Learning News Term 3, Week 3

Our classrooms have been humming with learning this week, from Kindergarten through to Year 6. Kindergarten have been working hard on their magic writing skills in their ‘Drop Everything and Write’ sessions and are using lots of sight words and clever punctuation. They can all tell you that a capital letter is only used at the beginning of a sentence or for an important name or place. Factual recounts have also featured in our classrooms, so feel free to ask Year 1 about hibernation (and be prepared to be impressed) or Year 4 about the first Moon Landing. They learned lots of interesting facts to include in their factual recount. Did you know that The Apollo 11 Lunar Module (LM) "Eagle", the first crewed vehicle to land on the Moon, only had 20 seconds of landing fuel remaining? Ask a Year 4 student for another interesting fact, they certainly learnt a lot, as did I when I visited their classroom.

Yours in learning,

Mrs Shepherd

Kindergarten

Kindergarten have continued to learn new sounds and read interesting picture books. This week, we enjoyed reading the Giraffes Can't Dance by Andrea Giles. This related to our learning about the letter g and the different sounds it can make. Kindergarten wrote some impressive sentences about giraffes and have been working hard on handwriting, including staying in the middle lines and writing with accurate letter formation. In Visual Arts, Kinder created their own sun-set, Savannah landscape for their own dancing giraffe using both pastels and water colours. Wonderful work Kindergarten! You are amazing artists.

Miss Fraser

Year 1

This term, Year 1 will be completing social-emotional lessons to help them identify feelings, and then express them in positive ways. We first started by making a ‘Feelings Board’, and each student has their own magnet to move, to show how they are feeling throughout the day. This was a great way for the class to see who needed a ‘check-in’, and to see that adults can feel the same emotions too. Next we went on a ‘good mood hunt’ and found things in the classroom that can help us feel positive emotions. Then we made a ‘good mood cube’ and drew things we can use to help change our negative emotions into positive ones. It was great to see what made each student feel happy.

Year 2/3

In the past few weeks Year 2/3 have been creating a small Koala figure made of cardboard roll, paper and pom poms. To complete this activity the students have to practise and use their cutting and gluing skills in order to successfully complete this task. We have also discussed the importance of our native animals and the need to care and protect them. Well done Year 2/3. You might see these creative critters hanging, welcoming you in our classroom.

Mr Beaumont

Year 4

In Geography, Year 4 have been learning about Australia’s geographical features. Students began by comparing man-made and natural features and identified examples found in Australia. Year 4 then further developed their understanding of continents, focusing on the Australian continent by identifying its states, territories and capital cities. Fantastic work Year 4!

Emily Maunder and Emily McDonald

Year 5/6

In science, year 5/6 have been learning about the solar system. They have explored the planets, other celestial bodies and the power of the sun. We have created our own galaxies using sponges and paint. The students used dark colours first and then used lighter colours on top to create a blurred effect and then splattered white paint mixed with water to make stars. You’re super stars stage 3!

Numeracy News Week 4 Term 3

Numeracy News

Tips for practising addition with your children:

playing adding board games such as Snakes and Ladders
using everyday materials to model addition. For example, start with 5 spoons from the cutlery drawer, now add 4 more spoons. How many are there altogether?
encourage your child to help you when out shopping by counting and collecting objects to put into the basket, e.g. ‘Can you get 2 apples? (add more) How many do we have altogether?’
when playing with building bricks or small toys, encourage your child to count how many of each colour or size.
play simple board games and encourage your child to count the spots shown on the dice and the number of spaces to move.
sing number-themed ......... counting rhymes and use your fingers or small props to help count the items, e.g. 10 Green Bottles.
watch Number Blocks with your child and discuss the concepts. Each episode has been carefully crafted with the help of the NCETM (National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics) and it helps children to see how numbers really work − and master a new key math skill with every adventure.

Kinder

For the past fortnight, Kindergarten have been learning about combining two or more collections (addition). We have been focusing our learning on memorising and representing combinations that make ten. We call these the ‘Friends of Ten’. We have been using concrete materials like counters, tens frames, pegs, paddle pop sticks and pictures to represent these addition sums to 10. Kindergarten have also been enjoying some interesting number talks this week based on an interesting, irregular dot pattern. Students are shown the dot pattern and are asked to analyse what they have seen. Kindergarten have shown some great insight into their understanding of number and number combinations. Great work Mathematicians.

Miss Fraser

Year 1

This week, Year 1 have been learning about area. Area is the amount of space a shape takes up. To measure area, the shape must be closed. The students had to make closed and open shapes out of masking tape to show the difference between the two. Then we discussed which units were the best to use to measure the area of shapes, and we found that shapes with straight edges work best and circle units don’t work because they leave gaps. Next the students practiced measuring the area of flat shapes and worked very hard to not leave gaps or overlap the units. Great work on measuring area Year 1!

Miss Myers

Year 2/3

This week a horrible crime had been committed! Someone had stolen Mr Beaumont's not so secret stash of lollies. All that was left were the footprints leading out the door and it was up to clever and hardworking detectives of Year 2/3 to find the shoe that fits. This was the beginning of our investigation into our new topic of Area. Throughout the week we have been identifying what area is and finding interesting ways to measure the area. This has included placing flat objects on top of one another in order to determine which is bigger, as well as using different informal units. What a great start to our unit of work, well done Year 2/3!

Mr Beaumont.

Year 4

In Mathematics, Year 4 has been learning about fractions and what they represent. Students have learnt to compare fractions to one another and demonstrate how they relate to one whole. Year 4 used this knowledge to represent fractions on a number line, create a fraction wall and compare fractions to each other as smaller than, larger than and equal to. Fantastic work at being fraction mathematicians this week Year 4!

Miss Maunder and Miss McDonald

St Michael's Primary School, Manilla

'Let Your Light Shine'

Issue 12 · 16 Aug 2023

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