about the activities, so please check those for further information, especially the dates and times of the class/grade book week zooms.
We encourage all families to create a simple costume with what they have at home.
Please do not go to the shops to purchase items as this is not a reasonable excuse to leave your home while ‘Stay at Home’ orders are in place.
Is your child watching the teacher videos to support remote learning?
Most teachers are recording videos for students and including links to these either through Google Classroom or via Seesaw. Many teachers have noticed the number of times the videos are viewed and are naturally concerned that not all children are watching the videos.
The video recordings are well thought out by teachers and are an essential part of the learning process.
Parents are encouraged to remind their children that they must watch these videos. If your child skips the video and just moves onto the task then they are missing essential learning and instruction. Often the answers to questions from students or parents are in the videos.
Happy reading!
Tina Murray
Principal
WAYS TO ENCOURAGE YOUR CHILD TO WRITE
Making notes, compiling a photo album with captions are ways to help your child practise their writing skills.
You don't have to be an expert to help your child with writing. Simply supporting your child with the areas of writing that you feel confident with will benefit them.
When you're writing something down such as the shopping list, sending an email or filling in a form, talk to your child about what you're doing, why you're writing it and who you expect to read it. When writing at home, make it purposeful and interesting for yourself and your child.
It's essential that kids learn that we write for a purpose
It's important that your child understands who they are writing for and why they are writing. Purpose guides the way we write. For example, a note you write to your child about a job you want them to do when they get home from school will be different from a letter to the school about your child being sick.
Ways to encourage your child to write
- Read your child's writing or have them read their writing to you and make positive comments such as, 'I really like the way you've described this'.
- Praise your child for having a go at writing words that are new and show them how to spell harder words that they may not have been able to spell correctly.
- Talk to your child about why an author or filmmaker might create a book, play or film in a particular way. What ideas or opinions are presented? What is the author's purpose?
- Read and talk about the writing that your child brings home from school. Praise them for things they have done well. For example, writing an interesting story using colourful words, using clear, neat handwriting.
- To develop spelling and vocabulary for writing, play word games such as ‘I spy', Scrabble, Boggle, Scattergories and do crossword puzzles.
Helping with writing at home
- Have your child label and describe things that they design or make.
- Compile a photo album or scrapbook with your child and have them write captions for the photos and pictures.
- Encourage your child to keep a diary of special events, eg a holiday diary with details of how and where they went and what they enjoyed, etc.
- Make the writing of notes, letters and stories on paper or on the computer a normal part of family life.
Ways to build your child's writing skills
Use these practical tips to help your child to work out the best way to express themselves through their writing.
- Help your child to understand writing tasks that they may have been given for homework. Ask them to talk about what has to be done.
- Help your child to use reference materials such as dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias and the internet.
- Before your child attempts a task, help them to understand what reference materials are needed by talking about the task and asking questions which will guide the child's planning.
- Draw your child's attention to technical words in writing and discuss their meaning or look them up together in a dictionary.
- Help your child to understand and use information in graphs, diagrams and pictures when they are researching a writing task.
- Encourage your child to use different types of paper for drawing and writing and to use pens, pencils, crayons and markers.
LILLIAN DEL GIUDICE
ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL
Well it is that time of the year when we celebrate Book Week, and as with our whole lives at the moment this year it will look different! Book Week is a time to celebrate Australian Authors and Illustrators and the wonderful books they provide to keep us both entertained and informed. Each year since 1945 the Children’s Book Council of Australia has brought children and books together across Australia through CBCA Book Week. During this time schools and public libraries spend one glorious week celebrating books and Australian Children's Authors and Illustrators. Classroom teachers, teacher librarians and public librarians create colourful displays, develop activities, run competitions and tell stories relating to a theme to highlight the importance of reading. At Mary Immaculate we usually celebrate with our Annual Book Character parade, as well as a variety of activities in class and in the Library centred around the winning books.
Six books are short-listed in each of the categories, and the judges then decide the winners based on select criteria.The judges assess entries primarily for:
- Literary merit – aesthetic qualities of language, standing the test of time, realistic characters.
- Cohesiveness – language, theme, style.
- Appeal to the implied readership.
- Quality – illustrations, book design, production, editing.
- Originality in the treatment of literary elements as they apply to the form of the work.
Consideration is given to the quality of illustrations, book design, editing, production, printing and binding.
The winners were announced on Friday 20 August at 12 noon - if you are interested take a look at the CBCA website:
https://www.cbca.org.au/cbca-book-week
This year the teachers will be organising some fun ways to celebrate online with your class. You can still dress up as your favourite book character and share that with your teacher. We look forward to seeing lots of wonderful characters!
Premiers' Reading Challenge: Remember we still have just over one week till 1 September to finalise our PRC entries. Congratulations to the many students who have completed the Challenge, an excellent achievement, especially considering the difficult year we have had! We have quite a few students who are almost there, so if you need to finish remember that you can email your list of books to your class teacher and I can register them for you! Even though the Premiers' Reading Challenge is nearly finished, we do not stop reading – we must continue to put in an effort to read every day, reading is a lifelong skill!
Scholastic Book Club: In response to the current lock downs, Scholastic has added the temporary option for all parents to have their orders sent directly to your homes. This option will enable you to place and receive orders while your children are undertaking schooling at home.
- When parents place your Issue 6 Book Club orders, you will have the option to select home delivery.
- The home delivery option will automatically be added to schools in the lock down area.
- The home delivery option can be selected by parents at the time of ordering for $7.50
- If you are interested you can view the catalogue online this week for Issue 6 - https://scholastic.com.au/media/6421/bc621web.pdf
Ordering online is the only way to order, and you are able to opt for home delivery. Thank you for your support with this program.
Take care - keep reading!
"If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books."
Happy reading!
Mrs Susan Bryant
Teacher Librarian