With the Summer holidays on our doorstep, it is a wonderful time for students and families to relax, unwind and enjoy each other’s company.

The school holidays also present an opportunity for the girls to continue learning, but in a different way, outside of the classroom. Parents are some of the greatest teachers and whether purposefully, or inadvertently, they teach many skills that help broaden their daughter’s knowledge, providing them with challenging, exciting and different experiences to help them learn.

While they may seem mundane, everyday activities can open the door to exciting new lessons.Whether it be shopping for groceries, preparing a family meal or watching the Australian Open, these activities can illustrate the practical applications of Mathematics, STEM, statistics and teamwork.

Over the summer holidays I encourage you to look for as many of these real-world learning experiences from our daily activities as you can. To help you out, here are some tips:

• Play games together such as snakes and ladders, card games, board games and dice games. Games are great brain boosters with all kinds of benefits, such as building hand-eye co-ordination, spatial awareness and problem-solving. They also present a fantastic opportunity to learn the art of losing and winning gracefully.
• Checking the daily weather forecast. Aside from learning if it is going to be a good beach day, weather apps are an easy tool to help to build knowledge around statistics. Talk to the girls about predictions based on data and how meteorologists forecast the weather.
• Playing with Lego or building blocks has numerous benefits. While encouraging creativity and experimentation, it also helps to develop dexterity and enhanced fine motor skills. Lego is fantastic for encouraging persistence and patience and can lead to a real sense of accomplishment.
• There is no such thing as too much reading. Listen to your daughter read, read to her, share reading, even if it is material she might not usually read during school, such as newspapers or magazines. Reading outside of school is positively correlated with growth in vocabulary, reading comprehension and fluency.

These are all simple ideas that you could use at any time, but may come in handy over the Summer break.

Out of School Hours Care – Week 9 Activities

Upcoming activities for Term 4 Week 9 detailed here.

St Catherine’s School offers an Out of School Hours Care program to all ELC and Junior School families. The program is implemented by our provider ‘After the Bell’, and operates within the ELC building. Parents are reminded that if you need to use the Before School Care or After School Care service, registrations need to be made in advance with ‘After the Bell’. Please allow up to five business days for your registration to be processed before your child can begin attending the program. Registration is free. All families are encouraged to register so that you can use this service in the event that you are unable to pick up your child.

Before School Care – 7.00am to 8.45am

After School Care – 3.00pm to 6.00pm

Registrations can be completed via the ‘After the Bell’ website.

Please phone 9758 6744 for all enquiries.