Term 1 -Week 7, 24 March 2022

Principal's Message

I believe the COVID-19 wave has finally arrived at our school. Over the past week we had increased students present as COVID-19 positive or as a close contacts. Thank you to parents for advising our office by stating the date they tested positive or became a close contact.

The hardest hit year level has been the Year 5 group.  16 Year 5 students are currently in Covid conditions, with many others absent for a range of reasons.  This fact alone led to us to making the difficult decision to cancel the Year 5 Emu Gully Adventure Camp.  The decision was based on the high levels of absent Year 5 students, alongside recommendations made by the Queensland Health Department and Department of Education.

Understandably, students and staff were very disappointed hearing this news, as the camp is a high point in Year 5. At this stage, the Year 6 group have been relatively unaffected by this wave, giving us positive signs for the year 6 camp next week. 

Parent Teacher Interviews

Thank you to all parents and caregivers who attended the parent teacher interview session.  This is a change for Wynnum State School, and I appreciate the feedback in attempting something different of what is an almost consistent practice amongst primary schools in this part of the world, if not across the state. 

“It is amazing what can be discussed in 10 minutes” and “The auditorium was in a hum of conversation” were some of comments I received on the night from parents. “I didn’t get through everything” was also passed on.  I do appreciate that comment, as the snapshot will not be able to cover every aspect of our time with your child. This approach centres on the snapshot, and can either be reinforcing of a successful approach, or the beginning of an ongoing communication and monitoring conversation.  The snapshot of recognises celebrations and challenges and centres on the next step and a focus on the strategies to get that next lift of improvement. 

A big shout out to our teachers for what was a BIG day with this new format.   

Harmony Week

Australia celebrates Harmony Week from Monday 21^st to Sunday 27^th March with the theme this year of ‘everyone belongs’. Harmony Week celebrates cultural diversity, inclusivity, respect and a sense of belonging for everyone.

Harmony Week celebrates the fact that Australians come from all over the world. Today there are over 21 million people living in Australia who all contribute different ideas, religions, languages and customs to our country. The diversity of people who live in Australia make it such an interesting and special place to live. It is celebrated around Australia each year to celebrate our multicultural society.

There is an article in this newsletter detailing our approach, including the wearing of orange items on Friday.  

Mark Ionn
Principal 

2022 School Term Dates

Last day of Term 1: Friday 1 April

Term 2: Tuesday 19 April to Friday 24 June

Term 3: Monday 11 July to Friday 16 September 

Term 4: Tuesday 4 October to Friday 9 December 

Wishing a very happy and safe holiday to all our Wynnum State School families.

Habit of Mind and Loving Literature Link with Ms Connell

The Habit of Mind this fortnight is Listening with Empathy and Understanding. This Habit encourages us to make an effort to hold back values, judgements, opinions and prejudices in order to listen to and consider another person’s thoughts.

The online book to bring this Habit to life is The Rabbit Listened, written and illustrated  by Cori Doerrfeld. This book shows how sometimes all we really need is just someone to listen. Enjoy!

Library Buzz with Mrs Sutton and the Library Team

Welcome Iona Reading Buddies

On Tuesday, 24 young Ionians made their way to a very excited group of students from Miss Chapman’s Year 3 class.  Already well versed from their Year 2 experience, our Wynnum Warriors welcomed the Year 11 students and quickly paired off, armed with their readers and picture books for an afternoon of books, conversations and hearing stories read aloud.  We greatly value our connection with Iona and all our students from Years 1,2, and 3 will experience our buddy reading program this year. 

ANZAC Day

Anzac Day is fast approaching and it marks an important time to remember and respect one of the most important historical dates in our country’s calendar.  As the years have passed and the original soldiers who fought valiantly have left us, it has become even more important to keep alive the memory and stories of all they went through. 

Our library has a number of ANZAC Day books written specifically with our young people in mind.  Here are some of the ones that you may want to explore with your children.

Hey Mrs Crowe, some of your dinosaurs escaped and visited Mrs Sutton and Ms Sellars in the library yesterday!!!!!!!!! Check out the snaps!!

Just keep reading…                              

Curriculum News with Ms O'Donoghue (Head of Curriculum)

Best way to learn writing is to write!!

Students from all over Australia are invited to enter their Poems or Short Stories and battle it out for cash and prizes.

There is no theme, they are encouraged to let their imaginations run wild.  Students from all grades Prep to Year 12 are welcome to enter.

You can enter online at www.write4fun.net OR post with an entry form to Write4fun, PO Box 2734, Nerang DC , QLD 4211 (if you are posting you will need to download the official entry form from the site)

THE RULES

• Only one entry per student, either a Poem or Short Story
• Entries to be typed or neatly handwritten
• Poems not to exceed 16 lines and Short stories not to exceed 500 words.
• Entries must be in by 30 ^April 2022
• Entry form details must accompany each entry
• For the full list of rules head to www.write4fun.net 

Prep - Year 3 Science News with Mrs Crowe

Biological Science interactions have been in full swing in the P-3 Science Lab. Our froglets have now hopped away, butterflies have been released, stick insects have provided authentic observation of animal features and dinosaurs have even come back to life just to be part of the learning!

Year One were working hard on their dinosaur feature diagrams when suddenly some friendly dinosaurs, big and small, came along to watch their work! Exclamations of pure wonderment and awe and many questions were posed as our young palaeontologists interacted with the dinosaurs in the Science Lab. The dinosaurs absolutely loved the scientific diagrams! These friendly dinosaurs can visit your place too if you use your mobile phone to visit Qld Museum’s ‘Digi Dinosaur Discovery Trail’ on the following website: https://www.worldsciencefestival.com.au/

Prep botanists loved planting their own seeds in the lab and taking seeds home for planting. Their seedlings are growing well! Prep BB were also very engaged as they worked interdependently to release our Monarch butterfly after it emerged from its chrysalis. Everyone made a special wish as the butterfly happily fluttered up and away through the trees in our school grounds. The looks on the faces of our young entomologists say it all.

Year Two have been investigating, and comparing, life cycles with and without metamorphosis. Our mealworms are just beginning to turn to pupa which has generated much questioning and problem posing. For the remainder of this term our biologists will be recording the process of metamorphosis in their own Mealworm Calendars.

Spiny Stick insects are amazing creatures! This week a family of them assisted our Year Three biologists to gather data through all senses and to use their ‘Branching Key’ to classify a range of animals. The stick insects and young scientists were all very happy working together to recognise observable features for classification. Diagrammatic posters featuring the insects, and other animals, will be on display next week outside the Lab.

The Mystery creature from last week’s newsletter created much discussion and investigation. Over 85 predictions were made by our Wynnum Warriors scientists. The most popular predictions were: Stink Bug 11; Spiky Rhino Beetle 6; Tick 4; Nit/Head Lice 3; Dung Beetle 3. Many other answers included Wasp, Diving beetle, Baby hermit crab, Trilobite beetle, Water roach, Bat Bee, Lava beetle, Thorn beetle and Leaf insect. Very intelligent predictions based on observable features!

One group of students were extremely excited when they discovered the correct answer of ANT LION during their reading group session with a text called ‘Cunning Creatures’. Science and Literacy working together! Did you know the ant lion is the larval form of the Lace Wing? Biology is Brilliant. Enjoy our natural world!

MATHS MATTERS with Mrs Lentakis (Numeracy coach) and Mrs van Fleet (Maths Intervention teacher)

What’s going on: Most homerooms are currently working in the area of Geometry including two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional objects and their properties, transformations (flips, slides, turns), symmetry and viewing objects from different perspectives.

Tell me more: Learning about shapes involved understanding and using the precise mathematical language. Here’s just a few. Two-dimensional shapes are flat, like a square or a triangle. Three-dimensional objects take up space and have two-dimensional shapes on the faces (flat surfaces). You cannot pick up or handle a two-dimensional shape, rather you can see it on one of the faces of 3D objects.  

For example, the square based pyramid has four triangle faces and one square face (base). Triangles, squares and rectangles have sides that are straight lines, circles and ovals have curves. Semicircles have both straight lines and curves.  

Have a go together: Our everyday world is abundant with 2D shapes and 3D objects, both natural and man-made. Look for these when you are out and about. Talk about the shapes evident in our buildings, playgrounds, fabrics, everywhere.

Some children’s literature relating to Geometry to look out for:           

• The Greedy Triangle, by Marilyn Burns (2 dimensional shapes
• The Shape Family Babies, by Kristin Haas (shapes, angles)
• I Spy Shapes in Art, by Lucy Micklethwait (geometric shapes)

Sir Cumference series, by Cindy Neuschwander (3 dimensional shapes

Sport Update with Mr Blair

 It has been a sporty few weeks at Wynnum State School. Students competed at the ‘Schools with Pools’ Wondall Road Challenge displaying great determination and persistence in all races. The Wynnum Warriors spirit was on full display with loud war cries and encouragement from the stands including from some very supportive parents who came along to watch. Although we didn’t win the event as a school, we had some fantastic results with ribbons aplenty collected.

Cross Country held last Friday and the day was a great success. The following table displays the students who finished in first, second or third place. We even had a tie in the year 6 girls with Emma and Mia B finishing together in their last primary event! Congratulations to all students who completed the course and avoided the cranky plover on the oval for a bit of extra challenge. 

Well done to these runners who will be receiving either a medal or ribbons.

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Swimming will continue next week with some fun games and activities planned so please remember to pack your swimmers. A special thank you to Mrs Rachel and Miss Jemima for all their help this term in the pool.

What a terrific game of AFL with the Men’s Lions team coming down from a 4 goal deficit to win over Port Adelaide 80- 69 on the weekend. Go Lions!

Harmony Week

This week is Harmony Week which celebrates Australian multiculturalism, and the successful integration of migrants into our community. Australia is one of the most successful multicultural countries in the world and we should celebrate this and work to maintain it. Harmony Week is about inclusiveness, respect and belonging for all Australians, regardless of cultural or linguistic background, united by a set of core Australian values.  Orange signifies social communication and meaningful conversations. It also relates to freedom of ideas and encouragement of mutual respect. Wynnum State School will be showing our support by invited our students and staff to wear orange this Friday. Students can wear an orange shirt, orange shorts or orange socks. Students still need to wear their school shoes and their shirts need to be sun safe.

Mrs Bennet

Year 2 Incursion

The Year 2's thoroughly enjoyed  a visit with the Wild Rangers Wildlife Encounters this week.  The incursion provided students with a shared experience of life stages, habits and interesting facts about animals and were able to hold and touch some of the wildlife. Even the scariest of ones!  Please enjoy some of the photos below of this wonderful incursion that will help us to write amazing information reports.

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Solid Pathways Update

On Wednesday 23 March, the Solid Pathway students from Years 4-6 were extremely excited to have a special visitor attend their weekly lesson. The Year 5 teacher Ms Goodingham, chose Wynnum State School to broadcast her lesson side by side our students. She was very excited to meet all our students face to face and likewise our students were interested in how their lessons come to life from the other side of their computers. Ms Goodingham finished the lesson with a small gift for all students. We all look forward to hosting her again in the future and possibly meeting the year 4 & 6 teachers too. 

Ms Romeril 
Solid Pathways Coordinator

$Fiver for Flood Relief

On Tuesday the 22 March the Student Captains hosted the Fiver for Flood relief Fundraising event which raised funds for Rocklea State School. This school had been damaged by the recent flooding event in Brisbane.

We are extremely grateful and appreciative of the donations made by the many hundreds of students and families from our Wynnum community. As a thank you we gifted to those students a sausage sizzle.

We would like to thank the volunteers, Trish, June, Kim, Phil and Mr Ionn for cooking the sausages yesterday. This event couldn’t have happened without you and we are extremely grateful.

We do not yet know the final amount of donations but we will announce this as soon as possible.

We hope the students enjoyed their scrumptious sausages and we wish Rocklea SS a fast rebuild.

Student Captains

Lismore Flood Donation Drive 'Thank you'

THANK YOU to our wonderful Wynnum State School community for all the wonderful donations for flood victims in Lismore. My daughter, husband and I have so far transported three car loads of goods over the last two weekends to help support the Lismore community. My sister and her husband have been working tirelessly, with their church community at the other end, to support those in need receive what is needed. At this stage I have another two car loads of goods to transport thanks to the generous donations received. It really has been a WYNNUM WOW experience! On a personal note, my family and friends are all safe, however as my Auntie summed it up in her message to me “they are fragile but have to just get on with it”.

Please accept my deepest gratitude.

Cheryl van Fleet

Prep enrolments for 2023 now open!

Prep enrolments are now open for 2023.  Enrolment paperwork can be dowloaded from the school website https://wynnumss.eq.edu.au/enrolments/enrolling-at-our-school or collected from the school office. 

P & C - Tuckshop call for Volunteers

Do you have an hour or more a week to volunteer in our school tuckshop? The P & C  would love to hear from you.  The tuckshop is open for full day menu every Monday, Thursday and Friday and are particularly needing volunteers to help  on Thursdays.  Please register your interest with the school office asap on 3893 5111.  The P&C appreciate and value your support. 

P & C News - Uniform and Tuckshop Update

We hope that everyone has put a reminder in their calendar for the first P&C meeting of the year and the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Thursday, 31 March at 6pm in the Executive Building.

At the AGM the P&C Executive Committee positions of President, Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary are newly elected for the year and general memberships are accepted or renewed. If you are interested in any of the positions and keen to get involved, please do not hesitate to contact us for further information about the roles and to obtain a nomination form or just come along on the night.

If you have any questions about the P&C and / or how to get involved, please do not hesitate to contact us on wynnumss.pandc@gmail.com.

In terms of membership for the P&C, please complete this form if you wish to renew your membership or join for 2022: wynnumss.eq.edu.au/Supportandresources/Formsanddocuments/Documents/membership-form.pdf

Mega-Bite Cafeteria

With less than two weeks until the holidays, our ladies at the Cafeteria are very busy to fill lots of hungry mouths. If you are free on a Monday, Thursday or Friday, any extra helping hands are very welcomed, even if it is only for an hour. Please contact Tricia on 0449804427 for any questions. Please note that all volunteers at our school will need to be vaccinated in line with the Government’s Health Direction. 

Tuckshop Easter Meal Deal 

With Easter approaching the Tuckshop will be selling a Meal Deal on Friday 25 March. 

$7 Value Meal Deal will include the following:

•    Chicken nuggets
•    Corn on the cob
•    Gingerbread Easter bunny biscuit
•    Zooper Dooper
•    Pop top Water 

Please pre-order and pay for your child's Meal Deal via the flexischools app or at www.flexischools.com.au 

Also a new Tuckshop menu has been created based on the feedback and suggestions from last term and it is available on Flexischools. Please make sure to update our child’s class before placing your first order.

QSchools App

Don't forget to download the QSchools App to your Iphone or Android device.  The QSchools App is another great way for Wynnum State School families to receive and read our fortnightly school newsletter and also receive important notifications regarding school events.  Simply download to your phone and 'star' Wynnum State School as your 'favourite' school.  

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