Student Reading and Writing Improving student reading and writing outcomes at our school is our explicit focus for 2018. Moving around our school during the week I continue to marvel at our wonderful readers and writers. Last week a number of our students travelled to Innisfail to attend the Writers Camp. Our students joined students from other schools in the FNQ region and enjoyed a number of days filled with fabulous story writing, planning and editing. I congratulate the students that attended. Maize Festival This year Atherton State School will be entering a float in the Atherton Maize Festival. The Maize Festival will be held on Saturday 1st of September in Main Street Atherton in the early evening. The theme for this year’s Maize Festival is ‘Colour My World’. Children are asked to come dressed in a plain one-coloured T Shirt (no artwork on the shirt) on the evening - preferably in a Blue, Yellow, Red, Green, White or Maroon colour. Big W currently have these types of shirts on special at the moment. Younger children, most likely Prep and Year 1 aged children, will be travelling on the school’s float during the evening. Older children will walk behind the float as part of the procession. Only students currently enrolled at Atherton SS can join the school’s float and be part of the procession. All children joining our school’s float will need to be ‘signed in’ at the start of the procession and a parent/guardian’s mobile number provided to ensure there are no difficulties returning children to their families at the end of the procession. It becomes very busy, and crowded, at the end of the parade procession therefore it is vital the school is provided with a working mobile number on the evening. The float will be assembled in the school Admin carpark in the afternoon on Saturday 1st September. Any assistance preparing the float on Saturday afternoon prior to the parade, and also unpacking the float back at the school after the parade, would be greatly appreciated. More information will be sent home to families early next week. I would like to thank the Atherton SS P&C for their invaluable support of this year’s school float. Disco The traditional end of year school disco will be held on Friday 14th September this year. The disco has been moved to term 3 due to the busy end of year period. Classes have started rehearsing their disco performances with teachers communicating to parents regarding any specific items or equipment they will need for the disco. Ensure you mark Friday 14th September in your diaries. Enrol for Prep 2019 Prep enrolments for 2019 are now being taken at the school. If your child is turning 5 by June 30 2019 they are eligible to commence Prep next year. The school will be offering a formal transition program during Term 4 and would like to offer this program to all prospective 2019 Prep students who may be enrolling at Atherton State School. Enrolment forms can be obtained from the school administration. Absence Line Atherton State School now has a dedicated student absence phone number. You can now ring 4095 7366 and leave a message informing the school office that your child is going to be away, or is away, on any particular school day. Nicholas Shirley Principal

Armstrong Street Atherton, Qld 4883

P (07) 4095 7333 |

E the.principal@athertonss.eq.edu.au | W athertonss.eq.edu.au

Coming Events:

1st Sept Maize Festival Parade

14th Sept Fancy Disco

24th August 2018

PREP

It was a beautiful Friday morning as the Prep cohort, along with their families, visited Hallorans Hill as part of our Geography unit, Our special place. A huge thank you to Ranger Sarah who engaged our group in a very enthusiastic talk about our local area and assisted us in embarking on the rainforest walk. Over the coming weeks our classes will be completing questions related to features of special places and exploring art, drawing inspiration from the natural and artistic constructions at Hallorans Hill.

Reading Zone is the place to be! On a cool winter’s morning, is there a better place to be than on a couch, reading? The Reading Zone has been abuzz with many children enjoying the experience of practising their reading skills and strategies. Being a competent reader is a marker for success in later life. Well done to all the children who have been attending regularly.

Year 6

This week has been the busiest week so far this term. In maths we are now studying patterns with fractions, after assessing the students with positive & negative numbers and transformation of shapes.

In our Design technology unit, the students will design something that will help us coexist with wildlife. They are creating a mud map of the school using Google Earth to see where the trees are and where the wildlife live. They have been researching on computers to help them design the object.

In English we are writing our letters that will be preserved in a time capsule to be opened by a student in 2059. We are now in the editing stage of our letters. Next week we will start a new English unit, which involves studying the famous Australian author and illustrator, Elizabeth Honey. We will be reading the novels Don’t pat the Wombat and 45 and 47 Stella Street and everything that happened.

Five amazing students; Tobias, Patrick, Hannah, Jean and Jordan have met Elizabeth Honey and famous illustrator Craig Smith at Writers and Illustrator’s Camp at Daradgee last week. They wrote and illustrated a fabulous book from the genre My Australian Story. It was an amazing experience for them and they thoroughly enjoyed it!

Year 5

In class the next few weeks we are heavily focused on consolidating what children have learnt this term and completing assessment. It is vital that your child is at school everyday, unless they are very unwell. Attendance targets are 95%. As you can see, we are falling below. We would love to see each and every child at school … EVERY DAY!

5A - 90.31%

5B - 90.96%

5C - 91.89%

Book Week Dress Up Day was on Wednesday 22nd August. It was wonderful to see so many chil-dren dressed up as their favourite book character.

Interschool Sport has kicked off again on Fr iday afternoons. Please ensure that your child has a substantial lunch, hat and water bottle.

Our school disco is coming up at the end of this term. The children have already star ted to learn their dance here at school. We have sent out a note with the link to the dance moves and music. It would be fantastic if you could encourage your child to practice at home too.

With Thanks, Natalie Day, Samantha Brind-House & Christine Hanson

Year 1

Wow what a week! Thank you to everyone who joined in book week celebrations and dressed up as their favourite character. You all looked wonderful.

Thank you to all students who have been completing their homework every week and returning their home readers for changing over. Reading 10 minutes with your child every night is a great way to encourage them and foster their love for reading. A reminder homework is due back in class every Friday.

The disco is coming up very fast and we are dancing to the Purple People Eater. Your child is welcome to dress as the one eye, one horn flying purple people eater if they so choose. If not they can come in purple or clothes that are suitable for dancing the night away.

In class we have wrapped up our character interviews and have started exploring the features of cultural stories and how we can retell them. We are reading traditional Aboriginal stories and Japanese stories. It has been interesting reading about different cultures and getting an understanding of their history.

Finally we are still collecting shoe boxes for science so if you have some spare laying around please send them into your class teacher.

Thanks Miss Norris, Mrs Milson and Ms Sullivan.

Year 3

Thanks to all the parents who took the effort to dress children up for book week. They looked fantastic and promoted their books very well. Everyone enjoyed the day and was happy to talk about the chosen book. Home reading continues to be an issue for a few children who are not getting their books signed by parents so they can receive a new book each week. Maybe grandma/granddad or an older sibling could help out by hearing the younger children in the family read. We are learning our dance for the fancy disco, which will be here all too soon. Children have the website for this as some children were keen to have a go at home. They may need a little help to access it the first time. It would be great if you could help them. Thanks to all the parents who have purchased new supplies for their child. Much appreciated. Our Lorax retells are coming along well and the children are loving the book.

Year 2

What a busy time we are having in Year 2...but what fantastic things we are doing! We have worked hard on Poetry in English and know so many wonderful poems, off by heart. We have each written our own innovation on the poem 'Five Little Owls'. Now we are busily practising saying them aloud, as we will be presenting them in front of the class next week. We have started looking at Informative Texts now and are having lots of fun finding facts and information about different kinds of animals. We will be writing an Information Report about the Northern Blossom Bat in the next few weeks. In Science, we have been learning about pushes and pulls - forces needed to move objects and how toys use these things to move. We are about to start making our very own toy cars, which we are very excited about! I wonder whose will go the fastest, and whose will go the fur-thest? Our magnificent 'Mopoke' display is up in the PORTAL for Book Week this week. We loved the story about the funny owl and have a flock of our own Mopoke Owls flying there. Don't forget the Fancy Disco is this term - September 14th - so start getting your costumes ready! We have been practising our Mon-ster Mash dance as often as we can, and it is looking great...and monstery!!!

MLTAQ Cairns Languages Speaking Competition

Well done to our Atherton State School participants at the

MLTAQ Cairns Languages Speaking Competition which was

held on August 15th at the Cairns School of Distance

Education. The year 6 participants were Bridie and Miren

and the year 5 participants were Kye and Midori. It is a chal-

lenge to speak in another language in front of native speak-

ing judges and a large audience. All participants did very

well in presenting their speeches. This competition is be-

coming increasingly popular each year. We look forward to

many more enthusiastic language learners at the competi-

tion in 2019! Mrs Jackson, Japanese teacher