What's Happening
Foundation
We’ve been busy settling straight back into the swing of things and have loved reading the students’ weekly weekend recounts! This term, we are exploring narrative writing, focusing on the four key story elements: character, setting, problem and solution. In just a few weeks, students will be ready to write their very first narratives! It has been wonderful to see their confidence grow each week, and we are so proud of the incredible progress they have made this year.
In Foundation Literacy, we are currently learning about the ‘oo’ code, which makes two sounds: the long /oo/ sound, as in moon, and the short /oo/ sound, as in book. Next, we will move on to the ‘ou’ and ‘ow’ codes.
In Maths Groups, we have completed our final unit on Place Value and will now move on to Division: Sharing. Students will participate in a range of hands-on activities to practise sharing. During our Friday sessions, students will also complete assessments and engage in problem-solving activities using bar modelling.
This term in Inquiry, we are exploring all things animals! So far, students have learned about different animal coverings, including feathers, fur and scales. Over the coming weeks, we will continue learning about various animal groups. We have begun by exploring mammals and marsupials, focusing on how they breathe, where they live, what their coverings are like and what their babies look like.
Just a friendly reminder that Monday, 2nd November (Week 5), is a Curriculum Day, so it will be a pupil-free day. Tuesday, 3rd November, is also a school holiday for Melbourne Cup Day, meaning there will be no school on either day.
Our school swimming program is fast approaching in Week 6! To help your child feel more confident and independent, we encourage you to continue practising getting changed into and out of their bathers at home, as well as drying off and dressing themselves. The more they practise now, the more prepared they will be when the program begins!
Our Term 4 Show and Tell notice went home last week. Please contact your classroom teacher if you did not receive a copy. Students will present their animal research to the class during the weeks beginning 16th and 23rd November. Please refer to the notice to check which week and day your child is scheduled to present. Show and Tell forms part of our Literacy assessment in the area of Speaking and Listening.
This term is shaping up to be another busy one! Please keep an eye on Compass for any upcoming information and reminders.
Grade 1
What a wonderful Week 3 we have had! We all enjoyed the Colour Fun-A-Thon and Art Show last Friday. It was lovely to see the students getting involved and celebrating our school community!
Mathematics: We have moved from Time into Shape, exploring 2D and 3D shapes. Students are learning to make, compare and classify familiar shapes, as well as identify shapes and objects in their environment. We are investigating their similarities and differences and beginning to explore lines, including parallel lines.
English: We have commenced our Narrative Writing unit, inspired by our Mini-beasts Inquiry topic. This week, students are exploring what makes a good narrative and learning about the different stages of a story, including the orientation, problem, sequence of events, resolution and conclusion. They will use these structures to plan and write their own creative mini-beast stories.
Wellbeing: Our focus has been on Respect and how we can demonstrate it within our friendships. Students are exploring ways to be kind, listen to others, include their classmates and show respect through their words and actions.
We are so proud of the enthusiasm and effort our Year 1 students continue to show. We look forward to another fantastic week of learning!
Grade 2
Writing:
We have been exploring narrative texts and students are developing their skills with using different literary devices to begin their stories using a variety of ‘sizzling starts’ to captivate the reader. Students are also aiming to include more descriptive language to engage their audience and help them to visualise characters, setting and events.
PhOrMeS / Word Study:
In our PhOrMeS lessons, we’ve been learning to understand when to drop the e when adding a vowel suffix to silent final e words. If a base word ends in a silent final e then we drop the e, before adding a vowel suffix.
Reading:
In Novel Studies, students have been exploring anthropomorphism in Fantastic Mr Fox, examining how the foxes are given human characteristics and behaviours. They have engaged in thoughtful discussions about the characters and events in the novel, reflecting on whether the treatment of Mr Fox is fair and supporting their opinions with evidence from each chapter. This has helped develop their critical thinking skills and encouraged them to consider different perspectives.
Grammar:
Students have been practising writing compound sentences by joining independent clauses with coordinating conjunctions including and, but, so, and or. This has helped them develop sentence fluency and variety in their writing.
Inquiry:
Next week students are going to Rippon Lea house as a part of our inquiry topic ‘Our Community: Past and Present’. So far students have looked at how places and society has changed over the time.
Wellbeing:
As part of our ‘U R Strong’ program students have been learning about the ‘friend-o-meter’. This is helping students reflect on how they are feeling in their friendships and the importance of paying attention to how their friends feel too.
Maths:
We are wrapping up our unit on Fractions this week. Next week we will begin our Mass and Capacity unit. Students will be learning to measure and compare objects based on capacity and mass using both informal and formal units.
Homework:
Thank you for your support with homework: Regular reading aloud and a weekly Word Study/PhOrMeS worksheet. Optional online extras: ‘Nessy Reading and Spelling’ and ‘Sunset/Jetpack Maths’ (Essential Assessment).
Grade 3
Novel Study:
Our Grade 3 students are really enjoying our class novel, ‘Charlotte’s Web’. Students listen to a chapter each lesson and participate in discussions and written responses to build and demonstrate comprehension, and develop skills such as writing summary sentences and paragraphs about the main ideas within the text, and using adverbial phrases to expand sentences.
Core Knowledge: For our geography unit, ‘Comparing Australia to its Neighbours, last week students learned to identify Australia's location in relation to its neighbouring countries and understand basic geographical features. This week, students have been learning to identify and describe the main natural features and landscapes of Australia.
Writing:
As part of our narrative writing unit, students have been learning more about the components of an effective introduction/orientation, and this week, are building their skills with planning and writing an action paragraph leading to a problem, which also includes specific language features.
Word Study: Students have been reviewing words derived from the Latin base strue/struct, as well as words that include Greek number roots, and a range of ‘weird words’. We are currently learning more about Latin etymology, with a focus on the Latin number roots, such as un in unite, unique, unison, etc.
Maths:
We started our mass topic this week, with students estimating, measuring, comparing and recording the mass of various items using an analogue scale, and explaining the relationship between grams and kilograms. Next week, we will move onto capacity. As always, we encourage opportunities to explore these concepts further at home.
Reminder of upcoming events (please consent and complete/return relevant documents):
· Swimming – Week 6
· Camp – Week 7
We have been encouraging students to try a sleepover at a friend’s house (if they have not done this before/often), to help prepare them for camp.
Homework:
Students are reminded to ask a grown-up to check their homework with them and fix errors or make changes as needed, before submitting. Also, to continue regular home reading, record in diary, get it signed by a grown up, and bring it to school every Friday. Thanks for your ongoing support with this.
Grade 4
Another wonderful fortnight has passed in Grade 4 and the kids are making terrific progress across the curriculum.
Literacy:
Students have continued their study of our novel ‘Wonder’ and are further developing their ability to use evidence found in the text to add depth and reasoning to their responses. They have completed the first part of the book which was focused on the perspective of August. The grade 4’s have been forced to reflect on the concept of kindness and the acceptance of different anomalies people have. They are making wonderful progress in planning narratives, brainstorming ideas for characters, settings and complications for stories.
Numeracy:
We have just finished up our measurement (Mass and Capacity) unit, and have delved straight into Angles. Students will be displaying their understanding of different angle names (e.g. acute, obtuse, right angles etc), as well as lots of hands-on measuring of angles using protractors.
Inquiry:
We have been exploring countries in Africa and South America in relation to Australia, looking at geographical features, as well as comparing weather and climates and discussing why these might be similar or different to Australia. Students will learn more about these countries during our rotations over the next few weeks.
Reminders:
Students should continue to read at least 5 times a week at home & record their reading in their diaries. We are also sending printed homework sheets weekly. These tasks are a great opportunity for your child to review and apply our vocabulary focus words introduced in our literacy lessons on ‘Wonder’. My Numeracy Tasks are set on Essential Assessment, or students can opt for a hard copy. Please support your students to continue to stay on top of their homework.
Grade 5
Writing – Narrative
Grade 5 students have continued exploring the features of Narrative writing, by identifying and constructing sizzling starts, analysing ‘What A Good One Looks Like’ (WAGOLLs) and further developing characters by considering their traits, motivations and physical descriptions. We will now introduce evolving settings, ideas based on picture prompts and figurative language to improve students’ story telling. This week, students also begin the technique of ‘show, don’t tell’ to paint a detailed and clear picture for the reader.
Comprehension – The Last Bear
Students have enjoyed reading more of our mentor text ‘The Last Bear’, and subsequently learning more about April, her father Edmund and a stranded polar bear, affectionately referred to as Bear. We continue building inferences and connections to the text to improve our understanding of the story and the literary devices used by the author.
Maths – Data Investigation and Time
This fortnight, students completed their Data Investigation unit, where they were applying knowledge from earlier in the year to read and interpret information from a relevant data display. They enjoyed applying their skills to more hands-on activities, with some students even extending their capabilities to calculate mean, median, mode and range of a data set. We have just started our unit on Time, which involves students converting between 12-hour and 24-hour time, reading timetables and determining elapsed time between events.
Inquiry – Travel Exposition
Grade 5 students have continued working eagerly on their research and information booklet for our Travel Expo at the end of Term 4. Students have displayed impressive cooperation skills to create captivating displays that share relevant information about their designated country. We highly encourage you to peek at some of the extraordinary work samples below to see just how hard students have been working!
Friendly Reminders for Grade 5:
- The remaining Health Education sessions continue on Friday the 23rd and 30th of October.
- The process of applying for and nominating Student Leadership positions for 2027 begins in the coming weeks. Further information will be uploaded to Compass. The students’ speech writing process will take place at school.
- Parent requests for students’ 2027 class allocation are open. These must be made in writing (email) and sent either directly to Leanne Bradney or to your child’s classroom teacher.
Grade 6
Last week, the students voted on a design for their graduation t-shirts. We received many amazing entries, showcasing some very talented Grade 6 artists. Congratulations to our winning designer, Isla in 6U, for her exceptional artwork, which will feature on the t-shirts at our graduation ceremony.
Literacy
We are into our novel study of Rivet Boy, which is based on a true story set in Scotland in the late 1880s and focuses on the main character, 12-year-old John Nicol, having to start work on Scotland’s famous Forth Rail Bridge (and a UNESCO World Heritage Site) as his family’s main breadwinner.
Writing
The Grade 6 students are finalising the publishing of their memory book writing rough drafts. The students have received feedback on their pre-assessment writing piece, and we have identified goals to improve their narrative writing. We have also explored descriptive language to use in narratives and identified a variety of sentence types such as simple, compound and complex.
Mathematics
In Mathematics, students will complete their topic on Cartesian Planes, 3D Objects, and properties of geometric figures. Our next topic will be Data Representation, which includes looking at different types of data, visual representations of data, as well as refining questions and choosing methods of data collection.
Inquiry
The students have been learning about the basics of how an economy is run, and the key features of an economy, including needs and wants, the use of raw materials, capital and resources needed and the difference between goods and services, consumers and producers. We have explored the question: Why do businesses exist? We also explored what makes a brand memorable. The students also have formed groups and assigned roles to each member of their business.
Interschool Sport
Congratulations to our Girls Cricket Team, who competed in the Division finals on Tuesday. The girls were undefeated in all their matches and are now through to the Regional Finals.