Term 3 Curriculum Newsletters
Prep
In Term 3, in Literacy, students will continue to develop their phonological and phonic awareness to help support and enrich their reading and writing skills. We will use our initial code knowledge of letters and sounds to help us write words with four and five sounds as well as continue working on developing our fluency when reading. Students will analyse fragments and sentences and how we can extend a simple sentence by adding adjectives and ‘when’ and ‘where’.
In Numeracy, the students will continue to develop their number knowledge and skills. The topics we will focus on are Subtraction, Measurement and Data. Students will also keep revising Addition and Shapes.
For our Biology unit ‘It’s Alive’, we will look at Australian Animals and investigate some of the following key questions
- ‘How do we know if something is living or non-living?’,
- ‘What do living things need to survive?’ and
- ‘What are the common features of animals?’
Students will get to go to the Werribee Open Range Zoo in the last week of the term as our chosen excursion to complement all our learning of Australian Animals.
We ask that you please continue to read with your child every night, practise their handwriting and counting forwards and backwards to 20 and beyond. Please also make sure that your child brings their charged iPad to school every day.
As always, please keep checking Compass and Seesaw for important information throughout the term.
Grade 1
The Grade Ones are excited to be back at school, ready for another term of learning. In Term 3 we will be beginning our inquiry unit 'Schoolyard Safari' in which we will be learning about the minibeasts we can find in our backyards and the environments they live in. As part of this learning, we will be visiting the Royal Botanic Gardens on August 2nd. We will learn about the functions of a worm farm and through observation and exploration, discover the abundance of invertebrates that can be found in gardens and learn why they are crucial for keeping our planet healthy.
During literacy we will be focusing on non-fiction texts and their features as we discover more about minibeasts and honing our sentence writing skills to build complex and descriptive sentences.
We look forward to a variety of topics in Mathematics, in which we will learn a variety of subtraction strategies, collecting and interpreting data, and using units of measurement to measure length, mass, volume, and capacity.
Grade 2/3
Term 3 is looking to be exciting and filled with rich learning experiences for the 2/3 students.
Our Inquiry focus this term is a science based topic in which students will be learning about the life stages of animals and humans. Within the classroom they will be observing and researching the life cycles of ladybugs and mealworms and later in the term, students will visit IMAX to view a movie entitled ‘Bugs- mighty micro-monsters 3D’.
Teachers and students are looking forward to our school camp to Angahook Holiday Camp, Airey’s Inlet, which will occur in the last week of Term 3. Students will have an opportunity to develop some independence while participating in a variety of fun team building activities with their peers
The literacy focus this term is non-fiction, informative texts. Students will be exploring the features and vocabulary of the genre while gaining an important understanding of the inquiry subject. They will further their understanding of text structures and research topics and compose paragraphs and information reports.
In Numeracy, students are exploring various strategies for multiplication and division and they will continue to focus on measurement including length, area, capacity, volume and time.
Throughout the term students will be supported and enriched in all areas of the curriculum.
Grade 4/5
Adaptations – what are they, and how do they help plants and animals survive in the harsh conditions of Australia’s deserts? This is what the 4/5s will be investigating in Term 3. To finish our Science inquiry unit we’ll get creative by designing our own animal with adaptations for survival.
Throughout the term, all curriculum areas will be linked to our work about adaptations. We will read and evaluate factual texts, and show comprehension by answering and forming questions. We will take notes and write summaries of the texts we read, as well as planning and drafting our own information texts with simple, compound and complex sentences. In Maths we will create data displays to show the results of our science experiments. There will also be a big focus on learning the times tables in order to solve multiplication and division problems efficiently.
In Week 7 the 4/5s will be attending Oasis Camp. Please look out for permission and medical notes in your child’s school bag, if they are attending.
Grade 6
This term in Grade 6 we are preparing for our camp to Canberra, which the 6s are all very excited about. Our Civics and Citizenship unit for inquiry will focus on learning about Australian government, parliament and what it means to be an Australian citizen. The students will have the opportunity to make connections to what they learn in the classroom with the experiences they have on camp.
In Reading, we will be focussing on analysing biographies and persuasive texts. We will look at the structure and features of biographies, as well as the language features of persuasive texts. We will analyse the way authors persuade their reader using a variety of techniques. Our focus in Writing will coincide with reading, and the students will aim to produce several biographical and persuasive texts. We will also continue to develop the student’s writing skills by focussing on sentence development and enhancement, as well as a particular focus on developing a diverse vocabulary of tier 2 and 3 words.
In Maths, the students will be developing their understanding of fractions, decimals and percentages, as well as learning about concepts related to measurement and geometry.