School News
Prep
Dear Prep Families,
This fortnight has been a lot of fun in Prep, particularly with the celebration of our 100 Days of School. Students celebrated the day with a parade, enjoying fairy bread, creating crowns and lots of fun activities centred around the number 100.
A huge thank you to all of the parents / special people who were able to celebrate with us on our special day. We hope you enjoyed the parade and our special song! We also appreciate the huge effort that went into creating some exceptional costumes and we hope you loved seeing the pride on the students faces as they showed off their attire.
Investigations continue to be a highlight with students enjoying learning about different materials in preparation for some future construction projects. Students are also having fun creating puppets and participating in role play adventures, such as visiting the movie theatre of playing a role in the castle dress up area.
It’s been an exciting time in Prep as we’ve now completed level 3 of the Decodable Readers Australia phonics. We are noticing that the students are becoming excited about all of the words they can now read and spell. We are also very happy to announce that our take home readers are now being sent home with students and hope that this allows them to demonstrate their amazing reading skills with their family members.
In Maths, we have been learning about subtraction and using a number of hands of activities to support our learning. A highlight has been ‘squish maths’ where students have to ‘take-away’ by squashing the playdough balls as they subtract.
In Writing, we continue to learn about fairy tales and have enjoyed being able to make predictions and develop our summarising skills. We’ve also enjoyed some simple role playing in class while we learn about the characters in our stories.
With the commencement of our Term 3 Connect Groups we have loved seeing the excitement of students as they began a new activity. Students have become much more confident, taking the commencement of these new groups in their stride. We have loved hearing all about their fun activities.
In Wellbeing we have spent some time learning about how to identify our emotions and how to be problem solvers. It is fabulous to see the students being empowered and recognising that they are their own biggest helper.
What a wonderful fortnight it has been – we are looking forward to more fun times ahead!
Important dates / notes:
Week 7, Monday 24th August: Book Parade
Week 7, 25th – 27th: Conferences
Week 7, Friday 28th August: Curriculum Day
Week 8: Book Fair
Reminders:
*If you have not yet returned your child’s portfolio, please do so ASAP as we are beginning to produce some fabulous work that needs to be placed in them.
*We also have a special request that students bring their communication pocket to school each day. Please note that we are unable to send home a take home book with your child if they do not have their communication pocket with them. We would appreciate your support in this area.
Kind regards,
The Prep Team
Laina Brebner, Kayla Hartrick and Emma Wright
Grade 1
Hello Grade 1 families and special people,
what a busy and exciting fortnight it has been in Grade 1! Students have continued to show enthusiasm, creativity and persistence as they explored new learning across all curriculum areas. It has been wonderful to see their confidence grow as they challenged themselves, worked collaboratively with their peers and proudly shared their learning.
Here's a snapshot of what we've been up to in the classroom.
In Reading, students have continued building their decoding and fluency skills through our daily phonics sessions and Fluency Friends program. We have been revising and consolidating our Level 5 sounds and practising strategies to accurately decode unfamiliar words. Students have enjoyed working with their reading partners and are becoming increasingly confident and expressive readers.
In Writing, students have been exploring narrative texts and learning how authors create engaging stories. We investigated characters, settings and plot events through familiar stories including The Very Hungry Caterpillar, We're Going on a Bear Hunt and The Very Cranky Bear. Students then began adapting familiar texts by changing characters, using interesting describing words and creating alternative endings. We have loved seeing the creativity and imagination that students have brought to their writing.
In Maths, students completed their unit on Skip Counting before beginning our new unit, Location. Through hands-on activities, students explored equal groups, repeated addition, arrays and early multiplication concepts. More recently, they have been learning to give and follow directions using language such as left, right, forwards, backwards, north, south, east and west. Pirate maps, compass activities and designing their own maps have been particular highlights.
Our Investigations learning has sparked lots of curiosity and discussion. Students explored what it means to think creatively and brainstormed ideas for improving our school and solving everyday problems. We then began investigating machines and robots, learning how inventions help make life easier for people. Students have enjoyed identifying machines used at home and school and sharing their ideas about how robots might help us in the future.
In Wellbeing, students continued learning about Cyber Safety. As "Data Detectives", they explored what information is safe and unsafe to share online and discussed ways to keep personal information private. Students also identified trusted adults they can speak to if something online makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe. These important conversations helped students develop confidence and strategies for using technology safely and responsibly.
Please continue reading with your child each night, practising your word warm-ups and take-home books. Please remember to keep the decodable books in your child’s take-home folder so they can be swapped for new ones.
We hope your little learners have come home with lots of exciting stories from another wonderful fortnight in Grade 1. We are incredibly proud of their effort, growth and enthusiasm for learning.
Warm regards,
The Grade 1 Team
Mel Layton, Rowena Blake, Sally Newton and Tim Huntington
Grade 2
It has been a busy and exciting few weeks with lots of wonderful learning taking place across all curriculum areas.
In Writing, students have been focusing on creating exciting endings for their narratives. They have been working hard to make their stories memorable by using creative ideas, descriptive language and interesting twists to keep their readers engaged right to the very end.
In Reading, we have been developing our inferencing skills. Students have been learning how to use clues from the text together with what they already know to make thoughtful predictions and understand deeper meanings within a story.
In Mathematics, we have been learning about multiplication and exploring a range of strategies to solve multiplication problems. Students have practised using equal groups, arrays, repeated addition and skip counting to strengthen their understanding of multiplication concepts.
Our Inquiry learning has focused on forces, particularly pushes and pulls. Students enjoyed investigating how forces affect movement and took part in a fun experiment making and testing paper helicopters to observe how different forces act on objects as they fall. Students were also introduced to some basic chemistry, conducting a simple experiment to make bubble mixture. The students were highly successful and were able to produce some very large bubbles.
A highlight for many students was our excursion to Quantum. During this exciting experience, students learned how to create an iPad game using blocks in the Bloxels app. They demonstrated excellent creativity, problem-solving and teamwork while designing their own games.
Last Friday, we also had our very first Connect Group session. Students were excited to participate in activities with students from other year levels, helping to build new friendships and strengthen our school community.
In addition, we have been learning about Cyber Safety and discussing how to stay safe online. Students explored important topics such as protecting personal information, being respectful online, recognising unsafe situations and knowing who to ask for help if something makes them feel uncomfortable.
We are very proud of the enthusiasm, curiosity and positive attitude our Level 2 students continue to show in all areas of their learning. Keep up the fantastic work, Level 2!
Kind regards,
The Grade 2 Team
Allie Harrison, Sarah Margetts and Brendan Van Haaster
Grades 3/4
Hi Families, we have analysed a number of fictional procedures, such as ‘How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth’ and ‘How to Babysit a Grandma’. During this analysis, we have been picking the texts apart, identifying important text features which increase entertainment for a reader. Some of the focus features included key tips, cautions and humour.
The students have been creating wonderful and imaginative fictional procedures, some of which include ‘How to Pat Godzilla’, ‘How to Make a Cow Civilisation’, ‘How to Make Butter Fly’ and ‘How to Wash a Dirty Bee’. It has been great to see high levels of engagement in learning, while still enjoying humorous moments together. The students have published their texts, and we have no doubt that there will be some interesting stories brought home to share.
In Maths, worded problems have been a massive focus in Grade 3/4. From identifying important information, to solving and even creating our own worded problems. It has been great to see the students extending themselves through creating multi-step worded problems.
What does a scientist look like and what makes a person a scientist? These questions in Inquiry had us stumped, until we realised that we are ALL scientists! We conducted research on one of a few select scientists to answer a few burning questions, including ‘What discoveries did they make?’ and ‘How did they collect and use data to make these discoveries?’
We look forward to delving deeper into the world of science!
In Wellbeing, we have discussed a whole range of people that we can help, and people that can help us. Through these discussions, we have identified over 50 adults at school that can help us in a time of need!
Kind regards,
The 3/4 Team
Nick Pagliaro, Daena Hailey, Brent Smith, Claire Cripps, Ashleigh Wilson and Mykaela Oakley
Grades 5/6
Our Grade 5/6 students have had a busy and rewarding week of learning.
In Maths, we have been wrapping up our multiplication unit and celebrating all of the progress that the students have made. To showcase their learning, students completed a Maths Learning Task that they will be able to share with their families when Portfolios go home. It has been wonderful to see their confidence grow as they applied a range of multiplication strategies to solve increasingly challenging problems.
In Inquiry, students have been exploring the important role that electricity plays in our everyday lives. They have been investigating how dependent we are on electricity and considering what life would be like without it. This has led to thoughtful discussions about technology, communication, transport and the many ways electricity impacts our homes, schools and communities.
Our Reading sessions have continued with our novel study of Boy Overboard by Morris Gleitzman. Students have been engaging deeply with the themes of war, displacement and refugees, building their understanding of the experiences of people forced to leave their homes. They have been developing their inferencing skills and responding thoughtfully to the characters and events in the novel.
We are also looking forward to Science Week next week, with a range of exciting activities planned that will encourage curiosity, investigation and hands-on learning.
We hope you have a wonderful week ahead and enjoy hearing your child share their learning with you.
Kind regards,
The 5/6 Team
Llinos Poole, Erin Rennick, Hayley Peirce and Kylie Morrissey