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Ardtornish NewsletterTerm 2 Week 7 - 16th June 2023
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No 10
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In this issue
Diary Dates
June 19th – Governing Council 7pm, KO Netball Carnival 26th – JP Swimming Week July 1st - State Aerobics 3rd – SRC Sausage Sizzle Fundraiser 6th – Last day of Term 2 - 3.00pm Dismissal 7th – PUPIL FREE DAY 24th – Term 3 Begins 31st – Yrs 3-5 Swimming Week Road Crossing
Monitors Wed 21st June – Tue 27th June Agam S, Edward H, Alistair A & Kai F Wed 28th June – Tue 4th July Brodie G, Lucas M, Nathanial B Wed 5th & Thur 6th July – Mon 24th & Tue 25th July Jamie H, Brody S, Izayah W Please arrive by 8.25am |
The Importance of Developing Good Handwriting
Jacqson, Marley and Saige, reception students, proudly share their handwriting.
Pictured here are a group of Foundation students demonstrating the wonderful progress they have made in their handwriting skills since starting school. Handwriting is a complex skill and at Ardtornish the Junior Primary teachers work to develop students’ skills through explicit instruction. The use of colour coded lined paper, referred to as ‘ground, grass and sky paper,’ assists students to plan and write letters with a focus on developing letters of a consistent size and shape; with tall letters reaching into the sky and tailed letters reaching into the ground. As children become more proficient in handwriting, the process becomes more automatic and fluent. This increased fluency allows them to allocate more cognitive resources to the composition of their writing and spelling accurately, as they no longer need to focus as much on the mechanics of writing. A fluent and clear handwriting style supports: Cognitive development: The process of learning and mastering handwriting engages various cognitive skills. It involves hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, spatial awareness, and memory. These cognitive abilities develop as children practice and refine their handwriting, supporting overall cognitive growth. Critical thinking and problem-solving: Fluent handwriting promotes the development of critical thinking skills. When children write by hand, they engage in a cognitive process that involves planning, organizing, and sequencing their thoughts. It helps them structure their ideas and arguments. Motor memory and kinesthetic feedback: When children write by hand, they engage in a process that involves forming letters and words through fine motor movements. This process helps build motor memory, where the muscles remember the patterns of letters and words. Letter formation and visual recognition: Handwriting requires children to understand and reproduce the shapes and forms of letters. As they practice writing, they become more familiar with the visual structure of letters and words. This familiarity with letter formation and visual recognition helps correct spellings. Phonological awareness: Research suggests that there is a strong connection between phonological awareness and spelling. When children write by hand, they actively engage with the sounds of words as they segment them into individual phonemes and link them to corresponding letters. Attention to detail and visual memory: Developing good handwriting requires children to pay attention to the details of letter formation, spacing, and overall legibility. This attention to detail and visual memory strengthens their ability to notice and remember the correct sequence of letters in words. In summary, good handwriting and spelling and writing development are interconnected through motor memory, visual recognition, phonological awareness, encoding and decoding, attention to detail, visual memory, and automaticity. Developing strong handwriting skills contributes to improved writing and spelling abilities in children. 
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2024 Enrolments
We will soon be looking at predicted student numbers for next year. Accurate enrolment details are needed so we can determine numbers for our classes. Therefore if your family is considering moving, or you know of someone moving into our area it is important that you let us know as soon as possible. If you have a younger sibling to start next year and you haven't completed an expression of interest form yet, please come in and speak to the front office staff. 
Swimming Dates
Junior Primary - Tuesday 27th June – Friday 30th June $40.00 (notes have been given out) Years 3-5 Swimming – Monday 31st July – Friday 4th August. (More information to come.) Would you like to volunteer with your child’s class for swimming? Make sure you have your Working with Children Check and have a current RRHAN-EC Certificate. Please contact the front office if you need to apply or to check on your current clearances. The Department for Education water safety program is designed to maximise the benefit of the time available. The program provides a water safety learning pathway to engage, challenge and support students to
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Online Safety
We thought it may be time to remind everyone of the minimum age for account holders. We are aware of the alarming amount of students that have 1 or more accounts on many of the sites listed on the accompanying poster. Although the interactions can often spill over into our school environment, we cannot be expected to step in and make a child remove themselves from a site. Kids are not always comfortable talking openly about their online situations and interactions but please persist with keeping in touch and monitoring the use. (If you're not, someone else may be.) 
Absences and Exemptions
If your child is going to be away for longer than three days whether it be holiday/illness/family reasons an exemption form needs to be completed (available from the front office). Remember: If your child is away unexpectedly e.g. sick please ring 8264 8099 and press 1 to leave an absence message or text 0447 467 152 to let the office know. Also remember to include your child’s name, class and reason. |
Room 27 have been working on information reports this week. We have been learning how to write them with paragraphs. We have also learnt new vocabulary that is specific to certain animals such as nocturnal, herbivore, omnivore, carnivore, mammals, reptiles, insects and what each of these means.
We then worked with our buddy class to learn how to create google slides and to turn our information reports into a presentation which allowed us to shower our knowledge in a different way.
We then worked with our buddy class to learn how to create google slides and to turn our information reports into a presentation which allowed us to shower our knowledge in a different way.
