Terara Times

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of being in the 5/6W classroom when Will and Fynn from 1/2G decided to throw the gauntlet down on what quality writing should look like. Our class sat in amazement as we listened to these young writers raise the standard with the sizzling starts to their narratives. Here is an excerpt from Fynn's work:

"The door creaked. As we came in the lights flickered. As we came through the hallway there was a crash!

"What was that?" said Ally.

Ebony shivered with fear. There was a jingling sound. It came closer and closer. It stopped. The lights turned back on and it was just a cat!

This writing was so impressive that we have decided to run the "Principal's Writing Competition". This competition is for all ages, as these two students proved that age clearly isn't a determining factor for quality writing. The goal is for students to write a sizzling start to a narrative using the below stimulus picture as their guide. It can only be one paragraph long. The winning entries will be celebrated and featured in our newsletter next week and on our Facebook page.

I look forward to seeing the entries!

Last week we used the Skoolbag app to inform parents as to whether their child will be receiving an award at assembly. We have decided to now trial emailing parents directly to let them know this information. We have most of your email addresses on file, but if you could make sure you notify the school of any changes to your email address that would be very helpful.

This year, the organisers of the Shoalhaven River Festival have selected Terara Public School students to take part in the River Lantern Parade. This will involve a local artist (Dora from Mad Cow Studios) to come into our school and help our students make these incredible looking lanterns. As we are a small school we will be doing this across all the classes, beginning with 5/6W on Friday Week 4 (24th May). We are also looking for any 5/6W parents that might be able to come in and help as well. Here is some more information from the organisers: 

In 2018 for the first time Shoalhaven River Festival partnered with a local school to develop a River Lantern Parade. Illaroo Road Public School was the Festival’s River School for 2018. Children worked with local artist Dora Roguvaldsdottir to design and make paper lanterns. 54 lanterns were made and paraded by children and their families with drums, trumpet & shakers accompanying. The crowd loved them and River Festival is looking forward to Terara Public School being our River School for 2019.

The lantern making activities will be free. River Festival will pay the artist and for all the materials. The activity uses cane and tissue paper. A small battery operated LED lights the lantern. Older children will find the craft activity easy and enjoyable. Younger children may need a parent of teacher to help them.

The lanterns will be stored until River Festival on the 26th October. In the evening parents and children will gather with Dora and the musicians for the parade. As twilight falls the parade will walk along the riverbank through the crowd. At the end of the parade everyone will sit to watch the light boat parade and the fireworks.

Our weather shed has definitely been through a lot over these past few years. It has even been compared to the "room of requirements" from Harry Potter! This is all about to change, because we are about to enter the endgame by emptying it for the last time.

Bryce's family, who owns Dave's Removals, has kindly agreed to donate a removalist truck to take away all our old furniture and items we don't need in our school anymore. This will mean that our P&C will only need to organise people to help arrange and dismantle the furniture ready for pickup. We will be letting you know soon how you can help us do this.

Thanks again to the Harper family, and to all the parents that work so hard to make our school the best it can be. We really appreciate it and look forward to celebrating with you and a beautiful, empty weather shed!

On Wednesday 8th of May we had a fundraiser called 'Adopt-A-Farmer'. Everyone dressed up in farmer clothes and brought in gold coin donations which got donated to help out our local farmers. In total we raised $120, which is a great effort for our small school. It was an awesome day! - Ethan S.

On Friday we had our robotics class. We had to be engineers and make a robot to stop floods in rivers. We followed instructions from the iPad and coded a floodgate to open and close. Some groups even added gyroscopes to control the gate! We had a lot of fun and I can’t wait to do it again! - Fynn A.

This year the P&C made donations to all our classrooms with money they raised from the Country Fair. Our class had a meeting and decide to buy a 3D printer. I was very excited because we can use it to print models for work and have fun. Another great thing is that the models we print with this are biodegradable so they are not plastic that will take 100 years to break down.  I got to print one of the first models - a keyring with my name. I am very excited to use the printer again. Thanks P&C! - Ava G

This year in 1/2G we have started using a website called Reading Eggs. It’s really fun and it helps us with our reading. The problem was that these lessons got really, really noisy. I couldn’t understand what my iPad was trying to tell me because all I could hear was other people’s iPads! Luckily the P&C gave us money to buy new headphones. Now we can hear our own devices in peace and quiet. Thanks P&C! - Ally H

Congratulations to the winners of this week's Froggy draw - Lachlan, Ivy and Millah!

The focus for next week is 'right time, right place, right thing'.

Our P&C Disco for this year has been announced! It will be on Thursday Week 10 (4th of July) from 6pm-8pm. Entry is $5 and students will be able to buy a range of snacks for $1. Start thinking of song requests now!

Uniforms and Friday lunches can be ordered through the My School Connect website/app. Please look at the flyer below for more information.