English

Students have been looking at text type and structure with particular focus on narrative text. Students have been focusing on the elements of a narrative text ; the characters, setting, problem and solution and have been using images within the text to identify key objects and events. Students have been identifying the parts of a story in terms of the beginning, middle and end and have learnt that the problem can usually be found in the middle of a story and the solution to the problem at the end of the story. Students have used a range of aided language displays to support their writing of narrative texts and have been focussing on the use of descriptive words (adjectives) within their writing.

Activities have included :

sorting pictures into real and make believe
illustrating main events in a story ,
cutting and pasting characters from a selection of symbols,
circling the characters, setting, problem and solution using boardmaker symbols
dictating and copying a sentence about what the story was about.
independent narrative writing

Students have also focussed on developing their phonics and word knowledge. This for some students has been as simple as matching letters to their name, recognising initial sounds and matching to a picture or object to sounding out, chunking and blending for those with more developed skills.

Activities have included:

recognising and ordering letters in their name
name sorting
recognising the difference between letters and numbers
recognising the difference between upper and lowercase letters
Identifying sounds associated with the beginning letter of words
Blending sounds associated with letters when reading consonant-vowel-consonant words- hen, cat, pit
two letter initial consonant blends eg: fl, cl, sl

Mathematics

Place Value

Students have continued to count, recognise, make, model and order numbers using a range of concrete materials and hands on activities involving numbers 1-5, 5-10, 10-20-100.

Activities have included:

one to one correspondence - touching each object as it is counted
recognising that "three " means a collection of three whatever it looks like
recognising that the last number counted represents the number in the collection
matching numbers to collections to 3, 5, 10
recognising collections to 5 to 10 without counting (subitising)

For those students whose place value skills have developed further activities have included

locating numbers on a number line and/or number charts
use tens frames to confirm their base ten knowledge.
understanding that ten ones is 1 ten through bundling and counting tens.
making ,naming and recording numbers 20-99 eg make 6 tens 3 ones, read and write as 63

Statistics and Probability

Students have continued to make data displays of such things as eye colour and what we like to do at Easter time. The Easter Egg hunt and eating chocolate eggs were a big hit.

Integrated unit

As part of this semester’s integrated unit “Stories of the Past" students have been investigating themselves and their own history. Classes have worked in different ways and at different levels to identify who the people in their family are, how they are related to each other, their cultural background, and how families and friends celebrate events that are important to them. All classes have diverse cultural backgrounds and so family celebrations and the stories that come from these events are also diverse and unique. We have had parents who have come to school to talk about Chinese New Year and Greek Easter and how this is celebrated within their families. Students have put together family trees, photo displays, drawings and stories in their classrooms that have assisted them to also make connections.

Easter fun

There has been a range of Easter activities during this last week of term. Easter activities across the section have included creating Easter cards, completing activity books, making Easter baskets, bunny ear headbands and making chocolate nests with in cooking. One class created a new house for the Easter bunny using tooth picks and polystyrene Easter eggs. Easter egg hunts are also on the agenda!

Social Competencies

Students are continuing to work on the area of Personal Safety. This includes differentiating between safe and unsafe situations, recognising physical warning signs and identifying the appropriate people to go to when they are feeling unsafe. Students are extending their knowledge using role plays, interactive white board activities, puppets and story books.

Lower Primary Staff would like to congratulate all our students on the great start they have made to the year. Each of them has worked hard, tried their best and enjoyed the range of activities that they have been involved in. Well done everyone. Keep up the good work!

Happy and safe holidays, Kath

Kath Moore

Campus Principal

Lower Primary

Issue 4 · 29 Mar 2018

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