Achilles Community Report

We're so happy to say a big "well done" to all Achilles students for a great start to the year! We love seeing all those happy faces every morning and students have been working hard this term to establish and follow new routines and expectations !

It's wonderful to see many parents and carers before and after school. We also want to say thank you to the parents who haven't had a chance to meet us in person yet but have reached out when needed.

We hope you had a wonderful time at our recent open afternoon! It was fantastic to see parents in the community joining their children, all excited to show them around. We were thrilled to share those experiences with you!

Although Term 1 has been a short one we have been busy celebrating, investigating, consolidating old and new learning and having fun. 

Reading

In reading we have read bibliographies and books with formal and informal letters in them. We have also used these texts to learn the features of a bibliography and parts of a letter.  We were busy this term working on different reading skills, such as answering 'right there' questions, critiquing, making connections between the book and ourselves and the world around us, fluency and expression, predicting before reading and made it even more exciting by predicting in the middle of the story and checking our predictions after. Also, with daily practice, the children can now read for a longer period of time!

Writing

This month in writing we have been diving into letter writing. We have been busy following the writing process to plan, draft, edit and publish our letters. Our glue sticks have also been on strike! Students wrote letters to the glue sticks to let them know how sorry we were and how we will be treating them better to ensure we are caring for our school. Luckily after our letters, the glue sticks decided to begin working again! 

Numeracy

This month in Numeracy we have been focussing on Place Value, Addition and Length. We learned how to differentiate between tens and ones by using Unifix, blocks and dice to help us. We used many addition strategies along the way that helped us become familiar with making different number sentences such as 10 + 10 = 20 and 3 + 7= 10. The Tens frame helped us count numbers by tens and find numbers that are bigger than 10. While, we used a number line to add numbers by ones, and a Hundreds chart to explore numbers up to 100. We started looking into Part-Part Whole thinking which is where two equal parts can make a whole! It was very helpful being able to draw pictures of people inside and outside a cubby house to show how two different numbers can be added together to make a whole. We also had a really fun time using play dough to make a long snake! We had to measure our snakes using counters, blocks and other classroom materials to find out how long it was. This gave us an engaging introduction to length using mathematical terms such as "longer" and "shorter" to compare different objects. We adopted new vocabulary such as 'estimating', 'handspan' and 'footspan', to give us some answers when measuring the length of objects. We even got to trace our own hands and feet to help us!

SEL/Inquiry

In Inquiry we have been exploring different cultural celebrations. We have all been very excited to learn about the cultures of others in Achilles by engaging in various activities and crafts. Some of these cultural celebrations include Ramadan, Harmony Day, Holi and Easter. 

In SEL we have been learning to understand what is the different between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Instead of saying "I can't do this", we can change the self talk to be "I refuse to give up on myself" or "trying new things helps me become better". We are all learners and making mistakes are okay! We have additionally looked at concepts such as Ant vs Elephant problems and 'when can I interrupt my teacher?'

Reminders

• Community doors open at 8:45am
• Dismissal at 3:20pm
• Please have some food packed in a small container that will be suitable for fruit or vegetable snack in session 2 (for example, pieces of fruit, vegetables or yoghurt).
• Ensure your child’s belongings are clearly labelled. This includes clothing, drink bottles, hats and lunchboxes (lids too) 
• Students are to come to school with a water bottle each day (labelled)

What you can do with your child at home

• Continue to read to and with your child each night.  
• Encourage your child to develop more independence. (Help pack/unpack their school bag/lunch, or get their uniform ready)
• Encourage your child to take increased responsibility for their own belongings.
• Establishing a regular routine helps students to develop a positive approach to learning and will benefit them as they progress through their schooling.  
• Encourage your child to practise tying their own shoelaces.
• Encourage an early bed time to ensure all students have a minimum of 10 hours sleep a night.  
• If you need to arrange a meeting with your child’s mentor teacher, you can email via compass or contact the office.