What's happening in our learning spaces? 

FOUNDATION 

We hope all our wonderful Foundation families had a fun and safe long weekend last week. We are over half way through the last term in Foundation and we have many exciting and engaging learning opportunities for the students to experience in their first year at school!

As readers, we have been learning to retell the events in stories by using the prompts beginning, middle and end. We are becoming experts in verbally retelling what happens in a story but we are now learning to express these ideas in the order of the story. We are also now illustrating and some of us are starting to write a short and simple summary of a picture story book. Those in Foundation LW read the story “Where’s my Teddy?” by Jez Alborough and Foundation AP read the story “Harry the Dirty Dog” by Gene Zion. As communicators, we drew the main events that happened in the beginning, middle and end of the story to tell what happened in the story. As writers, some of us then took this further by writing a sentence for each prompt which gave us a simple summary of the story. We will be using these prompts throughout our literacy learning as we begin to write narratives this week in Foundation. 

As Mathematicians, we have been exploring informal measurement for capacity. We learnt that capacity means the space inside an object and sometimes smaller objects can have a larger capacity than taller objects. We engaged in some fun hands on water play to learn about the capacity of different objects. As thinkers, we first took two objects and thought about which object had the largest capacity. We then poured water into the container, filling it all the way to the top and poured the contents into the second container.We discovered that when we are measuring the capacity of objects, we need to make sure the object is completely full to get a true measurement. We explored a range of different shaped objects, finding out which had the largest or smallest capacity. We also engaged with different language about capacity such as full, empty, almost full and almost empty. We will continue to explore capacity over the next few weeks as we engage in more hands-on interactive learning. 

A friendly reminder that Foundation AP will be attending Mass this Tuesday 14th November at 9am. Friends and family are welcome to attend if you are available. 

Have a great week everyone! 

Thank you, 

Leanne and Alex 

FoundationTeam

YEAR 1/2

It has definitely been a busy and fun-filled couple of weeks in Year 1/2. Despite the extra long weekend, there was still lots of learning happening! 

As mathematicians, we have continued to find out about Fractions, looking at parts of a whole object or collection. We were very excited to showcase our new thinking by participating in a fraction exhibition. We used materials such as blocks, counters and shapes to represent fractions in different ways. As thinkers, we also had the opportunity to walk around the exhibition to observe and identify other people's fractions. Some of these fractions were mysteries! We identified halves, quarters and eighths. We noticed that the bigger the number, the smaller the pieces. We have made lots of new discoveries about fractions. We have also tuned into shape and have been exploring the features of different 2D and 3D shapes such as corners, vertices, sides, edges and faces. 

As part of learning about the Catholic faith tradition, we have had time to explore the word stewardship. As communicators, we listened to the story ‘Extraordinary’ written by Penny Harrison. As thinkers, we identified that extraordinary moments occur outside in the midst of nature. We had the opportunity to explore our school garden to take in the moment and experience God's creation. Through illustrations, we identified the beauty in God’s creation. To sort out our thinking, we gathered and engaged in the thinking routine Making Meaning. This thinking routine allowed us to brainstorm words associated with stewardship and connect our ideas together. You will notice how our thinking has extended over time! We also engaged in a ceremony for Remembrance Day, to honour all of the soldiers who have fought and died in war. As researchers, we spent some time exploring the meaning and symbolism behind this special day. 

We look forward to another week of learning! We can’t wait to hear about all of the different conversations that happen at home about Time as we tune into this next week. 

1/2 Team, 

Alycia Marsico, Vania Sparano and Vicky Karalis 

YEAR 3/4

Thank you for attending our assembly,  the children did a fantastic job. They were so persistent during practice and to see the end result was fantastic. 

As writers, we have been innovating on texts by experimenting with sentence structure and layout. We have brainstormed what we noticed in the images from different picture books with the text removed. Then we began to innovate on the text by creating our own excerpt of a factual narrative using the page as inspiration. From this, we used our chromebooks to digitally create our innovative pages. 

We have such amazing writers in Year 3/4 and we wanted to share some of these texts with you!

The gardener tried his best. His best was not enough.

The sun can scorch many plants, including roses. Resting in his palm. 

The rose is crunchy as cornflakes. Roses can’t survive without water. 

The thorns are now as squishy as a stress ball. 

The flower droops.

Dry and lifeless as a desert.

As thirsty as a dry sponge.

Alexander H 3/4BZ

The drought has been going as long as I can remember. 

This morning I went out to breathe in the air as dusty as skirting boards that you haven't cleaned in a while, I stepped on a sheep's corpse and jumped back because of the loud CRACK! I remember that sheep before the drought, happy and alive, I used to play with it all the time and now I’m crushing its bones.

Estelle K 3/4BZ

Fire boiling hot. It spreads like butter on toast. 

It’s thick, pitch black smoke, it's hard to breathe. 

Sirens scream, it's the only thing you can hear! 

The squishing of buckets of water, to stop the burning flames!

It’s gone in a second with a crisp to spare.

Gus C 3/4BZ

As inquirers, we are learning how the land has changed over time. We visited the Royal Botanic Gardens on an excursion to explore how the garden has changed, the different plants and trees used in Aboriginal culture and we learnt how to weave. 

Some of the findings children made included: 

Snake grass is for protecting the children/boops boops from snakes. If the children are lost they can make a whistle and whistle for help and the mothers are never too far away so you can hear. (Clara 3/4BZ)

On the excursion I learnt about eel traps. Did you know that the little hole at the front is for the little boop boop eel to catch them? (Xavier 3/4BZ)

On the 3/4s excursion to the Botanical Gardens, an indigenous man called Jikobe showed us around the Botanical Gardens. Something I found interesting was the snake whistle, when you blow on to it it makes a loud sound so the women can hear their children in case the child is in danger. Also it's like a barrier for the snakes because the snakes stay away from it so if the child has it, it will keep the child safe. (Zita 3/4BZ)

On Wednesday we went to the Royal Botanical Gardens. One thing I saw was a palm tree, but not any palm tree. It's the only native palm tree in Victoria. (Felix 3/4BZ)

Maths' Games Day

Unfortunately, our Maths' Games Day has been postponed to Thursday 30th November (Week 9). We would love for you to join us on this day. There will be three sessions, please email or let us know if you are able to attend any of these sessions. 

We hope you have a wonderful week!

Year 3/4 Teachers

Belinda Panzarino & Bianka Zorzut

YEAR 5/6

It was short but sweet with the Grade 5/6 students this week, with lots more fun learning and activities taking place.

In Literacy, students completed the final draft of their explanation text on Bushfires and began planning an explanation text on a natural disaster of their choice. Students are now expected to begin researching and planning an explanation text in a more independent format. We look forward to supporting the students with using the skills learnt from their last writing to begin writing another explanation text.

In Numeracy, the 5/6 students completed the unit on Fractions. They investigated the connection between fractions, decimals and percentages. They learned to convert fractions into decimals and percentages. They then used this knowledge to solve problems involving fractions and percentages, which included calculating the percentage of a whole number.

In Inquiry, the students are continuing our research project which involves comparing two real-life examples of a natural disaster that has affected two different regions. We are coming across some interesting findings as we continue this research.

As part of the preparation for the Remembrance Day ceremony on Friday, we created wreaths as a class. This was an enjoyable activity, as each class used different mediums to create their piece. We discussed and learnt about the history of Remembrance Day and the importance of celebrating this day each year. Thank you to the 3/4 teachers and students for running a beautiful ceremony on Friday morning. It was wonderful to see the creativity around the school as each class lay down their Remembrance Day wreath during the ceremony.

Have a great week!

5/6 Teaching Team