Attendance at school is essential to maximise learning, and we are tracking slightly down on our year to date at 93%. As I have mentioned earlier, every day at school counts and significant learning occurs this term so I encourage you all to ensure that students are at school, on time, ready to learn, every day. We appreciate you letting us know if your child is sick as this is classified as an ‘explained absence’. We have had a number of notifications lately though that we are not able to authorise due to students being kept home for unacceptable reasons. 

Earlier in the term, we sent out information regarding new forms of social media and the increasing importantance for parents to be aware of how this media works, such as Tik Tok is a video sharing app. As parents, it’s important to be having conversations about these tools (often which we know nothing about) and to understand how to support our children in being safe online. On the link below, parents can receive information outlining easy ways to set restrictions on what apps children are able to use; setting privacy settings and controlling who sees content on an app. The information comes from the eSafety Commissioner Website which has lots of excellent material relating to apps and online platforms being used by children.

https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/skills-advice/online-safety-basics

As part of our planning for next year, it is important for us to make an accurate prediction as to our numbers of students who will be attending Burnie Primary School next year. If you know that you will not be here or if you know of families that will be moving into our area, can you please let us know as soon as possible so we can ensure that we are able to cater for every single students’ success in 2020.

We have had students involved in so many different and varied learning experiences outside of our school grounds lately. From our upcoming two week Grade K - 2 Swimming and Water Safety program at the Burnie Aquatic Centre, to EMUsicians concerts, Grade 2s singing at the opening of the giving tree at the Kmart and upcoming excursion, Prep excursion to Guide Falls Farm, Grade 1 excursion to Devonport Paranaple centre, Grade 3 ‘Big Day Out’ and Grade 5 on their three day camp last week. These quality learning experiences are all great examples of enacting our vision of a collaborative, creative and innovative learning community here at Burnie Primary School.

 Andrew Starick

Ada-Lee Kelly Grade 1HB

Ada-Lee received this award in recognition of giving her best effort.

Last Wednesday,  13th of November Grade 2s went to K-mart to sing at the opening of the K-mart Wishing Tree Appeal.  The Wishing Tree is about kids that don't get any presents. You can donate presents to others and make a difference to homeless people and those who don't have enough spare money to buy Christmas presents.

We sang Christmas songs for half an hour. We got cake and a gift bag. My favourite part was the singing and my favourite song was "Nuttin for Christmas". This is the chorus:

"Oh I'm getting nuttin for Christmas,

Mummy and daddy are mad

I'm getting nuttin for Christmas

Cos I ain't been nuttin but bad."

We learnt 23 songs and only sang 19.

By Mikayla

Grade 5 Camp at Hagley Farm

On Monday we left school at about 9am and we were all really excited. Our first stop was at Gunns Plains Caves. Our tour guides were Geoff and Chris (who was also called Bob). There were 54 steps at the start of the caves. We got to see glow worms and in one part it went completely dark! We learnt about the different types of stalagmites and stalactites. It was great. Next we had lunch at the Ulverstone Dinosaur Park. Miss Hanson went on the zip line and flung up into the air. We also ate Cooper’s cupcakes. Next we headed to camp. We got settled into our cabins and had some free time. After dinner, we had a big swim in their pool.

The next morning we had breakfast and spent the whole day at Hagley Farm. We went to the dairy and saw a cow being milked. Although she didn’t cooperate as she was saving her milk for her calves. She also coughed on some people and even pooped right in front of us. This was really funny! We also fed some ducks, goats, sheep, donkeys, alpacas, chickens and pigs. We got to collect eggs and attempt to catch chickens to hold them.

We also had a tractor ride around the farm and we learnt about different types of cows and crops. It was fun but also super windy and cold. We dressed up and went to the Olde School which was set in 1899. The teacher was really grumpy and used the cane. If the boys were wearing hats inside they were punished by having read chalk on their noses because they were trying to be class clowns, therefore they were made to look like clowns. Someone also had to wear the Dunce hat if they said something wrong. That afternoon, we had time at the museum where we saw old machinery and really old household items. We got to wash some huge undies using olden day techniques. That night we watched a movie all together.

On the way home, we went to Tasmania Zoo. We got to pat the kangaroos and wallabies. The souvenir shop was really expensive. We got to pat a baby Tassie Devil named Poppy. We saw some alpacas being sheared and got to keep some of the fur. 

By Grade 5

Recently Grade Four have been learning about weathering erosion and deposition. We did an experiment that allowed us to see how erosion happens.

We had three bottles, one with dirt, one with dirt and leaves and the third one was grass. We were trying to see which would have the least amount of sediment. Our overall results showed that grass was the most useful for holding the soil together which had the least amount of sediment.

We wondered….. How did the ice get in there? What are the changes that have occurred here? What do we predict might happen?

Next we explored the ice …. What can we see? What can we feel? What can we hear? What can we smell? But NOT what can we taste….. YUCK!

We  measured and documented the changes we saw and noticed how long it took for change to happen.

We explored the ice by putting drops of food colouring on it …. We noticed lots of patterns and cracks in the ice.

Next we added salt …… WOWSERS! That we really cool. We noticed that the salt changed the ice and we could make craters in our ice balloon. When we added more colouring our class was VERY excited! We were able to use fantastic describing words about what we noticed ….. crystals, translucent, opaque, reaction, melting, freezing …..

Next we added some drops of tap water and noticed that the ice changed again and began melting in a different way.

 Lastly, we went outside and dropped our ice onto the concrete …. The ice smashed into lots of pieces and were able to have a look in the centre of the ice balloon ….. our slo-mo videos of the ice smashing were awesome!

Who knew a balloon of ice could be so much fun and amazing learning about change, cause and effect, states of matter and chemical reactions!

Our next meeting will be Tuesday 26th November at 7pm at Burnie Primary, hope to see you there. Bring along your thoughts and ideas around the play pod!

Auditions are open for students who will be in Grades 3-6 in 2020. Forms are available from the school office or see Mrs Matthews if you would like more details.