Students Caring For The Community

This past weekend three of our Year 3 students; Georgia, Faustina and Asher took it upon themselves to host a lemonade stand with various treats on sale. Set up in their local park, the girls raised over $133 in support of Perth’s homeless via the charity organisation ‘Mission Australia’.

Asher: “We had a lemonade cupcake fairy bread and lolly stand.”

Faustina: “My favourite part was selling delicious things.”

Georgia: “We sold things for charity, for the homeless and we hope they get a great surprise.”

St Michael’s is proud of such a caring student initiative. Fabulous work girls!

 

Fine Motor Development and Handwriting Readiness

Learning to write is a complex undertaking. For young children learning to write incorporates a series of fine motor movements, draws upon their knowledge of the language, exercises their working memory and depends largely on their level of concentration and opportunities to practise.

Handwriting proficiency requires the incremental development of fine motor dexterity throughout early childhood. Whole arm development, whole hand development and the pincer and pincher grip form part of a staged process for young children to build strength and control the muscles necessary for handwriting. Activities like painting with long brush strokes, rolling out play-dough, using tongs, doing the actions to “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and using scissors correctly are all examples of activities that precede handwriting, but are essential to support successful emergent literacy.

Supporting young children with pre-writing exercises is a great foundation for achieving success in writing in later years. Children who are learning to form letters, to recognise and spell high-frequency words, to put spaces between words and write letters that are a similar size are synthesising years of pre-writing experiences to support their initial attempts at writing.

Did you know? There are many physical skeletal changes that occur in a child’s hand between the ages of 4-8. Not only do their hands increase in size but they are also experiencing rapid growth as their cartilage matures into the bone. This growth has implications for their hand strength, flexibility and control that teachers take into account when planning developmentally appropriate learning activities.

Some tips to encourage your child with their early handwriting attempts at home may include;

• Say the letter together; say the name and say the sound.
• Use starting point guides so children know where to put their pencil first.
• Posture matters. A stable chair and correct table height support successful writing.
• Make it fun! Use chunky crayons to write rainbow letters, chalk on pavement, window markers (if you are brave!) or paint pens on an easel.

 

Media Ministry

This week we have been doing a lot around the school. There has been an upgrade and History has its own room! The new History room Is now located in the computer room as we have portable laptop holders in several classes. As we now have our own History room, everyone is very happy that we have more space to work. 

Laudato Si week  

Pope Francis has sent a message as we all must care for the earth. Pope Francis has sent a letter to the world called Laudato Si to care for our common home as it has been affected by climate change. We should all help the environment by picking up rubbish, recycling and saving power by turning off a light if you leave a room so we can fight climate change as the earth is becoming full of toxic waste and pollution.  

This week the Year 6 and years 5 classes did an MJR activity in the hall. This was about Laudato Si week, and how we could save our Earth. We made posters in groups of four of ways to Go Green, saving power, recycling and saving water. 

All year 6 are so excited that we have our new leaver shirt’s since it is our last year of primary school. A big thanks to the P & F for funding our shirts to be made.   

 

Regards,

Media Ministry

Assistant Principals
Jemima Saunders and Ryan Powles