Prep

Preps have loved bowling in PE, making collages in Art, and playing the Xylophone in performing arts. In their inquiry lessons they have been collaborating and sharing ideas to come up with ways to use carboard boxes creatively for projects as part of their STEM program.

William "Me and my brother Xavier made these transformers costumes at home. We used hot glue and carboard boxes and paint. Then we brought them to school to show everyone. The transformers are Bumblebee and Optimus Prime."

We love it when we have visitors from Grade 5. Frankie, Hallie and Lulu visit us sometimes to read us a story.

Frankie (5W) "We find a story that the preps would like and then we go down and find a time to read to them. I like how all the preps are really just interested in the story. I love the stories but I also love how respectful the preps are when they are listening to us."

But the real highlight is when all of our buddies come to our classroom and we can learn together.

Grades 1 and 2

Shichi-Go-San (Seven-Five-Three) is a traditional Japanese festival held on November 15th to celebrate the healthy growth of children aged three, five, and seven. Families dress children in formal or traditional clothing, visit shrines to pray for their well-being, and give them "chitose ame" (thousand-year candy), a long, red and white sweet symbolizing long life. This week, students in Grade 1 & 2 celebrated by making their own chitose ame bags, decorated with symbols of health and long life.

Felix (1M) "I did bowling. It is my favourite game. It was fun to do it at school."

Kira (1M) "We do Phormes every day. We write and we read sentences and write sentences. We practise our sounds to help us with our spelling."

Nixon (2C) "We did a Remembrance Day worksheet. We made poppies first and then there were word searches with Remembrance words in it and then we had a poppy tracing and then a section where we drew a picture based on a sentence. I never really learned about Remembrance day before so now I know that we have a minute's silence so we can think about and remember all the soldiers who died for us."

Juliet, Tsumugi (2S) "We have been learning about the environment. We are doing persuasive writing. We are writing about waste and not leaving rubbish on the ground because it goes into the ocean and hurts a lot of sea creatures. We also have been learning that we should not cut down too many trees. Trees are important for oxygen and they are also places where animals live."

Grades 3 and 4

Rocket project (STEAM)

Grades 3 and 4 have been propelled into the world of physics, with the design, refinement and testing of paper rockets. This inquiry unit included an exploration of force (push, pull), aerodynamics, propulsion and design. Students experimented with rocket designs and then refined the designs to see if improvements could help their rockets travel further. He

Charlie (3W) "Ms Wendy helped us to make our own rockets. We made one on Thursday and launched them and then we made another one on Friday to improve it. For example, if our fins were too small or too big we had a chance to update them. On Monday we set them off again. Making them was really fun and so was getting to see them all launch."

We have been improving our ability to understand analogue clocks, and have been writing the most amazing narratives. Music has involved the use of Boomwhakers, percussive tubes used to create music as a group. Visual arts has been focused on Remembrance Day and you can see some of their artwork in the hallway near the office (or in the Bev and Kim section of this newsletter).

Grades 5 and 6

While the grade 6 students are on camp our grade 5 students are preparing for leadership roles next year. They are composing mock applications for positions, developing skills they will need in the future for employment and leadership.

Xander (5B) "We have been doing a 'fake' application so we can improve our knowledge and learn techniques for when we do our real application for leadership roles. I now know that I need to use real examples and use my persuasive skills to win over whoever reads my application."

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