GRAPEVINE
world. He is one of the voices that can make us feel that the world is good and full of wonder. His familiar and comforting voice is now 100 years old and will soon be gone. I find this thought sad and unsettling.
In response to a photo that Voyager 1 took of Earth from 6.4 billion kilometers away, where the earth appears as a pale blue dot not much bigger than a pixel in the vastness of space, Carl Sagan wrote the following. (The photo is called Pale Blue Dot).
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of
our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Our posturing, our imagined selfimportance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Glenn Hood | PRINCIPAL
PLAYGROUP Laura Herridge King Winter now is in the land! As the days have grown chillier, little hands are being kept warm in playgroup by kneading sourdough buns. Though simple and humble, our sourdough buns are the highlight of our mornings together - even more so now that it is so cold outside. After the work of cutting fruit and playing together is done, we sit down at the table to say our blessing. The children eagerly await the delicious, golden butter and honey buns - warm and crunchy - and there is always a satisfied lull that comes over the table when everyone is enjoying their bun. How delightful! There’s something magical about the beautiful golden warmth that these humble little buns emanate on a cold winter’s day.
MORNING STAR Tash Kavanagh The Honeybee’s said goodbye to Lady Autumn and Hello to King Winter. We began our new winter morning circle preparing for the Winter Festival in the last week of term. The children have loved watching the beautiful blossoms on gum tree in our garden. When painting they noticed the similarities between the colour of our paint and the blossoms in the tree. Last week we bundled up and enjoyed our time playing outside, jumping in puddles and dancing in the rain. As we move into the colder, darker weather, the children have been listening to a story about using lanterns to light the darkest night and are making their own lantern to take home in time for the longest night of the Winter Solstice.
MORNING
STAR Sandi Valerio
Our Echidna group enjoyed visiting prep over the last two weeks as part of our reconciliation week program. We spaced this over two weeks as part of the beginning of ‘Transition’ and becoming familiar with our neighbours, getting to know Big Jack and Amy a little more. Our first visit was to watch a play that the preps performed, a dreamtime story about ‘How the kangaroo got its pouch’. The children have heard this story before in kinder and to see the big prep children perform it was a lovely moment of recall for the children. The following Friday we spent the morning making necklaces from paper bark and gum leaves to resemble the Bogong moth. Traditionally when Taungarung people visited neighbours they would take a necklace to gift them for their hospitality. The preps also made necklaces and when we visited, we gathered in a yarning circle and at that time, exchanged gifts. The highlight of the visit was watching the children sit and share stories whilst they ate a lemon myrtle cookie for afternoon tea. Connecting our program to our local indigenous culture has been enjoyed by the children and will continue to be a way of learning in the kinder. We connect this pedagogically to the 8 Aboriginal ways of learning framework.
ROSA MUNDI Jack Finegan The Rosa Mundi young people have been welcoming King Winter into our routine. Staying warm inside by the fire each morning whilst we sing of Jack Frost and focus our thoughts on the upcoming winter festival. We have spent the days keeping our hands busy making library bags, practicing our finger knitting and creating necklaces out of paper bark to share with the Morning Star children for reconciliation day. Outside we are turning over our garden beds and creating mountains in the sand pit, moving our body’s and keeping warm through physical activity.
CLASS 2 Samantha Charlotte
CLASS 1 Kristi Mulvihill Mathematics: Counting & Informal Processes
Class 1 have been exploring counting through rhythm, movement, and imaginative contexts. Using concrete materials, students have been grouping numbers in flexible ways, with a focus on combinations that make ten and forming groups of ten. These experiences build strong foundations for skip counting and other number processes. Learning has been enriched through storytelling, with farmers, growers, and builders providing meaningful contexts for collecting, sharing, and organising materials.
As the season shifts and the weather turns much colder, we encourage children to come warmly dressed each day so they can focus their energy on learning and play. We are immersed in the story of The King of Ireland’s Son, which is guiding much of our learning. Alongside hearing the tale, we are exploring place value by working with the numbers that arise within the story, helping children understand the value of each digit in a number in a meaningful and engaging way. In literacy, we continue to build strong foundations through daily phonics and new sight words, alongside plenty of reading and writing practice. After lunch we have begun playing the recorder each day, bringing a calm and joyful rhythm to our afternoons. We are also enjoying time spent working with our hands, as the children engage in practical and creative activities each afternoon.
CLASS 3 Liz Morrell
Over the past three weeks, Class 3 has been hard at work preparing their play, Joseph and his Coloured Dream-coat. With Charlotte and Grace’s help, they’ve painted a vibrant Egyptian backdrop that beautifully sets the scene. Each Monday, Laura’s Measurement Main Lesson explores all things Time. In maths, students are tackling multi-step problems—selecting appropriate methods and clearly explaining their strategies. In literacy, they’re planning and writing persuasive pieces on lively topics such as whether children should do chores, own a pet, or be given homework. Running each Wednesday morning has certainly increased the students stamina and they are very proud of their achievements in this.
CLASS 4 Clare Bennetts The Animal World
We have moved into the animal world beginning with marine creatures such as the octopus, our local Galaxias fish, the snail and the seal. We are learning a different style of poetry each day to capture our creature in an artistic form. We also either paint, mould, move or draw each animal. We look forward to our excursion on June 15th in which we will visit the Melbourne Museum to discover various bugs and Sea Life to see marine creatures in the flesh (or scales!)
CLASS 5 Micheal Brittain Ancient India
Class 5’s Ancient India Main Lesson concluded in the story of The Sons of Pandu from the Mahabharata. This epic tale, ended in a great battle, with the sons winning and taking back their kingdom. The class has now begun their journey into Ancient
EARLY CHILDHOOD
Persia. Through story, the students have been introduced to the great contrast between Ahura Mazda, the Lord of Light, and Ahriman, the Lord of Darkness, and the ongoing interplay between these two realms. They have also explored the early developments of human civilisation, including the beginnings of agriculture, animal husbandry, pottery, and the emergence of writing through cuneiform. These studies have led into the cultures of ancient Mesopotamia, and the stories of Zarathustra. The students have made clay pinch jars and written their names in cuneiform in clay as well. Through these stories, students have continued to strengthen their literacy skills, working on writing more complex sentences, taking notes, identifying key ideas in texts, and experimenting with different forms of expression. In mathematics, the focus has been on decimals. Looking ahead, Class 5 will move into their Ancient Egypt Main Lesson for the final three weeks of term.
CLASS 6 Lou Pullar Greek Tales
Class 6 had a magnificent Greek feast with the class community recently, sharing a delectable array of delicious Greek dishes, presenting their eurythmy work with Jan and inviting their mums, dads, brothers, sisters and uncles to join in a very fun rendition of the Zorba dance. Thanks to everyone for your contributions and especially to Jan for sharing her very accessible and engaging eurythmy. Serendipitously, Jan passed on a beautiful poem entitled ‘Boomerang’ which they learned quickly and presented at the Reconciliation Action Week assembly, the following week. Well done Class 6! This week, we enjoyed making replica ancient clay pots using the coil method and look forward to firing and glazing them with Charlotte next week. Our ship has now sailed for Rome, and we will spend the rest of the term, and beyond, hearing of the rise and fall of this ancient civilisation.
YEAR 7 Vanessa Hewson Care of Life Processes
This Main Lesson started with an overarching idea of The Land of Life Processes where all systems attempt to work seamlessly together to create a land of harmony, growth, sense and efficiency. We studied the connection between respiring plants and respiring humans through learning about our lungs, heart, and introducing photosynthesis. Linking ideas of whole systems allowed us to introduce male and female reproductive systems, the ovulation cycle, and fetus growth and development. Students also unpacked their understanding of what constitutes wellbeing and then audited a week of their life, collecting data on exercise, sleep, screentime, mood, food intake, rest/downtime, and overall energy levels. This was an observational task, and the students compared their information with World Health Organization recommendations.
YEAR 8 Nicholas Koschitzke Shakespeare
This week marks the start of a great journey for Year 8, as they begin learning about the life and career of one of the greatest English playwrights, William Shakespeare. In this Main Lesson, students will look at the history of the man himself, as well as the famous Globe Theatre, before quickly beginning the process of staging one of his plays and wrapping their heads around the language and characters of ‘The Tempest’. This will be an exciting voyage that we can’t wait to show you.
YEAR 9 AMY Mc Mahon Making of the Modern World
The Year 9s have successfully concluded their Making of the Modern World Main Lesson. Throughout this unit, students explored the major global conflicts that have shaped our modern world, developing an understanding of the economic, social, and political factors that have influenced both war and post-war societies. Students researched and presented on a decade between 1900 and 2026, creating a detailed timeline of the key events, conflicts, and individuals that have shaped the world in which we live. From influential figures and significant inventions to major conflicts and turning points in history, the class worked collaboratively to deepen their understanding of the past and develop a greater appreciation for the world today. Students are now turning inwards, as they embark on their next Main Lesson, ‘Clay Heads’.
YEAR 10 Charlotte Dayman
Last week, the Year 10s presented their shadow puppet performances to the rest of the school which was the culmination of this main lesson. Year 10 students and their exchange students worked hard during this main lesson to design and cut their articulated puppets from plywood, create sound effects and hone their puppeteering skills using the interplay of light and shadow. Students presented 4 stories from different parts of Asia - Indonesia, Japan, China and India. The primary school students and rest of the school were delighted to see these stories come to life in the form of shadow puppetry.
IB
DIPLOMA YEAR 11&12
Phoebe Brown + Leith Pierce
Reconciliation Action Week opened at Mansfield Steiner School with a whole-school assembly led by the Year 12 IB students — a thoughtful and moving tribute to the Taungurung people, on whose land the school stands. On Monday, the Year 11s led the assembly in recognition of Mabo Day. These sharings drew on cultural and language learning around conceptions of place and time from Anthropology, Literature and Theory of Knowledge. They drew on other creative capacities from Art and Music in sharing them and built upon findings from their annual Integrated Science Project of local waterway health. Grace and Matilda from Year 12 extended these understandings of biodiversity to Class 6, guiding a finding and drawing activity of insects in the creek.
MUSIC Celeste Cleason
As the shortest day of the year fast approaches, our students have begun to sing the songs of the Winter Festival in their music classes. These seasonal songs speak of the light that lives within each of us and the warmth that song can bring in darkest of winter. Our extracurricular ensembles have been busily preparing for our upcoming concert in Week 9. Nimble fingers have been polishing tricky parts, choirs have been rehearsing with new accompanists, and all the ensembles have been focussing on the final touches of playing together with expression and balance. We are looking forward to sharing our work with you on Thursday June 18 at 5:30pm.
CROSS COUNTRY
On Friday 29th May, 23 secondary students travelled to Yea to compete in the Southern Ranges Cross Country carnival, coming up against a range of schools in our local area. The weather was kind and it was a fantastic day for running, with the track holding up well after the primary school edition of the event the previous day. Our students put in a fantastic effort and 13 of them have qualified to go through to the Hume Region event next Friday 12th June. Congratulations to all those students and best of luck at the next round!
The The
