Prep

All Lourdes Learners in Prep have settled in nicely to our routines and are enjoying learning about the Lourdes Way. Thanks for attending our Prep Information evening  - a great way to know what’s happening in your child’s classroom.

Homework has started well but does require adult supervision. We start Lent this week and will begin our Have You filled a Bucket? Program which is the basis of our Religion unit. 

We are going to Cobb&Co Museum in March as part of our History unit. Please remember to check satchels each day. 

We look forward to seeing everyone on Friday evening at the Welcome BBQ – come along and buy a jelly cup! 

Cheers,  

Liz and Melita

Year 1

Welcome to Week 4! 

Year 1 students continue to settle into their routines, with many beginning to show great Lourdes Learning behaviours and demonstrating what Year 1 at Our Lady of Lourdes looks like, feels like and sounds like.  

Students are enjoying our Daily 4 literacy rotations where we combine classes to work with other friends and continue learning in either classroom. 

We have finished learning about Gerald the Giraffe. We all wrote great character descriptions and have painted some fabulous dancing giraffes. Come in and have a look! 

In Science, we are busy exploring small creatures and their habitats. In a couple of weeks time, we will create a class snail habitat. Both classes will require snails for our tanks. If you find any creeping around your backyards and gardens, please bring them in. 

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful week! 

Jen and Ange

Year 2

Welcome to Week 4!  The Year 2 students are working so hard and are becoming keen Lourdes Learners!

Our Science unit is underway and we are exploring our wonderful earth and finding out about natural resources. We are learning about the water cycle, our precious minerals and the importance of using our resources wisely. In Maths we continue to brush up on our addition and subtraction number facts, place value and something that we all love, counting money. Allowing your child to have experiences with money, will help consolidate their skills. We have been working hard on our addition strategies such as using friendly numbers to help make addition easier. 

Over the next few weeks we will begin to focus on information reports and will be starting our research of an Australian animal. When we visit the zoo we will be able see many Australian animals, as well as animals from all over the world, which will hopefully inspire us to write about what we have learnt.    

Our excursion to the Pilton Zoo is scheduled for the 16th of March.  A permission note will be sent home shortly and the cost of $21 will be added to your school fees. Parent helpers are welcome! We will need parents to find their own way to the zoo as the bus will be full. Just so you are aware the zoo requires that parents pay $20 at the gate for their own zoo entry.   

Thanks for your support! If you have any queries or questions please do not hesitate to ask.    

Dennielle, Allyson, Sarah, Aleisha and Megan

Year 3

Welcome to Week 4 – we are pleased with how well everybody has settled in and the effort being shown in class. This week, we are exploring place value in Maths, continuing to develop our narrative writing skills in English, investigating how quickly different liquids freeze in Science and we have started to look at Australian celebrations and communications in HASS.  

We enjoyed the Shrove Tuesday pancake morning yesterday and reflected on Ash Wednesday during the liturgy this afternoon. During our Religion lessons, we have also been looking at the story of Moses, the 10 Commandments and how they are relevant to our lives. 3G will be presenting the assembly prayer in Week 7 (11th March), 3GM in Week 8 and 3M in Week 9. 

A reminder that library borrowing is on Thursdays for all classes and homework is due each Wednesday. 

Have a great week! 

Angela, Sarah, Damian and Janice

Year 4

Homework started last week, and it was great to see most students working conscientiously and producing their best work. Could you please ensure that your child also completes the Maths Online tasks as this is also a homework requirement? Well done to 4B for their Assembly presentation in Week 2 – very daunting being the first class, but they did a great job. 4L will be presenting next Thursday – Week 5, followed by 4G on the following Thursday. 

Thank you to all the families that attended the Parent Information Session on Monday night. If you could not make it, then a copy of the Year 4 Information booklet should have been sent home with your child. Please let your child’s teacher know if you did not receive this and we can arrange for one to be sent home with your child. Also, if any parents are interested in joining the Year 4 Facebook page you can search 2021 Grade 4 OLOL Toowoomba. Alternatively, you can contact Sarah Kelly who is our Parent Representative for this page. 

The P&F sent home, with the eldest sibling some Raffle Tickets. It would be great if you could sell these tickets and return to school by the end of the month. Additional booklets can also be collected through your class teacher. 

Thank you to Mrs Moore who prepared a beautiful Our Lady of Lourdes Feast Day Mass on Thursday. If your child is undertaking Confirmation and Communion Sacraments this year, please read the information in the Parent Information Handbook and make notes of the dates for the meetings. The first Parent Information Meeting is on 24th of February at 3:30pm.  

Congratulations to those students from Year 4 who represented the school at the Catholic Swimming Carnival on Wednesday. Bake Attrill, Charlotte Burchardt, Thomas Connolly, Thomas Kelly, Arohamae Fatiaki, Olivia Hancock, Skye Parker and Lucy Sweeney. Congratulations to the students who swam at the West Zone Swimming Carnival yesterday.  

Yesterday we celebrated Shrove Tuesday and it was wonderful to see so many people eating pancakes before school.  This afternoon we acknowledged the beginning of Lent with our Ash Wednesday service.  

Do not forget to let your classroom teacher know if you don’t need to purchase a Mass book. As we are now entering into Lent, we would encourage the students to donate 50c each Friday for Project Compassion. As global citizens, we encourage students to make these donations to help other communities that need support.  

We hope you all have a great couple of weeks! 

Suzanne, Toni and Garry

Year 5

Welcome to Week 4 – has it been a blur or what! We have certainly hit the ground running and the students are impressing us with their willingness to step up to the pace of Year 5. 

On Monday we visited Emu Gully and boy, what a day we had. Taking the students out of the comfort zone of the classroom and throwing them into challenging scenarios really brought the best out in them. The growth achieved by exposing them to the opportunity to fail, listen, work collaboratively and to then succeed is priceless. Mr. Golightly mentions it countless times, it is vital to make our kids independent and capable students who are resilient to the challenge's life will throw at them. They certainly have begun taking steps in the right direction.  

Thank you to those parents who came to the information night last Monday, it was great to meet a lot of you for the first time and we look forward to working with you this year to support your children’s learning. 

Last Thursday we celebrated the start of our school year with a beautiful Mass prepared by Mrs. Moore for our OLOL Feast Day. Students showed how they are stepping up by demonstrating reverence and fully participating in the parts of the mass. In Week 5 students will begin attending Mass weekly as part of Religion. If students could bring the Mass booklets given to them in Year 4 it will help them to follow the Mass structure.  

Last week was our first interschool sport and from all reports the students had a fantastic time and as always showed great sportsmanship. Do not forget jerseys and all required sport equipment. We highly suggest for those carrying equipment items that you invest in an OLOL sling bag which is $10 from Flexischool app, or use one you already have at home. This will minimise loss and misplacing of items. Can girls please leave all earing, watches, bracelets at home on Fridays, they are unable to wear these during sport and we don’t want them lost. If ordering tuckshop remember to select the sports lunch. Refer to the sport section of the newsletter for times and locations if you wish to watch your child play. Please remember that you will be required to follow COVID safe protocols including maintaining social distancing, as well as not coming over to where the students (teams) are. You must watch from a distance.   

Stop, Drop and Go: To assist staff in operating these areas could parents please place a card on the passenger visor that indicates the surname of students being collected. This will greatly assist in keeping the flow of traffic moving.  

Finally, congratulations to all our swimmers who participated at Catholic Carnival last Wednesday and at West Zone Carnival Tuesday this week!! You did Lourdes proud.  

We hope you have a good fortnight!  

Tim, Jess and Emily

Year 6

Date Claimers

• Friday 19th February – Welcome BBQ and disco 5:30 – 8:30pm
• Wednesday 17th March: St Patrick’s Day – Green Free Dress. Gold coin for Caritas
• Monday 22nd- 25th March: Swimming lessons (more details to come)

At our recent Leadership Day at Treetops Challenge, Mount Tamborine we stepped out of our comfort zones to experience unforgettable high ropes challenges. The day called for our learners to demonstrate resilience, determination, self-awareness and most importantly encouragement for others by working together.  Congratulations Year Six on a successful day - learning about yourselves and each other!

Our leaders are serving our school in many ways – thank you to our leaders who helped make Shrove Tuesday a success.

Our leaders know that Together they can achieve more. Thank you for supporting your child as they make the commitment to 2021 school leadership at our Leadership Assembly this coming Thursday.

Round one of Friday sport was enjoyed by our touch, cricket, AFL, and hockey players. All students demonstrated the Lourdes Way when encouraging their teammates to give of their best and act as part of a team.

Executive functioning skills help form habits for life and in Year Six we are encouraging the use of term planners and assessment planners to help plan, organise and manage time. These are important skills to manage daily life and to set up success for future schooling. Our learners are encouraged to set up a study space and refer to their planners to meet due dates for all learning areas.

Over the last two weeks, we have examined how Lourdes Learners are Called to Think and be Global Citizens. Year Six learners know that to be effective communicators, they take responsibility for their work, talk about learning strategies and always clarify information.

Larry, Kylie and Shauna

German

This week we will be learning the German Alphabet and next week we will be talking about families.  We will continue practising useful phrases in German for the rest of the term. 

Christine Fisher