Prescott Primary Northern eNewsletter

School Highlights

Pirate Day

Year 3 Cultural Incursion

The Year Three students were involved in a Cultural Incursion. They learnt about the exotic Chinese ancient culture and a different musical history as part of our Global Celebrations Unit for this term. The students wore Chinese Dragons and Lion Heads, used fans and participated in the Chinese style of Dragon Dance movements.

Tony Zappia Visit - Communities Environment Grant

At Prescott Primary Northern, we have been involved in the Communities and Environment Program, which aims to promote and encourage the benefits of sustainable practices. Tony Zappia visited our school this week to view our progress and spend time with students discussing the steps we have taken to be mindful of the way we use organic waste throughout our school. Our school has been steadily working towards the introduction of a more sustainable and environmentally friendly approach to managing organic matter on our site. Year 4 students were involved in the composting project planning and management team in 2020 and their ideas have been put into practice through our composting program. We are currently collecting green waste, dry organic waste and shredded paper to add to our compost system. Students are now using the compost that we have made to enrich the soil in our vegetable garden. Our school utilises organic matter on our school site to improve soil structure, microbial activity, water retention and increase organic matter content in the soil by using the compost we make. Our vegetable garden has thrived with the care and attention from our students. Any food scraps from the garden go directly back into our compost system to keep the cycle going.

International Mud Day

Wonder and joy abounded as young people rolled up their sleeves to play with glee in the gooey, soft, and squelchy mud at Prescott Primary Northern. Students participated in unstructured nature play to celebrate International Mud Day.

International Mud Day was a concept that came to fruition in 2009 when Gillian McAuliffe of Australia and Bishnu Bhatta from Nepal collaborated to celebrate mud. This celebration of mud is a great opportunity for our young people to connect with the basic elements of the earth in a fun and joyful way. The benefits of playing with mud are that it helps to develop fine and gross motor skills, provides a multisensory experience, encourages problem solving and creativity and encourages unstructured fun play with friends.

Teachers read the story ‘Wombat Stew’, which is a story about some clever Australian animals that outsmarted a dingo who was intent on eating wombat. They cleverly guided him to add ingredients to his stew pot that made a “Gooey, brewy, yummy, chewy [Mud] Stew” instead of Wombat Stew. (Wombat Stew) Students then played in the mud kitchen making their own mud stew and other muddy creations. Other students made mud slides for ping pong balls to cascade down. Some students delighted in jumping in muddy puddles while other students built water ways and muddy dam walls to stop the flow of the water. Students happily emersed in the sensory experience giggled with glee and played happily on a blissful sunny winter’s day.

“Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places-

That was how, in ancient ages, Children grew to kings and sages.” Robert Louis Stevenson

Harvesting and Sharing of Our Vegetables

Some students from our junior school shared in our composting workshop this week and learnt about our worm farm and worm juice. Students learnt how to make compost and how to use the compost in the garden to enrich soil and how to collect seed from food scraps to plant into the garden. Students then harvested some of the silver beet, basil and parsley that they had planted earlier in the year. Students had fun chopping the leaves into little pieces to make a green dressing to add to our bowl of hot roasted potatoes. The green leaves were stirred through the potatoes and each child sat and ate their steaming hot tasty potatoes with healthy green leaves from our garden. It was a nice way to celebrate the growing and harvesting of our healthy and nutritious vegetables.