Calendar Snapshot

For updated events on the School’s Calendar please visit:

http://www.treetops.wa.edu.au/events/month/

2nd

June

Public Holiday

20th

June

Whole School Lapathon

26th

June

Parent Teacher Meetings

Enthusiasm, Participation, Appreciation

Dear Parents and Guardians

The rainy weather has not abated our students’ enthusiasm for learning this

term! Term 2 began with the entire primary population participating in a First

Aid Course for students. Our Year 3,5,7 and 9 students calmly sailed through

NAPLAN testing last week feeling prepared and enjoyed an extended recovery

period after each morning of testing. Thank you to Sam Mccubbin and Sue

Flewellen who supervised the testing and created an organised, relaxed, quiet

place for this to take place.

Our Year 10 cohort have moved across to the upper secondary class to begin the

preparation for the start of their IB Diploma Course in Semester 2. We wish

them the best as they begin this rigorous two year course. Due to this move,

limited places are now available in our Jarrah classroom for children aged Year 7

– 9.

We are looking forward to welcoming Sandra Hendy, our new Coral Gums

teacher, who arrived in Australia today. Sandra will be at Treetops on Monday to

complete some documentation and will begin in the classroom on Tuesday. To

ensure a smooth transition period for the Coral Gums students, the current relief

arrangement will continue for a few weeks until the teachers determine that the

class has fully settled. We thank Anene Lamb for stepping in to share her wealth

of Montessori experience with the class over the last few weeks.

Finally, I would like to draw your attention to the requests for involvement and

information about our 25 Year Anniversary Open Day, to be held in September.

This important and exciting event requires community participation, so if you

feel you would like to be part of the celebration, please contact Jay in the office.

Warm regards,

Scott Taprell

Principal

Newsletter for Treetops School Volume 34 Term 2 May 2014

From the Principal

“Education is a natural process carried out by the child and is not acquired by listening to words but by experiences in the environment.” Maria Montessori

Children’s House

CORAL GUMS - I couldn’t have been happier to have the opportunity to spend some extra time with the Coral Gums and we are off to a fabulous start for Term 2! If you pop your head in during our morning session you will see it is business as usual, the children are busy with their individual work and our classroom is relaxed and happy. The children have already been treated to two visits by Jo Axford who has shown us how to make some rather delicious raspberry chocolate treats and also some Beautiful Boats as part of our craft on Friday. Reading books will be coming home this week for those children who are ready, and it would very helpful if you would read with your child, write a short comment, then return the book the following day. As part of our new theme this term ‘People in our Community’ we have some exciting projects underway. The first is our Corner Shop, where children can take turns at spending short periods making shopping lists, stocking shelves and role-playing the parts of shopkeeper and customer using play money. Many studies show that “make-believe strengthens a wide variety of mental abilities, including sustained attention, memory, logical reasoning, language and literacy skills, imagination, creativity, understanding emotions, and the ability to reflect on one’s thinking, inhibit impulses, control one’s own behaviour, and take another’s perspective”. Our Japanese teacher will also begin teaching the children some ‘shop’ language next week, as well as the Japanese words for the items we have for sale, giving the children the opportunity to practice their new skills in a ‘shop’ environment. Another project is our Coral Gums Post Office. You will soon see a bright red post box outside our classroom and every student in the school will be writing a letter, poem or drawing a picture for another student in a different classroom. The Coral Gums will be sorting the mail into delivery areas during the week and carrying out deliveries. We would love parents to get involved by using the mail box to post items to be delivered to any staff member or student in the school – the more mail we receive gives us more practice at letter/word recognition and sorting. During our mat times the children are benefitting from the trio of teachers in the classroom because we all bring a variety of new songs, rhymes, energy and ideas. Thanks to Wendy and Anene for your great ideas and cheerful approach. Finally a huge thank you to Sandy who, as always, has been working incredibly hard and helped the children create some really beautiful gifts to take home for their mothers on Friday. You are an asset to our classroom and to our school. Sam Mccubbin

Early Years at Treetops

Coral Gums Post Box is NOW OPEN!

ALL PARENTS PLEASE NOTE: As per our policy, Treetops has duty of care of your children from 8.20am in the morning. A

staff member will be on duty from this time at the front gate. Please resist dropping off your primary or Children’s House age child before

8.20am, as legally we do not have responsibility for them before this time. Thank you for your

attention.

Wattle was vandalised over the weekend and police were notified. Thank you to the

Giraudo family who happened to arrive at school early and

helped Kate, Bev and Jay clean up the mess before the other children arrived. Cameras will be installed next week. If you have information about this situation, please contact the Midland Police Department.

SCARLET GUMS As an extension of our theme ‘People in our community’, we have organized an incursion with the firefighters from Midland fire station on the 28th May at 10.30am. We are also fortunate to have Dr Susie McLean visit our children on Friday 23rd May. The Police Officers and a musician have also been invited and we are in the process of confirming dates soon. These incursions will involve all children from Coral and Scarlet Gums classes. The children have been learning many catchy fun, interactive number, shape, rhyming and alphabet songs this term. This will help the children understand the language of numbers, as well as lay a solid foundation of phonological and phonemic awareness. Just remember that these are different from phonics because they are about listening, not looking. There are many vacant spaces on our Friday activities rosters. Help is needed and much appreciated in Children’s House. Thank you to the parents who constantly volunteer your services. Geraldine and Liz

Karri

Food Revolution Day The 16th May was Food Revolution Day, a day of global action to keep cooking skills alive and getting kids excited about cooking from scratch. This year, British chef Jamie Oliver, taught children around the world to make a delicious, healthy wrap in 30 minutes. Karri class and Silver Wattle registered to be part of this event. Our students teamed up on Friday to cook and eat together. And this is what a few of our Karri students had to say about the day: “On 16th May our class and Silver Wattle made rainbow wraps with Jamie Oliver. It was fun making the wraps and taking care of the little ones. We made the wraps with carrots, beetroots, cabbage, pear, fresh mint, parsley and feta cheese. I thought it was very fun to make the wraps but sadly, I didn’t like the taste” Cody “I had an awesome Food Revolution Day. The recipe that we made was just delicious, all of the ingredients went so well together. It was really fun cooking the recipe (though it was messy)! I really enjoyed all the different flavours and the dressing blew me away! My absolute favourite ingredient was probably the mustard. It gave the wrap extra zing! Funny you should call it a rainbow wrap because the beetroot made it more like a deep red wrap! Francesca “I loved the ingredients and the veggies were yum! Unfortunately the beetroot stained my hands, the carpet and one of our beanbags. It was really fun . My team was Nicholas, Riley, Layla, Finlay, Emily and Eiranne and we had lots of fun cooking together.” Amelie “It was a lot of fun, we also got to socialise with other people and experience working with people we had never met. It was a great way to finish off the week. I’m really glad we did this Food Revolution Day cooking with Jamie Oliver and my message to Jamie is: I am extremely happy to have worked with the class doing the Food Revolution Day activity. Thank you, Jamie!” Jasmin

Jarrah

As the end of term approaches the Jarrah students are busy completing

projects, assignments and tests.

Maps have been studied in depth to help complete Humanities projects;

from books, globes and even a shower curtain – see photos.

In English, students have been polishing their ‘zines, creating a blog or

writing a children’s book.

They have all completed a test in maths, covering the first part of the

term’s work and are nearly ready for their next maths assessment.

All this provides valuable feedback for teachers and students as we finish

this term and prepare for the next.

Sue Flewellen

Jarrah English

Last term, students created hand-made ‘zines (mini magazines) and children’s books. The ‘zines were on topics as diverse as stumpy tale blue healers, fashion, pet care, horses and strange horticultural rituals …

The children’s books were completed using a range of techniques, including software “draw” programmes, pencil drawings and scrap-booking.

In English this term, Jarrah is studying the novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The focus question is “Who is Alice?” and lessons have been exploring the implication of different genres, divergent reading strategies, and the importance context. So far, we’ve discussed reading the book as a nonsense novel and as a satire on the various aspects of Carroll’s life. We’ve also looked at the development (pardon the pun) of photography during the 1800s, and the way this has influenced the text.

Jarrah Mathematics

This term year 7 students have started on learning all things about fractions, from equivalence to adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. It has given all students a chance to revise and consolidate their knowledge. Year 8 students are focusing on working with fractions and decimals; which includes researching different number sets such as real, rational, irrational and negative numbers. Discussions in English have included the necessity or not of negative numbers! (in Alice in Wonderland). The year 9 students have been working with rational and irrational numbers as they calculate side lengths in right angled triangles using Pythagoras’ theorem.

Jarrah Cooking

We have started fortnightly cooking lessons! The focus for the first two lessons has been on uses of flour. Homemade noodles (see photo) for the first week and pizza the second week.

While half the class have been cooking with Ray, the other half are learning how to use a spreadsheet.

Senior School

Japanese Japanese classes in Jarrah have taken on a mysterious turn, with students studying Japanese mythological creatures. As well as an interesting way to learn adjectives, the stories behind these tales provide unique insights into the Japanese culture. This form of enquiry based learning is central to the International Baccalaureate and Montessori philosophies and gives us an opportunity to observe the way in which universal themes found in folk tales express traditions, beliefs and values. Sharon Crossman Japanese Teacher

Specialist Subjects

Music and Movement During the Easter holidays I had the opportunity to attend a 'Primary Dance' workshop at King Street Arts Centre in the City. I came away with some really fabulous ideas and am now trying them out with Wattle and Children's House. Last week with Wattle we started to explore some methods of choreographing our own dances. As a class we made up our own dance and performed it as a group which was really great fun! This week the class will be split into smaller groups to work on their own individual ideas - I can't wait to see what happens..... With Children's House we are exploring 'fast and slow', 'high, medium and low' and creating movement patterns. Sam Mccubbin Music and Movement Teacher

Minecraft fans are in luck! We have now aquired four books to inform even complete novices!

M

Parents and Friends

REAL FOOD LUNCHES

Due to this week's Real Food Lunches not

being up to Red Hot Spatula's usual high

standard, Yvonne will be issuing a refund to

all those who ordered.

As Yvonne has been busy looking after her

beautiful newborn, she has had to put on staff

to manage our lunches. While all possible

care was taken to ensure Red Hot Spatula's

usual quality was maintained, unfortunately

this week's lunch did not meet Yvonne's high

standards. To ensure the kids are getting the

usual Red Hot Spatula quality lunches, we

have decided to postpone Real Food Lunches

for the remainder of Term 2. We hope to

resume lunches in Term 3 with Yvonne back in

the kitchen.

We will arrange refunds for those who have

paid for the full term next week.

Jo Atkinson

Here’s what some of you had to say about Real Food School Lunches:

“My son wouldn’t eat anything green, but he came home saying he loved his Real Food lunch and ate all the vegetables!”

Happy Mum “I just wanted to say thank you for the Real Food lunches, I struggle to get my daughter to eat vegetables, but she is eating them in

her lunch now!” Happy Mum

THANK YOU

Attached to Clippings today you will find a Parent and Student list for your child’s class.

Thank you to Lisa Donoghue who originally volunteered in the Administration just to warm up her extensive office skills and

ended up taking on this mammoth task! It was a pleasure having you in the office, Lisa.

Any corrections or queries, or to receive a class list for a different class, please email Merril at the front office –

office@treetops.wa.edu.au

Playground celebration The weather cleared just in time for the playground landscaping and celebration – thank you all 80+ of you who came along and cheerfully got dirty and ate a lot. We were especially pleased to welcome Treetops alumni - the Lawrence Family and the Tazewells and Sherene Strahan who was joyfully greeted by her former students and their parents. Thanks to Treetops mums and Merril who make THE BEST deserts and special thanks to Jo Atkinson who made us a cake even though she was sick and the undaunted Keyte who delivered it. Thanks Cerys for finding my phone and everyone else for searching! On a personal note – I am so grateful to Sarah for the kind words and all of you for my gorgeous gifts and card and for helping set up and clean up in what seemed like the blinking of an eye. And thank you for the fairy lights. Anne Hesletine

Treetops 25th Anniversary and Open

Day

2014 is the 25th Birthday of Treetops and we plan to celebrate in style and invite

community, friends, families and Treetopians everywhere.

Our plan is for a weekend day Open Day, with all classrooms open, work displayed,

community involved, stalls and fun for the children, musical performances and lashings of

joy.

If you are interested in becoming part of this event and feel as if you could donate some of

your time and energy, please contact Jay in the office. Duties will be divided and you can

take on as much or as little as you feel you can provide. If you are interested in Beauty and

Order (making sure the school grounds and classrooms are presentation ready), Promotions

(getting online, in the paper and on the street telling everyone about our celebrations),

Operations (helping organize who goes where, making sure we have our ‘trees in a row’) or

Fair Organising (interacting with stallholders) please contact Jay in the office.

Suggestions are welcome, ideas are invited and enthusiasm appreciated!

Parents, please SAVE THE DATE for Saturday

13th September 2014!

(Not 20th as previously advertised)