Welcome and welcome back!

We would like to welcome our grade 3s and their families to our neighbourhood. It has been lovely to have conversations with some of the new students and their carers in the first week and we are looking forward to getting to know you better this term. We would also like to welcome back our grade 4s to the neighbourhood and look forward to furthering our learning this year.

This blog is a portal where we communicate to our community about our learning within Neighbourhood 2. It will be updated by our team throughout the year. It is also the place where you can find out about how the neighbourhood works, check the weekly timetable, the learning agreement documents and the upcoming events. We hope that you will return to this blog often to catch up on developments in our neighbourhood.

If you have any queries about the blog or anything else abut the neighbourhood, feel free to approach us before or after school.

Thank You!

We would like to send out a big thank you to our parent reps Maria and Nerida for all the organisation of of school and neighbouhood events this year, especially The Bazaar.

We would also like to thank all the parents who helped out in the neighbourhood in various ways, including with Master Chef, 3/4 camp, the No Dig Garden and coming in to support during our learning showcases.

We wish you all a safe and happy holiday.

The 3/4 Neighbourhood Team (Mary, Janette, Jessica, Emma & Delia)

3/4 N2 End of Year Picnic

Date: Thursday 22nd December, 2011
Time: 2pm (straight after school finishes)
Where: Princes Park, near the adventure playground (Crn Princes Park Drive & Macpherson Street)

Some families may like to bring a small plate of food to share. Please bring your own drinks.

If it is raining at 2.30pm, please assume the picnic is cancelled as there is no shelter.

Some other Neighbourhoods will be having their picnics at the same venue at the same time.

Your parent reps,

Maria & Nerida

Transition

Transition: We all experience it!

The whole school community including children, parents and staff are experiencing the transition of children from one year level to another.

To familiarise themselves with new home groups and neighbourhoods the children will partake in 4 transition sessions. Three will take place on 5^th, 6^th, 7^th December from 10am to 11:15. The children will spend time in their 2012 neighbourhoods with their team of teachers and groups. They will familiarise themselves with the new learning spaces, discuss learning possibilities and partake in learning agreement activities with all of their 2012 teachers.  Older children will be mentoring and offering advice to the younger ones. The children will have lunch in their new spaces as part of each session. The aim is to make all children feel comfortable, confident and excited about their next year level. Consistency in learning across the school aims to make this a seamless process.

On Tuesday 20^th December there will be a fourth transition session where the children will be introduced to their 2012 home teacher as well as working in their new neighbourhoods for 1 hour. This will take place from 2.30 to 3.30. The children will be dismissed from their new neighbourhoods on this day.

This period of change is both challenging and exciting in which children and families adjust to expectations, interactions and relationships.

Rita Jokubaitis

Student Pathways and Transitions.

Arrays: What can we use them for?

During the math workshops on Thursday and Friday our neighbourhood began using square tiles to find the area of a variety of regular and irregular shapes. We began by exploring areas by covering them with the 2 centimetre squared tiles. The children realised that they would have insufficient tiles to cover the areas, and then faced with the problem of how to measure the area without covering the whole space with tiles. Muna, Viarne, Lilli, Sascha and Payam were the first to realise that they could use their knowledge of arrays to find the area of a rectangle. This discussion began when Viarne asked the question, “Why do we need all the squares?’  The group shared their new found knowledge with the neighbourhood. A small group then found the area of the tables in the performance area. The group revealed to the class that it would take 2,542 tiles to cover the table. Harvey then quickly worked out that the area of the table is 5,084 centimetres squared.   

 Many strategies were discussed,  then trialled and generalisations were beginning formulated.

                                                 Viarne, Payam, Lilli, Sascha and Muna's Array

Measuring the Area of the Performance Table

No Dig Garden

In week 2 the No Dig Garden, Junior School Council (JSC) group was able to pick some of the vegetables that had been planted in term 3. The children picked a heap of silver beet and six beetroots. When the No Dig Garden group meet in week 3 a small group cooked Silver Beet and Ricotta Pinwheels with Jessica. All the children had the opportunity to try the delicious snack that was made with the vegetables grown in the school’s garden. The beetroots were used by 3/4 neighbourhood 2 to make a beetroot dip. The dip was very popular, and some children who had said ‘I don’t like beetroot’ came looking for seconds. More vegetables have been picked again this week, these vegetables will be used by the students taking part in 3/4 neighbourhood 2’s Master Chef Competition in the coming weeks.

Some of the children expressed an interest in cooking the recipes at home.

Beetroot Dip

Whet your appetite with this beautiful and versatile Turkish-inspired dip.

Preparation Time

15 minutes

Cooking Time

90 minutes

Ingredients (serves 6)

·         650g (about 3) beetroots, trimmed

·         80ml (1/3 cup) extra virgin olive oil

·         2 cloves garlic, crushed

·         280g (1 cup) Greek-style yoghurt

Method

1.      Preheat oven to 180C. Place beetroots with 2 tbs oil in a large bowl and toss well to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Wrap each beetroot loosely in foil, then place in a shallow ovenproof dish. Roast for 1 1/2 hours or until tender. Unwrap beetroots and cool to room temperature.

2.      Coarsely grate beetroots and place in a colander to drain off excess liquid. Combine beetroots, remaining 2 tbs oil, garlic and yoghurt in a large bowl, then season. Makes 2 cups.

Notes

·         Tips: Dip will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 days. Serve dip with Turkish bread.

Found on taste.com.au

Extract from Turkey: Recipes and tales from the road by Leanne Kitchen (Murdoch Books, $70).

Silver Beet and Ricotta Pinwheels

Ingredients

250g frozen spinach

100g fetta cheese, crumbled

1/2 cup finely grated parmesan cheese

2 sheets puff pastry

1 egg

Method

1. Preheat oven to 220C/ 200C fan forced. Grease oven trays, line with baking paper

2. Squeeze excess moisture form silver beet. Chop sliver beet coarsely, pat dry between sheets of absorbent paper

3. Sprinkle silver beet and combined cheeses over pastry sheets. Roll pastry tightly to enclose filling. Cut each roll into 12 slices. Place pinwheels, cut-side up, on trays and brush with a little egg

4. Bake pinwheels for about 15mins or until browned lightly

Makes 24

Found in the Women’s Weekly Cooked Book

  

Welcome back to Term 4!

We hope you have a had a fantastic holiday and are excited about the new school term. 
A BIG WELCOME to Jessica, who has joined us, replacing Emma who is now enjoying being able to put her nursery furniture together and mull over baby names. 
Jessica brings all sorts of exciting skills and interests to our neighbourhood, not the least of which is keeping fit.  She took part in a half-marathon on the last day of the holidays, which was her first, and the goal she had been working towards all year!  You should ask her what her time was...pretty impressive! 
Now; what news for the term ahead...

• Life Education occurred last week.  THe children have been usingn thier Life Ed. booklets this week in Learning Agrement time.. 
• Ask your children about their new  postings onto  the Ultranet. Some children have been experiencing technical difficulties which are being addressed .
• Inventions continue to be the focus of inquiry this term. We will advise parents when an exhibition of world changing inventions will e ready public perusing.
• An enterprising group of children are working on organising a second round of Masterchef.Ask your child whether they are involved with this round; they may be asking you for assistance!

Challenges for this term:

•  keep lockers tidy at all times
• learning agreements in clipboards; signed by students, parents and teachers; and handed in by the end of the week.

Please check the writing, reading and maths spaces for further information.