Newsletter Number 10 • Wednesday 31st August 2022

From the Principal

While we celebrate books year round, Book Week is still a favourite on the calendar. We started the week with our annual Book Week parade, it’s a valuable way to introduce Book Week to students and begins the conversation about why the week exists, what it means and why it is important to celebrate quality children’s literature in Australia.

But of course Book Week is much more than a parade. Across the five days students dived into books, authors and illustrators which won, or were shortlisted, in the Book Week awards. We celebrated our love for books in many ways – staff shared their favourite children’s book of all time, art classes were inspired by shortlisted books, older students read with younger students, installations were explored and it was a time for celebrating authors and illustrators, as well as introducing children to the wonderful world of books both old and new.

There are so many new Australian books, authors and illustrators to celebrate during Book Week, where do you start? The Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) lists all books which have won awards in 2022 as well as those which received notable mentions or were shortlisted across 6 categories. The CBCA website also provides notes from authors and judges which make a handy resource if you're trying to decide which book might suit your young person. For a full list of books in the 2022 awards, head to Children's Book Council of Australia

Special thanks to the wonderful people who put time, energy and thought into creating the Book Week installations this year.

Cathy France 

Principal

2022 Theme - 'Appreciation'

Dr Maria Montessori was born on the 31st August 1870, 152 years ago. Many of you will have some knowledge of Maria Montessori and her extraordinary life.  She graduated as the first female physician in Italy, she was a professor of anthropology at the University of Rome, she studied psychology and philosophy and was nominated for three Nobel Peace Prizes.  She founded the first Casa dei Bambini, or "Children's House" in Rome in January 1907.  What ultimately became the Montessori method of education developed in that first Casa dei Bambini, based upon Montessori's scientific observations of those children.  She worked tirelessly throughout her life observing children and teaching teachers her method of education.  Her work & legacy lives on through the many Montessori schools throughout the world.

At this time every year we honour, acknowledge and appreciate her wisdom, her work and wonderful approach to working with children and young people.

Board Communique

At our last board meeting Meg Barker (Board member and Chair of Strategic Planning committee) facilitated a session to discuss the actions from the 2022-27 Strategic Plan. Board Members broke out into their smaller committees to focus on specific areas of the plan. This work will help guide the committees' operational plans over the coming years to ensure our Strategic Plan is realised.

Jade Crathern

Board President

Welcome to new staff member

Tara McHenry - Receptionist

This week we've welcomed Tara to our administration team in the role of Receptionist. Tara lives in the Adelaide Hills with her husband and three children. She has a background in voice and music and is currently studying her Master of Education.

Welcome Tara!

Celebrating Book Week

Parent Discussion Group - Emotions and their connection to wellbeing

Things can get tricky for parents when BIG emotions arrive. From tantrums and outbursts, to shut-downs and avoidance, managing emotions that overwhelm, without becoming overwhelmed ourselves, can be challenging to say the least.

Come along to our upcoming Parent Discussion Group with our Wellbeing Worker Katy Walker, to share your experience and expertise, as well as connect with other parents and explore some new insights into how emotions are connected to wellbeing. 

This session is being held on Friday 2nd September at 9.15am in the library at Yultiwirra. Please RSVP via the eForm on Skoolbag, by Thursday 1st September.

Quiz Night 2022!

Shortcut link to Quiz Night tickets

Get your table of 10 organised and get set for a rollicking good time! 

Tickets and meals can be purchased via the link below. There is an option to select seating on a table you have pre-organised, or we can allocate you to a table - the choice is yours. 

**Meal bookings need to be placed by this Friday 2 September**

Tickets and meal bookings to the 2022 Quiz Night - Book here!

How can you help with Quiz Night?

Do you have any items that might be suitable for our Silent Auction or  prize pool for the Quiz Night being held on Saturday 10th September?  

We would love to hear from our school community and extended networks who are able to donate items, including 'big-tickets' items for our Silent Auction. 

🏝 Silent Auction Items These are items which will get people bidding! Examples include: accommodation packages, signed memorabilia, gift baskets, various classes (yoga/ personal training/pilates/ cooking), restaurant or food vouchers, movie tickets, pamper packages, plants or gardening wares - or any other imaginative prize you can think of! Perhaps you have a specific talent which we could package up into a prize, anything from baking birthday cakes to creating an artwork - our fundraising team are a creative bunch who are more than happy to hear your idea and from there they could package up a prize.  

🍿Donations of prizes - These are smaller items which are used on the night as prizes for the winning table and costume prizes. We're asking for any donated items from chocolates to wine to small vouchers.

🍾Silent Wine Auction - This year the Mystery Wine Wall  is back. The Fundraising committee is sending home a brown bottle bag to each family, if you'd like to donate a bottle of wine, please put it in the bottle bag and deliver to the  school office.

This is one of our biggest school fundraisers, any donations, suggestions or assistance is greatly appreciated by the Fundraising committee.  

Please let us know in the office or email reception@montessori.sa.edu.au .

State Government Capital Grant

In 2021, the School received $35,000 (exclusive GST) under the State Government 2020-21 Independent Non-Government School Capital Grant Funding program. This significant grant was supplemented by the School’s Capital Expenditure budget to purchase furniture and cupboards for Middle School students and staff, a range-hood and stainless steel splash-back for the Middle School’s oven, and the installation of an enhanced fire safety system for our Cycle 1 and Library building, including a 12-horsepower pump. 

We thank the State Government for this $35,000 grant that has allowed us to achieve these capital developments.

Cycle News

Infant Program

It has been a busy few weeks in the Infant Program. A big highlight was our celebration of Book Week with a focus on The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. The children enjoyed taking a closer look at real caterpillars from Heidi's garden and making a grass seed caterpillar to take home to watch grow into fuzzy grassy Caterpillars! Our Tuesday group had a special visit to the library and enjoyed a story with Marissa. We welcomed our newest and youngest member baby Alexander to our community, who made his first visit at just 10 days old! 

Cycle 1 Preschool

In the Preschool we have been having lots of fun learning about colour. We started by identifying the three primary colours as being red, blue and yellow and then mixed the primary colours to make new secondary colours. The children created new colours using red, blue and yellow water, playdough and paint. They have also been using the Montessori colour tablets to practise naming and pairing the different colours together.

“Orange is red and yellow mixed together”  Walter

“I can make green”  Billy

“I am making a picture (using the primary colours on the light table)” Sigrun

Cycle 1 Primary

This term in our art classes,  Cycle 1 students have been learning about portraits and the difference between a portrait and a self-portrait. They looked at examples of each by studying the portraits and self-portraits of  van Gogh, Picasso and Khalo .

Students discussed and observed the position of facial features such as eyes, nose, ears, mouth and the shape of a face, for example: is it an oval rather than circular, eyes are positioned halfway down your face, ears are in line with your eyes, distance between the eyes , and edges of the mouth in line with the centre of your eyes. 

They used different art mediums to create self-portraits and/or portraits of others. They practiced their grace and courtesy skills to ask a friend to pose for a portrait.  

During Week 5 in the Art curriculum, we celebrated Book Week by reading Blue Flower by Sonya Hartnett. The book captures the emotions of a young girl who feels as though she doesn’t belong and that she is not good at anything. She also learns that she likes art more than anything and finds freedom in expressing herself through paint. After we finished the book, we explored our own individuality through expressive drawing.  

Cycle 2

The Cycle 2 language curriculum provides opportunities for students to regularly practice identifying phonemes and their corresponding graphemes, study words and grammar at ability levels.   

In grammar, our class has been focusing on suffixes, different types of verbs and pronouns. Small groups have been exploring parts of speech in isolation, parsing with grammar symbols, applying new grammar knowledge into their own writing and demonstrating an understanding of the function of words.  

Last week we headed outside in the beautiful winter sunshine in small groups to explore some of the different ways you can make an 'er' sound in words such as ‘ur’, ‘ir’ and ‘er’.

In Montessori grammar, each part of speech is represented by a shape and colour with a special meaning. The noun is represented by a black pyramid. The pyramid, one of the first human structures, is solid and does not move. The verb, on the other hand, is a red sphere, to represent the shape and energy of the sun which gives life. The verb gives life and movement to objects and sentences. 

Cycle 3

Science is a much loved subject in our class and this term the focus has been on the scientific method and using scientific language.  We have explored the notion of making a hypothesis, and explored the questions: What is a control? What is a variable? How do we change that?  We have dived into subject specific language, learning all about concentrated solutions, buoyancy and surface tension.

The class has worked in small groups to complete two practical experiments each week. The task is to complete the experiments, record the results/observations and then type up the report, including the materials used, the steps in the process and the observations/findings. 

The inquiry questions generated from the practical aspect then form a research task, investigating WHY.  The experiments that have been completed so far include: making lava lamps; seeing how many paperclips can fit in a cup of water; making slime (states of matter) and exploring whether they are solids or liquids; and looking at concentrated solutions and buoyancy.

Enthusiasm has been high!

Cycle 4

The Adolescent Program has been abuzz with activity so far this term. There has been much enthusiasm with the various new offerings across our learning areas. A couple of these groups are Big Changes in the Productive Garden and Making Silent Film.

A crew of students have been getting super busy outside, thinking big and planning a huge remodel of the productive garden. Having taken inspiration from existing gardens and imagined possibilities, the team are collaborating to generate an ambitious master plan to totally overhaul our tiring veggie and produce patch. 

The annual International Silent Film Festival has enticed a small group of would-be film-makers to enter the competition. The rules are simple: Use any of the 10 provided music tracks from the following categories: Charmed, Motown, Shadows, Slapstick, Epic, Science Fiction, Reflections, Western, Noir, Discovery - just don't modify them; make it suitable for all ages; and no copyrighted material. This challenge is bringing out some fantastic creativity & collaboration, along with encouraging students to be considered in working to a brief.

Ben, Pippa and Dave travelled to Perth last weekend to attend Meeting in the Middle - a gathering of practitioners from Montessori adolescent programs from around Australia, to share ideas and practice. We took the opportunity to visit two other programs in action. We find this to be some of the best professional development each year and really appreciate the opportunity to attend. This opportunity does allow us to feel immensely proud of the work we do and fortunate to work in this community.

Music with David

Students throughout the Yultiwirra campus have been experiencing an array of activities that surround the music subject. Preschoolers have been learning to identify beat and rhythm as connected, but separate ideas. They have been able to match sounds to rhythmic shapes and even create some of their own.  

A feature song for this term amongst all of the students is The Lion Sleeps Tonight, with all classes touching on the song's structure, both melodically and harmonically. Cycle 3 students have investigated the arpeggiated triad over the song's form, with both Cycle 1 and 2 investigating the harmonic interval concepts of 3rds and 5ths. 

The Year 3 recorder group is venturing far beyond Hot Cross Buns, with a current repertoire of seven notes. This is now every scale note learnt within the C Major scale. The coming weeks will be spent solidifying the finger positions and note reading. 

Cycle 3 students are busy rehearsing their upcoming musical The Greatest Show, with everyone involved in some aspect of the production. We will be using some music time each week to begin shaping and polishing the musical aspects of the show, building this into the context of the show's story. 

All music classes are using games that reinforce rhythmic concepts and they are all learning sung repertoire that is both accessible and fun to sing.  

I hope your children are sharing their musical experiences with parents in the home,   

Cultural Connection Zone

The Cultural Connection Zone is a regular spot in the Newsletter highlighting cultural events & information provided by the Cultural Understanding Committee (staff).

Cultural Cookup on Peramangk Land

On Saturday 22 October, Peramangk and Kaurna Elder, Uncle Ivan-Tiwu Copley and Hahndorf Walking Tours will be offering a chance for people to participate in a ‘cultural cookup’.  Participants will have the opportunity to try lemon myrtle tea, yams with bush herbs, damper with quandong and fish prepared with bush herbs.  The event runs for 2 hours and is suitable for all ages.  Tickets must be purchased in advance via Hahndorf Walking Tours.

Photo credit: Luisa Brimble 

Dates, Events and Notices

Diary Dates for Term 2

Term 3 2022

Friday 2nd September

Parent Discussion group with Katy 9.15am

Fundraising meeting 9.15am

Sunday 4th September

Father's Day

Tuesday 6th September

I&PC meeting 8.00am

Marketing meeting 4.00pm

Wednesday 7th September

WHS meeting 4.00pm

Thursday 8th September

Cycle 2 overnight camp

Tuesday 13th September

Finance meeting 6.00pm

Wednesday 14th September - Friday 16th September

Cycle 4 Learning Links camp

Wednesday 14th September

Culturla Undertstanding committee meeting 4.00pm

Student Wellbeing committee meeting 4.00pm

Thursday 15th September

Parent rep meeting 2.30pm

Foundation Board meeting 6.00pm

Tuesday 20th September

Executive meeting 6.00pm

Board meeting 7.00pm

Wednesday 21st September

Policy meeting 4.00pm


2022 Term Dates

Term 3:  26 July – 30 September 

Term 4:  18 October – 14 December

2023 Term Dates

Term 1: Tuesday 31 January – Thursday 6 April (10 weeks) 

Term 2: **Wednesday 26 April – Friday 30 June (10 weeks) 

Term 3: Tuesday 25 July – Friday 29 September (10 weeks) 

Term 4: Tuesday 17 October – Wednesday 13 December (9 weeks) 

2023 Pupil Free days 

Term 1: Monday 30 January 

Term 2: Monday 24 April 

Term 3: Monday 24 July 

Term 4: Monday 16 October 

2023 Public Holidays 

Thursday 26 January – Australia Day 

Monday 13 March – Adelaide Cup Day 

Friday 7 April – Good Friday 

Monday 10 April – Easter Monday 

Tuesday 25 April – ANZAC Day **results in Term 2 starting on a Wednesday

Monday 12 June – Queen’s Birthday 

Monday 2 October – Labour Day

“The things he sees are not just remembered;

they form part of his soul.”

Maria Montessori